Taiwanese International Airline EVA Air has launched an innovative digital campaign, ‘Map My Personality’ along with its digital partner, KRDS Singapore. This is its first digital campaign of the year and it aims to promote its cabin class offerings.
The month-long campaign which runs till 12 June 2016, seeks to educate consumers on the airline’s three travel classes, its extensive services as well as its connectivity around the region and beyond.
As each traveler has a unique personality, EVA Air wanted to connect to its customers in an effective way by creating interactive personality mapping tests and daily quizzes. The ‘Map My Personality’ campaign encourages travelers to answer questions based on their travel preferences. Following this, the users are redirected to specific EVA Air videos based on their personality test results. The videos provide users an insight into the in-flight services at EVA Air along with the travel classes and destination routes.
Users can also invite their friends and share this campaign on their social media profiles to earn more points.
EVA Air currently operates daily flights to Taipei from Singapore and has recently increased the total frequency between both destinations. Beyond the region, EVA Air will also be introducing more direct flights to the US from Taipei.
A Shanghai-based fund, jointly owned by China Everbright and Beijing Baofeng Technology, have announced the purchase of a 65% stake in media rights group MP & Silva.
Shanghai Jin Xin did not disclose the value of the deal, but the acquisition is set to deepen China’s investment in global sports and entertainment.
MP & Silva’s core business is the acquisition, management and distribution of media rights of national leagues, federations and clubs and sports events around the world.
The Italian-owned company, which has 20 offices worldwide, recorded a turnover in excess of USD600 million for the year ending June 2015.
This partnership will provide MP & Silva with additional financial resources to accelerate the growth of the business. The new partners will bring expertise and experience that will help facilitate the development of the group internationally, particularly in the rapidly growing and increasing important Chinese market.
Baofeng Technology will develop a sports channel and multiple sports apps. The MP & Silva business will act as a platform to support Baofeng's sports operations.
Larry Feng, CEO of Baofeng said: "Sports provide great long lasting content and experiences for online and offline audiences. Baofeng is seeking to work with the best global sports players to enhance its service ecosystem."
Xue Feng, CEO of Everbright Securities said: "China owns billions of sports fans and its sports industry has been one of the “hottest” investments recently. We hope to seize the unprecedented opportunities brought by the rapid development of the sports industry in China together with our partners, Beijing Baofeng and MP&Silva."
It is widely accepted that today we are living in the "age of the consumer". This has prompted brands across all industries to recognise the importance of customers and placing them at the centre of decision making.
Discussing what the “age of the consumer” really means during a recent panel discussion held at Marketing’s Customer Experience Conference 2016, was Christina Lim, director of brand and marketing at NTUC FairPrice Co-operative. Joining her on the panel was Tomasz Kurczyk, digital transformation director at AXA Singapore and Stephanie Myers, a senior marketing professional with both client and agency side experience. Lim said:
It is a time where profitability is a result of customer happiness. It is an age where the customers are the CEOs.
Also putting customers in the driving seat is the onset of social media.
The court of public opinion is now a daunting one for most marketers as they become far more cautious in their decisions impacting consumers. But this is not to say brands have lost all control over the influence they have on consumers. More than ever today, consumers are willing to give up more information about themselves for a seamless, convenient experience.
With the abundance of data offered up to organisations today, marketers now can not only understand consumers better but also shape and influence their choices, said panelists.
According to Kurczyk, having intimate relationships and knowledge about customers is now a must given the increasing tools and technology present in the market today. What the trick is, is in finding the right balance and not invading the privacy of customers.
“The crucial part is not to cross the line to becoming creepy. The journey is in finding the right balance so the customer does not feel like you are stalking him/her,” Kurczyk said.
He further adds that this can sometimes be an issue for more advanced organisations as they are able to analyse the customer a little too precisely.
Meeting expectations
In the age of the customer, expectations are sky high. Consumers expect their experiences with brands to be smooth sailing at every touch-point. As such, brands need to pay even more attention to micro-moments. Any good moment is a chance for the brand to tell a good story which will stick to the customers’ positive memory. Similarly, every moment in crisis is also a chance for a brand to redefine itself.
“I think the challenge for us now is not so much catching up with the competition, which we are worried about as well, but rather catching up with the customer,” Lim said. She added that brands need to maintain their promises and constantly deliver on it to make sure advocacies are built.
Lim added that rather than constantly investing marketing dollars to acquire new audiences, brands should leverage on opportunities to work with various service providers and partnerships it already has established in the market.
