Advertising + Marketing MY - Jan/Feb 2015 by Marketing Magazine Group

2015

advertising + marketing malaysia

JAN/FEB

JAN/FEB 2015

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ED’S LETTER

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ARE YOU GETTING LOST IN DATA-DRIVEN MARKETING? Elizabeth Low, Deputy Editor elizabethl@marketing-interactive.com Rezwana Manjur, Senior Journalist rezwanam@marketing-interactive.com Editorial – International Matt Eaton, Editor (Hong Kong) matte@marketing-interactive.com Production and Design Shahrom Kamarulzaman, Regional Art Director shahrom@lighthousemedia.com.sg Fauzie Rasid, Senior Designer fauzier@lighthousemedia.com.sg Advertising Sales – Singapore & Malaysia Johnathan Tiang, Senior Account Manager johnathant@marketing-interactive.com Trina Choy, Senior Account Manager trinac@marketing-interactive.com Jocelyn Ma, Account Manager jocelynm@marketing-interactive.com Grace Goh, Account Manager graceg@marketing-interactive.com Advertising Sales – International Josi Yan, Sales Director (Hong Kong) josiy@marketing-interactive.com Events Yeo Wei Qi, Regional Head of Events Services weiqi@marketing-interactive.com Marketing June Tan, Regional Marketing Executive junet@lighthousemedia.com.sg Finance Evelyn Wong, Regional Finance Director evelynw@lighthousemedia.com.sg Management Søren Beaulieu, Publisher sorenb@marketing-interactive.com

One of the key themes of the year for the industry has been that of data-driven marketing. Looking back on the stories of the year, one of the top stories was about the top 10 skills sets businesses were looking for – skills sets that didn’t exist five years ago. iOS developers and Android developers topped the list, while roles such as user experience designers and data scientists were close behind, signalling companies’ demand for these skill sets. The rising importance for digital and data-driven marketing has been emphasised enough. The issue is not one of awareness, but now of practicalities – what does data-driven marketing look like in an organisation, and yours in particular? In this issue, we break down the simple realities OCBC is one such example. Last year, its analytics department helped the company run 1,600 campaigns which led to 19 million leads, generating more than $85 million in shadow revenue for the bank – a significant generator of revenue for the frontline. But these operations began small, as you’ll read about on page 24. But on the other hand, one gripe from creatives is how too much talk of data is killing creativity. With the evolution of technology and how much predictive algorithms are expected to take precedence, will key decision-making be replaced by data-churning machines? The answer is still no.

At our Big Data 2014 conference held at the Four Seasons Hotel Singapore, Abdul Rahim Bawa, MasterCard’s VP of insights and marketing analytics, rightly summed it up by saying: “Big data is not a silver bullet to solve all your problems. In fact, it won’t solve your problems. Ultimately, common sense will.” Data, in fact, should work in tandem to enhance and humanise the marketing function. Data enables marketers to understand and relate to consumers. It makes giant corporations less intimidating, he added. And the challenges for both B2B and B2C marketers are alike. In this edition, also look at how the B2B landscape is changing in our recap of our first-ever B2B Confernece held in Singapore. Enjoy the issue.

Photography: Stefanus Elliot Lee – www.elliotly.com; Makeup & Hair: Michmakeover using Make Up For Ever & hair using Sebastian Professional – www.michmakeover.com

Editorial Rayana Pandey, Editor rayanap@marketing-interactive.com

Tony Kelly, Editorial Director tk@marketing-interactive.com Justin Randles, Group Managing Director jr@marketing-interactive.com

Advertising + Marketing Malaysia is published 6 times per year by Lighthouse Independent Media Pte Ltd PP 16093/12/2011 (026708). Printed in Malaysia on CTP process by Atlas Cetak (M) Sdn Bhd No. 2 Persiaran Industri, Bandar Sri Damansara, 52200 Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur. Tel: 03-6273 3333. For subscriptions, contact circulations at +65 6423 0329 or email subscriptions@marketing-interactive. com. COPYRIGHT & REPRINTS: All material printed in Advertising + Marketing Malaysia is protected under the copyright act. All rights reserved. No material may be reproduced in part or in whole without the prior written consent of the publisher and copyright holder. Permission may be requested through the Singapore office. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in Advertising + Marketing Malaysia are not necessarily the views of the publisher. Singapore: Lighthouse Independent Media Pte Ltd 100C Pasir Panjang Road, #05-01 See Hoy Chan Hub Singapore 118519 Tel: +65 6423 0329 Fax: +65 6423 0117 Hong Kong: Lighthouse Independent Media Ltd Unit A, 7/F, Wah Kit Commercial Building 302 Des Voeux Road Central, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong Tel: +852 2861 1882 Fax: +852 2861 1336 To subscribe to A+M Malaysia magazine, go to: www.marketing-interactive.com ...............................................................................................................

A MEMBER OF

WWW.M A R K ET I N G - I N T ER A C T I V E.C O M

Elizabeth Low Deputy Editor

JA N UA RY / F E B R UA RY 201 5 | a dvert i s i ng + m a r ke t i ng 1

HOW IS THE

ROLE OF COMMUNICATIONS CHANGING? Public relations is no longer just about press releases. Encompassing a much wider array of initiatives, PR now has more power to drive conversations for a brand than ever before. In fact, some practitioners argue it should not be called PR at all. It is communications.

With all this and much more, communications is now finding a voice in the boardroom as well. Encompassing the hows of communications in this new era is our dedicated one-day, power-packed conference. The Comms Malaysia 2015 conference will highlight the needs and concerns of communications professionals across Malaysia.

Super early bird rates ends on 5 March

Client-side marketers: USD 599 Solution providers: USD 899

To learn more and view the agenda, visit: www.marketing-interactive.com/communications/my Communications 2015 takes place at Aloft Hotel, Sentral Kuala Lumpur 14 May 2015 8.50 am - 5.00 pm

* Under the Human Resources Development Fund (HRDF), registered employers can claim rebates for trainings conducted by an overseas trainer/training provider. For more information, contact Carlo Reston, assistant project manager - conference & awards at +65 6423 0329, +65 9727 0291 or carlor@marketing-interactive.com

CONTENTS

4 A MONTH IN NEWS Cerebos Malaysia appoints Starcom MediaVest Group; Leo Burnett restructures creative team after ECD departure; Carlsberg appoints new creative agency, plus more.

10 MALAYSIA’S LATEST AD WORKS The latest campaigns from Telekom Malaysia, DiGi, Guinness and Tropfest.

12 IS MALAYSIA’S COSMOPOLITAN IMAGE UNDER THREAT? With recent headlines of banned Halloween activities, Oktoberfest and anti-dog touching events, is Malaysia’s cosmopolitan image under threat, asks Rezwana Manjur.

13 TONY FERNANDES’ PERSONAL TOUCH A LESSON IN CRISIS COMMS Is Tony Fernandes rewriting the text book for how leaders should act during a modern-day crisis? Rezwana Manjur finds out.

14 THERE IS NO ASIA Pulling insights from analytics and using them effectively is an issue plaguing most major brands. Head of group customer analytics and decisioning for CRM at OCBC Bank, Donald MacDonald, opens up about the brand’s journey to building its practice to what it is today. Read more on page 24.

If the challenge is developing marketing talent for Asia … forget Asia, it doesn’t exist, writes STAND’s Jonathan Sanchez.

18 6 WAYS TO MODERNISE YOUR MARKETING DEPARTMENT Here’s how to break down silos in your marketing organisation, writes Ambrish Bandalkul.

20 PROFILE: PETRONAS’ LIZ KAMARUDDIN The outspoken comms lead of national oil and gas company Petronas, Liz Kamaruddin, tells Elizabeth Low about her career and being the spokesperson for one of the biggest and most high-profile companies in Malaysia.

24 FEATURE: OCBC’S ANALYTICS STRATEGY AND WHAT BRANDS CAN LEARN FROM IT Analytics for OCBC originated as a small function on the consumer banking side, but over time was elevated to become a group function. Here’s what the journey was like, Rayana Pandey reports.

SCAN TO SUBSCRIBE!

13 12 KEY TAKEAWAYS:

>> Lessons in crisis communications from Petronas and AirAsia. >> How to break down silos in the marketing department. >> How to build an analytics practice. WWW.M A R K ET I N G - I N T ER A C T I V E.C O M

18 20 JA N UA RY / F E B R UA RY 201 5 | a dvert i s i ng + m a r ke t i ng 3

NEWS

WANT MORE BREAKING NEWS? SCAN THE CODE TO FIND OUT WHAT’S GOING ON IN THE INDUSTRY.

A new relationship Logitech Malaysia appointed LEWIS PR to lead its integrated communications for the brand. In this role, LEWIS leads public relations and digital marketing across Logitech’s main divisions of peripherals for PC, mobility and video communications for business. Additionally, LEWIS will manage, generate and sustain conversations on Logitech Malaysia’s Facebook page, while driving brand affinity through highlevel outreach with technology and lifestyle media.

Getting more creative Slightly less than a year after appointing JWT for the markets of Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong, Carlsberg called a pitch, moving the business away from the agency. The pitch has since been settled, with the new agency being Leo Burnett for the Malaysia market. The reasons behind the move are unclear and Carlsberg could not be reached for comment at the time of publishing.

Choosing a star Cerebos Malaysia appointed Starcom MediaVest Group Malaysia as its media agency following a pitch. SMG’s remit includes strategic planning for all brands under Cerebos across the analogue and digital platforms, as well as the social management for some brands. The account was last handled by UM, who was also vying for the account along with ZenithOptimedia. The pitch was first called in October 2014.

A new face Executive creative director Eric Cruz, who has been with Leo Burnett Malaysia for the past three and a half years, has left the agency. The agency has restructured its creative leadership to form a creative council of six creative directors. Cruz said: “It was a difficult decision to make, but I’d really like to focus on my family and be closer to home. I’m very thankful to Kien (CEO Tan Kien Eng) for inviting me to be part of Leo Burnett Malaysia.” A new start Shell Malaysia appointed Leigh Wong as its new head of media relations and issues management. Now reporting to the head of corporate affairs, Cynthia Alexander, Wong is in charge of key group issues, media engagement and ensuring reputation issues are managed effectively. Wong joins Shell on the back of a 13-year track record as a branding, marketing and communications leader.

