Marketing Magazine SG - May 2014

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ED’S LETTER ................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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 – Singapore Che Winstrom, Sales Manager chew@marketing-interactive.com Mercy Soh, Senior Account Manager mercys@marketing-interactive.com Johnathan Tiang, Account Manager johnathant@marketing-interactive.com Trina Choy, Account Manager trinac@marketing-interactive.com Yuru Wong, Account Manager yuruw@marketing-interactive.com Advertising Sales – International Josi Yan, Sales Director (Hong Kong) josiy@marketing-interactive.com Events Yeo Wei Qi, Head, Events Services weiqi@marketing-interactive.com Marketing June Tan, Regional Marketing Executive junet@lighthousemedia.com.sg Finance Evelyn Wong, Regional Finance Director evelynw@lighthousemedia.com.sg Management Søren Beaulieu, Publisher sorenb@marketing-interactive.com Tony Kelly, Editorial Director tk@marketing-interactive.com Justin Randles, Group Managing Director jr@marketing-interactive.com

Content marketing is not new; the hype around it is. And being in this industry, aren’t we used to such hype surfacing from time to time?

Especially the digital industry, which tends to get ahead of itself, leaving brands scrambling to keep up.

So what do brands need to remember in order to not get carried away by this new wave?

First things first – to remember it’s not new, and that it’s crucial to have a good head on your shoulders. Content has been the king ever since communication started.

A quick “history” of what content marketing is and where it actually started throws up many instances of brands using this tactic as early as the 19th century. A gentleman called August Oetker sold packages of a baking powder brand called Backin with recipes printed on the back. This was in the 1890s. Later, he started publishing his own cookbook which went on to sell as many as 19 million printed copies.

Again in the late 1890s, John Deere launched a magazine widely considered to be the first custom publication – The Furrow – to provide information to farmers on how to become more profitable. Come to the 1930s and the P&G-led “soap” opera is a well-known story in the history of marketing.

What’s new then? The opportunities around content marketing and the way in which we need to do our jobs, yes, journalism, included.

I can easily draw a parallel here. Just as how brands are striving to become media owners, media is learning digital marketing – the role digital can play in enhancing the reach of the content it produces. Any online journalist (well, there are hardly any offline ones now) will tell you how important a social media strategy is to news distribution.

Other than that, analytics is now a key pillar of the news strategy. What resonates with the audience, what doesn’t; what needs to be canned or kept, where is the traffic coming from, what are the key words to be used in the copy – these are discussions that are beginning to take place in the newsroom, almost every day. It is for sure in our newsroom at Marketing magazine.

In essence, the old ways of working are no longer relevant. The same goes for brands wishing to become content creators. How to come up with a content-led strategy, therefore, and not be obsessed with the medium, especially digital, is a challenge.

We all know content is a powerful tool to engage customers. And an indisputable fact is that content now needs to work a lot harder than it ever had to do in the past – cut the clutter, reach the audience and engage them, and doing all of that is the toughest thing in marketing today.

That’s why we created Content 360 – a two-day conference designed to put content in perspective with regards to marketing. I guess the mantra for marketers is to stay focused and, of course, enjoy the coverage of the event in the edition.

Marketing is published 12 times per year by Lighthouse Independent Media Pte Ltd. Printed in Singapore on CTP process by Sun Rise Printing & Supplies Pte Ltd, 10 Admiralty Street, #06-20 North Link Building, Singapore 757695. Tel: (65) 6383 5290.

MICA (P) 180/03/2009. For subscriptions, contact circulations at +65 6423 0329 or email subscriptions@marketing-interactive.com. COPYRIGHT & REPRINTS: All material printed in Marketing is protected under the copyright act. All rights reserved.

