nessa Asia, a subscription-based hearing aid provider, has launched a new campaign to show its support for military veterans from the Singapore Armed Forces Veterans' League (SAFVL) suffering from hearing loss. This via a crowdfunding initiative via GiveAsia.
Through the campaign, nessa aims to raise SG$20,000 through this campaign and will match every dollar raised to achieve the target of SG$40,000. The funds will go towards purchasing three-year hearing aid subscriptions for the veterans, which includes smart hearing aids and unlimited support from home.
Promotions for the crowdfunding campaign, which will run tentatively until the end of September, are carried out via Facebook. PRecious Communications is involved in this campaign while boutique digital agency Restart Group is responsible for nessa Asia's marketing efforts.
The campaign's goal is to raise awareness on hearing loss, an issue that is faced by some of the military veterans. nessa aims to communicate the fact that there is no stigma attached to hearing loss, increase awareness on the prevalence of the medical condition and show that there are ways to seek help. In July 2016, nessa Asia provided free hearing tests to 150 SAFVL members.
Upon completion of this pilot project, nessa's next goal is to reach out to more individuals that may suffer from hearing loss, such as construction workers.
“At nessa Asia, we are committed to dispelling the stigma of wearing hearing aids, by providing users with accessibility to a suite of add-ons that are not usually available with conventional hearing aids. We aim to empower veterans and those suffering from hearing loss by providing them with small, stylish hearing aids, to support them in their day-to-day interactions with friends and family,” Olivier Carnohan, co-founder and CEO, nessa Asia, said.
“It is very humbling to know that nessa Asia is helping veterans suffering from hearing loss, educating them that hearing loss is not something to be ashamed of, and that they are not alone," Lau Kee Siong, a retired SAF Colonel, nessa Asia member and VP of SAFVL, said.
Tealium, a real-time customer data solutions and enterprise tag management, has partnered with digital agency POSSIBLE to deliver optimal data-driven marketing efficiency for the home-grown fashion brand Love, Bonito.
The first joint project for Tealium and POSSIBLE will combine smart data management and digital consultancy to help the brand extend its reach across multiple markets. The partnership will leverage Tealium’s Universal Data Hub to gather Love, Bonito’s consumer insights in one place. This will allow the retailer to strategise more effectively reduce time to market while minimising labor and costs.
With a strong online business and social following, Love, Bonito has become increasingly aware of its expanding omnichannel presence and the need to unify data operations so that targeting accuracy can be enhanced. Its decision to work with Tealium comes after a rigorous search, overseen by POSSIBLE, for a solution with advanced real-time data consolidation capacity.
“POSSIBLE is leading the global market drive for smarter digital marketing based on data-driven analytics and a single customer view, so joining forces with a data specialist like Tealium is an exciting move that will enable us to better realise our ambitions. By combining our creative design capability and strong focus on generating results with Tealium’s platform, we are confident the partnership will propel Love, Bonito to new heights," Gerard Lim, managing director, POSSIBLE, Singapore, said.
“We are delighted to be working with POSSIBLE to enable Love, Bonito to enhance the efficacy and impact of its marketing. By amalgamating its data and increasing its understanding of consumer habits, needs, and tastes, Love, Bonito will be able to optimise spend and target messages with minute precision — reaching the right individuals at the ideal moment to capture their interest, and improve results," Zak Agus, regional sales director, Southeast Asia, Tealium said.
Love, Bonito joins a range of brands and retailers using Tealium’s intelligent data solutions in the region, including RedMart and Nude by Nature.
The Singapore National Olympic Council (SNOC) has issued a formal warning to national marathon runner Soh Rui Yong. This follows a series of exchanges which saw Soh being flagged for “ambush marketing”, following a candid mention of his personal brand sponsor H-TWO-O in a social media post.
Soh then publicly spoke out on the matter on how the blackout rule affects non-official SEA Games sponsors. He shared his private exchange with officials from SNOC publicly online, after SNOC reached out to him for a sit down chat between the two. The exchange led to Soh proposing other measures for non-official sponsors, which he confirmed to Marketing, was subsequently rejected by SNOC.
One such example Soh cited was when he suggested that instead of a blanket ban for non-sponsors, a “trade-off” can be arranged where every non-SNOC sponsor brand the athlete promotes on social media is followed up with a promotion of an official sponsor. Currently, Soh’s main sponsors include H-TWO-O and ASICS. Other sponsors he has worked with include Garmin and Oakley.
Soh also told Marketing that the blackout period has caused him to miss out on potential brand sponsorships, one of which was put on hold until after the SEA Games. This caused him to miss out on a monetary sum of at least SG$1,500.
Soh also added that for Singaporeans to consider sport as a viable career, there is a need for an ecosystem that makes it as easy for athletes to secure their own sponsorships. This is especially with the lack of full funding from the government for the athletes and their lifestyle. He explained that this year, while preparing for the SEA Games, he had to pay “a good chunk” of his training and competition expenses out of pocket. Part of which, was later reimbursed months later under a Singapore Sports Institute (SSI) SEA Games Gold medal funding program.
Without sponsors, I would not have that amount of money. Sponsorship money also covers the aspects of my life and training not covered by SSI.
Meanwhile, SNOC shot back saying rules such as the blackout period are set in place to prevent “ambush marketing”. The rules have been developed by the International Olympic Committee and are constantly reviewed, adapted and adjusted to the relevance of different markets. In Singapore, the rule protects official sponsors such as Tote Board and SIA. The current blackout period for the 29th SEA Games is from 5 August 2017 to 6 September 2017. It commences 14 days before the first day of the games, and ends on the seventh day after its last day.
Addressing the matter, Chris Chan, secretary-general of the Singapore National Olympic Council told Marketing that last week, SNOC members met with Soh to hear him out and explain the rules to him. During the meeting, Soh agreed to remove the infringed posts and focus on preparing for the SEA Games.
“However, since the [initial] meeting, he has reneged on his promises and repeatedly breached the team membership agreement. Despite many reminders and our constant guidance offered to him, he has not fully complied,” Chan said. This led to further enforcement from the Major Games Preparation Committee, which administrates and manages the SEA Games 2017 Athletics Team; and a formal warning being issued to Soh stating that failure to comply will result in disciplinary proceedings.
Chan added that since the formal warning, Soh has agreed to comply moving forward. A quick check by Marketing found that the posts have since been removed.
“Representing Singapore at the major Games is a privilege which many athletes hope for, but also one that must be treated with utmost respect and responsibility on the part of an athlete. As representatives and ambassadors of the country, there is a code of conduct which athletes and officials have to abide to. There is no exception to this. We hope Soh will now focus on his preparations seriously and cooperate with the officials to get ready for the SEA Games,” Chan said.
A need to rework the rules?
In a conversation with Marketing, Wu Swee Sin, managing director of Asia Pacific, MP and Silva, said it is easy to understand why athletes find reasons to gripe about sponsorship restrictions. This is especially when it comes to the crucial lead up to major sporting games, and when brands that pay a premium for advertising and marketing privileges want to be associated with those events.