Moreover, more marketers should consider involving customers to be part of a solution and to try out new initiatives, said Lim. This helps build brand build affinity with its target base and build tolerance as customers can better understand the motives behind the change. Lim said
There is a need to make the customer feel like they have a choice and there is a seeking of their input and making certain changes. Customers want know they have say in some of the changes and decisions the brand is making.
Meanwhile Kurczyk said engagement and on-going conversations help consumers to understand your brand and choices.
“What is important is not to disappoint, if we can deliver a seamless experience, customers will appreciate it as this is good enough,” Kurczyk said.
Taking personalisation to scale
Panelists agreed that when it comes to personalised experiences, it more often than not a psychological trigger.
According to Lim, for her business of selling packaged goods, personalisation is really making sure you have the kind of price that customers want. For other industries it could be the effectiveness of the service platform.
On taking personalisation to suit a large scale of consumer, Lim points out the issue could be an expensive one. Lim gives the example of Tesco, which is known for taking a personalised approach by acquiring information from its Clubcard membership database to send personalised emails on incentives and offers to its customers on products they would purchase.
Lim said while this is a great initiative, customising every offer can be a difficult to execute especially with the additional challenges when tapping on email communication despite looking into clusters of customer behaviour from an analytics standpoint.
If you want to be truly customer-centric, you will have to customise your offer for select groups of customers. Otherwise you will get paralysis from analysis.
Panelists also agreed that scaling up personalisation would require the help of third party vendor. This is especially given the increasingly specified digital skill sets and tools needed for successful engagement with consumers.
"I think it is essential to have your partners, because digital skill sets these days are so incredibly specialised, and the tools that we need are so incredibly specialised, so it is unrealistic to think an average organisation can bring all that in house. We need to appreciate where we are and the kind of help we need,” Myers said.
The flip side to that is that if organisations become over reliant, maybe it is time to build a team or extend the department because a good balance for ownership and for governance is needed to truly serve the brand.
Starting point in a brand’s digital transformation
“It depends on how ambitious you want to be as an organisation. You need to decide if you want to be at the cutting edge of innovation and disrupt business models through innovation in your space or be early adopters, or play it safe,” Kurczyk said.
He added that there is no hard and fast rule and a plan should be mapped out based on a company’s business objectives.
“Some just want to maintain their position, there isn’t a high need to be experimental or venture too far into the space of unknown experimentation and testing,” Kurczyk adds.
When asked on catering to the aging population in Singapore and balancing technology uptake, Lim said:
“There is always a debate in our organisation on being careful in moving too quickly into digital marketing as a lot of our customers are older and are not always as well versed in technology. But we know it is just a matter of time before they try new things,” Lim said.
As such the brand made an effort to build awareness as to how technology can be used to make the lives of customers easier. But she notes, embracing digital is vital in a world where customers are time starved.
“The world itself is complex, so we should aim to make it simpler hence that is the starting point,” Lim said.
Taking payment options as an example, having a self-checkout system now gives NTUC FairPrice consumers the option on how they wish to navigate queues. For those with smaller baskets this is particularly effective as they are able to get out of the store even quicker.
“Take Tesco for example, they did an R&D project in 2014 Berlin using virtual reality goggles to navigate the store and shop. Imagine no screaming kids. The starting point is always customers,” Lim added, stressing that a brand should always place their customers at the central of the experience.
The perfect experience
On anticipating what comprises the perfect customer experience and how marketers should prepare for it, the panel agreed that there is no such thing as the perfect customer experience.
“What helps is the recognition that customers will always view themselves as most important. For an organisation to succeed, it needs to make sure that it continues to use that as a navigator of future decisions and preparing your organisation for cultural changes,” Lim said.
Kurczyk recommends breaking the silos in the organisation and using the customer journey in supporting day to day operations in different departments. He also mentions the importance in utilising and adopting the right technologies relevant to the business and its consumers, but at the same time recognise that some experiences cannot be substituted with technology. He said:
Deliver the value of the experience but make sure the bottom line is not corrupted.
National Council of Social Service has called a tender for a digital agency.
The brief calls for a review and formulation of overall social media direction and strategy as well as creative development including content strategy. This extends to the development of a social media campaign, social content creation and execution along with monthly website analytics and reports. The appointed agency will also help in crisis management and media buying.
The pitch closes on 2 June.
The National Council of Social Service recently appointed Wild Advertising & Marketing, along with GroupM media agency Mediacom, for a disability awareness campaign which aims to engage Singaporeans to understand the barriers faced by people with disabilities, appreciate their abilities and make Singapore a more inclusive society.
The National Council of Social Service is a statutory board governed by the Ministry of Social and Family Development.