No material may be reproduced in part or in whole without the prior written consent of the publisher and copyright holder. Permission may be requested through the Singapore office. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in Marketing are not necessarily the views of the publisher. Singapore: Lighthouse Independent Media Pte Ltd 100C Pasir Panjang Road, #05-01 See Hoy Chan Hub, Singapore 118519 198755 Tel: +65 6423 0329 Fax: +65 6423 0117 Hong Kong: Lighthouse Independent Media Ltd Unit A, 7/F, Wah Kit Commercial Building 302 Des Voeux Road Central, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong Tel: +852 2861 1882 Fax: +852 2861 1336 To subscribe to Marketing magazine, go to: www.marketing-interactive.com

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

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

WHY CONTENT HAS CHANGED EVERYONE’S JOB

Rayana Pandey Editor

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CONTENTS FEA TU R ES 16 SINGTEL’S PRICING OF WORLD CUP 2014 Now that SingTel has secured the rights to World Cup 2014, it is charging non-subscribers high prices to watch the matches. Was this a sneaky marketing move? Rezwana Manjur reports.

28 PROFILE: SHELL’S TRACI ALFORD Head of fuels branding for Shell, Traci Alford, talks about the challenges of holding a global marketing role and the disciplines required to uphold it. Elizabeth Low reports.

34 CONTENT MARKETING Brands and industry experts discuss their top strategies and challenges related to content marketing. Also read all about Content 360, Marketing Magazine’s first conference on the topic.

44 MASTER REPORT: SOCIAL MEDIA How can brands keep pace with the changes happening in social media and is social media ROI a myth?

Marketing in its latest Master Report asks.

Content marketing has forced marketers to rework their strategies. Are the old ways of marketing totally redundant? What do marketers need to do differently now?

Find out in this edition.

52 CUSTOMER LOYALTY Marketing magazine’s second Annual Customer Loyalty conference went deeper into the issues of loyalty and engagement. Read all about the event here.

OPINIONS

DE PA RT M E N T S

24 BRAND HEALTH CHECK: SINGAPORE TOURISM BOARD

4 NEWS

With a major marketing push for Singapore’s 50th anniversary looming, is STB’s marketing efforts enough?

The Health Promotion Board appoints DDB; The National Art Gallery’s new image cops flak; Ogilvy CommonHealth Worldwide launches Singapore office; plus Intel appoints agencies.

26 AD WATCH/WEB WATCH

27 DIRECT MAIL CASE STUDY

Ren Partnership’s Chris Chiu highlights StarHub’s “Hi Hannah” ad, but he dislikes Yeo’s campaign, while Lowe Profero’s Phil Ely spills his thoughts on the 5 Stars and Woolworths sites.

LUX sparks up its product range.

SCAN TO SUBSCRIBE!

27 16 KEY TAKEAWAYS: >> Content marketing tips for your business. >> Ethics of fast-food marketing and sports. >> Key challenges of a global role.

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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.

A big win The Health Promotion Board (HPB) settled part of its creative pitch, handing it to DDB. According to GeBIZ, the awarded value is SG$1,512,864. Also in the pitch were BBH, Grey Group, Iris Singapore, Ogilvy & Mather and XM Asia Pacific. DDB is handling HPB’s healthy lifestyle and infectious diseases initiatives as well as other public education initiatives. The new contract is for two years.

Another big bite Bite added Far East Hospitality, a Singapore operator for hotels and serviced residences, to its portfolio of global brands. Far East Hospitality partnered with Bite to build visibility of its hotel brands and position in Singapore as a top travel destination for Australians through an integrated PR, influencer and social marketing campaign, targeting travel, hospitality and lifestyle audiences.

Local focus The EDB made a series of PR appointments, including one to reach out to the local market for the first time. In Singapore, GolinHarris was appointed to oversee public relations for the market. Marketing understands this is the first time it is doing this for the Singapore market. It is for one year, with the option to renew for another.

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Expanding its Vision CPR Vision expanded its Singapore office following several new client wins, both locally and globally. One of the biggest account wins comes from The Ascott Limited, an international serviced residence owneroperator. The Ascott Limited is a subsidiary of CapitaLand, one of Asia’s largest real estate companies. CPR Vision is tasked with spearheading Ascott’s marketing, analytics and loyalty initiatives as well as providing a central data warehouse.

