Comparison site GoBear has appointed Havas Media as its media agency of record following a pitch. GoBear is a complete and easy-to-use comparison site for all types of insurance and credit cards. It was founded on the idea that choosing complex financial and insurance products should be as easy and honest as possible.
The appointment will see Havas Media International, the agency’s international media planning and buying arm, handle GoBear’s offline and online strategy as well as its media planning and buying duties across seven markets including Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, Hong Kong and Indonesia.
The win was made possible through the agency’s in-depth understanding of the industry and GoBear’s target audience, which enabled them to provide data-driven digital solutions focussed on delivering responsive, relevant and personalised messages.
Janis Tse, SVP of marketing, GoBear said, ”Havas’s data-driven approach and understanding of GoBear’s cross-channel needs suit us greatly as we expand aggressively across the region. We look forward to creating milestones on driving marketing effectiveness together with the Havas team.”
Josh Gallagher, chief strategy officer of Havas Media Group, said, “GoBear has a truly exciting offering and we were impressed by the marketing team’s openness to new ideas and solutions proposed. Additionally, the alignment of the agency’s entrepreneurial team spirit with that of GoBear’s startup nature played a big role in helping us win the account.”
Aga Giedroyc, GM of Havas Media International, Asia Pacific, added, “We are excited to partner with GoBear to develop a customised data-driven approach, which will help them to maximise their growth and build a valuable customer base. With operations in over 100 countries, our international presence and expertise would no doubt successfully assist GoBear through their expansion across APAC."
The rise in online media as well as the decline in advertising revenues over the last decade has changed the face of the media industry. Despite the slow uptake of online advertising revenues, the future of the media industry continues to look uncertain.
Publishers around the world are desperately trying to monetise content online, with some resorting to setting paywalls to charge readers for access to online content. Typically, these paywalls either limit the number of articles visitors read or prohibit them from reading any articles unless they purchase a subscription. However, for many online content sites the introduction of a paywall has decreased the number of visitors, thus further damaging advertising revenues. Just recently, we saw the South China Morning Post revoke its paywall in favour of free content.
There is evidence that the demand for news varies hugely throughout the year – it is highly cyclical. For example, in business, the cycles are quarterly as they relate to earnings reports; in US politics the cycles are four-yearly to coincide with the elections; in sport, demand is unequivocally higher when it is ‘in season.’
In our research, we find that the number of unique visitors to relevant websites more than doubles when a sport is in season. Conversely, when the sport is not in season the number of unique visitors to a website drops by about 50%.
Classic economic theory suggests that increasing prices during periods of high demand is the most profitable approach. In reality, however, this isn’t necessarily the case.
Customers typically sign long-term contracts when they pay for online content, such as an annual subscription fee, prior to which they may be given the option of a free trial. Alternatively, a content provider can offer a fixed number of articles per month for free, before they start charging. This is, for example, what the Telegraph in the UK does. While such policies are advantageous, the inflexibility to respond to demand shocks in the organic news cycle can be a setback for a firm’s bottom line.
When it comes to charging customers for online content, research I have worked on with Kanishka Misra, assistant professor of marketing at University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, suggests that it may be optimal for providers to offer more free content during periods of high demand, rather than increasing the amount of paid content at that time.
Providing more free content when there is more demand can help balance the trade-off between subscription and advertising revenues. It allows a firm to gain subscription revenue by attracting high value consumers off season without alienating low type consumers during the season. ESPN is an example of an outlet that follows this pattern. Our research revealed that the number of paid articles available on the site varies across days and sports. When demand is high, such as on days when games are played, ESPN reduces the share of paid content available on the site.
This ‘counter-cyclical’ revenue model relies on the fact that when a sport is in season there is a large share of consumers willing to visit, though still unwilling to pay for access to content. This presents a window of opportunity for businesses to generate more advertising revenue, rather than subscription revenue, thanks to high viewership.
Responding to an increase in demand by offering more free content can be a profit-maximising approach for online content providers to follow. Perhaps most significant, a company does not need to be able to predict demand in the long run. Digital technology means that content providers can flexibly assign any new piece of content to be free or paid as they observe real-time changes in demand.