Malaysia Airports has launched its KLIA Aeropolis, which will serve as the driver in achieving its vision of becoming a global leader in creating airport cities.
This is part of its five-year business plan, Runway to Success 2020, to elevate the country to developed-nation status and transport the national airport into a world-class airport city and tourist destination.
According to a release sent by Malaysia Airports, KLIA’s location within the heart of ASEAN, as well as its excellent connectivity within the region, is a strategic advantage to the development of KLIA Aeropolis. The development is expected to drive more business investments and tourist traffic to Malaysia.
As a centre for urban growth and development, it will spur an increase in employment opportunities, thus stimulating the local economy. Based on an economic impact analysis conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers on the KLIA Aeropolis development plans – excluding airport terminal operations and expansion, the total estimated impact over a 15-year period would be a GDP contribution of about RM30 billion with 56,000 jobs created.
This is in line with the government’s agenda of becoming a high-income nation by 2020.
The marketing and sourcing approach for KLIA Aeropolis will be to leverage on various governmental bodies such as the National Industry Coordinating Office (NAICO), National Logistics and Trade Facilitation Taskforce, Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA), Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation (MATRADE), as well as Invest KL, Invest Selangor and the Selangor state government.
The KLIA Aeropolis development is centred on three key clusters, namely Air Cargo & Logistics, Aerospace & Aviation, and MICE & Leisure. Malaysia Airports will have five strategic partnership agreements with DRB Hicom, Raya Airways, AirAsia, Vanderlande and RUAG Aviation Malaysia.
Tan Sri Dato’ Dr Wan Abdul Aziz Wan Abdullah, the Chairman of Malaysia Airports had said: “I envision KLIA Aeropolis to be a truly remarkable airport city development with top class tourism and business attractions. It marks a promise of sustainability and growth for companies who will call it their home.”
Malaysia Airports currently caters to more than 50 million passengers a year with over 60 airlines serving than 130 direct destinations.
Time Inc has made a surprise acquisition of CCI Asia-Pacific, the company which operates the license to run Fortune China, the magazine's Chinese-language edition.
CCI Asia-Pacific was established in 1975 by chairman and editor in chief Thomas Gorman, who launched the Fortune China under license from Time Inc in 1996.
Over the past two decades, the brand has built its circulation to more than 200,000 copies across print and digital and has consistently ranked among China’s most widely read business publications.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed by either party.
Steve Marcopoto (pictured), president of Time Inc International, said he was particularly excited about extending the brand into new digital platforms and live event formats.
“The influence that Fortune China has achieved under Thomas Gorman and his team has been remarkable,” Marcopoto said.
Gorman and his business partner Chan Ching have announced they will retire, but will act as advisors to CCI Asia-Pacific and Fortune China. Canace Chak will remain general manager and group publisher and Derek Zhang Maiden will continue as executive editor for the magazine.
“We’re proud of what our team has achieved and pleased that Time Inc will continue to support the growth of Fortune in the Chinese market,” Gorman said.
Publicis Communications has announced Cathryn Chen, general manager of Saatchi & Saatchi Guangzhou, will spearhead all creative agencies under Publicis Communications in Guangzhou, including Saatchi & Saatchi, Publicis Worldwide and Leo Burnett.
In her the new role, Chen will oversee a number of business units from Saatchi & Saatchi, Publicis Worldwide to Leo Burnett, and she will also enable the access of creative agencies to specialist agencies Nurun, PR group MSLGROUP and its shopper marketing arm Arc in Guangzhou.
The move follows similar strategy in Singapore made earlier this year which saw a single CEO role created to manage a range of Publicis brands.
A similar move is said to be underway in Hong Kong, with MSLGROUP soon moving to Leo Burnett's office in Kwun Tong. Earlier this month, Publicis Worldwide appointed Alex Lee as CEO, giving him dual leadership roles across both Publicis Worldwide and Leo Burnett.
In Guangzhou, Publicis Communications said the move was about strengthening its ability to better serve the clients each agency represents - offering a range of digital, PR, event and commerce solutions.
Publicis maintained that each agency brand under the new arrangement will keep its own culture and specific approach to creativity and services. They will also all continue to grow and expand as individual agencies.
Chen said she was excited to take this new challenge.
"My role here in Guangzhou is to lead an ensemble - not play a solo - and I look forward to transforming both our clients and ourselves with a fast and efficient way of working."
Chen joined Saatchi & Saatchi Guangzhou in 2012 as director of client service and was promoted to GM of Saatchi & Saatchi Guangzhou in 2013.