Mizuno seeks agencies After making Singapore its regional headquarters for the company last month, Japanese sports equipment and sportswear brand Mizuno is on the lookout for agencies for its creative and digital duties. The selected agency will be tasked to oversee the strategy for the markets of Hong Kong, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, India, Vietnam and New Zealand, which it will manage out of its Singapore headquarters.

MDA looks at complaints Amid rising content costs, a new rule is being considered to heed complaints from the public about Pay TV operators. A spokesperson from the MDA said the complaints arose because most standard consumer contracts were often long and drafted in legal language that might not be easy to understand. The MDA also added recent feedback indicated there may be a need to increase consumers’ awareness.

A new hub E-Graphics Worldwide and Hub Plus, both Omnicom Group companies, merged to form eg+ worldwide. The new company provides a client-focused network for production and tailored implementation solutions.

E-Graphics and Hub Plus have complementary capabilities and a history of collaboration on behalf of their clients. The new agency will use a proprietary technology platform that offers clients a onestop shop for asset, workflow and project management.

Scholarship gains support Creative agency BBH Asia Pacific and the Economic Development Board of Singapore (EDB) launched the application process for the second joint EDB-BBH International Strategy Scholarship (ISS) following a successful first trial last year. The ISS scholarship is supported by the EDB in an effort to grow key manpower capabilities in Singapore’s workforce for emerging sectors through overseas attachment and training with leading companies.

Healthy frying Philips launched a new campaign to mark the third anniversary of the launch of its Airfryer. To showcase the Airfryer, a Philips Airfryer birthday food truck drove through the streets of Singapore.

The campaign was created by The Boutique Agency. It aimed to reach out and engage its target audience, with the goal to feed at least 50,000 people.

Food for thought Magazines Integrated will launch a new magazine Bites in July.

The monthly 48-page print and online publication will be an allencompassing eating guide for food news in Singapore. Bites will have a fully responsive online presence through social media channels such as Facebook and Instagram where users can find the latest openings, video blogs, and other such food updates.

Under one roof Twitter handed regional PR duties to Ogilvy PR for the Singapore, Australia, India and Indonesia markets. The agency takes over from Hoffman. “As the Twitter business has grown across the APAC region, we need to have a centralised PR agency network to more effectively manage our PR programs across multiple markets,” Dickson Seow, APAC head of communications at Twitter, said.

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NEWS

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Caring about sport The Singapore Sports Council launched a tender looking to appoint a public relations agency.

This is for the integrated marketing communication for its SportCares division. The aim of the SportCares division is to use sport as a force for social good by “empowering people in need”. This is the first time SportCares has looked to work with a PR agency to raise its profile.

Agencies in hot water Procurement issues continue to plague government tenders as government agencies once again get called out for not adhering to proper procedure. The Public Accounts Committee, which recently released the annual Auditor General report on government tenders, called out several government agencies as being in violation of the guidelines. Some ministry bodies were criticised for not disclosing an evaluation criteria in the tender documents.

Intel appoints agencies Following a recent review of its PR business, Intel appointed agencies for Singapore and Malaysia. The business is led by the incumbent agency for Malaysia, Priority Communications, teaming with IN.FOM for Singapore. Intel recently merged the operations for both markets and will be led

by Singapore/Malaysia country manager Prakash Mallya. In Singapore, the account is led by Mike Liew, partner of IN.FOM.

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ZooMoo opens for business Beach House Pictures and StarHub launched the Singapore debut of children’s channel ZooMoo on StarHub TV. The channel was launched together with a second screen application that allows ZooMoo viewers to collect every animal they encounter on the TV screen and bring them to life on their tablet or smartphone. ZooMoo is produced in conjunction with sister company NHNZ in partnership with Wildlife Reserves Singapore.

Kids 21 looks to expand Children’s fashion retailer Kids 21, operated by luxury fashion group Club 21, paired up with IBM. Kids 21 will now use the latter’s cloud, e-commerce and analytics software to deliver personalised experiences, while expanding its online presence across Asia Pacific. The new online site will increase Kids 21’s reach from four to more than 15 countries in the region and will launch in the third quarter.

