Advertising + Marketing MY - Oct 2014

advertising + marketing malaysia

OCTOBER

2014

OCTOBER 2014

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ED’S LETTER

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BIG DATA, BIG CHALLENGES AND EVEN BIGGER REWARDS 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 Oliver Bayani, Editor (Philippines) oliverb@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 Che Winstrom, Sales Manager chew@marketing-interactive.com Johnathan Tiang, Senior Account Manager johnathant@marketing-interactive.com Trina Choy, Senior Account Manager trinac@marketing-interactive.com Joey Lau, Account Manager joeyl@marketing-interactive.com Joven Barcenas, Senior Project Manager jovenb@marketing-interactive.com Events Yeo Wei Qi, Head, Events Services weiqi@marketing-interactive.com Database & Circulations June Tan, Senior Database Operations Executive junet@lighthousemedia.com.sg Finance Evelyn Wong, Regional Finance Director evelynw@lighthousemedia.com.sg Management Søren Beaulieu, Publisher sorenb@marketing-interactive.com Tony Kelly, Editorial Director tk@marketing-interactive.com Justin Randles, Group Managing Director jr@marketing-interactive.com

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Data and its role in the growth of a business isn’t new, but is more pronounced now in the digital era. Many brands we talk to – local and global – tell us they are in the midst of coming up with a proper strategy to harness the data they have.

And what’s forcing them to do so is the rapid change in technology which enables brands to reach out to consumers in real-time.

While essentially a rear-view mirror of the past, data is now being used to predict the future, a radical shift in the way it is utilised – all thanks to technology.

A 2011 McKinsey study said the use of big data would become a key basis of competition and growth for individual firms. From the standpoint of competitiveness and the potential capture of value, all companies needed to take big data seriously.

“In most industries, established competitors and new entrants alike will leverage datadriven strategies to innovate, compete, and capture value from deep and up-to-real-time information,” the study said.

And now in the last quarter of 2014, we know this for a fact. I attended a recent event in which MasterCard launched its Priceless Engine platform.

Priceless Engine is essentially a huge data and analytics centre which allows the brand to provide its bank partners with the deep insights that help them deliver the right offers to their customers at the right time.

The Priceless Engine will see MasterCard leverage its depth of analytic capabilities to help its partner banks understand consumer sentiment and trends based on social conversations; track engagement and transactions on campaigns to translate these findings into meaningful feedback; create and share content across borders to increase scale; and finally analyse data in real-time.

Sam Ahmed, senior vice-president and group head of marketing for Asia Pacific at MasterCard, while launching the latest offering, put it aptly saying: “Big data is dead data if not used now.”

That’s how vital harnessing data is in the scheme of things for businesses. Some brands have gained much success with their data strategy and are constantly evolving with the times.

A section of those brands are joining us this month in a one-day conference titled Big Data Malaysia 2014. They will share with you their journey of harnessing data, the challenges it threw and the rewards they reaped as a result of a cohesive strategy.

We hope to see you there. Meanwhile, enjoy the edition.

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

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Rayana Pandey Editor

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Data is like gold: as good as currency, and constantly increasing in value. But unlike gold, if data is not leveraged and utilised properly, it is as good as dirt. At this one day event, hear case studies and insights from leading senior marketers and CIOs on integrating Big Data into your business strategy, and how to get the most out of marketing’s ‘new gold’.

www.marketing-interactive.com/big-data/my EVENT PARTNER:

ORGANISED BY:

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For any other enquiries, please contact Carlo Reston at carlor@marketing-interactive.com.

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CONTENTS FEATUR ES 14 NEWS ANALYSIS: REASONS TO FIRE YOUR DIGITAL AGENCY “Digital agencies are not well-positioned to leverage the shift towards more performance-based marketing, driven by e-commerce,” Sheji Ho of aCommerce writes.

16 PROFILE: OPENING MALAYSIA’S EYES Counterfeit lenses sold in night markets are posing problems for the eye care industry. Esther Seah, from Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, tells Rezwana Manjur how Acuvue is tackling the problem.

26 NEWS ANALYSIS: EIGHT STEPS TO OVERCOME A SOCIAL MEDIA DISASTER A social media crisis is unavoidable – but here’s a checklist to help you through when times get tough.

28 THE UGLY SIDE OF THE BEAUTY INDUSTRY It’s been 10 years since Unilever first launched its campaign for Real Beauty, but how lasting was that important message? Jennifer Chan investigates.

What does it take for a 66-year-old brand to refresh and target a newer generation?

A+M finds out.

30 MOBILE MARKETING INTERACTIVE Top brands and agencies discuss their mobile marketing strategies at this conference. Here’s the best of them.

O PINIO NS

D EP A R TMEN TS

37 LAST WORD

4 NEWS

A client’s cheat sheet for better work out of agencies.

It’s not that hard to get along, Ali Grayeli of McCann Singapore writes.

Telekom Malaysia calls a branding pitch, Viacom launches My Nick Jr in Malaysia, Nippon Paint looks for new creative agency, Munchy’s appoints agency plus more.

21 GLOBAL DISPATCHES Unilever appoints DDB its creative agency to run the full Wall’s ice-cream brand creatives globally; Tata Group appoints JWT as the creative agency for its global brand campaign, plus WPP acquires Burmese agency.

SCAN TO SUBSCRIBE!

26 14 What you’ll learn in this issue: >> Where digital agencies fall short in the digital age >> How to sensibly resolve a social media crisis >> Mobile marketing strategies of top brands

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NEWS

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

Star power to GfK Star Radio Group awarded its first radio audience measurement for 2014 to GfK. The international market research company has been assigned to carry out the radio audience measurement for the four radio brands under the Star Radio Group: Red FM, Suria FM, 988 and Capital FM. The group previously engaged Nielsen to carry out its audience measurement, which captured listening habits through the diary format. However, it said it had identified the limitations posed by this conventional method of measuring radio listenership because of the change in the media landscape and listeners’ lifestyles.

(Pictured: Star Radio Group’s chief operating officer, Kudsia Kahar) Telekom calls for pitch Telekom Malaysia (TM) has called for a branding pitch. The recently launched pitch has agencies from Singapore and Malaysia vying for the account, confirmed Izlyn Ramli, VP of group brand and communication of TM to A+M. “We want to push for a ‘Life made easier’ promise to customers,” Ramli said. The brand is also trying to move out of being perceived solely as a tech brand and into a more relatable brand which integrates with consumers’ lifestyles.

Teng quits Carlsberg Malaysia Eric Teng, brand manager of Carlsberg Green Label, has left his role. He was the brand manager for the Carlsberg brand overseeing the development and implementation of brand strategies and promotional tactics across various channels. He also led multiple consumer promotional activities for the Barclays Premier League and music platform, Where’s The Party? Carlsberg Malaysia confirmed his departure to Advertising + Marketing and said the company was looking for a replacement.

A joint TV venture Free-to-air TV channels MediaCorp Suria and TV3 paired up to release a new show. Kasih Berbisik (Whispers of the Heart) is jointly produced by MediaCorp Eaglevision and Primeworks Studios. The collaboration is aimed at producing a high-quality drama series that appeals to audiences in Singapore and Malaysia and leverages on both parties’ expertise in high-definition TV production. Set against a backdrop of Singapore, Malaysia and Bali, the 13-episode drama series debuted for the first time simultaneously on TV3 and MediaCorp Suria on 1 October.

Munchy’s appoints Advocacy Advocacy Malaysia has been appointed to work on Munchy’s Muzic and Cream Crackers brands.The brand is tasked to run shopper marketing and activation for the brand,

4 a d verti s i ng + marketi ng | O C T O B E R 2014

Tweet to donate WWF Malaysia partnered with Havas Media Group’s mobile marketing brand Mobext Singapore to develop a fundraising campaign that aims to raise money for Malaysia’s tiger conservation efforts. The campaign is targeted at digitally savvy Malaysians and was launched on 15 September. It will run for six months and be promoted via WWF Malaysia and Havas Media Group’s channels.

There will also be a PR push for the campaign. The campaign, “Help Fund the Wildlife Warriors”, uses a tweet-to-donate platform to process donations.

A better street view Google updated its Google Maps in Malaysia by publishing Street View imagery of the country for locals. Through the new Google Maps, the public is able to search for local destinations and where available, access Street View imagery from the imagery carousel that sits at the bottom of the screen. It has published imagery of about 90% of the scenery found along peninsular Malaysia’s public roads, including major highways and tolled roads, state roads, urban centres and neighbourhoods.

Nick Jr comes to Malaysia Viacom International Media Networks Asia, a division of Viacom, will be launching My Nick Jr in Malaysia in collaboration with Telekom Malaysia Berhad’s IPTV service, HyppTV.

New magazine for women Mongoose Publishing is launching Women’s Health Malaysia, a fitness and lifestyle magazine for women. The magazine will debut its first issue nationwide in March 2015. A spokesperson from Mongoose Publishing said the company was interviewing candidates for the editor role and would make an official announcement in due time. She added that no plans had been made for auditing the magazine, but said the magazine would “reveal full distribution and circulation information ahead of our March 2015 launch”.

Advocating for Watsons Watsons appointed Advocacy Malaysia to lead the advocacy and word-of-mouth components of its integrated campaign, “Say YES to Watsons Brand”. The objective of the campaign is to promote the Watsons brand and its in-house range of products to the Malaysian market. Having recognised the need to build advocacy with its consumers, Watsons Malaysia launched an offline and online engagement campaign that leads consumers on a structured journey grounded in behavioural science.

Driving digital integration JWT Malaysia appointed Nixon Lee to the newly created role of digital integration director. Lee joins the team from XM Malaysia, JWT’s digital agency Lee has 14 years of experience in strategy direction.

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Looking for an agency The Singapore Economic Development Board is looking to appoint an integrated marketing agency with a strong production and digital asset development background. The 17-month appointment, with an option to extend the partnership by a year, will be to promote the Precision Engineering industry.

The campaign launched will be primarily targeted at “N” level students, and students from the Institute of Technical Education enrolled in selected courses.

Nippon looks for new agency After more than a decade with NagaDDB as its creative agency, Nippon Paint Malaysia put its account up for pitch. Agencies in the pitch are Saatchi & Saatchi, BBDO and TBWA, a Nippon Paint spokesperson confirmed to Advertising + Marketing. “This pitch is to map the next evolution of Nippon Paint’s brand growth now it’s in position of market leadership and considering the challenges of a more mature paint market and more importantly, marketing to a more discerning group of home owners who today more than ever are so connected and informed due to the pervasiveness of digital as well as technology,” he said.

Poking fun IKEA launched a new ad campaign to counter the notion of the print medium dying. In its latest spot to promote its 2015 catalogue, IKEA positions its book in a way tech devices have often been promoted. The campaign runs in Singapore and Malaysia using the full range of media – from newspaper ads to OOH and more.

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Sneak peek Here’s a peek at this year’s Grand Prix trophy. The trophy is said to embody innovation, technology and precision. Incorporating the airline’s iconic logo, the trophy’s three gold stripes represent power, direction and speed, while the clean curves imbue a touch of elegance and beauty. The seven rings on the trophy pay tribute to the longevity of the world’s first F1 night race.

Keeping promises Etiqa, the insurance arm of Maybank Group, has launched a new campaign with the help of local creative agency Blak Labs.

The campaign aims to depict the power of promises. The campaign, which runs on OOH, print and radio, has the tag line: “Promises made, promises kept.”

Maybank expanded its regional footprint with the launch of Etiqa Life Insurance in Singapore earlier this month.