TVB has been fined HK$150,000 for indirect advertising in the programme TV Awards Presentation 2015 (萬千星輝頒獎典禮2015) .
The TV station prominently showed the brand logo of a fried chicken chain during its annual awards show in last December.
The spokesman for TVB said the Communications Authority’s (CA) finding regarding indirect advertising was "unreasonable and erroneous".
"TVB received two conflicting rulings on indirect advertising from CA, one concerning eating pizza in TVB 48th Anniversary Gala (萬千星輝賀台慶) on 19 November 2015 and the other about eating fried chicken in TV Awards Presentation on 13 December 2015. While the presentation in both cases were virtually identical, the ruling on the fried chicken was a fine of $150,000 and the complaint on pizza was found unjustified," the spokesman said.
"We have for some time requested the CA to review the inconsistent yardstick to no avail. We therefore have no choice but to seek a court interpretation by way of judicial review," the spokesman added.
The authority said it had received 15 complaints from the public after the broadcasting giant displayed the brand logo of a fried chicken chain on boxes and cups that were served to the station’s artists during the livecast show on Jade and HD Jade channel last year.
A similar product placement was used in the Oscars last year when Ellen DeGeneres joked about the attendees’ hunger and bought pizza for everyone from Big Mama’s & Papa’s Pizza.
Havas China has launched a dance activation for Mighty, a Chinese cooking oil brand, which aims to position the brand as an advocate of wellness and healthy lifestyle.
In China, line dancing has become one of the most popular modes of exercise and is gaining increasing interest among middle-aged and older people, who are the core target audience of cooking oil.
Held on 21 May 2016 and led by Havas Sports and Entertainment (HSE), the global brand engagement network of Havas, the line dance campaign was carried out simultaneously in six cities – Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Shenyang and Xi'an – garnering participation from 31,697 people and ultimately setting a new world record.
The line dance campaign included a special choreography by line dancing and fitness star Wang Guangcheng, as well as three exclusive songs created by HSE that incorporated Mighty's brand elements.
“Based on their in-depth insight of the market and its consumers, Havas has introduced a completely new and exciting way of communicating. We are greatly impressed by their creative concept and execution capability and we believe that with the help of Havas, we are able to exponentially improve Mighty’s brand image and strengthen its brand associations,” said Jean Lin, national marketing manager of Mighty.
In what is a first in the history of Marketing Magazine’s Agency of the year Awards’, Dentsu Singapore emerged the top winner bagging the Overall Agency of the Year title.
The agency bagged two gold and one silver trophies across Brand Consultancy of the Year, Content Marketing Agency of the Year and Creative Agency of the year categories respectively.
The competition in no way was an easy one. There were two extremely strong contenders for the top spot this year - MRM//McCann and Ogilvy and Mather Singapore both winning the same number of trophies as Dentsu. It was down to the judges’ scores which made Dentsu the champion this year.
Ogilvy and Mather Singapore, the overall champion in 2014, took the gold in Creative Agency of the Year and Public Relations Agency of the Year categories and silver for Social Marketing Agency of the Year.
MRM//McCann meanwhile took the top spots for CRM & Loyalty Marketing Agency of the Year and Mobile Marketing Agency of the Year. It got silver for B2B Agency of the Year, losing out to LEWIS.
The Awards also recognises Singapore-born agencies in the form of the Local Heroes trophies. Happy Marketer won two of these, for the categories Digital Agency of the Year and Search Marketing Agency of the Year, where it also won the gold. Some of the other local hero winners include GOODSTUPH in Social Marketing Agency of the Year and A. S. Louken Group for Brand Consultancy of the Year.
On the media front, it's Mindshare's year this AOTY, edging out ZenithOptimedia and Havas Media Singapore whom won the silver and bronze respectively. Mindshare also walked away with the bronze in Digital Agency of the Year and Mobile Marketing Agency of the Year.
Last night also saw the MARKies being handed out. While the awards traditionally had two overall winners for Creative Ideas and Media Usage, Publicis Singapore reigned supreme this year, claiming the Overall MARKies - Creative Ideas and Media Usage trophy. The agency breezed its way to the top title after securing ten MARKies wins out of the 34 contested, for categories that include Best Use of Branded Content and Best Idea – Viral.
Other winners include Goodfellas Consultancy for Best Idea – Print, MEC Singapore for Best Use of Digital and Best Use of OOH, and Performics Singapore for Best Use of Search.