"The blackout offers official sponsors a chance to project their investments during the games period. However, it penalises the direct sponsors of athletes, who are not able to capitalise on promotional activities during the athlete's most crucial period of tournaments," Wu said.
Olympics organisers also recently loosened the stance on the blackout rule to allow sponsors to create advertising campaigns tailored to Olympic athletes, as long as they do not include any Olympic symbols, marks or terms associated with the event. These rights need to be applied months in advance, subject to approval and could be allowed for a specific period of time. Wu added:
Policing social platforms continue to be a challenge as brands will need to be exercise creativity in order to avoid violating blackout rules.
As brands drive more value from sports sponsorship, inevitably conflicts of interest will arise between event sponsors and an individual athlete’s sponsors.
“There is no easy solution without potentially infringing on technical and legal grounds. However, if all parties focus on the virtues of their subject sponsorship, the parties may get to a good place. This is with a healthy dose of creative planning and execution, and sheer common-sense,” Wu added.
Agreeing with Wu was Sufian Yap, business director, Sports Star Network. Yap said that while the SEA Games committee has the right to enforce the rules developed by the IOC to prevent "ambush marketing", a dialogue session could have taken place with athletes beforehand. This is to come up with solutions that could have been implemented that would allow the committee, brands and the athletes to come to a middle ground, where it will be a win-win situation for all parties.
“Brands will be affected by the blackout rule as they have committed time and resources to help these athletes in their journey. These sports brands have always been on the forefront of uniting people through sports,” Yap said.
The best way to mitigate this situation is through dialogue and discussion.
Committees also need to know on the ground what is needed from the athletes and better explain why such rules are in place, Yap said. In doing so, the dialogue would also help in discovering solutions to create a better ecosystem for the sports scene in the country.
For example, the Sports Council in Singapore can partner up with multiple sports brands to help sponsor participating Singaporean athletes. This is to ensure that there will not be an infringement during the blackout period as they would already be part of the official brands list.
“We believe that the most important part of an athlete’s journey starts with keeping the body and mind in balance. A large part of that constitutes to not worrying regarding their funding and equipment sponsorship during their training,” Yap said.
Hence, having a long-term partnership with a brand allows athletes to train without worry, knowing that they are supported fully, even in terms of sponsorship. At the same time, brands will get the exposure and reach at all major sporting events as the official sporting apparel for Team Singapore.
How national athletes can obtain permission for personal sponsors
Meanwhile, to obtain permission, athletes can write in to the SNOC or approach its office to seek guidance or clarity on the parameters of the promotional and advertising restrictions during the blackout period. All athletes and officials representing Singapore at the major games also sign a team membership agreement.
SNOC's Chan said:
The sponsors black out rule is not new. Athletes can work with their sponsor all year round in promotional activities except during the blackout period.
Chan explained that only official sponsors and partners who have invested in the Games and the SNOC can leverage on their association for their campaign activation during the blackout period. The rationale is to protect the official sponsors and partners such as Tote Board and SIA which have invested in supporting the team, for example, sending them to the games.
Following Soh’s public apology from the initial exchange, Chan said that the SNOC has accepted the apology and is helping him to “move on from this episode” to allow better focus on his preparations for the upcoming 2017 SEA Games.
Xaxis has appointed Richard Pollin as the vice president of client development for Asia Pacific (APAC). In his new role based in Singapore, Pollin will oversee Xaxis' new business acquisition and development across the region, including the management of current client accounts. He reports to Arshan Saha, Xaxis’ Asia Pacific president.
Pollin replaced Henry Stokes, who will be moving back to the UK to assume the role of VP of client development for [m]PLATFORM EMEA at GroupM.
Pollin possesses over 15 years of experience in the digital advertising and technology spaces. Prior to his latest appointment, Pollin was the director of sales for APAC at AppNexus, where he oversaw commercial operations for the region and ensured the deliver of enterprise technology solutions to the market. He also cultivated relationships with publishers and advertisers, enabling them to grow its digital advertising businesses.
Before joining AppNexus, Pollin worked at Google for more than four years, with his last role being new head of business for Southeast Asia (SEA). He spearheaded YouTube's launch within SEA and contributed significantly to the launch of new markets including Myanmar, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Pollin also worked at TradeDoubler, Unanimis and eBay.
“Pollin joins us during an exciting time as the region continues to be in growth mode. As clients demand receiving the best in class programmatic solutions and understand the importance of such expectations, we are working better and harder than before to communicate our shared views and standards to our clients. I’m very confident that Pollin and his team will not only continue bringing on new clients to the Xaxis portfolio, but also strengthen current relations,” Saha said.
“Xaxis is bolstered by many of its outstanding products, technologies, and the successful campaigns that it has ran for its global portfolio of clients. As it continues to solidify its place as a global leader in the ad tech space, I am very excited to be part of that effort and look forward to continue the positive momentum," Pollin said.
If there is just one way to describe Venus Teoh (pictured), the head of marketing at Asia Pacific Breweries (APB) Singapore, it would be bold.
“I am bold,” she laughs, as we sit down for a chat. “That’s how I’ve been since I started marketing.”
Teoh is a big believer that without pushing the boundaries, great work cannot emerge. A risk-taker by nature, she prides herself on not playing it safe. And if a backlash is to happen, “leverage on it”, she says.
“Here in Singapore, we tend to be safe. People tend to do things within the boundaries,” she says.
But today, “typical” marketing stunts are no longer enough, especially as the media landscape becomes more fragmented, and consumers become selective with the information they absorb. A backlash, as such, can be an advantage as well.
“But we have to make sure we take calculated risks. So, in whatever we do, we always have contingency plans. We always think ahead,” she explains.
One such example was for a provocative Desperados campaign she recently worked on called “Paint the unpaintable city”. The campaign saw artists such as the infamous Samantha Lo (better known as the Sticker Lady) create branded graffi ti-style artwork on the walls of the National Gallery, National Stadium and People’s Park Complex.
With vandalism outlawed in Singapore, the artists used a spray can to graffi ti the walls with light in real-time. A bike loaded with all the required equipment roamed the streets of Singapore between locations, and the artwork itself was created using a specially adapted spray can equipped with an infrared LED light.
“In Singapore, you see, you’re not supposed to do graffiti on the walls, so we thought perhaps Desperados can find a way to make graffiti cool and possibly legal in Singapore,” she says.
“But obviously we were asked by a few rangers what we were doing and if we had permits.”
As such, the team took extra precautions to make sure everything was legal and done with the knowledge of the building owners.
“The National Gallery was very open to the idea. This was one way for us to promote art without breaking the law,” she says.
Nonetheless, before launching the campaign, a lot of thought went into creating a plan B – should there have been a backlash from the government.
“We had to think of how we could leverage negative publicity. I mean, at one point, we actually wanted a police car to stop us because if we broke the rules, we’d make the front cover (of newspapers) and the Desperados brand awareness would have jumped 100%,” she admits.
Another campaign she describes as “nerve-wrecking”, also for the Desperados brand, was the 2015 Zouk Out stunt. Since the brand was only launched a year before, Teoh needed to work with her team to ramp up awareness of the tequila-flavoured beer, targeting the young and adventurous 18 to 24-year-olds.