4 a d verti s i ng + marketi ng | JA N UA RY / F E B R UA RY 2015

FAM picks media partner The Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) appointed MP & Silva, an international sports media rights agency, as its global advisor for all media and commercial rights for an extensive line-up of FAM competitions. The appointment comes with FAM’s goal of extending its broadcast reach and maximising the commercial potential of its properties. The 15-year deal begins in 2016 and comprises worldwide media rights covering the line-up of competitions organised by the FAM, including the Malaysia Super League, the Malaysia Premier League, the FA Cup, the Malaysia Cup and the Piala Sumbangsih Match.

Hack attack The Malaysia Airlines website was hacked earlier last month. This was allegedly done by an entity called “Cyber Caliphate”. A quick check on the MAS site showed a message 404 – Plane Not Found, which alludes to internet error code “404 not found”. It had also listed three Twitter accounts – @ Lizardmafia, @umgrobert and @ umg_chris – as the contacts for the so-called Cyber Caliphate. Malaysia Airlines confirmed its domain name system had been compromised where users were redirected to a hacker website when www.malaysiaairlines.com URL was keyed in.

'App'ropriate move Singaporean app developer Carousell officially launched its app in Malaysia as it predicts mobile commerce in the market is set to grow. This comes after the company first began its marketing efforts in Malaysia in January 2014. According to a statement from the company, the app has since then received an encouraging response with young Malaysians, who form a majority of the early adopter community.

Key promotions M&C Saatchi Malaysia kicked off the year with two executive appointments. Marzuki Maani, one of the pioneering members of the network’s Kuala Lumpur office, was appointed executive creative director of M&C Saatchi Malaysia, joining Henry Yap and Ajay Bakhshi in its ranks. Digital director Lee Poh Li was named general manager of M&C Saatchi-i as she leads the digital subsidiary of M&C Saatchi Malaysia. Getting in line In a big push into Asia audiences, The Wall Street Journal Asia launched social media accounts on LINE and WeChat. The LINE account is in Japanese, in addition to a new global English account. “LINE’s phenomenal growth in Japan over recent years has been well documented, but we are now seeing the platform grow in popularity in many regions internationally,” said digital editor Adam Najberg. WWW. MARK E TING-IN TE RAC TI VE . C OM

NEWS

Renewed focus Malaysia’s tourism authorities are repositioning the nation to promote itself to Chinese tourists, particularly with the launch of its Malaysia Year of Festivals 2015 (MyFest 2015) campaign. Through the festivities, the nation hopes to target 36 million tourist arrivals with RM168 billion tourist receipts by 2020.

Keeping your ‘failures’ In a fun initiative, Red Bull launched a new activation in Singapore to give “wings to consumers’ dreams and aspirations in the coming new year”. Every year people make resolutions around new year’s – however, these resolutions are seldom kept – so Red Bull decided to witness failures, year after year. This campaign is now LIVE and will continue to generate resolutions into the new year. A beautiful cityscape Cityscape Malaysia, one of the country’s largest real estate investment and development events, appointed MEC as its media agency. This is the first time the event will be held in Malaysia. MEC is tasked to develop the overall media strategy for awareness around the event, as well as provide local expertise in the market. The appointment is for 2015 and followed a pitch.

An express solution DHL Express, launched a new service option for comGateway customers. The service offers customers the choice of collecting their parcels from their preferred DHL service point at Cheers and FairPrice Xpress outlets across Singapore. The new service option will be rolled out in phases over the next six months with the first phase being just in time for the holiday season. WWW.M A R K ET I N G - I N T ER A C T I V E.C O M

Geometry Global's CEO exits Kenny Loh was named chief operating officer for Geometry Global in Malaysia after Nicky Lim stepped down as CEO to pursue “other business interests” in a different industry sector, said the agency. Loh has vast experience in experiential marketing and was general manager of G2 Kuala Lumpur for four years before the formation of Geometry Global.

A power house Asia Square launched a regional ad campaign in time for Christmas. Developed to drive enquiries for its office space, this is a continuation of its campaign which has been running since September last year in various print mediums. The original ad ran with the message: “Asia Square is the place where corporate power is centred in Asia.” The campaign was conceptualised by ManghamGaxiola. Cautiously festive Festive Crime Prevention is the latest campaign from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) aiming to raise public awareness of scams that are especially prevalent during the festive season. MHA collaborated with Clear Channel and media agency Universal McCann Singapore for the creative executions at selected bus shelters in Singapore. The objective of the campaign is to educate the public of the common scams in Singapore.

Fresh partnership F&N Foods (Dairies), a subsidiary of Fraser and Neave, appointed marketing communications agency The Alchemy Partnership as its creative agency on record for a series of products from F&N Foods – namely F&N Magnolia, F&N Fruit Tree Fresh and F&N Nutri Tea. Gale Choong, marketing manager for F&N Foods (Dairies), said: “As we were approaching 2015, we were looking for a partner who understands the complicated world of FMCG.”

A new future After the fairly public firing of two of the company’s three senior managers, Alphabet Media, publishers of FutureGov magazine and producer of the FutureGov series of events, underwent a restructure. The company merged its events and publishing teams which is now led by founder James Smith. Ten events staff will leave the company, Smith told Marketing , while two new events have been added to its calendar this year. A reshuffle Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) reorganised and renamed its two newspaper divisions. The proposed changes took place in January. The English and Malay Newspapers Division was renamed the English/ Malay/Tamil Media group. The Chinese Newspapers Division was renamed the Chinese Media group. There was no change to the staffing and leadership of the two groups and in the various newsrooms and subsidiaries, said the company.

A revolutionary The founder and chairman of Shaw Brothers and the chairman of TVB, Sir Run Run Shaw, died at his home at the age of 107. Shaw was one of the founding directors of TVB in 1967 and remained executive chairman for 30 years. Born 1907, TVB said he passed away peacefully in the company of his family at 6:55 am at home, aged 107. Staying current David Ketchum, the former president of Bite Asia Pacific, revealed his latest venture, a new breed of consulting services that aims to help marketers drive more value from data, contacts and content. Current Asia launches with a team of five experienced consultants who will initially focus on the Hong Kong and Singapore markets, but with a view to expand across the region. Members only club At a time where retail businesses are struggling to find their footing, NTUC FairPrice is debuting a new members-only format in Singapore. NTUC FairPrice launched its Warehouse Club, closely following the model of Costco. “As a co-operative, one of FairPrice’s objectives is to help moderate the cost of living in Singapore and we have remained committed to this social mission,” said a spokesperson.

Handling turbulence Singapore Airlines flew into slight turbulence in the Australia market last month when its business class tickets were sold for economy price from a Saturday to Monday, out of the Australian market. First reported in the Australian press, tickets costing $SG6,615 were sold for as low as half the price. A SIA spokesperson confirmed this to Marketing saying the company was taking immediate action to rectify it.

JA N UA RY / F E B R UA RY 201 5 | a dvert i s i ng + m a r ke t i ng 5

NEWS

Fit for a king Brahim’s Holdings Berhad (BHB) under its subsidiary Brahim’s Trading Sdn Bhd and Quantum Angel Sdn Bhd is making an investment of RM95 million in the Malaysian and Singaporean franchise of Burger King. The investment sees the brand’s equity being acquired 100% by BHB. Marketing wise, BHB aims to have a “more effective execution of marketing promotions” and “create more innovative products”.

A Quantium leap E-commerce logistics provider Quantium Solutions, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore Post, acquired Australian-based parcel delivery company Couriers Please Holdings. The acquisition is for A$95 million and complements SingPost’s push into e-commerce logistics in Australia. Wolfgang Baier, group chief executive officer of SingPost Group, said this was in line with SingPost’s vision to be the regional leader in e-commerce logistics. Limited luxury Luxury beauty brand SK-II unveiled a limited edition line of its iconic Facial Treatment Essence through a campaign. The essence is created in collaboration with emerging digital artist Po-Chih Huang. The campaign, created by Leo Burnett Singapore, was rolled out entirely across SK-II’s digital platforms, including YouTube, its brand site, Facebook and iVideo as a three-minute film featuring a captivating performance piece by renowned Japanese dance troupe ENRA.

New portals MediaCorp launched two new portals –MediaCorp Berita and MediaCorp Seithi – catering to their respective Malay and Tamil news and current affairs consumers. These portals provide a wide range of information regarding news and developments within Singapore and the region. Android and IOS apps will be available later in March for the portals. The portals are updated in real time.

A new defence Aeronautics, space and defencerelated services firm Airbus Group appointed Publicis APAC as its new creative agency in charge of Airbus Group’s marketing and communication strategies in Asia Pacific. The appointment follows a pitch. Thorsten Moellmann, head of international communications for Airbus Group, expressed his anticipation to work with Publicis Thailand and APAC towards increasing the image and reputation of Airbus Group in the region.

A new courtship Courts settled its media pitch with a new agency, giving the business to Starcom MediaVest. This sees the end of the more than decade-long relationship with Maxus. Jasmine Seow, marketing director for Courts Singapore, told Marketing: “It’s standard industry practice to review partnership arrangements from time to time, and like most, we keep an open mind about working with new agency partners as we believe this could give rise to new ideas and ways of working.”

6 a d verti s i ng + marketi ng | JA N UA RY / F E B R UA RY 2015

Remaining noisy Park Hotel Group extended its relationship with creative agency, noisycrayons. The collaboration is centred on the deployment of digital engagement activities targeted at social media and tech-savvy travellers in Singapore and the Asia Pacific region. Reappointed as the social media agency for the group, noisycrayons continues to direct, develop and manage the hotel group’s online campaigns on key social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.