This is the awards ninth edition, which from the beginning has consistently pride itself as the only agency awards show that is judged solely by client-side marketers. Twenty-three of them, from brands such Burger King Singapore, FrieslandCampina APAC, National Gallery Singapore and Singapore Tourism Board were on the judging panel this year.
The Agency of the Year Awards 2016 was sponsored by SMRT Media, BBC, CPR Vision, SSI, DMrocket, Mediacorp OOH Media and NBCUniversal and supported by partners SmsDome, Cellarmaster Wines, Graphiss Productions, Live!Studios and Peroni Nastro Azzurro.
Mastercard has unveiled the first commercial application of SoftBank’s humanoid robot Pepper, creating an in-store customer service application for Pizza Hut restaurants in Asia.
The application will be powered by MasterPass, a global digital payment service developed by MasterCard that connects consumers with merchants, enabling them to make fast, simple, and secure digital payments across channels and devices.
Working with Yum Brands, the companies will pilot the application in select Pizza Hut stores in Asia Pacific later this year, with a view to go live by the end of 2016.
Pizza Hut will be testing Pepper for orders and checkout, freeing its servers to pay more attention to in-store customer needs, enhance customer service and focus on customer satisfaction.
The order-taking and payment management skills of Pepper also aims to reduce wait-times for delivery and carry-out services, which currently account for about 80% of its sales.
“As part of our digital transformation, we are exploring unique and exciting ways to engage, connect and transact with our customers,” said Karen Chan, chief digital officer, Pizza Hut Asia.
“With a payment-enabled Pepper, customers can have a frictionless order and payment experience and we also have the opportunity seamlessly connect it to loyalty programs that allow instant gratification.”
The app was built by the MasterCard Labs team in Singapore, one of the company’s eight research and development centers across the globe.
“Consumers have come to expect personalised service, customised offers and simple and seamless processes both in-store and online,” said Tobias Puehse, vice president, MasterCard Lab.
“The app’s goal is to provide consumers with more memorable and personalized shopping experience beyond today’s self-serve machines and kiosks, by combining Pepper’s intelligence with a secure digital payment experience via MasterPass.”
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 integration with Pepper has the potential to open up opportunities in the world of retail such as personalized shopping and concierge services, in-aisle checkout and the ability to buy in store but get the goods delivered at home.
The same capability would also be applicable to other consumer engagement locations such as hotels, banks, airports, and other customer service industries.
Digital has become a focus for all marketers, leveraging various platforms and employing new tactics to make their brand stand out and reach new categories of consumers.
There is no questioning the fact that digital is an essential channel for brand development and driving sales. But are brands using it effectively? And what really works when it comes to the online world?
This is all determined by the type of content created and how it is rolled out to consumers. Campaigns with a strong message will attract attention provided they bring something new to consumers, be it a new store opening or an exclusive sneak-peak at the latest hit gadget. In stark contrast, product pushes on a weekly basis or heavy discounting tend to lack impact.
To succeed, a brand must firstly define three key objectives (not 10!) and then concentrate their efforts on developing ‘communication assets’ that are both relevant and effective.
With a crowded and highly segmented online world, the next big question is "where do I broadcast my content?"
The choice of platforms is crucial. You can determine this based on the usual question - where is the majority of my target audience likely to be? This will lead you to the obvious places; Instagram, Facebook, Weibo & Wechat.
However, it is sometimes more effective to look into the newer, more niche platforms which are gaining in popularity at rapid speed. Snapchat, Periscope or Meipai are interesting since they are less crowded with competitors and therefore provide brands with a louder voice in a smaller space.
These more niche platforms also provide brands with a great opportunity to test out their campaign messages on smaller audiences before proceeding to jump straight into the more mainstream platforms. What is key here is the format needs to fit the platform to ensure a clear communication of the campaign message.
Choice of the platform is also inextricably linked to timing which done well, will guarantee campaign success. Brands often fail because they think they will catch their audience by being everywhere at the same time.
Actually, by engaging those niche ‘trend setters’ first and then building on this momentum by subsequently moving communication efforts into the larger platforms can be far more beneficial. Only then do the Key Opinion leaders, public relations and targeted online media buying come into play to ensure the brand has the 360 degrees coverage it is after.
Last but not least, brands must watch their KPIs in real-time. There is no point in waiting for an outdated monthly report to be issued as all of this information comes too late in the game. Performance indicators allow marketers to be more pragmatic and to redirect investment and communication efforts as the campaign is running. This is the beauty of digital: We can pretty much track it all as it happens.
Julien Rapinat is client services director of digital strategy at Mazarine Asia Pacific, also a member of the Council of Public Relations Firms of Hong Kong (CPRFHK).