Seizing the moment Evian kicked off its latest “Live Young Now Starter” campaign, which encouraged Singaporeans to seize the moment. Evian partnered with like-minded brands for the campaign to induce spontaneity by giving away free experiences.

The wide range of prizes were dispensed through an Evian “Live Young Now Starter” which was a floating orb that was activated when consumers engaged in spontaneous activities in front of it.

An overhaul With the recent opening of its regional headquarters, Philips also launched its digital regional command centre, which promises a major overhaul of how it does marketing. The move will have several key factors to it: a mapped out editorial approach, along with real-time conversations with the public and influencers, and involve its various agencies working together in-house at the command centre.

One and only To reinforce its brand positioning – “The Only True White Coffee in the Market – OldTown White Coffee rolled out an ad campaign spanning social media, mobile, television and below-the-line activities. Developed by Maxus Hong Kong and GroupM Social Hub Hong Kong, the campaign starts with OOH and print advertising, sampling at commercial buildings and a street interview with office workers

Time to play Johnson’s Baby Active Fresh and BBDO Singapore partnered to conduct a social experiment to promote outdoor physical playtime for children. Because parents in Singapore focus on educational activities, with limited free time for unstructured play, the “Play Experiment” is designed to show parents how children are becoming conditioned into making choices that keep them sedentary, even when given the opportunity to be active.

Looking sharp Microsoft unveiled a first look of the new MSN Today for the Asia Pacific region. The new MSN combines premium content from the world’s leading media outlets with personal productivity tools from hotel booking engines to shopping list generators. Viewers can see the new MSN at preview. msn.com. The new design is aimed at enabling consumers to easily navigate the interface and read content that is most important to them.

What’s that smell?

Would you like garlic scents spritzed at you from a bus stop ad? We’re not sure we do, but this ad certainly scored points for novelty. This was part of Disney’s integrated publicity campaign for The Hundred-Foot Journey.

Distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, the campaign ran on Clear Channel’s platform at bus stops, particularly ones close to “food meccas” in Singapore.

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Have an adventure Heineken launched its latest campaign, “The Adventure” and the Heineken Cities Festival in Singapore. The Heineken “Cities of the World” is a global campaign aimed at inspiring one to “open your city and perspectives, and live worldly adventures”. The local activation celebrates the launch of the limited city edition Heineken bottles, a social video called “The Adventure” and the Heineken Cities Festival.

A fashionable appointment J.P. Morgan and Tesco-funded e-commerce site Lazada Fashion appointed DFW Creative as its public relations agency after a pitch. DFW Creative is partnering with Lazada Fashion to provide lifestyle media relations counsel and to raise awareness of the company’s new-to-market fashion category in the Southeast Asia markets. In 2014, DFW Creative has served lifestyle PR clients such as Italian fashion label Furla and the newly opened Orchard Gateway shopping mall.

Starcom wins account Days after settling its creative account, Airbnb handed its global media buying and planning duties to Starcom. In Asia, Starcom is handling markets such as Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Australia and China. The account is led from the US with the agency working with international offices to develop locally relevant strategies.

Meanwhile, TBWA took home the global creative mandate for Airbnb.

Getting localised ESPN FC unveiled a brand new Southeast Asian edition of ESPNFC.com. According to Mike Morrison, vice president and general manager of ESPN Asia Pacific, ESPN FC is a “central part of ESPN’s commitment to the coverage of global football into the future” and across media screens globally. The new localised site reflects its focus on building global products that can deliver relevant content locally.

A pleasurable experience Unilever’s ice-cream brand Magnum appointed Arcade its regional agency for digital and activation duties in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand.

The agency is helping the brand work on its 25th anniversary and the campaign promises to celebrate the “pleasure principle”.

The agency was appointed without a pitch for a period of four months.

Work is being led out of the Singapore office.

A bigger piece As Amobee completes the acquisitions of Adconion Direct and Kontera, it plans on diversifying and diving further into the digital sphere. Quoting figures from eMarketer, Mark Strecker (pictured), CEO of Amobee said this move is a strategic one for the company as worldwide digital ad spend will increase 16.7% in 2014, totaling over US$140 billion and surpassing 25% of all media ad spend.

6 a d verti s i ng + marketi ng | O C T O B E R 2014

Getting in the hot seat English general entertainment channel AXN brought popular reality show The Voice to the streets. It branded several SMRT trains with the faces of new celebrity coaches such as Gwen Stefani and Pharrell Williams. As part of the experience, commuters can sit in the iconic “hot seat” and take selfies with the four coaches – Gwen Stefani, Pharrell, Adam Levine and Blake Shelton.

Getting future ready NTUC Income is working with BBH Asia Pacific for its brand campaign challenging Singaporeans to be “future ready” before they meet their future “older selves” and realise they have not prepared themselves for old age. The integrated campaign – “Future You” – features creative work telling the story of young people who meet their future selves in good and bad scenarios.

Changing directions Accor shifted its global luxury and upscale marketing operations from Paris to Singapore. This comes as Accor launches several high-end hotels across Asia Pacific such as Sofitel So Singapore, Pullman Shanghai South and Sofitel Sydney.

According to the company, the “move signals the growing importance of Asia Pacific in these [luxury] segments with Asian consumers now accounting for almost half of global luxury sales”.

Game on UOB bank launched a campaign to communicate to its consumers that e-statements are now available. This comes as the bank decides to push the idea of “Go Paperless, Go Online”. Through the campaign, the bank wanted to seed the idea that online banking can be fun and rewarding for customers. Hoping to target the younger audience, it launched with a gamification approach.

Adding some bite Electronic payments service ACI Worldwide appointed Bite its PR agency in Singapore, India and Australia. Bite is leading an integrated PR and social media campaign to promote ACI Worldwide’s brand profile as the universal payments company in all three markets. Bite is also tasked to establish the company at the forefront of this digital disruption and build its presence surrounding its roadshow, ACI Exchange APAC.

Settling in Singapore Management University settled both its creative and media pitch. The local university appointed Wild Advertising & Marketing as its creative agency of record for two years while ZenithOptimedia bagged its media account. The agencies were both appointed following a pitching process. The creative pitch saw nearly 10 creative agencies vying for the account and a final four was short listed.

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Data is like gold: as good as currency, and constantly increasing in value. But unlike gold, if data is not leveraged and utilised properly, it is as good as dirt. At this one day event, hear case studies and insights from leading senior marketers and CIOs on integrating Big Data into your business strategy, and how to get the most out of marketing’s ‘new gold’.

www.marketing-interactive.com/big-data/sg EVENT PARTNER:

ORGANISED BY:

Please contact Che Winstrom at +65 6423 0329 or chew@marketing-interactive.com for sponsorship enquiries.

For any other enquiries, please contact Joven Barcenas at jovenb@marketing-interactive.com.

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NEWS

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Going digital After taking over the licence to publish Esquire from South China Media, SCMP group launched the digital platform, EsquireHK. com. It will follow suit with its US counterpart, carrying lifestyle and fashion content, reviews and interviews. The site went live on 1 September. An online campaign, “Are you THE MAN?” preceded the website launch.

Pushing the right buttons Twitter is testing its “buy” button so consumers can purchase directly from tweets on its platform.

According to global reports, Twitter partnered payments company Stripe Inc allowing it to save a person’s credit card information.

Getting active Japanese creative firm Hakuhodo has started offering its new tool called Activation-Ad. ActivationAd is a new technology that links consumers’ smartphone apps to real-world ads containing built-in beacons. The tool alerts consumers via an app on their smartphone from ads outdoors, on transit, in store or in the form of direct mail and pushes a message to them just as they notice the ad.

Not so traditional Xiaomi, the rising star of China’s smartphone market, will let its fans do all the talking in the Philippines, skipping a dependence on celebrity endorsers. Hugo Barra, VP of Xiaomi Global said the brand will be relying on social media and e-commerce.

HOW MUCH DOES THAT COST?

FAST AND FURIOUS

PUMA launched its new brand platform, Forever Faster, with a brand promise it was the fastest sports brand in the world. The PUMA team utilised Orchard Station to captivate audiences with ambient advertising combined with an electrifying video. This video also featured some of the world’s finest sporting personalities such as Mario Balotelli, Sergio Aguero and Usain Bolt.

To increase engagement with the public, commuters were also instantly rewarded when they walked

through Orchard Media Hub Wall linkway. A special panel with 400 peelable stickers was installed allowing customers to peel off a discount coupon to enjoy instant deals at the PUMA shop in Ion Orchard.

The campaign ran from 7 August 2014 to 3 September 2014.

The rack rates for the Media Hub Wall and floor stickers were about SG$120,000 for the four-week campaign. Meanwhile, the peelable stickers cost about SG$6,000 for about 800 stickers.

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Reduce, reuse, recycle In a recycling move-cum-marketing stunt, Emirates made its huge OOH ad banner into shopping bags. The airline transformed a 208 square metre poster for its Hello Tomorrow campaign into more than 300 quirky and reusable shopping bags. The PVC material of the poster, originally displayed outside Zurich Airport, was repurposed into a limited edition line of “up-cycled” shopping bags.

On the GO again Independent PR network GO Communications has formed a partnership with SKPR Asia in Indonesia. In 2010, SKPR Asia became the first Indonesian PR consultancy from East Java to open an office in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, said a release from the agency. The GO Group’s partnership offices in Asia now include Indonesia, China, Japan, Thailand, Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, India and Sri Lanka.

A team effort One of India’s biggest business conglomerates, Tata Group, appointed JWT as the creative agency for its global brand campaign. The campaign seeks to present three core messages about the Tata brand – it is global, trustworthy and a good corporate citizen. The account was awarded following a pitch with multiple agencies participating. JWT’s London, New York and Mumbai offices worked together to win the pitch.

Giving confidence Visa launched a new campaign in India to give consumers the confidence to make purchases online with their Visa Debit card.

The new campaign, created by BBDO, is targeted towards Visa Debit cardholders who are helping to drive the significant growth of eCommerce in India. The new campaign runs on TV, digital and social media channels to target consumers along their online path to purchase.

A new look Amid declining sales, Abercrombie & Fitch decided to undergo a revamp, stripping its iconic logo off its products. This is a major step for the retailer which is known for its brand being splashed right across its products. CEO Mike Jeffries said in the past quarter, despite the “great progress” made in evolving the fashion component of the company’s assortment, the fashion environment had been challenging.

For the elite Gucci came on board CNN International’s media platform to increase brand awareness and promote its Men’s Tailoring collection during the Milan, Paris, New York and London fashion weeks that took place in September. The new campaign on CNN consisted of a month of 30-second advertising spots, the sponsorship of a theme week of travel features called Elite Escapes and integrated digital elements.

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A first look WPP’s Y&R Advertising is acquiring the creative and research agency of MCS Holding, one of Mongolia’s largest conglomerates.

The deal marks WPP’s first acquisition in Mongolia. In addition, Y&R becomes the first global ad network to establish a majorityowned agency office in the country. This acquisition marks a further step towards WPP’s declared goal of developing its networks in fast-growth markets and sectors.

AUDIT WATCH

KEEPING ITS EDGE

Exploring new routes AirAsia launched Redbox, a new low-cost express courier and parcel delivery service. AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes said for the brand to remain “in the forefront of the industry and to continue with its pledge to provide services at the lowest fares and rates”, constant innovation and improvements to the current products services were very important. Currently ancillary income adds about 20% to the brand’s revenue.

More on offer Spotify’s marketing platform is launching two new video ad formats that will now be seen globally by its 30 million-plus free user base. These ad formats are titled “Sponsored Sessions” and “Video Takeover”. For now, the video ad formats will only be available in six markets in the fourth quarter: United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain and Sweden. They will be available globally in 2015.