Content providers need to broadly identify their own cyclical demand shocks so that they can adjust their share of free and paid content. Those that offer long-term contracts with their customers, such as an annual subscription, can benefit by flexibly responding to changes in demand without actually varying their prices.
The writer is Anja Lambrecht, assistant professor of marketing at London Business School.
Popular dating app Tinder is taking its smaller competitor 3nder to court for alleged trademark infringement in the high court. According to several news outlets, this is due to the similarity between their names.
3nder is an app which has been in the market for over two years and looks to provide "curious couples" a way to explore options and invite a third person into their relationship.
In retaliation to Match Group’s Tinder, 3nder created a microsite and launched a campaign called #TinderSuckMySock. Why the absurd hashtag you might ask? Here’s a statement from the 3nder microsite:
“Our founder works 12 hours a day. Now that this fight is happening, he has to work whenever he is not asleep (around 16 hrs daily maybe?). Naturally, he will forget to do his laundry so all his socks (and his girlfriend’s) are dirty. He sent them to Tinder (say Yuck). If you have any compassion for him and our superteam at 3nder, who is involved in this nonsense fight, follow the guide of the fight,”
The guidelines then ask users to take a picture of their socks and put it up #TinderSuckMySocks in support of @3nderapp.
In a statement on its site further read: “When a multi-billion corporation is after you, you don’t have many options but to fight back hard or just let them destroy you. On the outside Tinder is cute and friendly but if you look below the surface you will see it is one piece of a gigantic corporation hungry for more.”
3nder currently has eight people on its team and claims to have 980% growth in revenue, 30% in new members.
Digital production and distribution studio Endemol Shine Beyond has launched ICON Asia, a global digital lifestyle network.
The network features original new series and content from some of the hottest up-and-coming digital influencers and lifestyle experts from across Asia including Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Hong Kong. It will be launched out of Endemol Shine Beyond’s Asia hub in Singapore.
ICON Asia will premiere on YouTube, with support from various social outlets including Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat. Initially produced in English, there are plans in the pipeline to diversify into the talents’ native languages to reach greater audiences.
Fashion, beauty and lifestyle talents featured in addition to world famed YouTube star Michelle Phan are Sichenmakeupholic, Michelle Dy, Ross Kwan, Girl Who Cried Wolf and DMT Stylist.
According to a statement to Marketing, brands on board are Zalora and NYX, with current discussion in campaign opportunities with other established beauty brands.
"We are also super excited about working with the smaller emerging brands that are looking to launch in the Asian market. With most new brands that typically launch in the USA first, Asia is an exciting place as a next step for customer acquisition and brand visibility.” Christopher Smith, head of Endemol Shine Beyond Asia, said.
“ICON Asia and the greater ICON Network speak to a millennial audience that is both digitally native and hungry for information. We’re excited to join Michelle Phan, our global network talent, and our outstanding local talent on this journey to expand the ICON Network in the Asia region,” Smith added.
Watch the trailer here:
[embed]https://youtu.be/8gpSW5q4j-M[/embed]
The network leverages the reach and content of its global ICON Network counterparts in the USA, France, Germany and UK.
From creating a personalised strategy to putting out the fire when crisis’ hits, all of these are made possible when you listen in and monitor the conversations your consumers are having.
According to Sakshi Prakash, senior social media expert and analyst, who last worked on the team with Lenovo, not only does social listening aid in brand perception externally, but also is a great way to get employers understanding employee sentiments.
“You can listen to anything and everything. It can be as broad or as narrow as you want it to be,” Prakash (pictured) said. She added that while marketing and communications are often the largest stake holders to any social media listening, there are many other benefits to the act of listening in to conversations around your organisations.
“Listening in can undoubtedly add value to various functions in an organisation. Social listening has the ability to impact product, services, strategy and even HR. It helps companies understand perception of an organisation as an employer and the current reputation of the organisation as an attractive employer,” she added.
Moreover, accurately listening in on consumer conversation can also shape the type of products a company needs to create to be future ready. Nisa Seah, business development lead at RadiumOne added that social listening is integral to creating an always on strategy for marketers.
“The rise of social media, it is not just brands just talking to consumer – it is a two way conversation which is cyclical in nature. As such managing owned earned and paid media is more important in the world of social,” Seah explained.