Mapping it out Search engine Baidu is investing in Uber and allowing Baidu Map and its mobile search app Mobile Baidu users to connect with Uber drivers through these platforms. Robin Li, CEO and chairman, said: “We are delighted that we can work together with Uber to help meet this demand. We are also excited by this strategic partnership between a Chinese company and an American firm.” Strategy in place Kimberly-Clark appointed OgilvyOne its regional digital agency. Confirming the appointment to Marketing, Gaurav Gupta, marketing director of ASEAN for Kimberly-Clark, said the appointment was for the ASEAN region. “OgilvyOne will be responsible for creating strategic integrated digital marketing plans for our key brands in these markets. OgilvyOne is aligned to K-C’s digital vision for our business and was selected following a multi-agency pitch process.”

Knowing things inside out Media agency MEC Singapore was appointed to manage the Singapore Tourism Board’s “Singapore: Inside Out” international programme that celebrates Singapore’s 50th year of independence in 2015. Singapore: Inside Out presents an invitation to rediscover Singapore as reimagined by some of the talents shaping Singapore’s contemporary creative culture, giving rise to content for a digital campaign on both paid and earned platforms to further fuel the celebrations.

Venturing out Singaporean app developer Carousell officially launched its app in Malaysia predicting the mobile commerce in that market is set to grow. This comes after the company first began its marketing efforts in Malaysia in January 2014. According to a statement from the company, the app has received an encouraging response with young Malaysians who form a majority of the early adopter community.

Cautiously festive Festive Crime Prevention is the latest campaign from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) aiming to raise public awareness of scams that are especially prevalent during the festive season. MHA collaborated with Clear Channel and media agency Universal McCann Singapore for the creative executions at selected bus shelters in Singapore. The objective of the campaign is to educate the public of the common scams in Singapore. WWW. MARK E TING-IN TE RAC TI VE . C OM

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NEWS

A kid with a new toy Mattel Barbie appointed FCB Shanghai to lead its creative account in Mainland China. FCB Shanghai is providing brand strategy and creative services focused on content creation and social media management, culminating in a major relaunch for Barbie in 2015. Feiwei, chief creative officer at FCB Greater China, said: “Barbie wants to lead the way with the perceptional and behavioural change.”

A fluid relationship Fluid struck up a partnership with Protocol Global Consulting, a Sydney based company, to better serve Australian brands looking to enter China and help Chinese companies attract consumers in Australia. The two will combine their skills to facilitate access into and out of the China and Australian market. Protocol CEO Adrienne Bateup-Carlson said the two companies shared a commitment to unlocking opportunities in the region.

HOW MUCH DOES THAT COST?

JUMPING ON THE VANWAGON

The Spa Esprit Group spent about SG$100,000 on its The Grand Beauty Hotel van. The van was parked at various locations from 8 October to 30 November 2014. The group claims to be the first to come up with the concept of a mobile retail store about three years ago, when it brought the STRIP Mobile

to the streets. The idea came about in an attempt to reach a wider audience, much like a road show, but in a slightly different format. A spokesperson from the team told Marketing the concept had worked well over the past few years and several other brands had also made similar attempts over the years.

8 a d verti s i ng + marketi ng | JA N UA RY / F E B R UA RY 2015

Becoming more Relevant Publicis Groupe acquired content marketing firm Relevant24 (R24). R24 is aligned with Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG) and immediately plugged in as the real-time content infrastructure to the current SMG content solutions businesses, said Publicis in a statement. R24’s niche is creating ads or content in a day or less, depending on what happens in the news. Publicis did not reveal the cost of the deal.

On the hunt Mars launched a global media pitch which is also set to affect its Southeast Asia business. In Southeast Asia and China, Publicis Groupe’s Starcom has been handling its media planning and buying duties. Globally, Starcom has been on the Mars business since 2010. The company hopes to appoint a single media agency and this change is in line with its “existing global advertising agency structure”.

A safe bet BMW Group Australia reappointed incumbent creative agency Ogilvy to its marketing and advertising account following a closed fourway pitch in September for both the BMW and MINI brands. The scope of work includes abovethe-line, below-the-line, digital and POS for both the BMW and MINI brands and their respective dealer networks. BMW Group Australia has a long standing relationship with Ogilvy, with the agency originally appointed to the business over 20 years ago.

A long-term engagement IBM is extending its partnership with WPP. This new strategic partnership includes a seven-year US$1.25 billion services contract for IBM to transform and manage WPP’s global technology platform. With this agreement, IBM will provide a service delivery and technology platform to enable WPP to innovate new digital services that will be run and managed with a global hybrid cloud infrastructure.

More than a sweet tooth Candy brand Skittles partnered with creative agency BBDO Toronto for its latest video that was directed by Conor Byrne. Fashioned as a mockumentary, the video “Struck by a Rainbow”, follows the story of a man who is entirely covered in Skittles. This happens after being struck by a formidable rainbow. The video first debuted on Skittles’ official YouTube page on 7 December. Having a heyday JWT acquired a majority stake in independent New Zealand digital agency Heyday. John Gutteridge, CEO of JWT Australia and New Zealand, said: “Critically there is a very clear alignment from both Heyday and JWT on how we need to ready ourselves for tomorrow and the long term. The two businesses have quite different skills, allowing the group to deliver broader, faster, deeper and better solutions to existing clients.” WWW. MARK E TING-IN TE RAC TI VE . C OM

Taking the customer conversation forward Gold Sponsor

Brought to you by:

Dates / Time / Location: 11 - 12 March, 9am - 5pm Venue: InterContinental Singapore Prices: S$1,590 (Client-side) / S$2,590 (Marketing Solutions Providers)

speakers

Loo Pei Fen Head of marketing Challenger Technologies

Michael Kustreba Managing director, Asia Pacific Epsilon

Jason Ling Director of global e-commerce Millennium & Copthorne

Reshel Chan Senior customer service manager Chan Brothers Travel

Jon Sugihara Head of product RedMart

Rahul Asthana Regional marketing director, baby & child care, digital & e-commerce Kimberly-Clark

Karen Eidsvik Regional director, Asia Subway Systems Singapore

Enny Hartati Head of design Luxola

Pascal Ly Head of digital customer experience Schneider Electric

Souad-Marie Assaad Product manager Luxola

Jo Hall Regional general manager, merchandise & marketing Toys ‘R’ Us

Carolyn Khiu Director corporate communications, ecommerce & customer relations McDonald’s Restaurants

Patrick Steinbrenner Regional director (marketing) ZALORA

w w w. m a r k e t i n g - i n t e ra c t i v e. c o m / c u s t o m e r- e x p e r i e n c e / s g

NEW WORK .................................................................................................................................................................................................................

1 Campaign HyppTV – Room 304 Brief The campaign was conceptualised with the thinking that Malaysians today are spending more time streaming content online. Hence, the national broadband champion, Telekom Malaysia (TM), took a strategic decision to shift its consumer engagement focus to online storytelling. The objective of this campaign is to attract Malaysian target audiences to TM’s streaming content offer, HyppTV, and the mobile/tablet “HyppTV Everywhere App” option. This was done with a series of short films. Client

Telekom Malaysia

Creative

Lowe Malaysia

Media

N/A

2 Campaign Let’s Inspire Brief DiGi Telecommunications launched a refreshed brand identity with a brand promise to be “the enabler of digital inspiration”. Along with a new logo, it has also launched a new tag line, “Let’s Inspire”. The brand refresh will be rolled out across all customer touch-points, including its website, social media channels, advertising, company infrastructures and retail outlets nationwide. Client

DiGi

Creative

Dragon Rouge

Media

N/A

10 a d verti s i ng + marketi ng | JA N UA RY / F E B R UA RY 2015

WWW. MARK E TING-IN TE RAC TI VE . C OM

3 Campaign Smirnoff Ice Ongsome Happens Brief Smirnoff Ice is a newcomer to the Malaysia market during the CNY period. Because it’s not a typical CNY drink, the brand launched a CNY campaign on 16 January. The campaign is digitally driven and has support from in-store activities and promotions. A fictional character, Choy San Zai, the son of Choy San Yeh (God of Prosperity), is being used as the embodiment of the brand’s personality. Client

Guinness Anchor Berhad

Creative

BBDO & Proximity Malaysia

Media

Maxus Malaysia

4 Campaign The Projector Man Brief In a six-week campaign, Tropfest and its agency are taking to the streets with a mascot, with the latter in a bright jumpsuit armed with a battery backpack and a projector mounted above his head. The objective is to convey that stories are inspired by our surroundings, demonstrating how they are “made of real life”.

WWW.M A R K ET I N G - I N T ER A C T I V E.C O M

Client

Tropfest Southeast Asia, Ford Malaysia

Creative

JWT Malaysia

Media

N/A

SUBMISSIONS PLEASE SEND US YOUR BEST NEW WORK REGULARLY IN HIGH-RES JPEG OR PDF TO BE CONSIDERED FOR THESE PAGES. EMAIL RAYANAP@MARKETING-INTERACTIVE.COM

JA N UA RY / F E B R UA RY 201 5 | a dvert i s i ng + m a r ke t i ng 1 1

NEWS ANALYSIS

IS MALAYSIA’S COSMOPOLITAN IMAGE UNDER THREAT?

With the recent headlines of banned Halloween activities, Oktoberfest and anti-dog touching events, is Malaysia’s cosmopolitan image under threat? Rezwana Manjur asks.

Warning signs: Does Malaysia need to protect its cosmopolitan image?