As such, the brand recruited 20 elderly folks and got them to hold banners to protest Desperados at the entrance of Zouk Out. They were holding Desperados banners shouting and chanting “No Desperados”.
“We had three rangers’ police cars checking if we had licence to do this unexpected stunt. My colleague Mitchell Leow (head of corporate relations at Asia Pacific Breweries Singapore), and I were there prepared to be interviewed by the rangers. But it was great.”
She adds that because the Desperados brand is for the young and adventurous, she wanted the marketing stunts to “walk the talk”.
The Tiger story
But, of course, not every brand is as daring as Desperados. Each brand has to carve out its unique positioning. For Teoh, Tiger still takes up a chunk of her time, being the mainstream brand. By definition, this means the brand needs to have broad appeal.
The unique challenge Tiger has is there are older generations who are used to a certain image of the brand, but at the same time it is now having to target a younger group of drinkers to make the brand cool again.
Teoh says that for the Tiger brand, the past few years have been shaky. Its engagement rate with consumers has not always been the strongest and to turn this around, she and her team took to the streets to change the perceptions Singaporeans had about the brand.
“It wasn’t easy to try and speak to everyone,” she says.
“When we briefed our creative agency, BBDO, the brief was very clear: whatever we do, the brand must be real, it must be genuine.”
And that’s where the agency came back with the hawker stories. With no script in hand, and just raw real stories, Teoh and her team took on the risk the campaign might be digital heavy, and as such, not reach out to older consumers. Also, since the first film was in Teochew, it couldn’t cross into free-to-air channels. To Teoh and her team’s surprise, the campaign not only reached out to the young, but also to the old.
“It had a lot of social media talkability. Storytelling based on a real genuine story really connected. We used Teochew because the hawker was more comfortable in Teochew, and we wanted him to be comfortable, just be him, and tell his story in his own words. And it worked,” she says.
Her journey into the world of marketing
Teoh’s first role in the world of sales and marketing was with a FMCG company, Sara Lee. There, she went through nine months of a rigorous management training programme where she was sent all over Malaysia to learn about sales and marketing. But she believes her first rub with marketing was when she ran for president for a student council team.
“I remember one day I had a friend who came to me and said that they were looking for a new president for the student council. And I said, all right then. And I ran for it. It was really like an election where you had to rally your voters to vote for you. That, to me, was really my first experience in marketing,” she says.
Fast forward to today, coming back to work on Tiger is almost like coming a full circle. She joined APB in 2003 in a sales role as a channel development manager and she worked her way up, basically pursuing innovations for Tiger. She then left the Tiger brand to manage the entirety of other APB brands.
Post the Heineken acquisition, she oversaw the development of the mainstream brands across the Asia Pacific region, then resumed to head the regional innovation and international brands team, before joining APB Singapore as head of marketing in 2015. As such, she is a strong believer that sales enrich marketing knowledge. For her it certainly has.
“When I look at marketing strategies, it’s not just about creating an emotion. My philosophy of marketing is that marketing does not stop in advertising. The job ends when a consumer actually picks up the product. It is until the very end,” she said.
This article first appeared in the July edition of Marketing Magazine Singapore.
With an ever-growing demand for consumer reach, today’s marketing world might as well be Westeros (GoT fans, you know what we're talking about). Competition, treachery, and earning loyalty are all at the forefront of our industry.
Competition is scary. There is always a risk that someone will do what we do faster and better, becoming so powerful that they take control over the King’s Landing of marketing. But even if you are a lone Targaryen or a privileged Tyrell or Lannister, there is always a way to turn your e-shop into a moneymaking empire with the right technologies and strategic planning in performance-based marketing activities.
#1 Winter is coming – competition is a natural way to develop your business
Do not rest on your laurels – the primary rule for building any empire. Thinking you are safe is as dangerous in King’s Landing as it is in performance marketing. Growing a business today requires a lay of the land, command of innovative technologies, and new strategies that adapt to the digital world.
By keeping online business in a perpetual state of the Stark’s House Motto “Winter is Coming”, owners can retain a competitive edge, benchmarking business performance to operate at maximum. In order to make strategic moves that will give you a sustainable competitive edge, there must be valuable information that you can analyse.
The Night’s Watch in Game of Thrones serves the purpose of watching over Westeros’ greatest threat, and alerting the kingdom to any threats such as the White Walkers. In digital marketing, there are similar tools that help identify the potential threats and opportunities, allowing business owners to react to changes in their market, audience or competitive pressures.
But is your marketing safeguard a Samwell Tarly or a Jon Snow?
Competition within your own business providers ensures the best results. There are a ton of marketing and remarketing solution providers out there, but an effective Night’s Watch means you have all the cards in play and know how they perform.
For instance, multiple retargeting and social retargeting are just some of the new ways to ensure your campaigns work to their full potential. When using multiple retargeting strategies, all of your providers must focus on delivering transparent and effective results. With additional data streams, you can benchmark the average effective costs of sale (COS) between the service providers, as well as other measures.
#2 Choose your alliance wisely – make your activities more goal-oriented
When competition is not present, we often resort to laziness, which can be destructive to our motivation.
Robert Baratheon’s storyline is the result of laziness creeping up, as other Lords sit and wait to usurp power. The candidates to the Iron Throne boost their strength by banding together with the right allies (House Baratheon-House Lannister or previously Lannister-Tyrell, just to name a few), while identifying – and crushing – the competition.
In the real world, you also need good allies to succeed. Whether these are vendors, technology providers, or consultants, your success relies upon people outside of your company.
Modern companies use a multiple-strategy building alliances wisely with many tech providers. They focus not only on a short-time perspective but also a long-term approach to remind old visitors (brand awareness) or to bring back visitors during peak sales periods (seasonal purchasing). It helps keep a brand top-of-mind as users browse the Internet, and likely keeps those visitors coming back if they did make a purchase in the past.
When considering what allies to choose, remember that different retargeters offer different flexibility in your goal strategies. You can have different short-term goals determined by your mid- and long-term display marketing assumptions. Making deals with more than one, and having many alternatives brings better results.
#3 “Once you have accepted your flaws, no one can use them against you.”
In the Game of Thrones, only Jon Snow gets a second chance at life. When a potential customer is dropped from targeting, or when you are not optimising your digital campaigns, you are slowly losing them to competitor marketers that are faster and smarter at reaching them. By mastering multiple-retargeting strategies, you can cover your weak spots and stay at the forefront of commercial competition.
Today, almost every e-commerce player uses retargeting as a way to multiply their revenue. But it comes down to how smart your approach is. Because every retargeter is different – they may use completely different algorithms, user segmentation, and unique creatives – they bring wildly different results.
One tool may be better in reaching a certain group of users, while another will be more effective when appealing to another group of potential buyers. It comes down to algorithms in the end, so mastering a multiple retargeting approach (or at least using two) will ideally yield results that do not overlap with the first provider, while covering the weaknesses of the other.
#4 “Every flight begins with a fall.”