But this means nothing if a marketer is not able to track what customers are saying about your content and make sense of the data out there. Marketers must actively know who is watching their content and what they feel about the campaign. Only then, can an optimised campaign strategy be created.
The biggest misconception out there, Seah explained, is that social refers to public social domains such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. While these contribute a chunk of social data out there, one-on-one chat rooms, Skype, e-mail, group chat messages have an equally important part to play when it comes to understanding a customer portfolio.
Today there are plenty of tools in the market place to get brand managers started on their social listening and monitoring journey. Nonetheless, the difficulty remains in cleaning up the dark data to create a centralised system to help marketers spot consumer trends and work better with all external agency partners. Seah said:
More often than not, your agency partners are not talking to each other. The data collected is fragmented and so it is harder to spot trends. That is why you need a centralised system.
Agreeing to the point was Aimia Malaysia’s lead consultant Tee Yan Ven. As daunting as it might be to make sense of data, it would only help to make your messaging more targeted in the long run, she added.
“Information helps bridge gaps. If I am looking for a certain kind of product and your messaging offers a completely different category of product, it would end up impacting my impression of your brand” said Tee.
But the positive sign in data collection evolution today, added Tee, is that companies are no longer using a “spray and pray” technique and are in fact becoming more segmented in their approach. The next frontier to push would be in using more analytics, automation and segmentation strategies in their marketing road maps, she concluded.
Malaysian creative agency Forefront International has set up office in London, United Kingdom as part of its international expansion.
Crossing the 12th year in its line of business, the 70-strong creative agency focused in property advertising and creative works. To date, the firm has some of the region’s most prominent property brands on its client list including Eco World, S P Setia, Gamuda and CapitaLand.
The local agency has also handled international project such as Battersea Power Station, London—a joint venture amongst S P Setia Berhad, Sime Darby Berhad and Employees Provident Fund (EPF).
It also handled a transnational collaboration between Malaysia's Khazanah Nasional Berhad and Singapore's Temasek Holdings called Afiniti Medini.
“Being in the business for over a decade helped us to prove ourselves to be more than just a creative agency. We are a learning organisation that strives to grow with our team members and clients, many of whom share similar causes and visions,” Darien Mah, chief executive officer, said.
“We are positive that our move to London will aid in our firm’s talents galvanisation roadmap, thereby increase operational efficiency and positively contribute to our long-term strategic goals,” Mah added.
Coca-Cola China has unveiled its Olympics-themed advertising campaign that will lead up into the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro this summer. The campaign leverages global “That’s Gold” marketing platform of Coca-Cola by celebrating the human elements that allow for everyone to have a “Gold Moment.”
At the 2012 Olympics, Chinese swimmer Sun Yang had a bad start to the 1,500 meter freestyle race, plunging into the water before the signal. But officials cleared him to try again; he looked into the stands and saw his mother place her finger to her lips, a signal for him to calm down and focus. He won gold and set a world record.
Coca-Cola and McCann Worldgroup were inspired by the relationship between Sun and his parents, and stories from other athletes, in its latest video campaign.
“Our challenge was to redefine ‘That’s Gold’ in a way that would resonate with Chinese consumers,” said Richard Cotton, head of creative excellence, Coca-Cola China. “We focused on humanising the athletes by bringing the Olympic story to life through values that that we can all relate with.”
The campaign debuts with two films that will run on both on TV and on digital platforms. The first POV spot reveals a vulnerable side to China’s Olympics heroes while also honoring their greatness.
On the other hand, the story of volleyball player Zhu Ting and coach her Lang Ping, nicknamed the "Iron Hammer", has also been featured in the spots.
Featured in the second spot is Lang Lang, one of China’s most famous pianists. He is featured with his 87-year-old piano teacher Yafen Zhu who he cherishes and has always been there for him since he was three.
Twitter is looking to tap into the local talent pool in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics in Singapore.
In a statement to Marketing, Twitter confirmed its plans. Dickson Seow, Twitter Asia Pacific communications head, added that the new team will be first data science team to be based outside of the US, focusing on its international growth opportunity.
“Today, 80% of our users are based outside of the US, so it makes perfect sense to have a data science team based outside of the US to focus on international user behaviour," he said.