Last year, in an update of Malaysia-based events or festivities coming under threat from authorities, the Malaysian government has announced Malaysian Muslims should not be celebrating the Halloween festivities. According to the country’s National Fatwa Council, Halloween has been deemed as a Christian celebration of the dead and goes against Islamic teachings. On its website, the council also states that “Halloween is clearly contrary to the values of sharia. It should not be celebrated by Muslims. To commemorate those who have died, Islam advocates the practice of praying and reading the Koran”. This is not the first time Malaysia has come under the global limelight in recent months. Just a week before that the National Fatwa Council ruled the event called “I want to touch dog” as un-Islamic; global media attention was once again directed at the nation. Also, the banning of a billboard advertising German beer 12 a d verti s i ng + marketi ng | JA N UA RY / F E B R UA RY 2015

festival Oktoberfest also caught the attention of many, as a number of Malaysian Muslims rallied together to start an online campaign to oppose Oktoberfest in Malaysia. Public reaction to these events has been polarising, with strong views on both sides. However, does Malaysia run the risk of jeopardising a cosmopolitan image? Is it affecting creativity when it comes to marketing? Speaking on the basis of anonymity, a senior planner at a multinational creative ad agency told Advertising + Marketing that over the past few years Malaysia as a society and nation was undergoing a transition. However, he was of the view these “piecemeal headlines” certainly should not present a picture of the nation. Is it hampering creativity? He added these laws and rules do not hamper creativity, but rather “chisels it”. “Creativity wise,

it brings in a certain sense of extra responsibility and conscience to all of us practitioners to be more mindful in conceptualising our go-tomarket engagement plans,” he said, adding that because of social media, issues are often misreported or misconstrued, often proving aggravating to the actual situation. “Malaysia to date is known to be a shining example of a ‘tolerant society’ where multiple ethnicities continue to peacefully prosper,” he said. He added this recent flurry of everything becoming a national issue and a question mark on a nation’s image is now a widespread global issue. “Sure social media brings with it a certain sense of empowerment for citizens, but it also opens the floodgates to interpretations, mischief and irresponsible reporting of things. A country’s national image is much deeper than what’s happening in the social media space.” WWW. MARK E TING-IN TE RAC TI VE . C OM

NEWS ANALYSIS

TONY FERNANDES’ PERSONAL TOUCH A LESSON IN CRISIS COMMS

Is Fernandes re-writing the text book for how leaders should act during a modern-day crisis? Rezwana Manjur finds out.

Like a true leader: AirAsia chief Tony Fernandes set the right example during the crisis.

The search for answers for AirAsia flight QZ8501 flying from Surabaya to Singapore which led to the loss of 162 lives, lasted a few weeks. In the midst of the tragedy, which took place last year, stood group CEO Tony Fernandes, who sent out a letter to AirAsia customers to thank them for their support. In the letter, Fernandes stated the past few weeks have been the “most difficult weeks” of his life since starting AirAsia 13 years ago. He also said he “wanted to reach out and thank [customers] for the warmth and support given”. “Your messages of love and encouragement strengthen our resolve to be better. We will continue to provide updates as the investigation goes on. Rest assured, we are committed to reviewing and improving our products and services,” he stated in the letter. In the days following the tragic incident, Fernandes took to his Twitter account to provide updates on the flight search plans which led to many PR professionals lauding his commitment WWW.M A R K ET I N G - I N T ER A C T I V E.C O M

to being transparent to the public. “In terms of AirAsia and Tony Fernandes himself, I think they have done an excellent job. Their response has been swift and comprehensive. Fernandes’ personal touch is befitting of the AirAsia brand and of his highprofile as CEO,” Scott Pettet, vice-president of APAC at LEWIS PR, said. He added both Fernandes and the AirAsia brand have used social media very effectively to communicate at every juncture and have stuck to the facts and have not been drawn into conjecture despite some of the early misreporting on the tragedy. At the outset, Fernandes said, “I am the leader of this company. I take responsibility’ – all he has done since then is live up to this statement.” “I think like most people, I marvel at his energy and emotional authenticity – it’s impossible to keep those up if you’re not being sincere,” said John Kerr, the managing director

of Asia at Zeno Group. He added yesterday’s personalised message was a continuation of a “nonstop stream of authentic communications” since the tragedy unfolded. Kerr also added that right now, Fernandes was the AirAsia brand and the company’s ability to quickly rebuild trust after this crisis would be led and defined by his leadership. While most brands and CEOs could surely pick up a tip or two from Fernandes’ savvy social media ways, Kerr was quick to add that no CEO was actually going to suddenly turn on a social channel during a crisis and suddenly be successful in communicating in the same way. “Fernandes is rewriting the text book for how leaders should act during a modern-day crisis and has been a social media leader for years. Successful CEOs will be proactive in building personal credibility and strong peer relationships online – and hope they never have to manage a crisis such as this.” JA N UA RY / F E B R UA RY 201 5 | a dvert i s i ng + m a r ke t i ng 1 3

NEWS ANALYSIS

THERE IS NO ASIA

If the challenge is developing marketing talent for Asia: Forget Asia, it doesn’t exist. STAND’s Jonathan Sanchez writes.

The constant babble of conversations floating down the brook of leadership development is endlessly focused on developing Asian talent. I had the privilege to work in global communications roles in three continents, and for the best part of 15 years, this has been the perennial question: “How do we develop Asian talent?” What if we applied that sentence to “European talent” or “American talent”? It just would not stand up. The Asia construct we 14 a d verti s i ng + marketi ng | JA N UA RY / F E B R UA RY 2015

work within today as marketing companies is a bloc created in the early days of advertising with formidable companies such as JWT creating “outposts” in far-flung markets to help brands develop and market their products. These regions, much like the artificial construct of “Africa”, now stand to cause more harm to marketing companies, their clients, their products and the communities they serve. As they taught me, wisely, at Unilever, there is no global consumer. People live in villages,

towns, cities and countries. The definition of Asia (which in itself is contrived: Asia Pac, SEA, Asia ex-Australia, Asia, including South Asia, etc) by itself is nonsensical. It is time for marketing businesses to think local and act global. Moreover, this applies to business en generale. A prime example of this is the personal care market. To put it bluntly, global advertising campaigns, perhaps with the exception of Dove (which let’s face it, is a bit long in the tooth) WWW. MARK E TING-IN TE RAC TI VE . C OM

NEWS ANALYSIS

simply fail to connect in differing cultural markets in Asia. A hair care commercial beautifully shot in the Philippines will not work in Thailand. Thai women do not want to look like Filipino women. Multinational companies are desperately averse to localising content. Why? The answer is simple: cost and brand control. However, by retaining this myopic view on what their brand should signify, they miss the single biggest benefit their consumers could give them: “I know this is for me.” We live in a me world. Me is where I live: my family, my needs, my aspirations. If we continue to homogenise how we speak to the “Asian consumer”, we risk losing all. And it’s well known that a number of global FMCG companies are currently struggling against domestic powerhouses, losing margin and market share. How did we get here? 1. The post-colonial hangover The Asia construct is a post-colonial hangover. However, a brief context is crucial here. Asia was created by largely western interests as a command and control mechanism to allow trade to move in, work in natural resource extraction and in return (in some instances – albeit limited) introduce social welfare and some form of representative government and legislation. Historically, it was one bloc of markets with ownership of resources, labour and a history of effective trade. Asia is a Euro-centric construct of an “owned” region. Some might say opened up, some might say pillaged by old friends, ergo the East Asia Company, the Dutch East India Company and others. 2. Consolidated financials reporting It is over-simplistic and somewhat lazy for companies to continue to report their financial results as “Asia”. It is convenient; it represents billions of the “bottom of the pyramid” communities who are slowly evolving into a rising middle class (the greatest growth opportunity). However, we have to be cautious about what “middle class” means from a global development perspective (Euro-centric definitions are often redundant here). This does not mean owning a Toyota, a small business or a big house. In this context, middle-class is mostly defined as a “living wage”. As such, to report returns on Asia in its entirety is fundamentally at best simplistic and at worst patronising. Is Japan the same as Myanmar? Of course not, but they are all seemingly in what we call Asia. WWW.M A R K ET I N G - I N T ER A C T I V E.C O M

“There are many markets in Asia and each one will stand for something different, sometimes oppositional. Until corporates break the mould, invest in local talent, respect and respond to local needs, their very existence remains unsustainable.” Jonathan Sanchez – managing director and co-founder of STAND Limited

3. Neglecting cultural capital Driving talent into these markets takes deep insight, deep connection and deep understanding of what makes each market tick. Here is an example from training I undertook on subconscious bias. The word ambition in Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines carries a negative meaning. This destroys the community and team ethic in these markets, where individual ambition is second to group success. If your first hiring question is, “what’s your ambition?”, you will probably lose the candidate. 4. Trust deficit in local leadership Finding the right local talent to run individual markets is substantially more important than MNCs looking to import regional leaders. Companies need to evolve to create collaborative, equitable and representative leadership teams across Asia, where all voices and cultures are observed and respected. 5. Denying cultural diversity Simply dropping global marketing campaigns into “Asia”, dubbing and continuing to make foolish patronising changes, will offend communities and drive away loyalty. For example, Unilever Indonesia is identified as Indonesian by most of the population. The company has spent more than 80 years pushing back against the global mother ship to build local brands with local experience and local talent, while never deviating from Unilever’s global vision, values and purpose. What this boils down to is two words, and a shameless plug (would you expect anything less?). The following two words are exactly what STAND represents. Cultural capital The fusion of a global organisation that invests heavily in local talent, empowered to defend local needs, insights and influences, alongside global capabilities, is the only way to build credible human capital development throughout “Asia”. STAND believes the five rules for hiring marketers in “Asia” should be:

Do they fundamentally understand the company’s global vision, goal and growth agenda regardless of where they are based in Asia? Do they have deep local knowledge and the courage to push back when they believe campaigns, activations and advertising will fail to connect with local cultural morès? Have they lived, breathed and experienced the market or have they spent too many years living, studying or working overseas to return as a virtual foreigner in their home country? Do they have a point of view and believe their work can influence positive change for their country? Finally, are we genuinely attracting new blood? We have markets in Asia with substantial and growing competing domestic brands: this is the new competitive set. Are we pulling from the right talent pools or continuing the historic churn of employees, simply rotating from one MNC to another? In conclusion there is no Asia There are many markets in Asia and each one will stand for something different, sometimes oppositional. Until corporates break the mould, invest in local talent, respect and respond to local needs, their very existence remains unsustainable. Markets deserve better, communities and cultures deserve better and tomorrow’s local talent deserves, at the very least, equal recognition and reward afforded to incoming outsiders on expensive and isolationist expatriate deals. It is time to dispose of this “Asia” construct, think country and communities, moreover respond to each market’s diverse needs and work towards establishing long-term sustainable growth programmes that stand for what matters: not where brands are born, but where people live. Jonathan Sanchez is the managing director and co-founder of STAND Limited, a consultancy business for leaders in business, politics and sustainability, based in Bangkok and Singapore. JA N UA RY / F E B R UA RY 201 5 | a dvert i s i ng + m a r ke t i ng 1 5

NEWS ANALYSIS

LESSONS FROM NISSAN’S REDDIT PR DISASTER

Nissan put its CEO on Reddit for an open Q&A session, resulting in a PR disaster. Experts give tips on maneuvering Reddit. Elizabeth Low writes.