Unilever appoints Arcade Following a review, Unilever appointed Arcade to handle digital, social media and activation campaigns for its Fruttare ice Popsicle range in the region. The campaign will be launched in phases across various Southeast Asia markets.

Fruttare, also known as Wall’s Buavita in Indonesia, is known for its upbeat, fun brand image which has connected with millennials in recent years.

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It has been 11 years since its first circulation audit, and The Edge Singapore is still going strong with its audited approach for advertisers.

The Edge Singapore was launched in April 2002 and a year later had its first annual audit, managing director Edward Stanislaus told Marketing.

In a market where few do official audits, Marketing asked him the benefits of having the publication’s circulation audited.

“With an audited circulation, we provide credibility. Our advertisers know exactly how efficiently and effectively their budgets are deployed when they invest in The Edge,” he said.

Do these benefits outweigh the cost and trouble of doing it?

“Absolutely,” he said. The cost is an acceptable part of doing business as a responsible publisher, he added.

“We firmly believe it is our responsibility to our advertisers to provide an audited circulation. The benefit is The Edge is well regarded and, hence, readily included in their media plans.”

The latest audit by ABC Singapore was for FY2013 with a circulation of 24,047 comprising both print and digital editions.

A warning sign While investment in programmatic advertising is set to rise, it looks like dollars will be increasingly directed towards independent trading desks and away from agency trading desks. According to a survey by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), the use of agency trading desks declined by 15% year-on-year, while usage of independent trading desks has more than tripled.

ASOS appoints agency ASOS appointed global marketing and tech agency DigitasLBi to steer its social media content management and digital campaigns across Chinese social channels Weibo and WeChat.

DigitasLBi is tasked to enhance the ASOS brand, converse with customers and promote its range of products. It is also working with ASOS China to enhance customer awareness and engagement through a content and activation launch campaign on Weibo and WeChat. (pictured: Lamy Zhang, managing director, China, DigitasLBi)

A sweet deal Unilever appointed DDB its creative agency to run the full Wall’s icecream brand creatives globally.

DDB was already handling the bulk of Wall’s business in Europe and the new assignments sees the agency pick up the brand in Southeast Asia and Latin American (LATAM). The LATAM region was previously managed by Lowe.

Game on Amazon.com has acquired all of live video game streaming firm Twitch’s shares for about US$970 million. “Broadcasting and watching gameplay is a global phenomenon and Twitch has built a platform that brings together tens of millions of people who watch billions of minutes of games each month,” said Jeff Bezos (pictured), founder and CEO of Amazon.com.

Twitch launched in June 2011 to focus exclusively on live video for gamers.

A new addition Social media management platform Hootsuite launched Hootsuite Campaigns with added tools for brands to manage campaigns. The addition comes following the company’s acquisition of Brightkit, an engagement platform for creating customised social marketing campaigns.

Hootsuite Campaigns touts more than 13 types of different social contests, sweepstakes and galleries to attract followers.

It claims to deliver high-impact and measurable results across embedded microsites, Facebook and mobile devices.

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1 Campaign Where sport goes boom Brief The campaign aims to create excitement and anticipation around the launch of FOX Sports – delivered through disruptive and high impact activity going beyond traditional media. The job scope covers the launch campaign that includes TV, print, activation and digital for regional markets that includes Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines and Vietnam.

Client

FOX Sports

Creative

The Alchemy Partnership

Media

FOX Sports

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2 Campaign The state of fun Brief Sentosa Development Corporation (SDC) launched its newest marketing campaign – looking to heavily target locals in the first year of the push.

The main thrust of the campaign is aimed at deepening SDC’s emotional connection with guests, and portraying a fun and engaging brand, so as to keep Sentosa top-of-mind among target audiences. The campaign intends to draw locals and foreign guests who have not visited the island in a while.

Client

Sentosa Development Corporation

Creative

Grey Singapore

Media

OMD

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3 Campaign Promises Brief Etiqa, the insurance arm of Maybank Group, launched a new campaign to depict the power of promises. The campaign, which runs on OOH, print and radio, aims to help people fulfil the promises they make to themselves and their loved ones.

Client

Etiqa

Creative

Blak Labs

Media

ZenithOptimedia

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4 Campaign IKEA Catalogue: Experience the power of a book Brief IKEA launched a new ad campaign to counter the notion of the print medium dying. In its latest spot to promote its 2015 catalogue, IKEA positions its book in a way tech devices have often been promoted. The campaign runs in Singapore and Malaysia using the full range of media – from full page newspaper ads to six-sheet outdoor, radio and cinema to a sleek 3D animated microsite.

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Client

IKANO Retail Asia

Creative

BBH Asia Pacific

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OMD Singapore

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

O C T O B E R 2 0 1 4 | a d ve r t i s i ng + m a r ke t i ng 1 1

27/10/2014 4:34:02 PM

28 NOVEMBER 2014, 9AM FOUR SEASONS HOTEL SINGAPORE B2B marketing is no longer the ‘poor cousin’ of B2C marketing.

Hence, we’re bringing to you our inaugural B2B marketing forum.

You’ll get to hear best practices from the following:

Rashish Pandey Director, marketing, Asia Pacific Cisco

KP Unnikrishnan Marketing director, Asia Pacific & Japan Palo Alto Networks

Eric Chong Senior director channel marketing, APAC Trend Micro

To register, please visit www.marketing-interactive.com/b2b-marketing/sg or contact Carlo Reston at carlor@marketing-interactive.com

EAR IRD

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For sponsorship queries, please contact Che Winstrom at chew@marketing-interactive.com

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NEWS ANALYSIS

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PHILIPS OVERHAULS MARKETING APPROACH

The most unique version of a content marketing programme existing, says Philips’ Damien Cummings. Elizabeth Low reports.

“This is an evolving target, but we expect to have 4000 to 5000 pieces of content per conversation.”

Philips brings its agencies inhouse for the command centre.

With the recent opening of its regional headquarters, Philips has also launched its digital regional command centre, which promises to make a major overhaul of how it does marketing.

The command centre will combine social monitoring and content creation around live conversations.

The move will have several key factors to it: a mapped out editorial approach, along with real-time conversations with the public and influencers, and will involve its various agencies working together in-house at the command centre.

Damien Cummings, chief marketing officer at Philips ASEAN and Pacific, says the model is unique.

“Social listening and command centres are not unique. That has been around for a while. Agency co-location – some interesting models are those of Enfatico for Dell or Cheil for Samsung – it has existed before and we are not proposing that. The in-house production studio, yes that has happened before so nothing new there, but the amplification is unique.

“So add them all together, as far as we WWW.M A R K ET I N G - I N T ER A C T I V E.C O M

know, this is the most unique version of a content marketing programme that exists in the world. It is certainly the biggest in Asia and, as far as we understand it, is the biggest in the world.

“This would give us high core measurement from marketing and structure and able to take the guesswork out of marketing.” He said the company had identified five key conversations it wanted to own: Clean air; smart home; look good, feel good; ageing well and connected work spaces.

This was for its three main sectors of business: healthcare, consumer living and lighting. “Once we have thought leadership and a clear stake in the ground, we will sell more products,” he said.

Content approach In terms of editorial, the brand intends to create three types of content: Longer form content such as research papers and documentaries (for example, on clean air); editorial pieces such as blogs, press releases and articles and lastly, social media posts such as Facebook posts, tweets, etc.

Social monitoring 50% to 70% of the content would be planned, but the other 30% or so would be in real-time response. The company has teamed up with Salesforce and its properties (Radian6 and Buddy Media) to create its own social media monitoring dashboards to allow monitoring of key conversations across social media around the brand. It also uses Traackr, which allows the brand to monitor key influencers for the brand.

“For instance, if a user were to wake up and complain about high PSI ratings, the brand could possibly respond to that and perhaps send a link to an infographic on how to make your home a haze shelter. Then it would link back to our view on air purifiers and respiratory illnesses, then how a buyer can link with us,” he said.

Aside from its existing branded social media assets, Philips will also be looking at creating unbranded community groups on the topics it wants a voice on. This will also include content from third-party creators.

Leveraging existing platforms Aside from looking at marketing content through existing platforms – Philips.com and Philips stores – it is working with LinkedIn to look at all its existing Philips employees who have Linkedin profiles and rewrite their profiles.

(11,000 employees have LinkedIn profiles in Asia.)

A pilot programme to test it out with the top 10 executives, such as CEO Harjit Gill and president of healthcare Arjen Radder, has already begun.

This will be ramped up later in the year.

Agency co-creation The command centre will see its agencies FleishmanHillard, Ogilvy & Mather, Carat and Havas working in-house at the unit when it comes to campaign work for Philips – which will allow for easier collaboration. However, all data will stay strictly in-house at Philips.

The brand is in the midst of finalising the roles of the various agencies.

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NEWS ANALYSIS

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5 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD FIRE YOUR DIGITAL AGENCY

Are digital agencies positioned for a shift towards performance-based marketing, driven by e-commerce?

In e-commerce marketing, the goal is not to spend more, but spend better. Can agencies do that?

The vast majority are not suited for e-commerce.

In the Wall Street Journal, Jeff Lanctot wrote, “The days of arbitraging media without adding value are at an end”, and explained why ad agencies must change or else risk being dumped by brands completely.

As the CMO for one of Southeast Asia’s only turnkey e-commerce service providers, we see the urgency for evolution is stronger than ever as brands rapidly shift gears towards winning the online retail space. Brands and their agencies need to mobilise quickly in the land grab for the Southeast Asian online market share. And performance marketing is the fastest way to stake the flag.

So far, advertising agencies have managed to survive the disruption caused by the internet by forming digital units to capitalise on the 14 a d verti s i ng + marketi ng | O C T O B E R 2014

growth in online advertising. Today, 22% of marketing budgets in the US is spent online with the share expected to grow to 25% by 2015 according to ZenithOptimedia. In response, digital agencies have adapted to provide a wide array of services such as online branding, display, social and search.

Within online advertising, the trend has been a shift towards direct response or performance marketing.

According to a recent eMarketer study, 22% of online advertising spend in the US is from retail, with nearly two-thirds of this going to direct response marketing channels such as search engine marketing. This doesn’t even include the growing share of direct response marketing in other industries impacted by the shift towards e-commerce.

In emerging markets such as Southeast

Asia, we expect the share of performance marketing to be even greater than in the US. This is because of the lack of an entrenched, legacy offline advertising business as well as the fact these markets are leapfrogging desktop internet and jumping straight into mobile.

Digital agencies are not well-positioned to leverage this shift towards more performancebased marketing driven by e-commerce. This time around it will be harder for them to catch up with e-commerce. Why? Because in e-commerce marketing, the goal is not to spend more, but spend better.

1. Inefficient marketing spend Selling banners online is not that different from selling print ads or outdoor billboard ads. But doing marketing for e-commerce businesses is fundamentally different and is in principle against WWW. MARK E TING-IN TE RAC TI VE . C OM

NEWS ANALYSIS

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the DNA of digital agencies, as one of the biggest and most scalable sources of income for them is management fees on media buying.

To make more money, the agencies need to convince their clients to spend more money. Usually this means spending money more inefficiently due to diminishing returns in channels such as display advertising and search engine marketing as volume increases and targeting moves from specific to generic audiences. This is called “the law of diminishing returns” or “the law of shitty click-throughs” in internet marketing parlance, where more scale means less qualified customers.

But in e-commerce marketing, the goal is not to spend more, but to spend better. This translates into spending less, reasoning in line with the “law of shitty click-throughs”. Adopting this kind of model would mean suicide for digital agencies unless there’s another component of revenue.