Connecting over coffee The Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) unveiled The Coffee Connector, a machine designed to create connections by dispensing two cups of coffee at a time. The machine was created through a collaboration between the Singapore-based The Secret Little Agency (TSLA), New Yorkbased StrawberryFrog and Tellart, a creative technology firm based out of Rhode Island. The machine made its debut at The Big Rethink conference.

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A healthy move Ogilvy CommonHealth Worldwide (OCHWW) launched its Singapore office under the Ogilvy CommonHealth Asia Pacific (OCH AP) banner. Rohit Sahgal, regional managing director of OCH AP, said Singapore was an Ogilvy CommonHealth Asia Pacific “centre of excellence, with the ability to provide integrated communications across advertising and promotions, medical education, public relations and digital” and a central hub for many key regional clients.

Rallying against bullying The Coalition Against Bullying for Children and Youth (CABCY) launched a new campaign with the help of JWT Singapore and XM Asia. The campaign, “Share it to end it”, is a social media activation campaign designed to raise awareness and spark a conversation on bullying. JWT Singapore and XM Asia created a 100-second illustration film for CABCY that portrayed a bullying victim’s silent suffering.

Going Down Under Australian tourist organisation Tourism Northern Territory appointed AKA Asia to manage the public relations and social media channels for Singapore. AKA’s role includes media relations, hosting press trips, consumer engagement and management of the Northern Territory Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts for fans based in Singapore. The tourism board hopes to target locals with the increase in low costs and premium air travel.

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What’s cooking?

Groupe SEB Singapore, parent company of cookware and home appliances brand Tefal, appointed Vocanic as its social media agency locally for a year following a pitch.

Vocanic will be tasked to develop the digital platform for its leading consumer brand, Tefal. The brand hopes to achieve a more seamless integrated one-stop shop alignment of full media duties from offline to online.

Mixed response for Art Gallery Following the National Art Gallery’s new brand identity, it had to deal with some fairly negative comments. The design and revamp was done by local design firm Asylum. This was part of its high profile efforts to promote Singaporean and Southeast Asian art, which occupies two heritage buildings in Singapore, City Hall and the Supreme Court.

Part of the crowd At a time when crowd-funding is only beginning to pick up across the region, StarHub’s i3 introduced the beta-launched Crowdtivate, its online social launch pad aimed at aiding local and Asiabased entrepreneurs and artists.

Crowdtivate is an open platform for entrepreneurs and artists to obtain financial contributions from supporters via a funding system and create awareness of or gather feedback on their ideas or work.

STB ad lives on A promotional ad from the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) made its rounds in digital space.

The video was uploaded late last month and after receiving much backlash, was taken down by the STB. Unfortunately, copies of the video live on online. The video “See where the world is heading” was aimed at tourists from The Philippines. It was produced by Philippine network ABS-CBN.

Looking to Malaysia Singapore Tourism Board (STB) launched a tender looking to appoint a research agency to conduct qualitative consumer research with its target audiences in Malaysia. According to a spokesperson from STB, the tourism body adopts a consumercentric marketing approach.

“Consumer insights serve as the foundation on which to then tailor its tourism offerings and marketing messages to resonate with our intended target audience,” she said.

That’s hot Hot Men in Linen (HMiL), a new Singapore-based lifestyle company, acquired the retail and distribution rights to Pudu in Southeast Asia. Pudu is a travelinspired fashion and accessories label for men. For its opening in April, Pudu launched a PR and influencer marketing campaign with PR Communications. In the works are also plans to bolster its online presence through a targeted social media campaign.

Not everything is a gamble The National Council on Problem Gambling appointed media agency UM and creative agency Goodfellas for a campaign pertaining to the World Cup. The campaign is targeted to launch during the European soccer season and throughout World Cup 2014 to educate the public on the negative impact of gambling.

Media duties include traditional, digital and OOH, while creative duties include producing print, radio ads and TVCs.