Unique challenges: Is your spokesperson prepared to talk on different social media platforms?

Last week, the PR team for Renault-Nissan decided to make a bold (or otherwise foolish) move to place the company’s CEO Carlos Ghosn on Reddit for one of the site’s, Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions, from the Detroit Auto show. It blew up to epic proportions as the team struggled to keep up with questions, with many going unanswered. Worse, the company had to fend off accusations of astroturfing, 16 a d verti s i ng + marketi ng | JA N UA RY / F E B R UA RY 2015

as Redditors and the media cried foul over suspicions its PR team was seeding questions on the site. This happened when users started probing about the authenticity of questions being asked from new users who seemed to have no history on the site. Was Nissan guilty of astroturfing? For example, here are some questions picked

up by Mashable from users with no prior account history on Reddit – igniting suspicion on the site: “What was your first car?”, by Smodizzle007 (no account history except for that question). “Hello Mr Ghosn, first off thanks for doing an AMA! Second, I am new to car sales and have recently been hired at a Nissan dealership, do you have any advice for a new Nissan salesman?” (question was from an account that WWW. MARK E TING-IN TE RAC TI VE . C OM

NEWS ANALYSIS

has since been deleted). “How do you intend to solve the issue of inclement weather with fully autonomous vehicles? Will they be able to deal with snow and ice?” The question came from Sluggyjohnson (no account history except for that question). “Hi Carlos, I’m a diehard Datsun/Nissan fan that is very glad to see how well the company has done with you at the helm and hoping to see many more years of continued success. My question is how you see hydrogen fuel cells playing a part in electric vehicles and if Nissan/ Renault are investing, or planning to invest in this technology, directly or through partnerships? Thank you and regards, Doug.” The question came from BigDoug75, (no account history except for that question). “Extremely obvious, considering how all the questions that are positive and name very specific products are the only ones that get answers. Answers that all plug their products. Again, why do the mods allow things like this through, but “internet celebrities” (whom many would honestly love to know about) are banned? This AMA is the most blatant PR stunt I’ve seen. Seriously, read these freaking questions and answers and tell me they don’t seem utterly staged,” complained Reddit user chrisman01. While a spokesperson for Reddit told the media the number of questions from new users was not uncommon, the affair still earned Nissan more negative than positive press. The issue of inauthenticity While the benefit of doubt needs to be given to Nissan and its team, experts critiqued the execution of it. “As a general PR strategy, the seeding of questions is not unusual or uncommon. However, in today’s social media age where perception is stronger than the truth, such a tactic is no longer as effective,” said digital agency QED’s Freda Kwok. “Interaction on open platforms should be kept as genuine and sincere as possible – if there are no questions coming in, then the brand should take it as a feedback and look into the issues which may have led to the lack of interest in the first place.” Don Anderson, managing director of We Are Social Singapore, said while Nissan deserved the benefit of the doubt, it was clear the team was ill-prepared for the medium. “On review of the comments made by the CEO in the AMA, it’s clear he and his team of advisors had very little grasp of how the Reddit community functions and the expectation of its members from anyone who steps up in front of WWW.M A R K ET I N G - I N T ER A C T I V E.C O M

“It’s clear he and his team of advisors had very little grasp of how the Reddit community functions and the expectation of its members from anyone who steps up in front of them. This is a community built on authenticity, not PR sound bites or setups.” Don Anderson - managing director of We Are Social Singapore

them. This is a community built on authenticity, not PR sound bites or setups.” “Any business leader who willingly opens up the floor to Redditors needs to ensure they are seen as a human being – and this comes through adjusting their tone and voice to suit, not to mention the willingness to veer from a preset agenda – in order to earn the community’s respect and manage the conversation.” However, Bob Pickard, chairman of Asia Pacific for The Huntsworth Group, said credit should be given to Nissan for attempting to engage in a new way. “With innovations such as their content studio, Nissan in recent years have pushed the PR envelope and been ahead of the curve on corporate communications,” he said. “However, this is an opportunity for corporate learning and how to do things better next time – especially when dealing with a powerful PR asset like Carlos Ghosn, such a highly respected CEO. “A lot of people think about digital as an extension of brand marketing, but where social media meets corporate communications – such as this case – is where the most advanced degree of senior experience and skill needs to be well applied.” Handling Reddit with class Ironically, the year before, Nissan scored a marketing jackpot on the site, launching a campaign on it with Amazon. It hosted a thread asking users “If you could have one thing from Amazon, what would it be?” and rewarded users with the most creative responses. The promotion ended with a massive Amazon box showing up in a Wisconsin town, showing Amazon had actually delivered a Nissan. Nissan, along with a camera crew, had driven the box around the area, and a picture of the delivery was posted on the site and went on to be one of the top posts. Leaders who have also gone on Reddit fairly successfully were Barack Obama in 2012 and Bill Gates in 2014. Obama went on Reddit for 30 minutes, managing deftly answers to both political concerns as well as cheekier ones such as, “What’s the recipe for the White House’s beer?” See his AMA here.

Gates went on Reddit to promote work for his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, but also added insightful personal touches such as his relationship with Steve Jobs, and his decision to leave his children US$10 million in their trust funds. See his AMA here. We Are Social’s Anderson gives a few pointers for brands on the platform: Identify your objectives for using the platform: Is it to promote a new product, service, methodology or a personality from the company itself? What are your expected outcomes from engaging the Reddit community? Are you simply looking to drive awareness or change perceptions about the organisation or the individual leading the conversation from the brand side? How can the community really add value? And better yet, how are you adding value to the community? Prepare a set list of responses, but know that you may have to deviate from those canned responses. Responses should always be personalised. Use your prepared responses carefully. Don’t cut and paste. Identify and agree up front on the type of tone and voice you intend to use in front of the Reddit community. Make it an honest, approachable, relaxed voice and avoid at all costs sounding like someone who is sitting in a boardroom delivering PR sound bites or a prepared script. Expect the unexpected. Map out different scenarios of where the conversation could go off course and result in controversial questions from the community, and how you would expect to respond in this situation. Provide solid proof the individual is indeed “human” and has an established personality or presence in social. Share a Twitter handle. Cite prior online conversations the brand’s representative has engaged across, but share with a sincere voice. Select a mix of questions to respond to, including ones that may not be on target to your brand promotion objectives. Consider recruiting an independent moderator for a live AMA, who can help manage the conversation and the stream of questions, and to establish up front what is acceptable behaviour within the session from participants. JA N UA RY / F E B R UA RY 201 5 | a dvert i s i ng + m a r ke t i ng 1 7

NEWS ANALYSIS

6 WAYS TO MODERNISE YOUR MARKETING DEPARTMENT

How to break down silos in your marketing organisation? Ambrish Bandalkul finds out. While marketing channels may have proliferated, consumers still demand consistency in interactions. This requires a coordinated marketing effort across all channels such that marketers can respond quickly to take advantage of new opportunities and coursecorrect when things go wrong. A recent Forrester Research report details what marketers need to do to accomplish this. 1. Install a marketing operating system A marketing operating system “ties marketing systems, processes and outcomes explicitly to the unique expectations of the customer”, according to Forrester. Under a marketing operating system, each marketing team has a clearly defined purpose within the organisation’s overarching goal of marketing to consumers effectively. Each team is supported by robust technological know-how that consolidates planning, budgeting, KPI-setting and ROI measurement under one umbrella. The purpose of this is to align incentives for effective cross-channel marketing. 2. Streamline communications using technology Marketers should use social collaboration tools available in the cloud software of vendors such as Oracle, Adobe or salesforce.com to streamline internal communications. This will allow internal stakeholders to spend more time executing their role as opposed to figuring out who they need to work with to execute correctly. 3. Instil a preference for fast experiments over full-scale marketing plans Marketers shouldn’t spend all their time creating elaborate, fully baked marketing plans. Instead, campaigns should be deployed with the expectation they can be course-corrected. At Dow Chemical, campaigns are deployed on a smaller scale to gauge their success, corrected where needed, and then scaled across the organisation. 18 a d verti s i ng + marketi ng | JA N UA RY / F E B R UA RY 2015

Time to collaborate: Organisations need to tear down silos in order to be truly customer-centric.

4. Force your teams out of their comfort zones Marketers need to grow their skill sets to remain relevant in an environment which demands cross-channel integration. At NYSElisted American industrial materials company Kennametal, CMO John Jacko incorporates job rotation to force his team to pick up new skills. 5. Foster collaboration over individual channel performance In an environment of cross-channel integration, organisations, in which certain channels are incentivised to perform at the expense of others, will fail. Cross-channel customer experiences need to be at the heart of the marketing organisation. At Amazon.com subsidiary Zappos.com, fixed titles and organisational reporting structures were eliminated at the end of 2014. Instead, employees will focus

on the work that needs to be done to execute customer experience management effectively, and resources will be assigned according to the demands of different assignments. 6. Implement customer-based marketing teams Marketing needs to be aligned with customer life cycle stages to adequately address customer needs at each stage. Organisational structures need to reflect this. At NASDAQ-listed retailer HSN, chief marketing and business development officer Bill Brand, reorganised his marketing department into teams focused on customer acquisition, assimilation, best customers, winbacks and lapsed customers. As of December 2014, HSN is experiencing its highest number of new shoppers in the past 12 months, highest levels of total spend per customer, and the highest levels of customer engagement in its history. WWW. MARK E TING-IN TE RAC TI VE . C OM

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PROFILE

The outspoken comms lead of national oil and gas company Petronas, Liz Kamaruddin, tells Elizabeth Low about her career and being the spokesperson for one of the biggest and most high-profile companies in Malaysia.