2. Tweets, likes and other vanity metrics do not drive revenue.

Performance marketing for e-commerce is also different in that it’s very data-driven and technical. People working in this area need to go beyond the usual digital agency vanity metrics such as impressions and clicks and instead think in terms of ROI (return on investment), CLTV (customer lifetime value), CAC (customer acquisition cost), and attribution modelling.

All these require working with large data sets and SQL databases (a special programming language for data). Understanding which metrics matter and how to work with data to optimise towards those metrics is a key success factor in e-commerce businesses.

3. Skill sets are completely different According to McKinsey, one of the biggest challenges for organisations in our digital age is finding talent with deep analytical skills and with the know-how of how to work with data.

In e-commerce businesses this is even more of an issue because of the vast amount of data available. In this competitive landscape, organisations who put emphasis on developing technical marketing skills on an individual level are more likely to succeed. We’re talking about developing people who know how to pull data from databases via SQL themselves and perform in-depth analysis.

Extra value is put on employees who go beyond this and are also capable of writing code to pull data via different APIs. Gone are the days of submitting an IT request or bribing your colleagues in your business intelligence department to take care of your ad hoc analysis.

Marketers are expected to be able to pull the data, run the analysis, and run fast executions.

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4. So are the people you need to hire. Don Drapers on the decline.

Growth hacking may be becoming a buzz word to many, but the fundamental shift of marketing to technical is here to stay, as is evidenced in this recent Harvard Business Review article on the rise of the chief marketing technologist. The typical roles at digital agencies such as account managers, media planners, creative directors, and “digital strategy directors” are ill-equipped to do marketing for e-commerce. Most of these people have marketing or communications backgrounds.

I’d like to propose a “Moneyball” approach to talent and where companies look for a diverse set of people with backgrounds in business, engineering, finance, statistics and accounting for our marketing positions.

Two of our recent top hires majored in aeronautical engineering and accounting with no prior digital or marketing experience at all.

This is not a new concept – Rocket Internet has been doing this all along across its ventures where they focus on hiring for talent rather than experience with new hires coming from diverse backgrounds. What we’re doing today isn’t marketing (or God forbid – marketing communications) – it is business and finance.

Managing different channels such as Google Search, Facebook Ads and Email Marketing isn’t marketing, it’s investment portfolio management.

Optimising campaigns isn’t marketing, it’s algorithmic trading. Performance marketing for revenue-share partnerships as well as SEO isn’t marketing, it’s financial arbitrage. Marketing for e-commerce requires a fundamental paradigm shift with more emphasis on people who are comfortable working with data and the latest technologies. Digital agencies who refuse to acknowledge this revolution will end up missing the boat.

5. Misaligned incentive structures As mentioned above, the typical digital agency model is geared towards greater spend on media buying, whose primary measurement of success is the number of clicks or impressions not orders or revenue. While this has salience in brand awareness, it does not convert eyeballs into sales and that’s where effective e-commerce marketing must go the extra mile with campaigns, for example, leveraging dynamic re-targeting on ad networks such as Facebook Ad Exchange or driving campaigns on mobile that focus on product selling. The fault is not necessarily the agencies. Often the brand does not allow the agencies to go deep into the right metrics: acquisition, activation and retention. As a result, agencies are not positioned to see the end-to-end, making the entire incentive structure misaligned.

We realised early on that we would have to shape ourselves to sustain this more ROIbased model of marketing or face internet Darwinism. We weren’t alone in this. Other end-to-end e-commerce service providers such as eBay Enterprise (formerly GSI Commerce) and Singpost SP eCommerce have invested in the whole e-commerce cycle from marketing all the way to fulfillment and delivery because ultimately, these enablers could not depend on the impressions or tweets of their clients’ creative agencies to convert. We care about the order volume, making our incentives aligned with those of our clients and making both parties benefit from better and smarter marketing, not more marketing.

A good example of this is the LINE chat sales channel in Thailand that 5.5 million users subscribed to. Rather than push out advertisements through the chat app, LINE partnered with brands (through aCommerce’s marketing initiative) and pushed interesting products for which users could buy directly off the app, of which aCommerce fulfilled on the back end. Another example of this symbiotic partnership is with one of our biggest clients, L’Oréal Thailand, in a revenue-share partnership.

Every dollar we make from selling and delivering products gets reinvested back in the partnership in the form of marketing. As long as ROI’s are positive, we keep pushing more marketing. One of the biggest drivers for success for e-commerce marketing in Southeast Asia was ensuring the gains were mutually beneficial.

What happens next?

Consequently, many e-commerce players and online businesses have deferred to building their own in-house teams so they may leverage the data from the end-to-end process for more targeted marketing. For example, Facebook and Spotify have their own “growth” teams that do all the online marketing and measures the performance and focus on acquisition, activation and retention. A regular digital agency will never be able to fully do that.

That doesn’t mean that advertising and digital agencies cannot evolve to meet the new demands of e-commerce marketing. However, it will require an immense infrastructural shift, one that requires reworking of the traditional ad spend revenue model, different KPIs, human resources and an overall understanding of how e-commerce is transforming the consumer landscape. The lines between product awareness and product consumption are blurred. It is up to agencies to adapt or risk being dumped by their brands.

The writer is Sheji Ho, group chief marketing officer at aCommerce.

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PROFILE

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PROFILE

COUNTERFEIT LENSES SOLD IN NIGHT MARKETS ARE POSING PROBLEMS FOR THE EYE CARE INDUSTRY. ESTHER SEAH FROM JOHNSON & JOHNSON VISION CARE TELLS REZWANA MANJUR HOW ACUVUE IS TACKLING THE PROBLEM. W W W .MA R KET ING - INT ERAC TIVE . COM

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PROFILE Masked behind all the buzz and colour, the growing night market phenomenon or commonly known as “pasar malams” in Malaysia pose a real problem to many global brands. Known for the availability of counterfeit products, sold through pigeon-hole-like stalls, these night markets are now starting to mar the image of global brands.

In a conversation with Advertising + Marketing Esther Seah (pictured), Johnson & Johnson Vision Care’s marketing manager for the ASEAN region, explained these night markets can occasionally be a problem for legitimate brands such as Acuvue.

In countries such as Malaysia and Thailand, there is a growing night market trend where global brand names simply get stuck onto unauthorised products. While many of these counterfeit products may not be a healthcare threat for consumers, the situation is very much different for vision-aiding brands such as Acuvue and even some of its close competitors.

Many a times, contact lenses sold in the night markets streets are not sealed or certified. This has, over the years, led to a rise in the number of eye infections among consumers in Asian markets. Moreover, this problem is also not just isolated to the night market-visiting community. In Malaysia, there is also the problem of non-certified optometrists who sell contact lenses to the public.

“A shop might be there one day and gone another. When this happens, it does not create a proper image of our brand. Almost anyone is able to simply slap on the Acuvue name to the non-certified lenses.

These products are usually beauty brands and sold at a cheaper price,” Seah says.

CURBING THE PROBLEM To curb the problem, Seah explains Acuvue has taken several steps to work with the right eye care professionals. It directs consumers to specific eye care professionals and ensures it does that clearly on its website and in campaigns. Directions and names are splashed across its print campaigns, websites and on social media pages of Acuvue’s trusted partners.

The brand was also quick to realise that, for Malaysia, communication has to start from the basics. While in mature markets such as Singapore the goal is to promote high standards of living, the objective in Malaysia is more basic and is to push safe standards of use and basic education of products, explains Seah.

To do so, the brand had to actively build relationships with the Association of Malaysian Optometrists to educate not only the public, but also eye care professionals on what their role was in the community.

Acuvue brought in foreign experts to rally Malaysian optometrists together to help curb unauthorised sales of contact lenses. It also helped optometrists carve out business strategies and points of differentiations that would help them in their long-term business strategies.

“We brought in experts to explain what the loss is to the optometrists themselves if they let every patient buy contact lenses off night markets or unauthorised dealers. We wanted to also highlight to them what the impact is when people don’t see these optometrists as professionals because they didn’t bring their expertise across to their patients.”

However, for the brand, the biggest help in curbing the problem has been the Malaysian consumers themselves. According to Seah, because the Malaysian market is so engaged with the brand on social media, more often than not they “become the eyes and ears” of the brand and list the stores which may be selling counterfeit products.

“Being a big brand we can definitely leverage on the various mediums such as print, TV or OOH. But we have been extremely heavy on digital, upping our spend to nearly 30% to 40% of the marketing mix. This is because the Malaysian consumers are very much reactive on social media and we have a lot of conversations online. Once we start conversing with them, they are very responsive.”

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While KL is no doubt a focus market for the brand, it’s very much the peripheral states which are now up and coming for the brand. Most of its grooming opportunities, says Seah, come from areas such as Penang and Sabah where consumers are getting more sophisticated and welleducated. With the increase of affluence, consumer choices of brands are also getting more informed.

REACHING OUT TO YOUTHS Meanwhile, to drum up more publicity for its brand, in July Acuvue partnered with MTV World Stage for its “Dare to Be” campaign.

The campaign challenged youths in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand to pursue their passions with its “Dare to Be” campaign.

Following a series of dares, the biggest for the campaign asks youths to “dare to become an MTV VJ”.

Ultimately, the campaign resulted in 70% brand awareness and 80% brand recall among its 18 to 24-year-old age group. It had almost 90,000 people participating in the MTV campaign in Singapore and Malaysia, and this figure includes submission of contest entries and the total number of votes. It also reached about two million people in Singapore and Malaysia.

While the numbers proved the campaign a success for the brand, for Seah the real win came when more young women indicated they were now aware of the dangers of purchasing contact lenses through online distributors or unauthorised retailers.

“There has been a lot of increase in eye contamination across the SEA markets so we wanted to reach out to the youths and the MTV World Stage was a good platform to do so.

“Ultimately, as a marketer you have to ask yourself – do you want to be just a sales person? Or do you want to be an influential brand marketer that makes a change in people’s lives. That’s always shaped my philosophy.”

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ESPN FC LAUNCH PARTY DATE: 10 September 2014 VENUE: Bianca Supper Club Clarke Quay 1 (From left): Lindy Chan, head of sales, SEA, ESPN Asia Pacific; Kimberley Doo, manager, MEC; Sim Shang Yi, manager, market development, SIA; and Estella Lee, senior market development officer, SIA. 2 (From left): Srihari G Sikhakollu, managing director and head – credit cards and personal financing, CIMB Group; Madeline Tan, head of ad sales, APAC, ESPN; Lynn Yan, AVP – loans and insurance, CIMB Bank; Kelvin Goh, AVP – cross sell and BD, CIMB Bank; and Muraly Balachandran, VP – sales and distribution, CIMB Bank.

2

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3 Jason Dasey, senior editor, ESPN FC and Paul Parker, former Manchester United player, ESPN FC. 4 (From left): Matthew Tham, account executive, PHD; Lindy Chan, head of sales, SEA, ESPN Asia Pacific; Cheri Lim, associate business director, PHD; and Suveea Jinadasa, business manager, PHD.

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JOHNNIE WALKER CIRCUIT LOUNGE DATE: 20 September 2014 VENUE: Altimate 1 (From left): Elliott Danker, senior producer presenter, Power 98 FM; Anita Kapoor, international media personality; Vanessa Emily, editorin-chief, Wardrobe Trends Fashion; Adam Choong, artist, The Bedsty Group; and Keagan Kang, actor, Beam Artist.

2 (From left): Howard Lo, owner, Liberty Spirits Asia, Tanuki Raw and Standing Sushi Bar; Yap Hwee Jen, director, AKA Asia; and Mark Tay, editor, TOAST.