Veteran PR consultant John Mullins has returned to Ruder Finn Asia after two years to again take on the role of chief development officer.
The CDO role remains critical for Ruder Finn, indeed all PR firms, as the talent issue becomes more complex.
Reporting to Jean-Michel Dumont, Ruder Finn Asia chairman, Mullins' role will include regional training and development, and working with the regional management team to support development and implementation HR strategies.
Since 2011, Ruder Finn Asia has been expanding its top management team to further develop and continue its growth in a number of Asian markets.
This has included acquiring the event management, brand and marketing consultancy Thunder Communications, establishing an office in Delhi, India, Mumbai and Bangalore and developing a new human resource and training system in China.
With the recent scandal surrounding the death of a student linked to a medical ad in Baidu search results page, Chinese government has demanded an overhaul of how Baidu rendered its search engines results.
Baidu swiftly responded to the request by implementing a major change in its ad policies on the evening of 23 May, substantially cutting the number of paid ads allowed to be showed in the search engine results pages.
Unlike Google, who limits to show up to four paid search ads to the top left or bottom left of its search results pages, with a clear divider between its paid and organic search listing.
Historically, Baidu allowed ads to be shown throughout its search results page, both on the left side and the right side of the search results. It was commonly to find search ads to occupy the entire search results page for popular keywords such as cheap flight tickets.
According to an email sent to the advertisers by Baidu, to comply with the request by the Chinese authorities, Baidu now limits its ads to appear in no more than 30% of each search engine results page, which means that only up to 4 ads in total is allowed to appear throughout the page, including ads on the top left, right, as well as the bottom.
While the changes in Baidu ad policy was foreseeable, its sudden announcement and swift changes caught many advertisers off guard. Due to the decline in the number of ad spaces available in each search engine results page, we foresee that the competition for the popular keywords will be more severe, with significant increase in their CPC.
The long term impact remains to be seen, after the initial knee-jerk reaction that advertisers normally do after seeing their ads not showing on the search results page. For example, the recent removal of right hand sided ads in Google search engine results page caused an initial spike in CPC, but the CPC level stabilised after the first few weeks, with keywords only seeing a minor increase in CPC compared to before.
For marketers, especially the non-big spenders on Baidu, the reduction in the ad spaces on search engine results page should be welcomed. This allows them to have a fair chance to appear on the first page of the Baidu search results, putting search engine optimization (SEO) to be as important as that on Google and Bing.
Marketers should monitor the changes in their ad CPC as well as their ad positions by comparing their ad performance metrics for the week leading to 22 May (before the policy change was implemented) as well as the week after 5/24 to see if the changes remain significant to warrant any change in bidding strategies. Also, they should also look into the changes in organic traffic coming from Baidu before and after 5/23, to see if the reduction in ads lead to an increase in their organic visibility and organic search traffic.
In short, I think marketers should welcome this change in Baidu ad policy, which finally allows them to look at both organic and paid search holistically, in contrast to the old days when big budget would help you win the game in search. Investors, however, would need to wait and see if this change will hurt Baidu ad revenue in its upcoming quarter earnings report.
Antony Yiu is head of digital of North Asia at MEC.
Scoot's chief executive Campbell Wilson (pictured first on the left) is set to leave the role and take on a new senior position of acting SVP sales & Marketing at parent company SIA. Wilson was in charge of starting up the airline in 2012.
Also exiting the role is Steven Greenway, head of commercial for the budget airline. Marketing has reached out to SIA for Greenway's replacement. Both Wilson and Greenway are set to leave the company by mid next week.
The moves come as earlier last week Singapore Airlines (SIA) established a holding company to own and manage its budget airlines Scoot and Tiger Airways, following the delisting of Tiger Airways (which operates as Tigerair) from SGX-ST. This new company will be known as Budget Aviation Holdings.
According to an SIA statement, the holding company structure will allow for the integration and sharing of key functions, such as in sales and marketing, IT, planning and operations.
“We also recognise the contribution Campbell has made through his leadership of Scoot since its establishment, successfully developing its corporate culture, brand, route network and fleet, and bringing it to profitability in a short time. We look forward to his return to SIA,” SIA CEO, Goh Choon Phong, said.
Following the restructure, Lee Lik Hsin, who has led Tigerair since May 2014, will lead both budget airlines as CEO of the holding company. Lee has spent more than 20 years in a range of roles with the SIA Group. Meanwhile, Leslie Thng, former CEO of SilkAir will take on the role of chief commercial officer.