Crafting a retargeting strategy that beats out the competition is not easy. It takes weeks or months of iteration, data analysis, and some failure, to get to the point where optimization finally becomes possible. Once those painful points are overcome (and they can easily be beaten), your business will experience hyper-optimised revenue growth without injecting any more ad spend or budget towards your goals.
The grocery retail market in the Philippines is forecast to grow on average 9.3% year-on-year between 2016 and 2021, which will make it the fifth-largest grocery retail market in Asia, according to new data released by IGD, the international grocery research organisation.
During the 24th National Retail Conference in the Philippines, IGD unveiled the following:
Grocery retail sales in the Philippines are set to amount to PHP7.08 trillion (US$149.99bn) by 2021 from PHP4.53 trillion (US$95.98bn) in 2016.
This will be driven by a growing population, strong domestic consumption and a buoyant economy.
For the first time ever, the country is expected to move up from sixth place to become the fifth-largest grocery retail market in Asia, after China, India, Japan and Indonesia.
Shirley Zhu, Programme Director for IGD’s Asia-Pacific research, says: “The Philippines is an exciting market to watch. Modern trade currently accounts for about 20% of total grocery retail sales and is growing rapidly. We expect to see fast growth in both the number of outlets and sales for modern grocery retailers.”
Domestic multi-format retailers dominate modern trade and have shown robust growth over the last five years, with SM Retail, Puregold and Robinsons the largest grocery retailers in the country. SM Retail, for example, is focusing on expanding its mid-sized and small format stores. In 2016, the retailer opened 144 stores, only one of which was a hypermarket, while 111 opened under the Alfamart minimarket fascia, through a joint venture with Indonesia-based PT Sumber Alfaria Trijaya. SM Retail continues to expand beyond Metro Manila; in 2016, 80% of its store openings were outside this area. Meanwhile, Puregold and Robinsons share a similar ambition to expand further beyond the Luzon area with their multi-channel strategies. 7-Eleven, the fastest-growing retailer in the Philippines according to IGD data, is also expanding its stores into smaller towns across the nation.
Zhu continues: “Driven by more disposable income and increasingly urbanised lifestyles, Filipino shoppers are demanding more convenience in their grocery shopping. As a result, convenience and online are the hottest channels in the market.
“The number of c-stores in the country is set to increase as domestic retailers continue to drive this part of the market, bringing in more convenience banners to the country. One of the reasons thatdemand for convenience stores is so high is because of the rising number of business process outsourcing, or callcentres in the Philippines. These arecentred mainly in urban areas, operate 24 hours a day, and tend to employ young people with disposable income who want to shop for their groceries as conveniently as possible.
“Meanwhile, online grocery shopping in the Philippines is still in its infancy, but many bricks and mortar retailers have already been experimenting with their own ecommerce solutions. Lazada, the leading ecommerce platform in Southeast Asia, has been operating in the Philippines since 2012 and now has six million users in the country. The ecommerce company reportedly plans to go into grocery in the next two years.”
Looking into the future, Zhu concludes: “There will definitely be fewer ‘mom and pop’ stores – locally known as sari-sari stores – and there is no doubt that the convenience and online channels will be on a fast growth trajectory over the next few years. There is a wealth of opportunity for retailers and suppliers looking to grab a slice of the action in this rapidly evolving market.”
The recent Google ad boycott is a wake-up call to the advertising industry. And that may not be a bad thing after all.
In the past couple of months, programmatic advertising became the hot topic of conversation across brands and agencies. Negative press surrounding programmatic often frightens marketers, but rarely offers a solution or gives credit to the positive aspects of the data and technology driven media planning and buying.
On the upside, automation provides more effective and efficient audience engagement by enabling true data-driven marketing through leveraging first, second and third party data. It offers marketers the possibility of reaching or converting in-market consumers across devices, while empowering brands to provide relevant content to their customers at the right place and time with efficiency and more effectively. In short, it is not all doom and gloom.
Today, marketers are faced with the challenge of connecting with their consumers in a meaningful way online. As the customer journey becomes increasingly fragmented, marketers need and are still learning to capitalise on the micro-moments and to deliver targeted content appropriately across multiple channels. And programmatic marketing can play a role in bridging the gap.
With this, here are my 2017 top seven programmatic facts to address the most common questions that marketers in Hong Kong ask us:
1. Programmatic is here to stay.
The traditional way that media planning and buying is done is no longer relevant in today’s fragmented and complicated market. Consumers have more choices, and can choose to block messages from brands that they are not interested in. There are more sites, diversified channels and touchpoints, so many competitors, countless campaigns running; it’s difficult to manage them all. Automation helps in making those choices more objectively and takes less than 200 milliseconds to do what a human does in several hours and days and does it more effectively.
According to a recent survey of advertisers conducted by Nielsen for Hong Kong Advertisers Association (HK2A), over 60% of marketers said they used digital advertising specifically for targeting and effectiveness of messaging and to expand their reach. This growing number of agencies and marketers investing in digital advertising would benefit from better returns on investment by learning and adapting programmatic advertising into their everyday media strategies.
2. Data is what truly powers programmatic activation.
In a programmatic environment, it is all about targeting the right audiences. Thus, the more data we have about those audiences and their preferences, the better. However, not all data is created equal and while quantity is important, so is quality. Using first and third party data, we can segment by specific audiences, meaning we can serve ads to the most targeted audience available based on their demographics, behaviour, location, interests, and intent. This combination of audience and placement targeting means campaign ads are only served when the best targeting combinations are available. This is a trend likely to continue as brands and agencies embrace the benefits that audience data can bring to their businesses.
3. Programmatic is not about “the cheap stuff” (inventory).
The good and often the best or premium “stuff” is now made available programmatically, and the ability to layer targeted audience data on top of this inventory enables both advertisers and publishers to achieve better results. Today, most leading publishers engage with programmatic activation to some level, and adoption continues to grow. Private Marketplace deals (PMPs) and programmatic guaranteed can be a fantastic addition to both branding and performance campaigns. These are invite-only auctions or negotiated deals where the buyer purchases a specific amount of inventory that they control using their demand-side platform (DSP). Publishers have quickly adopted these methods and have been keen on selling more of their premium inventory in a very efficient way.
For buyers, this brings data and premium inventory right at the top tier, along with complete control and a highly strategic approach to that of a direct insertion order based buy. Also, the introduction and excitement around header bidding is increasingly in demand bringing control back to publishers to an extent as they can now make their entire inventory truly biddable. This gives us the best of both worlds – access to high-exposure, premium content, with the flexibility of an auction and no commitment to spend.
4. Programmatic is not limited to digital formats.
TV, out-of-home (OOH), radio and even print placements can already be bought programmatically; it is only a matter of when all media players will get on board to incorporate programmatic technology. Format wise, we can access not just digital display but video, social, mobile, and native content. At Dentsu Aegis Network, we have already run successful test campaigns on programmatic linear-TV in Thailand, programmatic OOH in Australia, and have also tested programmatic advertising in magazines. The automation of media buying would remove inefficiencies in operations.