“We like to say that data leads at Twitter. All of our business strategies and product development work have data scientists providing modeling, experimentation and insights into our user behaviour to enable us to make the most-informed business and product decisions,” Seow added.
Going forward, the social media giant is looking to make ten new hires who will be involved in creating new products for Twitter's key markets such as Japan, India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Brazil. Heading the team in Singapore is Linus Lee who has spent four years with Twitter and will be relocating back to Singapore. Lee has built and led various data science teams at Twitter in areas of product data science, business analytics, and experimentation.
The move to build up an army of data scientists comes as no surprise to the industry as the importance of the data scientist role has picked up in recent years. With the rise of trends such as predictive analysis and targeted marketing, it comes as no surprise that the field is fast gaining traction across all industries.
On Twitter's recent hiring plan Kiren Kumar, executive director of Infocomms and Media, Singapore Economic Development Board said:
"The establishment of Twitter’s analytics team is an exciting development as it provides Singaporeans with good job opportunities and allows them to partake in the creation of new products and services from Singapore. We believe that such frontier digital jobs will provide Singaporeans with the growth opportunities they need to compete on a global stage.”
The demand for software engineering and analytics talent is expected to increase as companies embark on utilising data and digital assets to drive efficiencies, improve their reach to customers and develop new products, explained Kumar.
Currently infocomms companies such as Twitter as well as non-infocomms companies in the consumer, manufacturing, healthcare, urban solutions and finance sectors are driving the demand for analytics talent.
According to the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) there were more than 2,000 data analysts working in Singapore in 2014 and the government expects the number of frontier digital jobs to grow by a third over the next three years. To meet the future demand, the government is taking active steps - EDB is currently working with our companies and education institutions to train more than 400 data analytics professionals yearly at steady state.
NUS, for example, has collaborated with IBM to set-up the Centre for Business Analytics. The Centre aims to help students and mid-career professionals gain the latest skills in business analytics. It also offers a Master of Science degree programme in Business Analytics (MSBA), with sectoral focus on supply chain, finance and retail. At the undergraduate level, SMU, UniSIM and NTU also offer analytics degrees. Collectively, local universities offer five Bachelors programs and four Masters programs.
Singapore is also developing thought leadership in analytics, by continuous innovation in analytics techniques and their application to key domains. Companies can access this expertise through partnerships with Singapore’s research and education institutions. For example, I2R has collaborated with Rolls Royce and Visa to recognize patterns in machines (engines) and consumers (fraud detection on Visa credit cards).
In an earlier conference hosted by Marketing Magazine, former CMO of StarHub Jeannie Ong said data scientists jobs were the next big job scope to hit the marketing industry as they could provide a wholesome analytics approach to marketing and fill in the gaps marketers couldn’t always predict or see. As such the company worked with the likes of SMU to build up a future batch of data scientists.
Meanwhile in a statement to The Straits Times Lee also said the local team is being tasked with developing business plans and products to increase the number of Twitter's monthly active users which currently stands at 310 million globally. The move comes as the company has in recent times seen much struggle to grow its user base.
Haidilao is perceived as the most reputable food brand, followed by Pizza Hut and Little Sheep. McDonald’s (7), TGI Friday’s (8) and KFC (9) are the western brands that ranked in the top 10.
According to OC&C Strategy Consultants' latest report, China’s restaurant market becomes more vibrant, with growth outstripping other major markets, despite higher volatility.
Chinese consumers eat out almost three times a week, on average, and are becoming more sophisticated, amid increased awareness and openness towards international brands. This growth is largely attributed to the explosive increase in China’s middle class, which now accounts for 68% of all urban households.
The report found that Chinese consumers actively seek out new restaurants and are receptive to new formats and concepts such as restaurant theming, healthy lifestyle menus and organic produce, as well as innovative, fusion cuisine.
“The arrival and rapid expansion of international chains in the past few years has increased the competitiveness of the market. Both local and international food brands need to design the right business strategy and offer a customer experience that will meet increasingly sophisticated expectations,”said Jack Chuang, partner of Greater China at OC&C Strategy Consultants.
Food quality, wide choice of categories and service quality come up as the three critical factors while serve speed, convenience and pricing are rated as less important.