“We launched our general offer so that we could fully realise commercial and operational synergies between Scoot and Tigerair. We are confident that Lee and his team are up to the task,” Goh added.
Replacing Thng at SilkAir is Foo Chai Woo. He has been SIA’s divisional VP sales & marketing since May 2014.
Under Wilson and Greenway's leadership, Scoot has seen numerous successful marketing campaign. Most recently, Scoot put up a cheeky video pointing out the similarities of American airline Spirit’s logo and marketing collaterals featuring CEO Wilson himself.
At last night's Agency of the Year awards, Scoot won several MARKies awards including Best Idea - Digital, Mobile, Social, Viral and Social as well as Best Use of - Analytics, Digital and Social.
The company also landed the top title of Marketer of the Year at the Marketing Excellence Awards 2014 and 2015 in front of hundreds of eager finalists and senior marketers at the Singapore Marriott Hotel tonight. The airline took home a total of three Gold for Excellence in Content Marketing, Media Strategy and Viral Marketing, one Silver for Excellence in Social Media Marketing and rounded it off with a Bronze in Excellence in Brand Awareness.
Last year, Sharon Koh, marketing and communications manager of Scoot also left the company after three years in the role. Replacing her Jacqueline Loh, senior manager marketing, product and ancillaries of Scoot.
Star Media Group has reported an overall revenue decline by 8.6% in its first quarter. Overall, revenue decline to RM198.73 million compared with RM217.43 million in the similar period last year.
Print and digital registered a lower revenue of 12.7% due to economic uncertainties and poor consumer sentiment, said the company in a statement. This resulted in overall newspaper advertising expenditure (adex) falling by 12.3% in the first quarter.
The radio broadcasting segment recorded a loss before tax of RM360,000 on a lower revenue of RM855,000, while the television channel segment registered a loss before tax of RM1.98 million on a decreased turnover of RM2.02 million.
Its event, exhibition, interior and thematic segment however, saw its revenue rising to RM42.02 million compared with RM38.09 million in the first quarter of last year. It comprises of businesses carried out by Cityneon Holdings and i.Star Ideas Factory (Perfect Livin’).
The overall decline came despite a 10.3% increase in revenue from its events, exhibition, interior and thematic segments.
The media group attributed the performance of the segment largely to Cityneon’s Victory Hill Exhibitions (VHE), a company with global rights to produce, exhibit and market characters from The Avengers and Transformers series. With an ongoing show in Paris, VHE contributed to Cityneon and the segment’s performance. The increased top line significantly cut the losses from the event, exhibition, interior and thematic segment from RM5.29 million last year to RM1.76 million in the current quarter.
Moving forward, the group is bracing itself for adex to be soft for the rest of the year amid a sluggish global economy and weak commodity prices.
The group said: "It would continue to defend the print segment while building on other media platforms."
Google has said it will be making it easier for marketers to bridge the digital and physical worlds with location-related mobile search enhancements.
Advertisers using location extensions will be able to prominently showcase their business locations when consumers search for things like “shoe store” or “car repair near me.” Google is also investing in more branded, customised experiences for businesses on Google Maps - geared towards helping marketers increase store visits.
It is experimenting with a variety of ad formats on Maps that make it easier for users to find businesses as they navigate the world around them. For example, Maps users may start to see promoted pins for nearby coffee shops, gas stations or lunch spots along their driving route. Local business pages are also getting a brand new look - to encourage consumers to explore your store before they even arrive, we’re adding new features like special offers and the ability to browse product inventory.
“It’s clear that consumers are moving seamlessly between online and offline experiences. So it’s important to help marketers think this way too,” said the company. Also, to help marketers succeed in this mobile-first world, Google is also redesigning AdWords and re-thinking “everything from creative and bidding, to workflow and measurement,” Sridhar Ramaswamy, SVP, Ads and Commercial said.
In order to enable advertisers and developers to drive more downloads of mobile apps - across Google properties - it built Universal App Campaigns. To date, Universal App Campaigns has delivered more than two billion downloads for advertisers, across Google Search, Google Play, YouTube, and the Google Display Network.
According to Google based on early testing, some advertisers have reported increases in clickthrough rates of up to 20% compared to current text ads.
Huawei Malaysia has retracted a statement it made regarding Samsung’s Galaxy S7 Edge.
The statement was issued by its PR agency Ogilvy PR Malaysia and stated that the launch was disappointing as it was "overpriced" and “lacking innovation". A+M has reached Huawei and Ogilvy PR for a response.
The statement was made as Huawei’s P9 phone is set to release in Malaysia.