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3 (From left): Annabel Tan, blogger, itsAnnabel.com; Darius Chia, sales consultant, RealStar Premier Property Consultant; Douglas Khee, creative director, Division Communications; and Jennifer Li, head merchandiser, Headline Seoul.

4 Team Diageo, team Moët Hennessy Diageo and team Just Marketing International.

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THE MEDIA SHOP 5TH ANNIVERSARY PARTY DATE: 5 September 2014 VENUE: The Merry Men Kitchen + Bar 1 (From left): Lee Kun Long, media manager, The Media Shop; and Russ Lim, account director, integrated sales, MediaCorp.

2 (From left): Cindy Low, APAC marketing, Vormetric, Inc; Christine Chong, program marketing manager, APJ, FireEye, Inc; Jessica Toh, cofounder / regional business director, The Media Shop.

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3 (From left): Jessica Toh, co-founder/ regional business director, The Media Shop; and Gary Tang, co-founder/ media director, The Media Shop.

4 (From left): Yee Chong Moon, director, media, Nielsen; Rebecca Tan, managing director, media, Singapore and Malaysia, Nielsen; and Gary Tang, co-founder/media director, The Media Shop.

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TWITTER #TOASTANDTWEET DATE: 28 August, 2014 VENUE: Ku DĂŠ Ta 1 (From left): Julian Corbett, founder and CEO, playTMN; Ken Mandel, managing director, APAC, Hootsuite; and Frederique Covington, international marketing director, APAC, MENA, Canada, Twitter.

2 (From left): Frederique Covington, international marketing director, APAC, MENA, Canada, Twitter; Shailesh Rao, vice-president, APAC, Latin America, Emerging Markets, Twitter; Adam Bain, president, global revenue and partnerships, Twitter; Aliza Knox, managing director, online sales, APAC, Twitter; and Parminder Singh, managing director, SEA, India, MENA, Twitter.

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3 Parminder Singh, managing director, SEA, India, MENA, Twitter; and Christel Quek, regional content lead, Asia, MENA, Twitter.

4 (From left): Damien Cummings, vicepresident and chief marketing officer, Philips ASEAN and Pacific; Ken Mandel, managing director, APAC, Hootsuite; and Christel Quek, regional content lead, Asia, MENA, Twitter.

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5 THINGS #APPLELIVE MEANT FOR MARKETING

Apple’s product launch has the world talking. Here are five important lessons for the marketing profession from it. Rezwana Manjur reports.

While the world remains abuzz with the recent product launches by Apple, the brand unveiled its long-anticipated smartwatch. The watch integrates features of an iPhone onto a smaller screen. Meanwhile, the recently launched iPhone 6 boasts a larger screen than its predecessors, along with the iPhone 6 Plus which has an even bigger 5.5-inch screen. The products also promise to have longer battery life for an additional US$100.

On its digital wallet front, Apple has called its new payment system Apple Pay. This will allow consumers to use their phone cameras to capture a photo of their cards and Apple will help verify it and add it to the phone’s Passbook account, it said. While no doubt innovative, what do these products mean for the marketing industry? Industry experts weigh in on some of the lessons we can learn from these products.

Here are some key takeaways from the advertising industry: 1. Personalisation is key “While the world marvels at the shiny new toys out now, what stood out to me was a tangible shift from attention to details to attention to personalisation. This future space now is meaningful personalisation for unlimited experiences,” says Joshua Kwah, director of strategy and growth at SMG Singapore.

Kwah says “classic Apple behaviour” talks about the purity of its design, with consumers at the heart of everything it creates. This episode shows a dramatic emphasis on enabling consumers to do more that matters to them.

He also gave three key tips on how brands can personalise experiences: • Involve consumers in co-creating content, not just consuming content.

• Collaborate with opinion leaders in experience design, not just experience amplification.

• Talk about examples of personalisation, not just expanding on price tactics.

2. Incite curiosity in consumers Simon Bell, executive director of strategy for Southeast Asia and Pacific at Landor, says that originally these events were designed to update enthusiasts and analysts. However, over time this has shifted and these events 2 2 a d verti s i ng + marketi ng | O C T O B E R 2014

A push for NFC, data-tracking: Here’s what Apple’s new products could mean for marketing.

now serve to update and inspire a broad range of consumers.

“These events have become the ultimate form of branded content. It’s like Super Bowl on steroids with the coverage the brand receives on and offline. This is an interesting perspective and it aims to preload and tease consumers with possible products/new technologies,” Bell says.

3. Always-first mentality not a must Interestingly, adds Bell, Apple usually waits for its competitors to “play their hands” first, then responds.

“By example, only now are we seeing Apple’s watches. Samsung and Motorola launched their models some time ago. This approach allows Apple to de-position other products and in a sense make them irrelevant,” Bell says.

Kwah also adds while “Apple may appear to critics as laggards in technology” the attention to personalisation and simplicity is definitely a lucrative long-term strategy to entrench and fortify the company for years to come.

4. Data is here to stay Meanwhile, Laurent Thevenet, technology director of Proximity Singapore, says that thanks to Apple’s UX simplicity, this new device could result in a large number of consumers starting to track their health data. Coming full circle to

Kwah’s point on personalisation, he adds data collection will be much easier when consumers can relate to the devices.

“We will be able to use the data through Apple’s existing HealthKit to bring an even higher level of personalisation in our work.

Apple’s HealthKit, which was announced at the last WWDC in June, centralises and shares health data in between apps.”

5. A push for NFC While the new form and scale of the iPhone 6 is nothing new, Apple’s involvement will provide a good boost to the industry in terms of awareness and adoption, says Prantik Mazumdar of Happy Marketer. “There has been a lot of talk about NFC-based payments for more than a decade, but Apple’s involvement will provide a good boost to the industry in terms of awareness and adoption,” he says.

“I am sure other device manufacturers and service providers will enter this space soon.” Also, the Apple Pay mechanisms are expected to give a new lease of life to the Apple brand and open up interesting and scalable revenue streams.

For developers and consumers, this will open up a new ecosystem to tap into in the domain of M2M communications, mobile payments as well as the internet of things, adds Mazumdar.

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3 REASONS WHY BRANDS SHOULD EMBRACE THE SELFIE

How big brands are smartly cashing in on the selfie frenzy. Jennifer Chan writes.

People across the world are obsessed about taking photos of themselves. No matter if you love or hate this trend, it’s hard to get past a day without consuming or taking a selfie.

It has given brands the opportunity to better engage digital users and to spread branded content with lower ad budgets.

See how Samsung has bagged a hefty response from the Hollywood stars’ selfie at the Oscars.

The buzz term has recently been picked up

by Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympic Games in China with a new hashtag campaign encouraging athletes to share photos with #yogselfie.

Jordan Sun, creative director at Vizz Group, the creative agency behind the campaign, says social media has changed users’ desire for personalisation to aggressive self-expression.

“Social media is not about big ideas, it’s about viral power. To get the best viral effect you need to tie content into trending topics such as a selfie,” he says.

“The social era has unlocked users’ desire to express themselves, or in another word, to show off to others. They are ready to present themselves, and more than ever, they seem to take the desire to self-express for granted now on social platforms.”

While the selfie phenomenon is as popular as it is, it now has more intrinsic value with branded content.

Adidas’ #Thisisme campaign is an exemplar.

The campaign encourages users to express themselves by posting a #thisisme# portrait on Weibo and WeChat, detailing what makes them so unique and posting images on how they wear adidas products.

“Smart brands would apply selfie marketing in a subtle way,” Sun says.

“It makes total sense that users would be less willing to share hashtags which contain brand names as they may not want to help promote the brand.”

The sports giant even came up with a branded selfie stick with creative agency 2 4 a d verti s i ng + marketi ng | O C T O B E R 2014

It’s time to give the selfie phenomenon some love guys.

AllRightsReserved, as part of the hashtag-driven campaign to beef up viral power.

Brands now need to be extra smart in using hashtags as an incentive to drive users to share content, Sun suggests, and marketers need to have a full understanding of their brands’ value so as to subtly link it to hashtagdriven campaigns.

He suggests three advantages where brands can benefit from selfie-driven campaigns.

More control on creativity “Brands now need to be able to spot and seize a trending topic and make use of it,” he says.

“In the future, brands can rely less on advertising agencies, but to leverage on consumers’ interest in taking a selfie as a means

to share branded content, and give them a free hand in creating their own story.”

Better social engagement Marketers scramble to social platforms to tighten relationships with consumers via causal tone and manner and interactive content.

But what’s more effective is to let consumers be proactive in participating in brands’ activities and implant the desire to share content from the brands proactively in their mindset, he said.

Simple execution “In most cases, selfie-driven campaigns are easily executed. It doesn’t require much planning and research investment in advance, while the key is the right topic and right timing.”

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OUT NOW.

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8 STEPS TO OVERCOME A SOCIAL MEDIA DISASTER

A social media crisis is unavoidable - but here’s a checklist to help you through when times get tough. SocialMetric’s Marcus Ho writes.

solved immediately. What they want is for you to understand how they feel. Therefore, it is important to reply first before you investigate.

By replying, you have to acknowledge their problem, and apologise.

Through apologising, you are demonstrating empathy, and 90% of the angry customers just want brands to first empathise with them, and proceed to resolve their problems.

By just saying, “I’m sorry you feel this way”, it will be the first step to resolving a huge meltdown.

Social media doesn’t have to be a disaster.

A social media crisis is unavoidable. Social media is used for sharing news and the latest happenings, and it doesn’t restrict negative experiences. The fact is people will share whatever they want on social media, and when they are unhappy with your product or service, there will always be a chance of them posting online.

Big brands are not immune to social media disasters. McDonald’s was one that was recently hit with a social media crisis on Instagram. After the recent expired meat scandal in China, McDonald’s was trying to be more engaging on social media in the hope of winning customers back. However, its Instagram posts were met with a powerful backlash from the brand’s followers.

Early last year, HMV faced a public Twitter meltdown. A giant music chain for more than 90 years, HMV was conducting a mass firing. An angry intern hijacked into the Twitter account to release the information online.

The worst part was the marketing director didn’t know how to use the platform, which was overheard by the hijacker and posted online.

The rogue tweets instantly went viral, and by the time HMV regained control of its account, the damage was done.

2 6 a d verti s i ng + marketi ng | O C T O B E R 2014

Some crises can be avoided with proper management, but others are out of your control In research by Altimeter, of the 50 social media crises that occurred from January 2001 to August 2011, most of them could have been diminished or averted. Therefore it is crucial that when the unavoidable social media crisis happens, you are ready and prepared to resolve it properly.

When handled well, damage from a social media crisis can be minimised. Negative feedback is an opportunity to turn your complainers into great brand advocates. The advantage of social media is the ability to connect to your customers, and in this context, to be able to engage them and reassure them in times of a social media crisis. The key thing in a social media crisis is to identify and resolve the issue. Here are eight things to do to survive a social media crisis.

1. Acknowledge About 42% of complainers expect a response within 60 minutes and more than two thirds expect an answer within the day. To businesses, it may seem impossible to do so, as they need to investigate the issue before replying. However, most of them do not expect the issue to be

2. Fight social media fire with social media water It may sound very obvious, but I still have to say it anyway – during a social media crisis, you have to respond first on the platform it occurred.

If it started on Facebook, you should reply on Facebook, and if it went viral on YouTube, you should approach the problem on YouTube.

Kashi, a brand known for using organic ingredients, was hit with negative feedback on Facebook when someone posted it used artificial or genetically modified ingredients.