据导演约翰•李•汉考克（John Lee Hancock）向纽约时报发表的声明,表示，麦当劳「对《创始人》电影没有作出积极干涉」，这有助于电影的进一步宣传。麦当劳一向重视知识产权保护，自1960年以来曾作出多次诉讼，当中最广为人知的是控告Norman McDonald’s Country Drive-Inn滥用它的金色拱门商标。
Four years after the launch of YouTube Malaysia, the platform will be holding its very first YouTube Week Malaysia in the week of December 5th.
This is to celebrate the brands, local and international content, as well as many of the talented creators that make the platform a daily destination for entertainment, information and education.
The week-long celebration is set to line up a brand showcase event for advertisers and agencies; a content showcase and creator workshops for budding YouTubers and marketers; and product demos and interactive stations with entertainment elements. YouTube Week Malaysia will be supported by the Malaysian Advertising Association (MAA) and Advertising + Marketing Magazine, the official content partner.
In a conversation with A+M, Sajith Sivanandan, managing director of Google Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines and New Emerging Markets said the whole idea took about five months of planning and deciding. The birth of the concept came around seeing the excitement of marketers around the YouTube Ads Leaderboards.
He added that in the last couple of years, the excitement has only grown with local marketers really upping their content strategies and tapping into the emotional connection with audiences.
“It was a deeply humbling experience and means something great to us because we work with these brands. We too are always excited to see who did well. This is true voting and people are seeing this. When you look at this from that perspective, extending that to make it more inclusive, aspirational and involve all parts of the ecosystem,” Sivanandan said.
The YouTube ecosystem, he elaborated, consists of the users and audience who are generally the most important in the mix. Also in the ecosystem are creators who fuel the creativity and entertainment factor of the platform and brands that are looking to reach out to the large user base.
“We talk a lot about the YouTube ecosystem. This is the first step to bring it all together. So a lot of time is spent talking to advertisers and agencies and how they can use that to reach their target audience but there’s also the audience part of it which is basically the viewers. And so we need to have an event that would also reach them,” he added.
Part of YouTube’s plan in Malaysia this year is having really great local content and reaching out to great content creators and to reaching new aspiring creators. Hence with the event, YouTube hopes to nurture both local talent and also watch out for future stars. One of the areas in which Google Malaysia is working hard on this year is to get the 10,000 to 100,000 subscriber base creators.
“There was no way to reach this huge community in one given afternoon or evening and hence the semi-modular approach,” Sivanandan explained. As such on-going conversations with content creators, agencies, and marketers are a must for feedback on the topics and interest areas.
Currently, about 65% of Malaysians are watching YouTube on mobile. Just three years ago the number was next to nothing on mobile and just the watch time, which is essentially the time people are spending watching, is increasing 60% year-on-year. With 2 out of 3 Malaysians today owning smartphones, more and more people are no doubt watching their favorite YouTube content while on the move.
As such, to be seen and heard in today’s complex media landscape, marketers need to go to where Malaysians are currently spending their time and really grab their attention.
Moreover, a recent TNS Research and Google Malaysia study also found that 16 to 34 year-old Malaysians watch more YouTube than TV on a monthly basis. Interestingly, half of the 55 to 64 year-olds surveyed are also avid YouTube watchers, making the popular video platform very much a mass media destination. YouTube is also considered more ‘sticky’, with consumers rarely watching just one video per visit.
“Great content will always get great response, and with platforms such as YouTube, you can now tell a real story without cramming it all in a short time span. Now there’s a real proper story you can tell no matter how long it is and it lives on forever,” Sivanandan said.
YouTube Week Malaysia will also play host to the very first YouTube Malaysia Ads Awards, and in conjunction with that YouTube is making an early call for entries. Brands and agencies can submit their 2016 YouTube ads using this form (http://goo.gl/RrH466) to compete for the following possible 10 award categories:
YouTube Malaysia Ad of the Year, 2016
Finance
Retail
Travel
Consumer Goods
Tech & Telco
Best Storytelling
Best 5 Second Intro
Best Long Form Ad (2 min+)
Best Animated Ad
" These mobile-first Malaysians are already watching what they want, whenever they want, on whatever device is closest. Great content always gets a great audience. YouTube continues to be a great platform for content creators and brands to flourish on today’s most influential video and social platform. It welcomes the new and experimental and being able to engage directly with the audience creates a virtuous cycle of watching, sharing and shaping,” said Sivanandan.