5. Programmatic commerce is game changing.
Programmatic commerce is the ability to set pricing based on both the potential and actual value of a customer, rather than a static ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach. It is automated and dynamic; and brings with it a host of opportunities for businesses to win and stay relevant in the digital economy.
6. You can’t have too many KPIs.
Pick the right metric to measure the campaign effectiveness: whether it’s CPA, viewability, cost per completed view (CPCV), and so on. Attempting to measure multiple KPIs across a single campaign is risky as they rarely correlate with each other in the optimisation process, having a negative effect on the overall campaign performance.
7. Programmatic can be brand safe.
We can apply several “safety layers” of brand safety to mitigate the risks of ads appearing next to undesirable content by blacklisting, whitelisting or deploy third party technology partners for pre-bid targeting solutions across viewability, ad fraud, traffic ad quality, and brand safety.
What should be the focus for the rest of 2017 and beyond?
As the great Albert Einstein echoed: “We have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.”
We need to focus more efforts in educating the marketers and industry about how programmatic can help to drive actual business results, rather than just interim media key performance indicators – CPMs (cost per thousand or 1,000 advertisement impressions on one webpage) or CTRs (click through rates).
On the product and technology side, common standards are essential for our ad tech industry; viewability, brand safety, and digital measurement across devices and media have been priorities. To be fair, we have made progress establishing standards in taxonomy, ad formats, and creative guidelines but there is much left to be desired.
On the immediate to-do-list, we need to take a zero-tolerance stance on eliminating fraudulent ad traffic, combating malware, and focus on brand safety and viewability.
Industry leaders such as Google and Facebook are taking proactive efforts to tackle brand safety and content quality on their platforms. Locally, we also see industry bodies like the Hong Kong Digital Marketing Association (HKDMA) play an important role in accelerating education and investing the time and effort to address and share best practices.
Looking ahead, closer collaboration from all parties in our industry is critical to promoting a safe, effective, viable ecosystem.
By Jeremy Lo, general manager for Hong Kong, Amnet.
Voyagin, an online travel marketplace owned by Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten Inc, has appointed Theodoric Chew as its new head of affiliate and content marketing. In the newly created role, Chew is responsible for the creation of a new content direction for Voyagin.
He will also assist Voyagin with its expansion plans in Asia by taking charge of branding, growth and affiliate partnerships. Chew reports to Tushar Khandewal, COO of Voyagin. The company employs in-house creative and media personnel.
Prior to his latest appointment, Chew was head of digital marketing at Eitan, a Singapore-based advertising firm for six months. Before joining Eitan, he was the founder and editor-in-chief of existgreat.com, a global news curation platform for Millennials, which was acquired by a US entrepreneur. He also advised various digital media firms worldwide such as EAK Digital, in developing their branding and content strategy to achieve their goals.
"I'm excited to be part of this rapidly growing industry within such a talented team. They are driving large change to disrupt and improve the travel space, and I look forward to bringing new value to the online travel industry," Chew said.
Headquartered in Tokyo and Singapore, Voyagin has over 50 employees.
Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts and Singapore Airlines (SIA) have collaborated to launch a regional travel campaign titled “ASEAN Is More - First Stop Singapore”, in conjunction with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) 50th founding anniversary.
To promote the campaign, Shangri-La group is tapping on media placements on different travels website across the hotel’s key markets such as Australia, United States, United Kingdom, China and Southeast Asia. The campaign aims to showcase Southeast Asia’s diverse destinations with specially curated leisure travel offers, which can be reserved at the hotel's website. Families can also find flight offers to destinations and hotel deals .
Apart from that, all of its 18 participating hotels over five countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand and Indonesia will take part in advertising the campaign over its respective social media platforms such as on Facebook, Instagram, Weibo , WeChat , YouTube, Google. In China, Shangri-La working with TripAdvisor in pushing the campaign further to attract the local travellers there.
Shangri-La executive vice president, Cetin Sekercioglu (pictured left) said: “We are excited to partner with SIA to highlight the vibrant and colourful Southeast Asia region and its warm hospitality. As a destination, Southeast Asia has so much to offer - art, culture, heritage, nature, culinary experiences and innovative events that attract and engage all kinds of travellers. There is truly something for everyone in ASEAN.”
This new partnership also targets to promote the diversity of ASEAN to the world, Campbell Wilson, Singapore Airlines senior vice president of sales and marketing, said. “With SIA’s home base of Singapore located in the heart of ASEAN and coupled with our wide global network, we are well-positioned to bring visitors across this beautiful region,” he added.
Visit ASEAN@50 Golden Celebration 2017 campaign also aims to raise international visitor arrivals to Southeast Asia from 108.9 million in 2015 to 121 million by the end of 2017 and increase tourism receipts from US$75 billion in 2014 to US$83 billion as well. It is part of the ASEAN Tourism Strategic Plan 2016-2025, in which the key objectives include the promotion of the twin objectives of - commemorating the 50th anniversary of ASEAN in 2017, and embracing the ASEAN region of Southeast Asia as a single, united and diverse tourism destination.
For the "ASEAN Is More - First Stop Singapore" campaign, travellers can also take part in the ASEAN 50 Holiday Memory Match game from 1 August to 31 October 2017 on the game’s microsite. At the end of the memory game when participants submit their answer for the question, “What is your favourite ASEAN country and why?” they stand a chance to win a four-day holiday from their home country to Singapore.
The Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU) has called for a tender to appoint a panel of marketing and advertising agencies. This will be for a period of one year, with an option to extend on a yearly basis for two years.
According to a tender brief seen by Marketing, the scope of work includes creative conceptualisation, designing, planning and execution of advertising and publicity campaigns and projects for NTU. The contract is not exclusive, with the university reserving the right to award one or more of the campaigns/projects listed to other agencies that are deemed more suitable.
This also includes the involvement of the university’s major campaigns such as its undergraduate campaign for local admissions and scholar’s programmes. Other campaigns include its coffee chat invitation and open house ID and invitation, open house radio advertisement and high tea with NTU president.
The appointed agency will also take on an integrated digital marketing strategy for undergraduate admissions with digital marketing activities. This includes online/mobile advertisements, social media advertising, search engine marketing, search engine optimisation, social influencers and content marketing, to name a few. The agency or agencies may also undertake ad-hoc campaigns which come up in the course of the year of appointment.
Last year, the university appointed J. Walter Thomson Singapore to provide creative services for its communication projects. The agency was tasked with creating an integrated campaign that spans out-of-home and print advertising that was launched in the first quarter of this year.
Disney last week announced its massive move to pull the plug on all of its movies from Netflix US, and provide its own streaming services. Consumers can soon expect a Disney branded direct-to-consumer streaming service in 2019 in the US, before expanding globally. It’ll also launch its own ESPN video streaming service in early 2018, showcasing about 10,000 sporting events annually.
In Malaysia, some local industry players and experts can’t help but wonder if Disney will also enter the local VOD scene as part of its global expansion. Competition in the video streaming industry in Malaysia is clearly heating up, with new and existing players such as dimsum, iflix, Netflix, tonton and Viu all aggressively fighting for consumer attention.
If Disney really were to enter the Malaysian VOD market, it could potentially affect many established players on-ground.