2 0 a d verti s i ng + marketi ng | JA N UA RY / F E B R UA RY 2015

PROFILE

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PROFILE

Petronas occupies a unique position in the oil and gas industry. Owned by the Malaysian government, it is tasked with the country’s oil and gas resources, and is the national oil and gas company (NOC), apart from also being an international oil and gas company (IOC). The company was recently positioned as the world’s sixth most profitable Fortune 500 company in the oil and gas space. This renders the communications role for Petronas a high-stakes one, and a relatively complicated one at that. Stakeholder relations is core to its communications over any other forms. There are two hats its comms department must wear: one as an NOC and the other as an IOC, managing stakeholders for both. “We are a national oil and gas company, but we need to act like an international one. We are expected to look at the socio-economic profits of the company. We need to pay dividends,” said senior general manager of group strategic communications for Petronas, Liz Kamaruddin. Her role stretches over much of Petronas’ corporate image. At the group level, she oversees 412 communications staff. This also comes on top of her overseeing Petronas’ corporate social responsibilities (CSR) portfolio, which includes the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra art gallery and airport, as well as all of Petronas’ marketing and advertising.

“I DON’T SEE MYSELF AS INDUSTRY SPECIFIC, BUT BEING A CONSULTANT, WORKING IN VARIOUS INDUSTRIES. IF YOU’RE A COMMS PERSON, BUT YOU CAN’T SPEAK MULTIPLE LANGUAGES, THEN YOU’RE NO GOOD.” Altogether, she has five departments under her: brand comms, internal comms, external comms, government affairs and CSR. Petronas is also heavily involved in major sponsorships, which it uses to build its brand, which comes under her remit. One such project is its F1 sponsorship, in which the Mercedes AMG Petronas team uses its fuel for its car, “which puts our product to the test and works well for us”. How did she get to where she is in her career? “I wasn’t a PR person to start with,” she said. Starting her career at university, she later decided to move to public relations, “thinking that was where the money was”, she laughed. Kicking off her career at 20, she worked across many industries, making a point not to be in the same industry twice. 2 2 a d verti s i ng + marketi ng | JA N UA RY / F E B R UA RY 2015

“I was in IT, then I moved to the Hilton, then I was VP of marketing comms in Celcom. After the telco, it was aviation, then banking,” she said, before moving to her current role. “This was a decision I made early in my career, to change industries – I don’t see myself as industry specific, but being a consultant, working in various industries. If you’re a comms person, but you can’t speak multiple languages, then you’re no good,” she said, referring to the languages of different industries. She takes her cross-industry experience to be one of her strongest points, and recommends communications professionals do the same. The trouble with most industries and eventually, their communications professionals, is they tend to be wary of hiring people outside the same industry. “The oil and gas guys only look within the industry and this is the same for banking. But this shouldn’t be the case. As a comms person you should be a consultant. How long do you take to learn something anyway – three months, six months? If you are at a certain level you should hit the ground running. That’s the difference between me and other PR practitioners – they tend to stay in the same industry for a long time and I do not believe in that.” Another simple thing she believes PR professionals should be is extremely vocal. “You should be – the company’s leaders are looking to you for counsel,” she says, emphasising this is a quality she looks for in her staff as well. The role communications holds when it comes to Petronas is challenging, she explains, talking about the complex position Petronas holds as the national oil and gas company, being seen as having to contribute back to the community, and also having to function as an international oil and gas player. It is clear that managing internal stakeholders is what takes up most of her attention, and is her team’s biggest concern. “If anything goes wrong with the country it’s our fault, if anything goes right it’s not us. That’s the Petronas dilemma,” she said. For example, petrol in Malaysia has been heavily subsidised by the government. When it decided to lift those subsidies substantially last year, the public was riled, with much of the blame falling on Petronas. There was a rally against Petronas, with consumers looking to boycott the company – “even though the prices affected others like Shell as well”. This took much stakeholder engagement on her and her team’s part, also involving the government. “We were part of the key communications plans,” she said. Another incident happened where the company had an explosion in the long pipeline across Sabah and Sarawak that cut across the dense forest. This went viral through social media, and Petronas faced a crisis saying it was not aware of the situation. The team released a statement and got its guys on the ground level to do safety briefings and get down to the area to deal with the situation. “We decided to build disaster-relief centres which were not available in remote areas, places where people don’t know where to go for help. We got the guys down to train the people. The public just wants to know that you acknowledge that you have a problem – and you must always be available,” she said. The company is also investing in creating a training school for its comms team, which includes leadership training. It launched the initiative in August last year called The Comms Academy, by its comms division, aimed at building up public relations practitioners to be stronger leaders in the field. The programme focuses on the areas of communication, leadership, industry knowledge and reputation management. Her advice to PR professionals? “Always maintain a high level of integrity in whatever you do; always keep the interests of the organisation at heart; continue to be current and relevant in the market that you’re in; do good whenever you can and keep on learning.” WWW. MARK E TING-IN TE RAC TI VE . C OM

8-9 April 2015 InterContinental Singapore

Asia’s 360o Forum for Content Marketing How solid is your brand’s content strategy? Curious how some of the top brands are innovating marketing practices in order to leverage content and improve the customer experience? Content 360 is your one stop immersive look into the world of best practices for content marketing from across the region. Stay connected, learn from experts, share your ideas and join in the content revolution!

Featured speakers include:

Daniel Yam Storyteller and film director

Vaasu Gavarasana Head - digital marketing AXA Life Insurance

Priyanka Nath Digital and social media lead, South Asia Dell

Geoffrey Pickens Segment director - men’s & shave prep, Asia Pacific Energizer Personal Care

Rupali Shah Digital marketing lead Fuji Xerox

Jamshed Wadia Head of social & digital media Intel Asia Pacific and Japan

Nadeem Amin Regional digital marketing manager - ANZ, Asia Pacific, South Africa Kellogg Australia

Myra Gorostiaga Social media analytics lead Lenovo

Sara Varela Associate director, social media Marina Bay Sands

Pete Mitchell Global media innovations director Mondel z International

… and many others! For more information visit: www.marketing-interactive.com/content360/sg

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MARKETING FEATURE: ANALYTICS

Analytics for OCBC originated as a small function on the consumer banking side, but over time was elevated to become a group function. All the direct marketing duties for the consumer bank came to the analytics team. Last year, it ran 1,600 campaigns which led to 19 million leads, generating more than $85 million in shadow revenue for the bank. Almost 30% of credit cards and 35% of wealth management comes from leads generated by the team – so it’s a significant generator of revenue for the frontline. What was the journey like? I sit down for a chat with Donald MacDonald (pictured), head of group customer analytics and decisioning for CRM at OCBC Bank. MacDonald leads a team of nearly 40 called G-CAD (group customer analytics and decisioning) which he says acts like a centre of marketing analytics excellence in the OCBC Group. The team is broken into four divisions – relationship management, analytics (or the data geeks), campaign management and CRM – and supports the business’ banking side, Great Eastern, OCBC securities, and even human resources. In my many conversations with marketers, a common challenge faced with analytics is that

The first steps: How it all started OCBC had a basic analytics function even in the late 1990s. It had a warehouse, some campaign management tools and was doing data marketing, albeit pretty rudimentary. Like a lot of banks, it invested very heavily in CRM back around 2001. Back then, MacDonald was a consultant, and consultants, typically, would go around to banks promising huge returns from CRM and so on. “So OCBC implemented CRM, expecting these returns and they found the consultants hadn’t maybe told the truth. The returns they got weren’t what they expected. In 2001, they did an analysis to find out why the CRM investment did not really pay off,” he says. MacDonald uses an analogy to explain. Back in the day, the bank built a great pipe to the customer; Siebel was a great platform and it had a well-trained salesforce, but “the oil that was going down the pipe was no good, i.e, the analytics at the back was not sophisticated enough”. “So the quality of the leads was very poor to be honest.” OCBC managed to build a business case to show the analytics could return some business

but not enough people to make use of it,” he says. OCBC then focused on maximising and strengthening the team and working with the business to make sure it made use of the improved data and analytics capabilities. That’s when it introduced the RM model as well. From 2006-2008, it was all about maximising this in Singapore and given its success, it was asked to regionalise the effort. In 2008, OCBC effectively extended the capability to Malaysia and China, which are the bank’s other major operations. It was the same year, Macdonald set up its offshore team in China, in keeping with its regional plans. Since then it has also taken on the function for the entire OCBC Group. Shifting the focus to small data Increasingly, the role of this team is becoming real-time. If a customer opens an account with OCBC, the bank shares the entire process with the customer during which it captures the information about the customer and passes it back to the data warehouse to see if it knows anything else about that customer. Even if it doesn’t, it is still able to score the customer and present an offer, while they are

“If you’re dealing with individual analysts, they may not have the bigger picture for each of the business units. So we’re probably the first team to introduce a model like this and I think it was one of our greatest successes actually.” you have a lot of smart data guys sitting at the back, but they can’t translate the analytics into business action because they don’t speak the same language as the business. One of the ways, MacDonald worked around that was creating a relationship management (RM) team. The team boasts people who sit between the data geeks and business managers and “translates” each others’ needs and also acts as a filter. “If it’s just a pipe between the business and the analyst, there will be a deluge of requests. We only have limited capacity. So it has to be filtered. One of my biggest challenges is that I have too much work, not too little, so the RM is kind of a filter there,” he says. The RM team is the one that centralises the learning as well. “If you’re dealing with individual analysts, they may not have the bigger picture for each of the business units. So we’re probably the first team to introduce a model like this and I think it was one of our greatest successes actually,” he says.

value. In 2004, it built its core infrastructure – an enterprise warehouse, which allowed the bank to see every single customer, every single product, and every single transaction that was made. That’s when MacDonald joined the company to run that project. OCBC integrated that data with all the channels with the focus to maximise investments. The bank had invested $10 million and it had to pay the investment back. “With the returns, the incremental lift that we created, we managed to pay it back in just nine months. And it was actually a huge success which exceeded all of our expectations.” Expansion: Getting the right talent on board You can have great data, a great platform, but if you don’t have great people to take advantage of it, then you are bound to fail. What did OCBC do to hire the right people? “We spent a lot of time then, strengthening the team and expanding. The first year when I arrived, I think we only had maybe six people at that point in time. So we had this great engine,