Study highlights need for marketers and agencies to transform roles and responsibilities to improve collaboration and business results.
To help marketers and their agencies execute campaigns that deliver the best possible customer experience, Forbes Insights, in association with Oracle Marketing Cloud, conducted a global study of brand and agency executives.
“As the nature of marketing continues to change, closer collaboration between brands and agencies is becoming more important than ever,” Bruce Rogers, chief insights officer and head of the CMO Practice at Forbes Media said. “Progressive marketing leaders within brands across the world have identified this change and are embracing new and closer working relationships. At the heart of these efforts is a drive to effectively gather and mine rich sources of customer data.”
The study surveyed 255 brand and agency executives across a range of industries and functions in North America, Europe, APAC and LATAM, and found that evolving brand and agency roles – 60% of respondents said their roles and responsibilities had changed significantly over the past two years - are negatively impacting the customer experience and business results by creating a series of important challenges in the following areas:
Brand and agency collaboration: Almost half of marketing executives (48 percent) said that evolving brand and agency roles are making successful collaboration more difficult.
Delivering a consistent customer experience: More than a third of respondents (36 percent) said their organizations aren’t highly effective when it comes to collaborating with brand/agency counterparts to translate a marketing vision into a targeted, cross-channel program.
Personalising content: 38 percent of respondents said they are not able to effectively create and deliver timely content tailored to specific customer personas.
Maximising data: More than three-quarters of respondents (81 percent) are unable to maximize customer data to create new and impactful marketing programs.
Utilising marketing technology: Only 19 percent of stakeholders are very satisfied with current marketing technology.
These challenges come against the backdrop of the most fundamental need of all: increasing sales and attracting new customers, goals that more than 80 percent of respondents ranked at the top of the list of strategic goals for marketing programs in the year ahead. Enhancing customer loyalty (79%) and expanding brand awareness (78%) were also identified as key strategic goals for the next 12 months.
To reach these goals and address the challenges presented by evolving brand and agency roles, 60% of respondents stated that closer brand and agency collaboration would become even more important in the coming year. When asked what areas will have the greatest impact on more effective collaboration between brand and agency peers, respondents identified being able to capitalize on customer data/analytics as the top priority.
“As marketers we have access to more customer data and marketing technology than at any point in history, but as this study shows, fully capitalising on that data and the promise of technology is still a challenge for many brands and agencies,” Andrea Ward, vice president of marketing, Oracle Marketing Cloud said.
“To unlock this potential, brands and agencies need to rethink existing roles, responsibilities and processes in order to successfully mine all of today’s rich data sources, capitalise on the latest marketing technologies, enhance professional and personal skills, and balance local and global imperatives,” Ward added.
Publishing monetisation platform Kiosked will invest up to US$10million in the Asia Pacific region through to 2017. The company expands its global footprint to help media companies commercialise content across multiple devices.
Kiosked’s investment in APAC comes at a time when the digital category is growing and the Asian market continues to embrace programmatic – inclusive of digital display, video, mobile, and with the burgeoning interest in 360° advertising units.
“Now is the right time to commit resources to Asia, allowing us to select the best sales, support, and development talent across 16 countries,” said David McGrath, APAC managing director.
“Additionally, Kiosked will expand its world-class Innovation Lab to Singapore, by actively hiring developers to infuse technical expertise across the high growth areas of mobile and video,” added McGrath.
Kiosked’s APAC announcement follows the company’s recent doubling of staff and establishment of offices in Tokyo, Sydney, and Shenzhen. With its global headquarters in Europe, Kiosked has rapidly grown, establishing offices in New York, London, and Los Angeles.
Micke Paqvalén, CEO and co-founder of Kiosked, says the investment completes a global network:
“APAC is a dynamic region to develop digital advertising. It consists of markets with different technology adoption rates and usage patterns – and is keen to adopt new services. The Kiosked offering is comprehensive in that it can cater to the specific needs of each country. Our mission is to elevate the value of digital advertising for all, we are thrilled to bring our platform to benefit APAC publishers and advertisers.”