This is given the popularity of live sports and kids content in Malaysia, content areas Disney and ESPN already lead in, said Prashant Kumar, partner at Entropia. Another advantage Disney will definitely have is its strong branding, and its already established trust with consumers that it produces powerful content.
Kumar added that if Disney was keen to enter a local market like Malaysia, pricing will no doubt be one of the most important factors in determining its success.He also added that despite the competition, currently many of the new-age streaming services in the country are not yet profitable.
"It’s a cut-throat world out there, and VOD service providers are throwing free things at will, fueled by venture funds,” he said.
Bala Pomaleh, current CEO of IPG Mediabrands agreed with Kumar on the cost factor, saying Disney will not likely be able to acquire a big subscriber base in the Malaysia market it were to stamp on a higher subscription fee, as compared to the local providers.
Whilst he expects audiences in the VOD sector to grow exponentially, Malaysia does have significant content piracy issues. If the issue is not curtailed, then VOD operators will probably need to have a very aggressive pricing strategy in order to attract subscribers, Pomaleh added.
How likely is it to enter?
Pomaleh said the decision to enter Malaysia for Disney would largely depend on the market potential.
“As there are currently more than ten VOD operators in Malaysia, many with overlapping content strategies, it will be the more aggressive operators with a longer break even business plan who will have an edge,” he added.
Yap Chee Weng, CEO of dentsu X Malaysia said, "It’s too early to say if Malaysia is part of Disney’s global expansion plan with regulatory barriers, language adaptation, and local market demand for video streaming services being some of the consideration factors."
Yap also agreed that Disney may pose a threat to local players given that it is undeniably one of the world’s most powerful brands in the world, with a rich history and timeless original creations.
“It seems to be a smart, practical and strategic business move by Disney to retain original content in an owned platform," he said, adding:
Indeed, we expect nothing less from an iconic brand like Disney to has the confidence and audacity to evolve its business to stay competitive and dominant.
Strategic considerations for Disney
Apart from pricing, Pomaleh said there are several strategic considerations for Disney should it decide to enter the local market.
“First, it remains to be seen which subscription model Disney would go for, be it a paid or 'freemium' model. On pay-TV in Malaysia. Disney used to be ad free, but has recently become more flexible with airing ads, so it looks like a freemium strategy could be possible,” Pomaleh said. Freemium, he explained, is a pricing strategy by which a product or service especially a digital offering is provided free of charge, but a fee is charged for proprietary features, functionality, or virtual goods.
Disney would also require high quality local content to attract a larger fan and subscriber base, if it were to enter into the local market. And whilst it appears that Disney wants to create its own distribution, tying up with local operators in addition to its own platform, may speed up adoption in a localised market like Malaysia, Pomaleh said.
Business as usual for Netflix
Meanwhile Netflix told A+M, that the split with Disney will not affect Singapore or the rest of its Asian markets.
Polamah said one of the key reasons, Netflix has been able attract a strong subscriber base is because it is able to pull together good original content. Meanwhile, Dentsu’s Yap deemed the latest move by Disney as “a minor” setback to Netflix which has been actively creating its original Netflix-exclusive shows and movies.
In Malaysia, Netflix is also getting aggressive to establish a local footprint. For example, just this week, it has partnered with Telekom Malaysia (TM) to offer TM customers access to content available on its platform, come October 2017. In the same week, it also announced a new tie-up with Primeworks Studios, Malaysia’s leading content production house to allow its Malaysian customers to now enjoy their "favourite" local films and series on its platform.
Spotify has appointed Universal McCann (UM) to manage its global media planning and buying duties, following a competitive review which began in late 2016 and concluded a few weeks ago.
The appointment will cover Singapore and Malaysia, and also APAC markets that Spotify has a presence in, sources close to Marketing confirmed. This includes Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, New Zealand, Philippines, Taiwan.
According to Adweek, Zenith Optimedia and Vizeum were among the finalists involved in the pitch. The article added that several of Spotify's media duties revolving around marketing are handled internally. The company also works with its in-house team and agency partners such as Wieden + Kennedy for creative duties.
Marketing has reached out to Spotify for comment.
Last year, Spotify hired Ong Sea Yen, former head of business consulting at digital marketing solutions company CtrlShift, as regional VP of sales for Spotify in Asia. In 2015, Spotify appointed its first ever chief marketing officer, Seth Farbman, who is based in New York.
“I’ve somehow found marketers nowadays buying programmatic software are kind of like consumers buying robotic vacuums for the house,” says Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, chief marketing officer of Mozilla, the owner of the Firefox web browser.
“It promises to clean the house so you turn it on and leave,” he says. “But what happens when you’re gone is it just runs through your chairs, footings, hits the tables, goes over the rugs, then gets stuck underneath the couch until it runs out of batteries.
“The dirty secret is marketers have become very lazy in the last two decades, putting all the responsibility in the software they have bought to find the magic math equation.
“The promise of a vacuum cleaner is big, but in practical use it doesn’t work. Similarly, marketing softwares help you, but they certainly wouldn’t replace all the hard work you have to do.”
The promise of a [robotic vacuum] is big, but in practical use it doesn’t work. Similarly, marketing softwares help you, but they certainly wouldn’t replace all the hard work you have to do.
Drawing references from big CPG companies such as Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola, he reminds marketers not to simply buy CRM, or a programmatic ad buying engine, or a content marketing influencer platform, but equip them with marketing research.
In what he describes as “life-cycle marketing”, he says his team tunes its marketing message at different stages of a customer journey so it makes sense for the user at the time.
“It shouldn’t sound that crazy or new because it’s not. It’s very (basic) in marketing, and the fundamentals are very important.”
“We have to spend time on marketing, and we have to do the hard work on it.”
Firefox is nothing like Google Chrome, but this is a plus, Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, CMO of Mozilla, tells Marketing.
“Not to say Google’s bad because they are not, they have good products, but one of our values is that we are not Google,” starts Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, chief marketing officer of Mozilla, the not-for-profit internet company.
“We are not a big advertiser, so we make different decisions on behalf of users.”
We are not a big advertiser, so we make different decisions on behalf of users.
Having spent more than two decades doing marketing for tech giants such as Yahoo, Microsoft and BitTorrent, Kaykas-Wolff joined Mozilla, the owner of the Firefox web browser, two years ago to lead the internet company’s global marketing strategy and organisation.
He was quick to recognise Mozilla needed a different take – in terms of both product development and marketing – from its competitors.
“We can’t compete with them (rivals such as Google and Microsoft) head to head or they will win,” he explains.
“Microsoft has more than 100,000 staff, and as a 1100-people company, we can’t do everything they are doing. We have to be different.”
We can’t compete with them (rivals such as Google and Microsoft) head to head or they will win.
The smaller scale company focuses on a niche, but powerful market.
Drawing references from recent research that Mozilla did, he says for somewhere between 3.2 to 3.6 billion of the internet population, they sized 20% to 22% – around 750 to 950 million people – as conscious choosers, in which these people care about the purpose of brands, security and privacy on the internet, and “kind of carry a Millennial mindset”.