According to tech blog Malaysian Wireless, which published the full initial Huawei statement, Huawei said it is looking to increasing its market share in Malaysia. Samsung, it said, is its closest competitor in the Android smartphone market.
Late last year Huawei partnered with Malaysia’s largest media platform, Media Prima Television Networks to embark on a comprehensive brand partnership. The partnership looks to inject a local personality for the brand. Through the campaign the brand aims to change its perception from being a global Chinese company to a brand that Malaysians can truly identify with.
Huawei kicked off a unique brand campaign, ‘Huawei Best Wei’, playing on a commonly-used local expression.
The Chinese smartphone manufacturer unveiled its Huawei P9 series by collaborating with the global camera brand Leica and released a preview trailer for its new campaign at an exclusive launch event at London’s Battersea Evolution this week. As global product ambassadors, “Superman” Henry Cavill and “Black Widow” Scarlett Johansson will make appearances in the TVC for Huawei P9 series.
Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) Group posted a revenue growth of 2.9% YoY to RM2.9 billion from RM2.8 billion in the corresponding period last year. The growth was mainly driven by higher contribution from Internet services revenue.
Tan Sri Zamzamzairani Mohd Isa, group chief executive officer of TM, said, “1Q2016 was an encouraging one for us despite an overall challenging environment. This growth was primarily driven by higher contribution from Internet services revenue. We continue to strengthen our leadership position with a 4.3% increase in our total broadband customer base to 2.36 million customers.”
He added this was driven by sustained growth in UniFi. UniFi stood at 877,000 customers as at 31 March 2016 .
In March, TM launched its new look TMpoint outlet at Quill City Mall, in Kuala Lumpur, designed to enable customers to experience the suite of convergence services for home and business solutions, in a friendly and interactive environment. The refreshed outlet environment will also be implemented at other outlets in stages.
Recently, TM launched its new brand “webe”, a new digital mobility services provider. As TM Group’s centre of excellence for mobility, webe’s philosophy and approach to business, in line with TM’s aspiration, is ‘start here. go anywhere’ exemplifying the diversity of ways communities can come together to make things happen, for a better Malaysia. webe’s business and network services are approaching market readiness, and is on track for a commercial launch this year.
In another step towards its convergence aspiration, TM has also entered into its second over-the-top (OTT) partnership, with Vuclip, a PCCW Ltd media company, to launch Viu. Viu is a freemium OTT, video-on-demand (VOD) service providing localised and personalised content from top studios. Viu will deliver more than 10,000 hours of premium Asian content in 2016 including those by Korea’s top broadcasters.
On the wholesale front, the quarter also witnessed TM signing a WiFi roaming agreement with British Telecommunications PLC (BT), allowing customers’ of both parties to leverage on each other’s WiFi networks in Malaysia and the United Kingdom (UK), hence enabling them to enjoy converged mobile roaming experience while travelling to these countries.
With all the above initiatives underway, TM is on track to become Malaysia’s Convergence Champion, as we journey on towards delivering our promise of ‘Life and Business Made Easier’.
Brand Union Hong Kong has partnered with Heritage Spirits Limited to produce an export version of its popular rum brand, Mandalay Rum.
The export brand, also known as “The Governor’s Choice”, is currently only available in Asia and was created to test the waters for potential larger scale exports to European and American markets.
Brand Union was tasked with creating a suite of branded materials from scratch, including the design of the bottle, packaging and marketing collateral.
The Governor’s Choice celebrates the colonial period when the rum was first produced, evoking a world of eccentric colonial settlers and parodying life in a rum-soaked Mandalay township.
The bottle itself is inspired by antique rum receptacles and includes engravings to achieve an antique patina. The pattern work was inspired from carvings found at ancient Mandalay temples.
Andy Reynolds, creative director of Brand Union, said, “We wanted to evoke a sense of the colonial era, which is firmly rooted in the minds of many consumers, and create a nostalgic, fun-loving nod to the brand’s history.”
Heritage Spirits' Jonathan Carr said, “In our label revamp for export, Brand Union’s excellent collateral has made all the difference in achieving the positive reception we have had from consumers and distributors.”
The rum bottle is wrapped in a copy of the “Mandalay Gazette”, a parody of the early colonial newspaper, featuring Mandalay Rum stories.
Credits:
Client: Heritage Spirits
Agency: Brand Union - Ogilvy & Mather Group HK
CCO: Reed Collins
CD: Andy Reynolds
ACD: Mike Pearson
CW: Malcolm Pryce, Mike Pearson, Amy Thompson
Designer: Gianluca Crudele
Illustrator: Barlo, Vincent Wong