2 6 a d verti s i ng + marketi ng | JA N UA RY / F E B R UA RY 2015

sitting there with a salesperson. In terms of the data, the analytics team works with the product and segment managers to let them understand who their customers are. If they can understand that, they can obviously develop solutions that meet the needs of those customers. So the most basic thing the G-CAD team does is customer profiles – from individual profiles to standard ones to customer DNAs where it is looking at different segments. The team over the past nine years has had access to five billion transactions and a lot of those are credit card transactions. “We use big data to make the small things relevant. Small things meaning even the SMS you get on your phone.” It has identified about a 100 different segments/usage of its credit card customer base. “We then use this to influence the SMSs they get from the card to make sure they’re relevant to the things you’ve actually bought. We also use this for strategic purposes such as the launch of Frank, OCBC’s youth banking arm.” There is a lot of talk about big data, but WWW. MARK E TING-IN TE RAC TI VE . C OM

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MARKETING FEATURE: ANALYTICS

CHALLENGES OF GETTING ANALYTICS RIGHT FOR YOUR ORGANISATION Donald MacDonald, head of group customer analytics and decisioning for CRM at OCBC Bank, has been with OCBC for 11 years, and overall, he has about two decades of experience in this space. In the second part of the interview, we talk about some of the challenges around data and analytics in the industry in general. A lot of brands and marketers face a huge challenge in data integration, he says. They have a lot of data, but it sits in different sources so bringing it together in one place to access and analyse it is typically very costly and very time consuming. “This puts a lot of companies off,” he says. There are several banks in the region which still have not managed to centralise their data and create a single customised view of their customer base. This, according to MacDonald, is fundamental. What makes this difficult is having to integrate multiple systems which is usually very costly. The second challenge is finding the right talent – someone who can be a visionary in the company, who can explain to the seniors why investing in analytics is a must because it’s a major step. “It’s going to cost a brand a lot of time and effort – and they need to have someone who is passionate about it and explain that. That’s a challenge.” Brands can invest in the data and get it, but ultimately it comes down to the people using the data. Even with the best data in the world, if you don’t have the people with passion and curiosity and

OCBC gets a lot of power out of small data – and a great example is complaints. “We probably only get about a 1000 complaints a month which I don’t feel is a lot. But from that very small data set, I can get a lot of good insight.” Once the team has analysed the nature of the complaint, the profile of the customer who complained, the reasons behind it, the bank can understand what to do next. It also uses it to predict who is likely to complain in the future and what nature of complaints can be expected. Once it has found that insight, it needs to be shared. “It’s not about having an analytics team sitting in the ivory tower, but one that is embedded in the business and actually changing things on a daily basis – and that only happens if you share the daily insights and information.” The analytics team does that at different levels of the business. It comes up with net promoter scores for senior management looking at strategic segments, while also coming up with that score for the frontline staff, but sliced differently. “If you’re the one picking up the phone,

skills to get value out of that data, then it’s going to sit there wasted. And those skill sets are in short supply in the market which is already very competitive. Finding them and retaining them is a challenge for many companies. “That’s why you’ll find there are only three or four companies in Singapore the data guys tend to go to. If you’re coming into the market just now, the infrastructure may not be there, the analytics may not be there – as an analyst, you may be sceptical. I think you’re finding clusters now that are really investing in these areas and all of the talent is going to those companies.” If finding the right talent is so tough is outsourcing a good idea then? While some banks may, according to MacDonald, for OCBC, it’s a core competency in which the bank wants to invest in. “We have never outsourced any of our analytics work. We don’t want to put those skills out to a third party because that third party can then go out and work with somebody else and take the knowledge away. So we build it all in-house.” However, for other industries outsourcing may make sense. It could be a better alternative for those who are first starting out, as it might be cheaper to outsource than invest in-house. Privacy is another challenge brands face when dealing with data and analytics. Companies need to keep that data in a secure environment that has appropriate controls. “You have to have a rigorous robust process around that and it requires effort and cost to get it done properly,” he says.

you may wonder how you are in comparison to your team – how is your satisfaction versus the other people on the team. We’d also look at tenure – we do this for the training team – so we look at net promoter scores for new staff versus experienced staff,” he says. Increasingly, the learnings are also being shared externally. “We use our analytics capabilities with our partners to try and deepen the relationship.” A great example is Robinsons Group – one of the bank’s biggest credit card partners. OCBC’s analytics team has helped Robinsons understand who its customers are and build a capability like theirs on an outsource basis. It also did similar work for Marks & Spencer. The partner gets increased access to insights and OCBC gets more access to data. The way forward One of the challenges for the analytics team is to manage enormous amounts of data and insights which goes through it. What it’s trying to do, therefore, is to deploy the power of insights into the hands of the business users so they don’t always have to come to the team.

2 8 a d verti s i ng + marketi ng | JA N UA RY / F E B R UA RY 2015

The offering called QlikView allows the end product manager to do the analysis themselves. “It is a very nicely built front-end – you go in there using pre-built reports and dice and slice the data up to the individual transactions.” Unlike many other dashboards that are aggregated with a lot of predefined dimensions, this tool is a memory intelligence tool which is a lot more powerful, he explains. “The user can literally go down to the individual transaction level. So if you’re the credit card product manager, you can see how the trend is going in food and beverage, or at outlets, say Thai Express, and so on.” “It’s a lot more about empowering the user.” And the next frontier is HR. Things such as recruitment and being able to predict which candidates are likely to stay for a long period of time. “We’re basing that on people we’ve hired in the past. We spent millions of dollars on training, which training courses work, will you benefit, will your performance lift, who is the best trainer to take that cost, etc. These are the types of decisions that we can use data for to help us understand things.” WWW. MARK E TING-IN TE RAC TI VE . C OM

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The B2B buyer, just like any other consumer, has undergone a major transformation. What then are the implications for the B2B marketer? Marketing organised its first B2B marketing conference to uncover how brands in this space are evolving. Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a recap of what was discussed at the event. 30 M A R K ET I N G JA N U A R Y - FEBR UARY 201 5

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HOW TO TURN MARKETING INTO A PROFIT CENTRE While every marketer understands the importance of knowing the customer, the process and nuances are different for B2B marketers than B2C – at least to some extent. But if your company is one that is set in its ways, as B2B marketers, how do you orchestrate the change throughout the organisation? According to Lynn Huang, head of marketing and strategy for Asia Pacific at Honeywell, it’s a change marketing is responsible for. She was speaking at the B2B Marketing conference held at the Four Seasons organised by Marketing magazine. “You have to be able to articulate that dollar value to be able to convince the buyer to buy,” she said. In the B2C world, if the product is “cool”, people may buy it, but in the B2B world, people won’t buy your products unless they have seen the numbers, and have made the calculation to assess whether it can help them make money (or not). For marketers, the first point of contact should be the stakeholders at every step. What also matters is the process, Huang says, adding that waiting for a top-down approach is not the best way. “This thought-leadership needs to be driven by marketing, together with its stakeholders,” she said. “As B2B marketers, you need to talk to the IT managers, finance managers, the decision makers consisting of different groups and stakeholders and make sure all of them can see the product can help them make money.” What then defines marketing? The sales team is defined by sales revenue, finance by numbers, and HR by hiring the right people for the right positions. What about marketers? According to Huang, they are defined by how much they know their customers and what insights they can share with other departments for the entire organisation to be customer-centric. This, therefore, requires a shift in focus – from downstream objectives activities such as interaction, and access to upstream ones such as understanding the customer needs and value of the proposition. “Physical retail space; access online and offline – are downstream values. As a B2B marketer, we spend a lot of effort on the downstream. But do not forget the upstream aspects of creating needs and values for the customer. If you want to drive the profitability to WWW.M A R K ET I N G - I N T ER A C T I V E.C O M

your company and maximise the value of your customers, you have to focus on the bottom line. How do you do that? Get closer to your customers.” While it may be a lot more cost-effective for B2B marketers to focus on downstream, if they do not shift their focus to upstream, it’s going to be hard for the company to become a truly customer-driven company. It’s all about customer needs In the old world, the segmentation was based on the industries, but that has lost much of its relevance today. The effective way to segment now is to analyse the needs of the B2B buyer. Within retail, for example, B2B marketers should not group all the supermarkets together. “Do not just pull out the industry index and perform the segmentation.