“They generally are younger, make a little more money, live in dense areas, and this group of people is growing faster than the rest of other parts of the internet. Their characteristics mean they will be influential buyers and influential changers of other trends,” he says.
“It’s not the norm yet, but it’s becoming more of a trend; as a marketer I see the need to start talking to the conscious choosers and provide values that are meaningful.”
With its background as a not-for-profit marketing organisation, the company chooses to differentiate its product by developing trust with customers, and because of that, it has to make different decisions about the technology it uses.
“The types of technology we use and produce have to focus on building trust with our customers than purely raw growth,” he says.
Taking programmatic buying as an example, which is the company’s biggest direct marketing spend, he says that when the team uses a DMP (data management platform) to aid media buying and optimisation, it makes sure the DMP can’t share the team’s data into the data exchange and it doesn’t retain customers’ data either.
The team also refrains from using practices such as re-targeting as well.
Some of the marketing materials that Mozilla uses to communicate their values.
Another example is its recently launched “Firefox Focus browser”, an app that aims to be the secure browser for smartphones.
The browser comes with built-in ad tracker blocking, analytic tracker blocking as well as social tracker blocking, all of which highlight Mozilla’s focus on privacy-centred mobile products as part of its new growth strategy.
“Ad-blocking is a hot topic because it would seem like it’s attacking the advertising industry, but I don’t think that’s the real reason this technology exists,” he says.
Ad-blocking is a hot topic because it would seem like it’s attacking the advertising industry, but I don’t think that’s the real reason this technology exists.
“For growth-minded companies, collecting customer data for the sake of collecting data is more risk than the rewards can usually justify.
“The truth is, when you think your customers are exposed to two or three (programmatic) technologies, there are 75 different technologies showing up on a website.
“There are tens if not hundreds of technology you have to load – to track things, to connect your DP data – and it slows down the entire experience. That’s a performance issue on the internet right now.”
That's a performance issue on the internet right now.
When customers turn on an ad-blocker, it’s a signal that there is a bad ad or an offensive ad or they have had a previous bad experience on the site, he suggests.
“We as marketers get the responsibility to listen first. Now that the collection tools on the internet create expensive overheads and risks that are impacting the trust of our customers in a negative way, we should be looking for ways to collect less data and go lean.”
The privacy-first approach has so far proved to be the right move for Mozilla. Since its launch in December 2012, Firefox Mobile for Android has clocked more than 175 million installations.
With an Android version of Firefox Focus released last month, and the launch of Firefox Focus for iOS in November 2016, Kaykas-Wolff sees mobile as an important end for development.
Desktop browser, however, continues to grow as a market. With new technologies such as virtual reality and augment reality, he says there is a need to provide better engines in the platform; so “the biggest release maybe in the history of Mozilla” is happening at the end of this year, he says.
To communicate the message to the conscious choosers is yet another difficult task. Starting in late May this year, Kaykas-Wolff took an aggressive approach to launch the campaign, “browse against the machine”, which convinces users to switch from Google Chrome to Firefox through a series of online visuals and articles.
The renewed position outlines five of Firefox’s biggest advantages, including how Firefox uses less memory than Chrome; how it provides users more control over data and privacy; that Firefox is independent; that the browser isn’t developed by the largest advertising company in the world, but instead, by a “non-profit organisation whose mission is to preserve a healthy web in part by keep corporate power in check”.
“We’ve marketed Firefox as ‘the independent choice’ for the last several years, but we didn’t say who we’re independent of,” he says with a smile.
“Now we’re saying that we’re independent of different things, and we’d like the users to try our product again.”
It does not necessarily mean Firefox has to steal every user from Chrome.
“If we have positive market share growth, that (the brand refresh) would be successful,” he says.
“What’s important for us is we’re seeing good performance, so we know that you can market in a way that is ethical. You can perform well in a way that you respect users.”
Dominic Ng has been appointed CEO of Vizeum China, effective from 16 August. Prior to joining Vizeum, Ng was managing partner of MediaCom China.
He replaces Terrence Yung's role. Ng has 30 years of experience in the communications industry, his scope of work spans across strategic planning, agency management, key account management as well as business development in agencies including GroupM’s MediaCom and MEC.
In his new role as CEO of Vizeum China, he will be based in Shanghai and report to Phil Teeman, group managing director of Dentsu Aegis Network China.
Teeman said: “We look for innovative leaders who can deliver business growth in an increasingly complex and convergent environment. Dominic’s strategic understanding of the business and proven track record in managing high profile brands known for innovation make him the ideal person to take Vizeum forward.”
Dominic added: “I look forward to working closely with the talented team and the entire Dentsu Aegis Network to continue building the Vizeum brand in China.”
60% of marketers have commissioned influencers to make content in 2016. Agencies still rank first as the source of content for marketers, but 17% of B2C marketers now consider influencers one of their top three sources of content, the latest report by Forrester's Ryan Skinner revealed.
Dunkin' Donuts, for instance, told CBS News that an ad it had commissioned one influencer to create and post, "had the same reach as a primetime TV ad", the report quotes.
However, while more marketers now have some experience working with influencers, few know the best places to apply them to, nor the measurements of their values.
To formulate the most relevant application of influencers to a brand and digital strategy, the report suggests that marketers should first identify which assets the brand is trading with the influencers in question.
Why would I need an influencer?
Paid product placement and advocacy
A brand who wishes to trade with an influencer for their own audience reach usually asks the influencer to promote a product and describe their interest or reviews for the product in their own voice.
Content creation
Creators, much like designers, photographers, musicians, and creatives can reach audience in the billions on social channels. Brands which hire these creatives are looking to utilise their talent, content or ideas, not reach.
Media personality
Marketers who wish to trade for the influencers' face, voice or personality, may hire an A-list celebrity for younger demographics who gained fame through new media but not tranditional media.
Which influencer should I choose?
Once the brand has identified the elements they are looking for, marketers should aim to align their brand and the predisposition of the influencer with measured and considered criteria, such as:
Influencers' historical activity
Based on influencers' historical activity, brands can measure and analyse the frequency or paid and unpaid product mentions, personality, product or lifestyle preferences, market experiences, and breadth of interest or expertise.
Followership
Brands need to understand the background of the followers. Intuitively, someone with few followers but whose followers are hugely influential may be a better vector for driving ideas, while those with millions of relatively uninfluential followers may be a better vector for disseminating content.
Another thing to watch is the standard viewership rate of these users' content. According to Forrester's analysis, no more than 20% of brand's YouTube subscribers view the channel's videos.
It's also essential to review the difference between brand metrics from influencer content versus brand content.
Source: Forrester
What is the right measurement model in influencer marketing?
To start with, brands need to identify several wrong assumptions that exist in the industry.
While some vendors claim that influencers who have more followers than the average, but less followers than global celebrities, tend to engage audiences better than celebrities and thus more reach for the cost, the study suggests that the claim is far from consistent.
More followers equals more sales - no surprises there.
Furthermore, it would be wrong to assume that optimisation of engagement or engagement rate is the key to influencer programme success, as engagement is neither net negative nor net positive. According to media analysis vendor Chartbeat, the correlation between sharing content on Facebook and the reading of the content was "quite weak".