The post went viral quickly, gaining 11,000 Facebook shares within a short time. However, Kashi did not reply to the feedback on the same platform, but posted a video on YouTube. Its video reply, which consisted of not the director, but a nutritionist reading off a script, was met with a harsh response. The video gained little views as compared to the 11,000 shares and had negative comments. Wherever the social media crisis happens, respond immediately on the same platform. Although it may seem like an obvious point, people still miss out on this and make the elementary mistake.

3. Be sorry When something goes wrong, the fastest way to be forgiven is to be truly sorry. Along the course of the all the drama experienced by Singaporeans, we have forgiven a lot of people.

We have forgiven director Jack Neo for his affairs with multiple actresses and models after he came up to face the music and apologise sincerely, while asking for the public’s forgiveness. We have forgiven SBS Transit for when its train service broke down. SBS Transit WWW. MARK E TING-IN TE RAC TI VE . C OM

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reacted swiftly by setting up a press conference to apologise and offered free bus shuttle services to make up to their customers.

The CEO of OCBC sent out an apology personally when OCBC iBanking went down for a few hours.

KFC Malaysia was hit with a social media crisis when a video was released of its employee playing and tampering with the food. Customers vented their displeasure on KFC Malaysia’s social media outlets, such as Facebook and YouTube. “On behalf of KFC Malaysia, I am extremely sorry for the distress and concern that may have undermined your trust and support from thousands of customers across Malaysia. Please allow me to take this opportunity to share more with you about the situation and the action that KFC has taken to prevent it from happening again.”

Within four hours, the director of operations broadcasted a video to apologise to customers and assured them the company had taken actions to prevent the incident from happening again. Notice that he opened the video with “being extremely sorry” and “undermined your trust”. With the swift actions taken, customers were reassured and public anger was eased.

4. Create a crisis fact sheet A crisis fact sheet is a place to house all the facts and happenings. It can be a microsite where all the information is in real time, so anyone who visits the site can be updated. It is much easier to direct people to a link than to answer every tweet and status update.

In light of the recent tragedies on Malaysia Airlines, it would have been easier for the team to have a crisis fact sheet, rather than setting up press conferences every single time there was news. That way, people on social media can find out the latest updates and news without having to wait, which will ease the public’s worry.

Crisis FAQ should include: • Acknowledgement of the issue.

• Details about the occurrence, including date and time.

• Any available photos or videos.

• How the company found out.

• Who was alerted, and how.

• Specific actions taken.

• Real or potential effects.

• Steps taken to prevent reoccurrence.

• Contact information for people at the company.

Journalists will be able to access the crisis fact sheet as well, meaning they can get accurate and up-to-date information on the issue, which makes their job easier. Although the damage has been done, it can be minimised with WWW.M A R K ET I N G - I N T ER A C T I V E.C O M

Percentage of Google Traffic Page 1

91.5%

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4.8%

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1.1%

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0.4%

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0.2%

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0.2%

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Credits: Chitika Insights, June 2013

positive writings from the journalists, therefore it is important to provide good experiences for the journalists. To take it a step further, enable people to subscribe to the crisis updates, via RSS, email or SMS. 5. Build a pressure relief valve Create a venue for your angry complainers to vent their frustrations at; it can just be a simple Facebook post. Although it may seem counter intuitive, it would be better for the rants to be at a venue that you can control.

What is the importance of having your own pressure relief valve for your fans and followers?

Without your own venue, your stakeholders may take matters into their own hands and create their own platform to vent their anger and go viral. Imagine a site that makes fun of you and your brand, and has a larger following than you.

Our local transport company, SMRT had a series of train breakdowns a few years ago. It did not create a platform for its customers to vent their frustrations, hence a joke page was created, SMRT (Feedback).

The benefits of having your own platform: • It allows you to keep more of the conversations about the crisis in a single venue.

• It is an early warning detection system for new dimensions of the crisis.

• It gives your customers an official place to come to your defence, should they want to.

6. Clean up your digital reputation Once a social media crisis sparks, the public will inevitably Google either your employees’ names or your organisation. It is crucial to monitor your digital reputation and manage it well, so as to have a good digital reputation to back you up when people Google your brand name.

With good digital reputation management, the increase in good reviews will allow you

to dominate the first page of Google, hence pushing the negative reviews down to the other pages. The first page of Google is extremely valuable, with 91.5% of the users finding their required information on the first page of Google search.

7. Learn your lessons As always, the first step towards preventing the same mistake from happening again is to learn from your mistakes. You can create a crisis portfolio, which documents every element of the crisis (for example, tweets, status updates, YouTube comments, emails received). From the portfolio, analyse the problem and the effectiveness of your methods, and think about how you can improve your crisis management skills further.

Some of the things to watch for: • Website traffic patterns.

• Search data: Which came first, and when?

• How did internal notification work?

• How did the response work?

• Did specific customers rise to your defence? Thank them.

• Were your employees adequately informed?

• How did the online and offline intersect?

8. Communicate internally The last step will be to communicate internally as an organisation and allow the knowledge and information to be shared. Make sure everyone under the organisation is aware of how to deal with negative feedback cohesively, meaning no contradicting posts.

With these steps in place, you can survive any kind of social media disaster. Crises are unavoidable, but it’s your actions that will determine the extent of the damage.

The writer is Marcus Ho, director of social media at SocialMetric.

O C T O B E R 201 4 | a dvert i s i ng + m a r ke t i ng 2 7

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THE UGLY SIDE OF THE BEAUTY INDUSTRY

It’s been 10 years since Unilever first launched its Campaign for Real Beauty, but how lasting was that important message? Jennifer Chan investigates.

Dove’s “Campaign for Real Beauty” was one of the marketing industry’s best attempts yet to change the conversation about female beauty. But one decade later, images of unrealistically skinny models with flawless skin continue to give young women a false sense of identity.

So was it a failure?

In short, no. Dove’s attempt to give female consumers a more realistic view on beauty was a success and should stand as a constant reminder that the industry has a big role to play 2 8 a d verti s i ng + marketi ng | O C T O B E R 2014

in promoting positive and healthy images of women’s beauty.

But lately this recurring problem has been highlighted in many advertisements, particularly from luxury fashion labels and cosmetic brands around the globe, which have been accused to have breached their social responsibility by using unhealthy-looking models to capture a female audience.

Two years ago H&M’s Marni collection came under fire for using a deemed “corpselike” model in PR material. One of a seasonal

ad from fashion label YSL has also triggered a petition from a blogger against the YSL CEO to stop using “malnourished models” in ad campaigns.

It is the same phenomenon in Hong Kong, where slim figures and fair skin have always been the social standard of beauty.

Dettol, for instance, recently rolled out a campaign featuring a local celebrity, for which design experts speculated her arms had been manipulated.

The creative agency behind the ad insists WWW. MARK E TING-IN TE RAC TI VE . C OM

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the image was unedited, and instead, her slim figure was attributed to a work trip to Brazil.

Rita Ching, deputy executive director of The Women’s Foundation, believes that ad campaigns, particularly from fitness centres and skincare brands, often send a message not only to promote that slim equals beautiful, but also to suggest slim is the only beauty.

“Most ad campaigns from fitness centres are sending unrealistic ideas of what a perfect figure should be to the public. Not only do they imply that slim, or even skinny, equals beautiful, they also say that less skinny models are inferior,” she says.

The recent ad campaign from fitness firm Slim Beauty depicting how local actress Kate Tsui beats her less-skinny rivals in a volleyball match, is downright irritating, Ching says.

“The ad sends a message that if your standard of beauty deviates from what the ad suggests, then you are ‘the others’. This kind of misleading ads can subtly alter the public’s idea of beauty, and it can even be damaging.”

Jean Kilbourne, author, filmmaker and media critic, who have been studying feminism and advertising field for about 40 years, agrees that advertising has gone too far to have “way too much emphasise” on standardised feminist ideal beauty, which appears to be “too narrow”, especially in developed countries.

“The ideal images of beauty is giving incredible pressure on woman to achieve a beauty ideal, which has always been impossible.

We never see a woman consider beautiful that hasn’t been photoshop to make her absolutely perfect and flawless.

“It gives huge pressure on woman, achieving something which is completely unattainable,” says Kilbourne.

Are brands giving beauty a bad image?

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“It’s not even vanity that makes woman to pursue this ideal. It’s because the stake not to follow the beauty standard is really high, that’s why the pressure is enormous.”

Noticeably, the ideal image of beauty, which have already influencing most female consumers, is also engulfing the younger generation.

“This kind of idealised images have a bad effect prominently on young people, who simply don’t realise the images are artificial,” says Kilbourne.

“So they may think if they don’t look like those models in ads, they are failures,” she says.

Social association like The Women’s Foundation has been closely in touch with school teens on research projects.

Ching reveals that with a lot of school bullying cases in which victims usually are chubby or fat girls. They’re teased as ‘other creatures’ for being a bit fat.

“When we ask them where did this idea of ‘slim is beauty’ come from, most of which says they learn from magazines or television.

“Celebrity endorsement is one of the culprits of the worsening situation, Ching added.

“Hong Kong is a celebrity-driven society and our social mindset is hugely influenced by celebrities.

“Audiences are subconsciously being fed with the idea that a skinny figure is king, with a string of identical ad campaigns featuring skinny celebrities in magazines or on television.

But quality audiences who have the ability to judge and to filter what they are fed, remains a minority,” she says.

Despite TV shows, videos and the celebrity effect, the role of advertising in creating this female-ideal is huge, as Kilbourne believes.

“Advertising is by far, the most powerful aspect in all form of mass media. They are barraging us with these images on a daily basis.”

“I am not saying that advertisers are being tempted to create unrealistic images. But this is the side product that they are selling.”

Retouched images can be so impactful and deceptive is largely thanks to advanced technology like Photoshop. This objectionable post-production job often filtered down to production houses.

Shu Leung, producer at Wow Productions, a production house behind many big labels including Timberland, Shanghai Tang, and Enicar, admitted all advertising they processed have been, on a certain level, retouched.

“We tend to keep the original image as much as possible. But when you remove their pimples, for instance, their freckles become too obvious, so that you have to also remove their freckles. Often you almost have to remove every flaws at the end.”

Interestingly, one justification on the heavy retouching images is that they’re “left with no alternative”.

“Indeed there’s a trend of raw beauty emerging in Western countries,” says Leung.

“Fashion houses or cosmetic brands in Hong Kong are interested in following this trend. But the problem is that Hong Kong has a lack of pretty models who have that kind of natural beauty.”

Outside Hong Kong, some brands are looking to redefine the beauty standard that seems to be a foregone conclusion.

Dove’s Beauty Patch Experiment, for instance, is a social experiment trying to alter how women perceive themselves. A group of women were invited to put a beauty patch named “RB-X” on their arms for two weeks, a product they were told would “enhance the way they perceive their own beauty”.

“Some people may criticise these ads as PR strategies that used to stand out from the crowd,” says Kilbourne, “which may be true, but it doesn’t really matter. What matter is that people is getting that message.”

While the world is becoming a global market place, more and more about marketing and advertising , it has some impactful side effects, that advertisers should take that into consideration to reduce the harm, she says.

“Today’s brands need to seek a unique identity and a valuable brand character for sustainable business development. At the end of the day, the core principle of advertising is to create something new and inspiring, and ultimately, redefining the social norms,” Ching adds.

“I hope brands can stop following suit of what others do, or what the majority believe, and to eye more angles to interpret the concept of beauty.”

O C T O B E R 201 4 | a dvert i s i ng + m a r ke t i ng 2 9

MOBILE – MUCH MORE THAN A SIMPLE STRATEGY “YOU DON’T NEED A MOBILE MARKETING STRATEGY FOR YOUR COMPANY OR A BRAND,” SAYS TBWA’S HEAD OF DIGITAL, TUOMAS PELTONIEMI.