MasterCard has unveiled the first commerce application for SoftBank Robotics’ humanoid robot Pepper. The application will be powered by MasterPass, the global digital payment service from MasterCard. Pizza Hut Restaurants Asia will be the inaugural launch partner working together with MasterCard to create innovative customer engagement with Pepper.
The new app extends the robot’s ability to integrate customer service, access to information and sales into a seamless and consistent user experience. Pizza Hut Asia will be piloting Pepper for order-taking and personalised engagement to enhance customer service in-store by end of 2016.
“We are excited to welcome Pepper to the Pizza Hut family. Core to our digital transformation journey is the ability to make it easier for customers to engage, connect and transact with Pizza Hut. With an order-and-payment-enabled Pepper, customers can now come to expect personalized ordering at our stores, reduce wait time for carryout, and have a fun, frictionless user experience,” said Vipul Chawla, managing director of Pizza Hut Restaurants Asia.
https://youtu.be/6iJId6Lo1LQ
“Consumers have come to expect personalised service, customised offers and simple and seamless processes both in-store and online,” said Tobias Puehse, vice president, Innovation Management, Digital Payments and Labs, Asia/Pacific, MasterCard.
“The app’s goal is to provide consumers with more memorable and personalised shopping experience beyond today’s self-serve machines and kiosks, by combining Pepper’s intelligence with a secure digital payment experience via MasterPass.”
A consumer will be able to initiate an engagement by simply greeting Pepper and pairing the consumer’s MasterPass account by either tapping the Pepper icon within the wallet or by scanning a QR code on the tablet that the robot holds. After pairing with MasterPass, Pepper will be able to assist cardholders by providing personalised recommendations and offers, additional information on products, and assistance in checking out and paying for items.
Pepper will be able to initiate, approve and complete a transaction by connecting to MasterPass via a Wi-Fi connection and the entire transaction happens within the wallet.
The app was built by the MasterCard Labs team in Singapore, one of the company’s eight research and development centers across the globe. The Pepper application adds to ongoing MasterCard programs that bring payments to any consumer gadget, accessory or wearable– from fitness bands to refrigerators and now robots.
The integration with Pepper has the potential to open up opportunities in the world of retail such as personalised shopping and concierge services, in-aisle checkout and the ability to buy in store but get the goods delivered at home, read MasterCard’s statement
The same capability would also be applicable to other consumer engagement locations such as hotels, banks, airports, and other customer service industries.
J. Walter Thompson has named Marco Versolato as chief creative officer of J. Walter Thompson Singapore and global executive creative director for Lux.
Last handling the global ECD role for Lux was Juhi Kalia, who has moved on to take on a new role at Facebook. Prior to Kalia, Tay Guan Hin handled the role. Tay is still with JWT working on various accounts within the company.
During his career, which spans more than two decades, Versolato (pictured) has worked on the creative campaigns for brands like Ita Bank, InBev’s Guaraná, Intel, Telefônica-Vivo, Whirlpool, McDonalds, L&G, and Johnson & Johnson.
Versolato joins J. Walter Thompson from Brazil’s DM9DDB, where he most recently served as VP executive creative director, a role he held for five years. Prior to DM9DDB, Versolato spent 10 years as creative executive VP at Y&R Brazil, TBWA Brazil and DPZ&T. Prior to that, he held a role as an Art Director at ALMAP BBDO.
Peter Womersley, CEO of J. Walter Thompson Singapore, said, “This is an incredibly exciting time for the agency and I’m so pleased to be welcoming Versolato to our team. His appointment is a key part of our continued drive to transform the office in response to the changing dynamics of the marketing and communications industry. He has a proven track record of invigorating brands through world-class integrated creative solutions.”
Versolato said of his new role, “I have always believed that creativity is best fostered within a diverse environment by breaking down barriers and borders. A diverse set of skills, diversity of knowledge and aesthetics, as well as a melting pot of cultures. These are the core elements needed to produce the new and the innovative. J. Walter Thompson Singapore is the ideal place to do this because of its diversity. I feel pleased and honored to have been invited to be part of that.”