“B2B marketing is focused on driving the profitability of the business and identifying the customer needs and ensuring that you have a competitive edge. How good you are is decided by how bad your competitors are.” And that can be achieved through simple steps such as meeting clients over lunch to get a fuller understanding of their business and how it operates. “For the role of B2B marketers – I encourage myself and my team to see customers from the business perspective, understand what defines the business, where the focus is, and the value you and your organisation could provide your customers. “There should be a lot of interaction between marketing and sales, and marketing and innovation. Marketing is not a function – it is a way of doing business.” JA N UA RY / F E B R UA RY 201 5 | a dvert i s i ng + m a r ke t i ng 3 1

3 WAYS TO EASE MARKETING’S TENSION WITH SALES

The selling cycle has changed drastically over the past 20 years. Customers now have already done about 60% of research beforehand and a sales person has only a small window to make a difference. Hence, many organisations allow marketing to take the lead on a sales function. But have the marketing departments of today learnt to speak the same language their sales counterparts are speaking? KP Unnikrishnan (pictured) marketing director for Asia Pacific and Japan at Palo Alto Networks, shared his views at the B2B Marketing 2014 conference. “I used to have a CMO who used to say that marketing drives sales. It is a powerful statement – it is not about driving numbers, but also about driving the sales organisation,” he said. He added that today, it was about identifying what you as a marketer were able to provide for the sales organisation while building up a true partnership. “Unless a marketer is able to build a partnership with his sales team, the relationship will never take off. As we grow as a company, as an industry, as a fraternity, what are we doing to build a true partnership with the sales organisation?” He added that in a sales role, it was always about deadlines and hitting numbers. The best way to harness a relationship with the sales teams is to empathise with it and understand where its demands to the marketing function are coming from. If a marketer is unable to do so, 100% of the battle is lost. One fundamental rule marketing has to 32 M A R K ET I N G JA N U A R Y - FEBRUA R Y 201 5

remember is to connect with the business as a whole. “If you have no idea what the other departments are doing, or about the overall business, or the cross-margin kind of revenues the company is bringing in, you have lost the battle,” he said. A good salesman, he added, does not just always talk, but rather listens. Hence, as a marketer, you will also need to listen and understand what sales needs before you strategise your targets. Creating a market for the future “Marketing is not just about building a brand or business. It is about building and creating a market for the future.” If you as a marketer are able to think along these lines, build a campaign and an activity based on this, it would help the growth of the company and your sales teams. So what exactly is needed to create a future-ready marker? Short-term versus long-term planning It is about thinking short-term and long-term, said Unnikrishnan. It is about working with the sales teams to figure out what is needed over the next two quarters as well as over the next two to three years. The more you can connect with them for both quarterly and long-term planning, the more it will benefit you. He added for marketers, it is difficult to help sales counterparts unless the request is put in way in advance. This is because marketers are geared towards impacting and contributing to the following quarter, rather than the present

one. Therein is a fundamental communication breakdown. Hence, marketers need to define the market and timeline for the sales teams. “At the end of the day, it is the health of the sales organisation and the overall company that matters. While creating leads are very important, it is not just about taking some data and throwing it over to the sales teams.” Marketers need to show their sales teams that they are investing in and qualifying these leads. “It is vital to show that you are putting a subset of your marketing dollars to make sure you are getting the right qualified leads into the system.”He also added the definition of a lead had to be different from an organisational standpoint to a team standpoint, down to a sales standpoint. The definition is the way to go back and assess whether you were successful or not. Work as a team What also brings the sales and marketing teams together is the payouts. He added that if one person on the team was unsuccessful, the entire team should also be deemed unsuccessful. “This however is not something that marketing can change, as it’s a HR policy. However, this integrated approach is something marketing teams can push towards in the organisation to make sure that teams are aligned.” Measurement and communication Measurement is vital. When you are able to measure your numbers, you are able to stand in front of the quarterly business review to say these are the kind of numbers that marketing impacted. This has to be done consistently. “I would recommend that you do that on a regular basis. Your list of pipeline, numbers, reviews, go out week after week to the sales organisation to see how they are creating numbers, what is happening on your pipeline, what’s happening with conversions.” This keeps the lines of communication open and helps marketers understand the psyche of the sales team. “These are the guys who are bringing money to the table, driving revenue for the organisation. Marketing can always be looked upon as a support function. It is about understanding and aligning yourselves more to make things happen realistically.” WWW. MARK E TING-IN TE RAC TI VE . C OM

HOW TO CREATE A CONTENT FACTORY AND RUN IT WELL For brands, it is vital to engage customers in conversations early in the sales cycle and what drives this is content. Every company is focusing on content which will get them the necessary results, but how can marketers build a “content factory” within the organisation? Rashish Pandey, director of marketing for APAC at Cisco Systems, shared some tips at Marketing magazine’s B2B conference. “As marketers in general, and in B2B in particular, we are an insecure lot. As long as our customers engage with us, we are happy,” he said. Our biggest fear is indifference. It is when customers choose to ignore us – that’s our worst nightmare. The indifference tells you that you’re creating content that is not resonating with your customers. Compelling content is a combination of relevance to your customers, the persona you’re talking to and the journey you’re engaging them on. A few questions marketers should have top-of-mind when coming up with content are: • Does this content help my customer do his job better? • Is this timely? Marketers get wedded to the idea of a content calendar, but does that calendar have scope for “breaking news” moments that happen every day? How quickly can they turn around and capitalise on those situations? • Is the content findable? • Is it inspiring in a way that makes the buyer stop and think? 1. Identify personas Looking at a typical B2B buying landscape, you’ve got seniors, partners, technical decision makers, etc, who play a different role in the buying process. In the past, brands used to think in terms of segments – hospitality or retail or aviation and so on. The need now is to look at the personas behind those decisions. Cisco has identified 17 of these different personas that are either championing a decision or influencing it or running a process. “We get really close to them to understand what keeps them awake. Somebody wants to become an AGM from being an IT manager, or go deep technically. Do we understand all that?” Pandey said. 2. Not all content is created equal The type of content depends heavily on what stage of the sales cycle your product is in. It should be specific to that stage. If you are talking WWW.M A R K ET I N G - I N T ER A C T I V E.C O M

about thought leadership when the customer is actually looking for comparative information of vendors, it will not resonate. What will resonate is when you know you have compelling content and you’re connecting it with the persona and their belief systems and at the right stage. Many agencies tend to separate search from content marketing. “That’s really not true,” Pandey said. Content marketing is one part of the puzzle when you look at the customer insights and whether you’re serving them with the right content. “At Cisco, we look at deep analytics of our site visitors – what they are looking for, which pages they visit, how much time they spent on a page, what does it tell us about them and so on.” 3. What problem are you solving? A marketer should constantly ask this question.

“There are no boring brands, there is only boring content.” What’s your unique point of view on that problem, in that industry and that’s what you should be talking about. The how’s of content marketing The fundamental challenge with content marketing is the number of avenues where content needs to be deployed. From newsletters, websites, events, social media – the demand to push compelling content is high. There is also an increased need to feed this beast on a regular basis. Almost half of organisations posts something once a week. So, how do you get around to building such compelling content? “It takes an army to create the compelling content,” Pandey said, adding it’s not that the content does not exist in the organisation, it exists in silos. “As marketers, it is not our job only to create content, but to be an orchestrator of content that

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resides in the silos of the organisation.” Content in Cisco is generated by multiple departments – R&D, analytics, the social media team, events and so on. On top of those, marketers need to also look outside the organisation.At Cisco, there are tens of thousands of engineers who have spent a year getting certified. “How are we engaging them to amplify, create and share their stories with their community?” Every time a B2B company does sales enablement, it generates content. “As a marketing manager, it’s your job to find the content, surface it up and package it in a way that resonates well with your buyer personas. It is therefore imperative to talk to other teams within the organisation. “When you expand your lens, you can find that content that you need to surface, package and use it to engage customers. That shift in approach to content needs to take place.” “Can you help position the geekiest person in the company as a community hero? Those are the things you need to think about when looking for great content,” he added. How do you create snappy content? One of Cisco’s most popular reports is the annual security report which gets thousands of downloads and is a huge hit with customers. In

“Our biggest fear is indifference. It is when customers choose to ignore us – that’s our worst nightmare.” Rashish Pandey — Director of marketing for APAC at Cisco Systems

the past that one report would be shared and circulated, but now it creates multiple smaller pieces of content from it. It could be an assessment tool, videos, case studies, tips and tricks. This layered with sharing on social media got Cisco six times the increase on the consumption of that one report just by changing the form factor from a monolithic 30page report to multiple different sorts of content. “Your marginal cost of creating that content and reaching that out falls substantially down. Think smart with your existing content.” Get your agency to capture content As marketers, when trying to get a blog from a senior decision-maker within the organisation, you often face the excuse of time crunch, but the same executive could be on stage for an event. That’s your time to maximise the content opportunity. Get an agency to capture all of that and churn content out in different formats – from short articles to tweets to LinkedIn posts. In summary, how do you manage the whole content marketing process?

• Follow a roadmap – it will take a while to get this right so be prepared. Companies should start moving away from product-based campaigns to persona-based campaigns. • Be frugal – don’t spend too much money advertising that content. Find out what your “hero content” is – a white paper, a special industry report and promote that. • Leverage free promotions – a typical company home page is very product heavy. Move away from that and make it a showcase of content and embed content in your promotions. • Keep your eyes open – broaden your vision. It is not just about the particular campaign. You need to start mapping what products are coming out, when your senior execs are in town and so on and create compelling content in a timely manner. • Be agile – all your customers are going through a transformation in their industries and, as marketers, you need to understand that and be there when a “breaking news” scenario happens for them.

CONTENT MARKETING KEY IN B2B SPACE “Security products are like insurance. Users don’t buy them alone,” said Eric Chong, senior director of channel marketing for APAC at Trend Micro. The company’s products protect gateways, data centres and cloud environments, among other things. Due to the escalating cyber crime scene, security has become a big consideration for CIOs. Hence, in addition to traditional abovethe-line and event marketing investments, Trend Micro also has to lean on its channel partners to push its product in front of buyers, which will in turn, sell to end users of Trend Micro. Marketing spoke with Chong to find out how the company educates its partners to sell effectively. Marketing: How do you ensure your partners are selling your products correctly? Chong: We don’t just focus on the technical aspects of the products themselves. We also use our partner education programmes to impart soft skills to participants, thus allowing

them to fulfil their aspirations. This is something we take pride in: It’s not just about learning what Trend Micro and its products are about – our partners will also learn, for example, how to work with security consultants and understand better the client’s security landscape. In this way, we aspire to really help them to do their job better, which we hope will mean they’ll be loyal to our product even if they move jobs. Marketing: What challenges have you encountered in implementing your partner education programme? Chong: The main challenge we face is that, like most IT vendors, we have a lot of content. It’s easy for our users to drown in information. Further, it’s difficult to know how best to serve the information to users – for example, mobile phones have limited space. To counter this, our information is structured to make it digestible, ensuring readers can gain something valuable out of our content. We combine online and faceto-face interaction like classroom training to provide the best engagement.

3 4 a d verti s i ng + marketi ng | JA N UA RY / F E B R UA RY 2015

Marketing: What tips do you have for marketers who want to create effective partner education programmes? Chong: We realised that in order to create an effective education programme, you have to know your partners and what they want. That’s why we feel our programmes are successful. Our partner portal contains relevant content, not just product information. You have to make sure your education programmes aren’t just product portals. Finally, role-based content access will help provide the right information in the future to the right person.

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