Econometric modeling
Affirming that tracking engagement is no way to ascertain the value of working with influencers, the study suggests marketers lean on econometric modelling, sales uplift against controlled holdouts, or hard conversations.
The key is to drive a clear, measurable before-and-after effect.
Sales data uplift market-to-market
Marketers who drive a sale directly on their own site can either tag traffic driven by an influencer - by giving them a unique URL with influencer-specific tagging - or access how that influencer's geographic audience drove sales uplight in that region, suggests the report.
For product manufacturers' marketers, for instance clothing and cosmetics spaces, they can drive sales directly through influencer activations.
Creative agency Naga DDB Tribal (Naga) and digital agency C27 have collaborated to build a creative intelligence platform named “Project Curious” (Curious). This is to assist marketers in developing consumer campaigns and target audiences in a more effective way via data warehousing and machine learning.
Naga's CEO Kristian Lee and C27’s CEO Fazil Fuad said the platform will offer brands the "action points based on combined historical data, consisting of project management, ideation, agency CRM, sales, real-time market insights and performance data".
Speaking exclusively to A+M, Lee said as part of this inter-agency deal, both agencies will combine its resources and talent together. This means leveraging on C27’s "culture of innovation and experimentation", as well as Naga’s "expertise in creativity and brand strategy", to create a new setup that provides advertisers with tailored marketing solutions and products developed in-house.
“I view this partnership as an opportunity for both parties to have a shared interest in creating omni-channel marketing ecosystems that can provide quicker ROI, and bridge the online-to-offline gap,” Lee said. He added that this would also be one of the first times where two non-group affiliated agencies in Malaysia are working on building a tool which can benefit agencies and clients alike
In fact, the deal also aims to introduce new approaches to the advertising industry in terms of sustainability and growth. Apart from that, it wants to create more value and interest amongst marketers and aspiring talents as to how they perceive agencies moving forward.
Lee also added, when speaking to numerous agency professionals about the issues they face today in the industry, "one comes to the realisation that there is a sense of widespread dread and hopelessness about the future, and you cannot help but question what is next for agencies - not just in Malaysia but around the globe as well."
"In recent times, the advertising industry in general has somehow lost the shine that it once possessed, as numerous contributing factors have combined to devalue the once proud profession," he said. He attributed an uncertain economic outlook, the wave of startups and specialist shops mushrooming endlessly, as well as competition from consultancy firms seeking to take a piece of the ad pie, as reasons to why clients and creative talents are casting their eyes elsewhere, from what was largely viewed as traditional creative setups. He added:
However, perhaps most alarmingly, there seems to be little fight back from advertising agencies as a whole to not only protect their own turf, but to see it thrive and grow to greater heights.
"As creative minds we are in a position to not only develop products that make things better for society, clients and ourselves, but to own them and turn them into sustainable and profitable assets to drive ourselves forward from a reputation and financial standpoint," he added.
C27’s Fuad added, “For almost 50 to 60 years, an agency’s value has always been limited to the value that can be delivered during the tenure of the existing staff. We have to break away from that format by delivering new technologies such as machine learning and data science, to properly house agency intelligence thereby protecting agency’s value proposition that otherwise might be affected by loss of talent.”
“Both Lee and I agreed, that a new culture we can create, is that agencies should not only sell ideas, but also potentially build products that they can truly call its own,” said Fuad.
"The core fundamental competency we both share is creativity, and that we should do more to promote that something clients will invest in and talent will be attracted to,” he said, adding that that Curious will inject data science into the creative world.
Public Bank has partnered with and Alibaba Group's affiliate company Ant Financial Services Group, to offer Alipay mobile wallet services in Malaysia.
In a statement to A+M, Public Bank which is Malaysia’s third largest bank, said the deal will connect Malaysian merchants with Alipay mobile wallet services, an online and mobile payment solution. For now, Alipay mobile wallet services is primarily catered to the needs for Alipay users from China who frequently travel and shop in Malaysia, offering the convenience of payment service over carrying large amounts of cash.
With the expanding business alliance between China and Malaysia, Public Bank said it believes offering the seamless Alipay service to its existing and new merchants will assist to increase their sales in view of the greater opportunity, from the 520 million Alipay active users. Besides, the banks said it also wants to provide Alipay users with good customer experience in Malaysia as it spreads across numerous segments such as shopping, dining, hotel and stays.
Currently, this service is available at all outlets of Degem Collection, Eu Yan Sang, Lazo Diamond Jewellery, L’OCCITANE, Malindo Airways, Star Cruise, Swiss Luxury Watch & Jewelry, The Swatch Group, Vitacare Pharmacy and other merchant outlets frequented by tourists from China.
Public Bank’s managing director, Tan Sri Dato’ Sri Tay Ah Lek said at the launch event that it will roll-out Alipay service to its existing and new in-store merchants. "We are very excited with the collaboration with Alipay, whose parent company Ant Financial is the world’s largest fintech startup.[...].Alipay mobile wallet has become an alternative cashless payment for Chinese tourists,” he said.
Alipay Southeast Asia general manager, Dayong Zhang added this partnership will enable Alipay payment acceptance at large merchant base of Public Bank and in the end create opportunities for local merchants to better target the large number of Chinese tourists coming to Malaysia.
The Hong Kong Jockey Club has launched a programme “Striding On” and its key activity “21-day challenge”. The programme looks to encourage people of all ages and backgrounds to take on new challenges and to embrace new perspectives as the first step to self-improvement.
To be rolled out in two stages, the first phase of the “Striding On” programme is themed around sports and healthy living and is led by three well-known athletes, including the first female world champion cyclist from Hong Kong, Sarah Lee, world-class boxer Rex Tso, and champion jockey Joao Moreira.
All of them had faced many ups and downs in their careers, but have come out stronger and better through dedication and determination. In phase two, a number of local artists will jump on the bandwagon to encourage people to take their first step towards self-improvement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmFMgVx2z3s
The campaign is supported with a serial of videos created by Uth Creative, for Sarah Lee's video, it used projection on her to help to express her feelings and memories during ups and downs. Combining real and conceptual images, it demonstrates how the ambassador tackles the setbacks and difficulties and takes every opportunity to turn challenges into success.
Desmond So, CEO of Uth Creative Group: “We feel so honour to be part of this meaningful campaign. We have allocated tremendous resource to work on this project since our victory of this tender project last year.”
Chief Executive Officer of the Hong Kong Jockey Club Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges said that the programme was inspired by a famous Chinese saying, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”.
He also reflected on Hong Kong’s positive “can do” spirit, and how its citizens always looked for new challenges. “That’s why we are launching our ‘Striding on’ programme today to provide new challenges which will help participants to reboot their ‘can do’ spirit,” he concluded.
“21-Day Challenge” is an online initiative which will run until the end of December. In phase one, the three sporting icons will, as “mentors”, be encouraging participants through all online coaching lessons and tasks under three areas of challenges, namely building up leg muscles, working-out at home, and healthy eating.