Why? “Because mobile is not just another addition to your marketing strategy. It needs to be much more than that. Mobile should be at the heart of every aspect of your marketing strategy. It is not just a device for brand-building for businesses,” he explained, at Marketing’s Mobile Marketing Interactive conference.

In a recent finding by Google Singapore, it was reported 96% of consumers search for local information on their mobile. Meanwhile, 87% of the respondents claimed to research products via their smartphones and 44% claim to have made a purchase. No doubt, mobile is here to stay. Yet with the proliferation of platforms, it can often be overwhelming for marketers to see mobile as another medium to be understood 3 0 a d verti s i ng + marketi ng | O C T O B E R 2014

and conquered. Hence, marketers need to see mobile as a means to amplify the potential of their existing mediums, explained Peltoniemi.

Here’s how mobile can be integrated into the heart of any marketing strategy.

Email marketing Have you considered how mobile impacts email campaigns? Probably not. According to Litmus’ research email analytics and Jacobs & Clevenger, today 49% of emails are opened on mobile devices, but 90% of email newsletters or campaigns sent out today do not consider mobile. This results in nearly 80% of users deleting emails that don’t fit their screen. Yet if marketers could make tweaks to mobile and

optimise these email campaigns, conversion rates would likely jump by 10% to 20%, explained Peltoniemi. “Once a brand starts considering mobile, not only does it optimise conversion rates, but it is also tapping into something most marketers aren’t. Mobile needs to be a key part of any email activity that you do,” he said.

Search marketing According to Google, by December this year, mobile search on Google will most likely surpass PC search. Mobile search is also now a key decision tool with 45% of mobile search done by a consumer being goal oriented. At the same time, 73% of mobile search triggers additional action right away and a conversion. However, WWW. MARK E TING-IN TE RAC TI VE . C OM

marketers need to be mindful that in a study

by The Google Mobile Playbook, 57% of users say they won’t recommend a business that has a poor mobile experience. Ease of use and convenience on the search page will, however, draw a consumer to head to a brand’s website.

Website user experience Be it search, social media or banner ads – at the end of the day, there are a lot of trigger points marketers place to drive people to their brand websites. Here’s where user experience and responsive web design comes into play.

Responsive web design is vital and a must today. A business’s web design needs to be optimised for all devices be it mobile, PC or a tablet. It is also important to note that today 41% of users see mobile as their primary or exclusive means of going online.

Social media marketing Socia.l networking is all about mobile. According to a study by Adobe late last year, 71% of people

access social media through their phones.

According to Facebook, 52% of contentsharing is now also done through mobile and not desktop. It is, thus, vital how marketers customise content to fit into mobile on social media. “When marketers run social media ads they need to be mindful that the ads are actually competing against real people’s lives. A brand’s paid messaging needs to be really relevant to people’s lives and you need to produce content that will resonate with them.”

Barriers to mobile marketing On the topic of optimising mobile advertising, Ashwin Malshe, assistant professor of marketing at the ESSEC Business School, says while mobile and web advertising have reinforcing effects on each other, there are three big barriers to mobile. These include:

•

Consumer behaviour Consumers are largely inconsistent and marketers are still trying to work out a

•

•

balance in how much information they can or should collect without coming off creepy, says Malshe.

Economic challenges Proving ROI is not only a moving target in marketing, but also a major burden because of the time required to accurately report results. Globally, 75% of marketers face a problem when trying to calculate ROI and a common issue is connecting marketing activities to specific earnings generated. These are the findings of a study by Teradata’s Data-Driven Marketing Survey 2013.

Technology 80% of the time large corporations are spending time sifting though the data. Only 20% of the time do marketers actually get to utilise the data and use it to target their audience. Meanwhile, existing trust issues by consumers and internal co-ordination in a company are also needed to overcome the tech barrier present.

11 THINGS TO AVOID IN MOBILE MARKETING

PONDERING OVER YOUR MOBILE STRATEGY? PHIL WHITTAKER, CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER AT THEMED ATTRACTIONS AND RESORTS, GIVES SOME TIPS BEFORE REVEALING THE COMPANY’S MOBILE STRATEGY FOR ITS VARIOUS ATTRACTIONS, INCLUDING KIDZANIA, LEGOLAND AND SEA WORLD. Here are the 11 traps to avoid: 1. Having no clear reason or objective for going mobile and failing to think like a mobile user.

2. Insufficient budget consideration.

3. Shrinking an online creative and hoping to derive similar results.

4. Failing to realise that people use mobile differently over different devices.

5. Not having a localised approach.

6. Having content that is not sharable.

7. Failing to integrate a mobile campaign into events that are ongoing.

8. Failing to optimise the website.

9. Content is not engaging and interactive.

10. Unclear call to action.

11. Failing to segment the market.

Whittaker talked about the company’s use of its mobile app for the Sea World theme park. The app allows park visitors to book a place in ride WWW.M A R K ET I N G - I N T ER A C T I V E.C O M

queues, pick up discounts, play interactive games and check real-time events going on at the park.

With the advent of big data comes permission-based marketing, and how marketers can work with this is making sure that your mobile apps give users incentives to download them, he says.

Providing location-based services or information also increases the app’s usefulness.

And while coupons, special deals and offers can all be conveyed via mobile, it is important this is not overused.

“Creative incentives that encourage the customer’s mobile interaction throughout the whole experience, that is, through a retail store or theme park, keeps them buying directly from you,” he says. Offline prompts and signage will also contribute to immediate call-to-action.

Mobile Marketing Interactive 2014 was sponsored

by SingTel and Millennial Media and partnered

by ThoughtBuzz.

O C T O B E R 201 4 | a dvert i s i ng + m a r ke t i ng 3 1

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO PROMOTE A MOBILE APP SUCCESSFULLY?

MAKING YOUR BRAND’S APP SUCCESSFUL CAN OFTEN REQUIRE SIGNIFICANT INVESTMENT IN PROMOTING IT. HERE’S HOW UOB MADE A SUCCESS OF ITS APP.

If you’re going to create an app for your brand, you can’t just depend on downloads to happen organically. They won’t. (Or at least not enough to justify your investment.) Further, you have to make sure your app is more than just a catalogue for your brand. The world is full of such apps, and the sad truth is that nobody cares about them.

To give our readers an idea of what it really takes for a brand to create a successful mobile application, we spoke to Stanley Toh, first vicepresident of internet and digital marketing at UOB. UOB’s mobile application offerings were featured in its gold-winning entry for Best User Experience at Marketing magazine’s Mob-Ex awards 2014.

In a market crowded with banking apps with high utility value for its users, it takes flair to stand out. UOB distinguished its mobile application by providing features that complements its users’ lifestyle.

“The UOB mobile banking app delivers to our customers something new which will add value in their daily lives. Besides booking movie 3 2 a d verti s i ng + marketi ng | O C T O B E R 2014

tickets, customers can also book event tickets under SISTIC. Coupled with unique banking features such as mobile cash, we aim to deliver a superior user experience to our customers,” Toh says.

“We wanted to give customers a ‘concierge in their hands’.”

To promote these features, the bank invested in an eight-month advertising campaign split into two phases. The first phase – 17 May to 14 July 2013 – promoted its mobile cash feature.

The second phase – 1 October to 31 December 2013 – promoted its mobile ticketing app.

Mobile cash UOB’s mobile cash person-to-person feature allows users to transfer cash securely via their mobile numbers instead of their bank accounts.

The cash can be withdrawn from ATM machines without needing an ATM card, credited into a UOB account or used to top up a NETS FlashPay or NETS Cash Card. UOB’s mobile banking app was the first local app to include this service, well before the likes of DBS PayLah! were launched.

To promote the app, UOB invested in an integrated media campaign aimed at driving app downloads and usage.

“We were promoting a mobile feature, so a more mobile and online savvy customer base was the natural audience. However, even the most digital-savvy customer does consume conventional media too and would benefit from the service. Further, conventional media allowed us to reach customers who weren’t necessarily digitally savvy, but would be interested to look into using the app nonetheless,” Toh said.

“So a 360-degree marketing plan, including several creative executions both online and offline, was put in place.”

UOB’s mobile cash media campaign utilised a combination of internally owned channels and paid channels that complemented the lifestyle habits of its consumers. Owned channels used included electronic mailers, mobile messaging, ATMs and its own website, among others. Paid channels included advertisements in XinMSN, Google and The Straits Times website; OOH advertisements placed through Clear Channel; and mobile banners displayed through apps such as Facebook and Google.

Through the campaign, UOB achieved 102% of its mobile app download target. During the campaign period, UOB saw a year-on-year growth of 33% in mobile cash transactions, 35% in mobile cash transaction amounts and 14% in active mobile banking users.

Mobile ticketing UOB’s mobile ticketing app allows users to browse and buy tickets to movies in Cathay Cineplexes’ outlets. Users can also use the feature to book event tickets through SISTIC. Further, UOB rewarded app users with chances to win red carpet gala premiere tickets to The Hunger Games: Catching Fire in London and Los Angeles, and exclusive entry to Singapore’s premiere screening of the movie. The bank used various high-reach, affinity driven paid channels and owned channels to promote these benefits, as well as utilising the channels of sponsorship partners to encourage app downloads. Its press and mobile advertisements directed users to the app download page on iTunes and Google Play.

Ads were placed through Cathay Cineleisure’s owned channels, including standees, life stickers and web banners among others; as well as MediaCorp’s channels, Average app downloads during the campaign period were seven times higher than when there were no campaigns running; further, the bank saw a six times month-on-month increase in both the app downloads and transaction volume for mobile ticketing.

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MOBILE AND BIG DATA: FROM HYPE TO HANDS-ON

BIG DATA AND MOBILE ARE A POWERFUL ENABLERS OF CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS, SAYS OGILVYONE’S DAAN VAN ROSSUM.

The big hype around big data is over. That’s the good news that Gartner’s 2014 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies research report delivered. After dominating headlines for years, it has passed the “peak of inflated expectations” and is slowly making its way down the “trough of disillusionment”.

In simpler terms: it’s time to get real about big data. Meaning that yes, there’s a lot of data, and that yes, it’s volatile, but in the end it’s still data: pieces of intelligence that businesses can harness to drive better business results.

Mobile went through a very similar trajectory. Let’s be honest, how many times WWW.M A R K ET I N G - I N T ER A C T I V E.C O M

have we heard pundits say – “this is the year of mobile”? Finally though, the overexposure is dying down as companies truly embrace mobile as a powerful enabler of building and maintaining stronger relationships.

And that’s exactly where big data and mobile come together.

Obsessed with customers Savvy marketers are leveraging data to compete in competitive markets such as finance, retail and telecommunications. They do so because they need to be, as Forrester noted in its 2013 paper on the future of CRM, “obsessed with

understanding, delighting, connecting with, and serving customers.”

In the quest to serve this need for an obsession with customers, mobile devices are key. They are consumers’ most personal devices, always on, and through the technology that they carry are able to capture much more (and much more relevant) data than any of their cord-donning relatives.

While leveraging mobile to generate big data sounds more like a big undertaking than a quick exercise, it doesn’t have to be all that complicated, thanks to these three relatively straightforward steps: 1. Map out your customers journey.

Don’t just focus on what’s relevant to your brand. Try to truly understand customers’ ups, downs, wants and needs. If they’re a financial trader, what does their day look like? If they’re a mum-to-be, what do they go through from the moment they find out they’re pregnant?

2. Spot engagement opportunities along the journey. Is the mum-to-be looking for a name for her baby and overwhelmed by the many articles and websites promising her just that? Is the investor manually searching for financial news based on his portfolio?

Now overlay that with the data you’re looking to extract from your customers and determine the overlap.

3. Create value for both you and your customer. This is where it gets fun. Dream up a worthwhile value exchange between your customer and you. In return for a baby name based on a clever algorithm, would the mum-to-be offer up access to loyalty cards stored on her phone? Would the trader occasionally give up his whereabouts in return for a personalised financial news service?

Even though we’re talking mobile here, please don’t fall for the “mobile for brands means branded apps” trap. Broaden your thinking and explore options such as partnering with an already successful third-party app. Think about beacons that promise hyper-location in stores.

Think about wearables or connected cars that are constantly recording streams of valuable data. If you can do this, you will triumph, as you’re banking on existing user behaviour to build better relationships that are profitable both for you and your customer. Now who was talking about disillusionment again?

The author is Daan van Rossum, strategy director at OgilvyOne Singapore.

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internet access purely on mobile devices. In the rest of Southeast Asia, we are having to change our way of thinking as quickly as possible.

Marketers and agencies alike agree to the need to adapt to this ever-changing environment and ensure their communications plans are mobile-enabled. In fact, some are going much further than this and are pushing the majority of their efforts into mobile communications. Based on this, both parties should also be looking to adapt to mobile commerce much more effectively rather than seeing it as a barrier to success.

Look for the opportunities within your marketing, step into your target audience’s shoes for a small while and consider how they may use their mobile phones on a day to day basis – it’ll probably be just the same way that you or I use them – and then realise this is a platform which cannot be ignored any further.

MOBILE MARKETING - TAKING THE NEXT STEPS FORWARD FOUR TOPICS WERE DISCUSSED AT THE MOBILE MARKETING INTERACTIVE CONFERENCE’S ROUNDTABLE SESSIONS. HERE ARE WHAT OUR ROUNDTABLE HOSTS CAME AWAY WITH.

Mobile commerce in Southeast Asia While we have the technological expertise and an understanding of the potential for mobile commerce in the market, there is still a hesitancy to utilise mobile commerce to its full effect.

Research shows that mobile can play an integral part in the e-commerce process by aiding awareness, driving demand and providing a platform for research, based on the fact that by the end of this year mobile search will have overtaken search on PCs. And while this is all acknowledged, only 35% of marketers in Singapore have admitted to making an effort to implement mobile “friendly” websites – whether those are mobile-optimised or have responsive design.

Providing consumers with that last step in the purchasing cycle – being able to easily (and I stress easily, as UX is a predominant barrier 34 M AR K ET I N G O C T O B ER 2 01 4

to successful mobile commerce) purchase through their phones – is a simple process.

Even if consumers in Singapore are hesitant to purchase high-value ticket items through their phones as yet, we should still be providing them with that opportunity.

Giving them the ability to place an item in the basket, and then purchase through their PC or laptop later on, is one step in the educational process and we saw during Mobile Marketing Interactive that a number of retailers are starting to do this to great effect. Lower value ticket items will sell through mobiles easily, just as people are becoming used to making in-app purchases on a regular basis.

But outside of Singapore we need to take into account that markets are different.

Smartphones and 4G are only just taking off in Indonesia, where we shall see a rapid growth in

Giles Henderson, director, media and channels, VML Qais Small data is the key Phil Whittaker, the CMO of Themed Attractions Malaysia, set the stage with one powerful sentiment: when it comes to mobile and data, bigger is not always better. Big data may get the fame, but “small data” is the key to simultaneously improving the customer experience and business results. Small data helps you build the story about who your customers are and what they need.

Sea World, Whittaker explained, provides an excellent example of how to enhance visitors’ experiences by capturing and leveraging small data. The attraction invites visitors to use a mobile app to skip lines and make in-park purchases right from their phones. This data capture process alone can vastly improve the overall park experience. At the same time, the insights this app provides on movement patterns and customer needs are invaluable to the business.

The conversations the many attendees of the mobile event had after that keynote made this marketer and topic host’s heart jump for joy.

Sure, the level of maturity in terms of leveraging data ranged from the very early stages to incredibly advanced, but everyone seemed to agree the outcome should always be to improve the user’s experiences.

Whether insights gleaned from data improve actual products, fuel the innovation pipeline, optimise a store layout or help tailor messaging based on individual preferences, everything should be customer-centric.

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when it comes to leveraging mobile data to deliver value. Organisations of all backgrounds can benefit from the opportunities that mobile and data provide. It’s all about putting the customer first and designing your solutions around that. Of course, a number of obstacles were repeatedly mentioned. After all, the marketer’s dream is not always the organisation’s priority. So how do you make the case for the incredible opportunity provided by data sourced from mobile (and beyond)? Attendees seemed to agree it has to – again – start small. You have a much better case in proposing a pilot for testing some of your hypotheses than you do in proposing a complete business overhaul. And what if you don’t have access to customer data at all, as is the situation for a fairly large group of participants? What if you’re in the business of selling consumer goods, but your retailers hold the key to all the sales data? Or if you sell products directly, but can’t access the data around how your customer uses it after the purchase?

The consensus was that you would have to reach out directly to the end customer – through mobile and digital engagements such as textto-wins, surveys, apps, useful pieces of content and tools – to capture a true representation of their experience as a shopper and end user.

Data possibilities keep mobile marketers up at night. Bringing these peers together to listen to keynotes related to the topic and to discuss case studies and questions proved to be the perfect conference format for inspiring answers and innovation. Empowered by all these new insights, it will be exciting to see what’s next for data and mobile in Singapore. Our “little red dot” may be small, but the ambitions to use data to serve customers are nothing but big.

Daan van Rossum, strategy director, OgilvyOne Singapore Mobile creativity Creativity in mobile devices is often only considered in campaigns. The world is full of campaign apps that are downloaded less than 1000 times. Our roundtables focused on “thinking outside the campaign app”. Most of the questions from roundtable participants were around the comparison between mobile applications and the mobile web. Key questions included which of the approaches brands should take when designing their mobile experiences, and how creativity can be used to design services for their businesses. The answers to these questions are not always clear cut. There are very successful global brands, which have built their business around a mobile application in a creative way. An example of this is Uber, WWW.M A R K ET I N G - I N T ER A C T I V E.C O M

which has focused on user experience and created a competitive advantage over taxi applications in multiple markets globally.On the other hand, financial brands such as Simple have used mobile creativity to disrupt the banking industry. Another example of this is payments brand Square, which has made it possible for small and medium-sized businesses to accept payments using their own mobile devices.As with the previous examples, when considering mobile creativity, brands can offer people two things: utility value or entertainment value.

There are brands where the utility value is more apparent. Typically, travel and financial industries fall into this category. Utility applications and mobile web services have plenty to do in the arena of creativity, and creativity should be applied in designing seamless user experiences that keep customers coming back frequently.

The entertainment value category is more evident for gaming and content brands, but more mainstream businesses such as MINI have been successful in mobile entertainment. The MINI Getaway campaign that took Stockholm by storm in 2010, was one of the most awardwinning mobile campaign applications in history.

In this campaign, the entire city was turned into a real-time board game where people were trying to hold onto a virtual MINI using their mobile phones. Other creative examples discussed were McDonald’s with its alarm clock that would provide people breakfast promotions, and the use of tablets as creative business-to-business

sales tools. A brilliant example of mobile creativity from one of the roundtables was NEXT Hotel in Brisbane, which is recreating its customer experience completely around mobile.

Customers can not only search for available rooms and book via the mobile application, but also check in, receive the room number, unlock the room door, as well as control everything from air conditioning to the room TV, using the NEXT app. This creates a seamless end-to-end experience, which talks to its target audience in a clever way. Mobile creativity is not just for campaigns and marketing. Creativity should be used in user experience, utility, entertainment and even business models. Many brands, such as Uber, Simple, and Square, have proven the value of mobile creativity in building successful businesses and disrupting existing category conventions. Businesses across categories can create a competitive advantage by applying creativity to the mobile experiences they provide to their customers.

Tuomas Peltoniemi, head of digital, Digital Arts Network Overcoming mobile’s biggest challenges During my roundtable discussions, it seemed the topic of mobile marketing was quite new to a number of the people I spoke to. A fair number didn’t use mobile as an advertising platform, making it hard to discuss the challenges faced by marketers. For those who did invest a lot in mobile marketing, the problem of ROI kept coming up.

Attribution is a problem for mobile: it’s hard to find out the success of a mobile campaign.

Unlike in the world of TV advertising, there are no credible sources which will help brand managers judge ROI – there isn’t a comScore for the mobile world. This means that while a lot of marketers can claim their apps have millions of users, without a credible external source it’s really hard to judge download figures and thus decide on mobile advertising investments.

Further, brands face problems with screen size: brands are worried about how noticeable mobile banners actually are. Complicating this is the problem of balancing visibility with a good consumer experience. Brands are concerned about ensuring they get their message across without irritating their audience. Finally, a lack of education about mobile is the biggest challenge.

Marketers know what the medium is – it’s hard to know where to start. This means that while brands are investing in it, mobile marketing is not a high priority in their budgets.

Meru Shantharam, sales manager, Millennial Media OCTOB E R 2 014 MARKE TI N G 35

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LAST WORD

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A CLIENT’S CHEAT SHEET FOR BETTER WORK OUT OF AGENCIES It’s not that hard to get along with your agency partners. Here are six simple questions to make life easier, writes McCann Singapore’s Ali Grayeli.

Read this - Save yourself and your agency partners some sweat and tears.

Boooya! It’s time. Time to make that magical call to your agency and have a kick-off. You have everything you need: No time. No money.

Impatient superiors. Inattentive audience. And someone said, “make it viral”.

As someone on the receiving end of these kick-offs, let me start by saying you’re not alone. In fact, this is now the new norm. Taking a moment to concisely articulate a problem has become a thing of legend.

But what if you took a minute to concisely answer six questions before making the call?

Let’s call it “focus”.

Focus guides the agency with precision and intent. (We’re busy too!)

Focus also helps you manage internal issues with clarity. Focus is as simple as answering these questions: 1. What are you doing?

2. Why are you doing it?

3. Why don’t people believe it?

4. How much risk will you take?

5. Who has the final word?

6. What does success look like?

Now you’re sitting back thinking to yourself … “That’s it?”

That’s it.

Agencies need an objective. A direction. We need a problem to solve with purpose. Once we get there the rest comes into play.

You see, creative ideas solve problems first and foremost. They’re not just art or poetry or apps or ‘likes’ … they’re business solutions for marketing needs. If they don’t solve a problem you’re probably about to WWW.M A R K ET I N G - I N T ER A C T I V E.C O M

make new problems by launching aimless work. Your agency (if it’s good) shouldn’t be jumping to a creative solution unless you can answer these questions first.

Questions save you time. They save us creative time and spring forth ideas such as a graceful forest stream, not an out-of-control garden hose.

For example, in the past 20 years I’ve lost count of how many times the question, “What are we doing?” has awkwardly derailed a meeting of intelligent people.

“We’re selling units right?”

“No, no we’re raising brand awareness.”

“It’s a sampling campaign, isn’t it?”

“You sure? I thought it was a one-time event?”

“But we still need an app right?”

“Doesn’t matter, just put it on Facebook, we’ll get ‘likes’. ” Even the most hardened advertising professional can produce aimless work and, frankly speaking, there is a lot of it out there so let’s cut it down a bit.

Focus first and cover the basics.

Your success will sky rocket.

Your agency will love you.

Your sex will be better.

And the work will rock.

Let me know how it goes.

PS – I can’t promise the third point!

The writer is Ali Grayeli, executive creative director at McCann Singapore.

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