A new pedigree Dog food brand Pedigree collaborated with Starcom MediaVest (SMG) Malaysia to launch “Pedigree Nutri Number Calculator”. The insights for the campaign stemmed from an observation the majority of dog owners in Malaysia provided their dogs with either meal leftovers or home cooked food on a daily basis. With this campaign, Pedigree wanted to raise awareness among dog owners to make the switch to Pedigree.

Gaining an Affiniti Singapore-based creative agency Affiniti secured several regional accounts. These include Malaysian boutique hotel chain, JIA Hotel Group, and niche Thai property developer, Thai Kriya Limited.

Affiniti was appointed by JIA Hotel Group to develop the hotel’s brand identity and to strategise and lead its marketing and promotional efforts. For Thai Kriya Limited, the company will oversee one of its largest projects, Metro Bangna.

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NEWS

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Tata drives into the Philippines Indian auto giant Tata Motors entered the Philippines market via an exclusive distributorship deal with Pilipinas Taj Autogroup Inc. R T Wasan, head of international business for commercial vehicles at Tata Motors, made the announcement during the company’s launch at the Manila International Auto Show 2014. Tata’s expansion into the Philippines is aligned with Horizonext, an “aggressive customer-focused strategy for its passenger vehicles business”, announced in June 2013.

Adding on OMD announced its appointment as the media agency for two Australian clients: RACV, a $14 million account and the $16 million Pacific Brands account. Both were awarded to OMD following a pitch. RACV is the main motoring club and mutual organisation in Victoria, Australia. Pacific Brands has signed a three-year contract with OMD which will hold media responsibilities for the brand name.

Vote against the king In anticipation of the launch of the fourth season of TV series, Game of Thrones, DDB New Zealand and SoHo, SKY New Zealand’s entertainment channel, launched a social media campaign challenging fans to topple the hated fictional character King Joffrey using the hashtag #bringdowntheking on Twitter. DDB co-ordinated the production of a giant seven metre statue of King Joffrey, with the help of production company Finch.

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Setting up camp Digital creative agency SapientNitro acquired the smaller New York-based creative shop Campfire. The latter was founded in 2007 by the producers of The Blair Witch Project, and specialises in social storytelling, branded content and experiential marketing. The move is aimed at strengthening SapientNitro’s branded content, entertainment, social engagement and interactive film capabilities. This is the second acquisition SapientNitro has made this year.

Who’s the best?

In the run-up to the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, Emirates Airlines launched a commercial to throw open the debate of, “Who is the greatest football player of all time? Called “All-Time Greats”, the 60-second online spot features football stars Cristiano Ronaldo and Pelé in a chance meeting on board the Emirates aircraft, and captures the unique relationship that fans share with their heroes.

Rumour has it PepsiCo is understood to have shifted its China media business to GroupM agency Mindshare, after putting the account out to pitch.

PepsiCo’s Greater China region runs four flagship brands – Pepsi, Lay’s, Tropicana and Mirinda.

Earlier this year, the company launched the “Bring Happiness Home 2014” campaign, now in its third year, with the theme, “family knows no boundaries and love knows no limitations”.

Roaring on The Volkswagen Group extended its partnership with MediaCom Worldwide for another three years. MediaCom will continue to provide strategic media insight and planning and buying services for all Volkswagen Group brands.

The relationship first started in 1998 in Germany and now covers more than 30 countries. It will also handle media duties for VW Group brands in Poland.

A new partnership Kantar and Twitter entered into a global partnership with an agreement for more than five years. Under the programme name, “Data of Now,” both parties have agreed to collaborate on new research products in the areas of advertising effectiveness, consumer insight, brand equity, customer satisfaction and media measurement.

On the right Wavelength WPP’s JWT acquired a majority stake in Indian social media agency Social Wavelength. Founded in 2009, Social Wavelength is headquartered in Mumbai with offices in Delhi and Chennai.

The company employs more than 170 people and key clients include Franklin Templeton, Apollo Hospitals, Idea Cellular and GE India Industrial. This acquisition marks a further step in WPP’s strategy of developing its networks in fast-growing markets and sectors.

Cooking up some Rice WPP’s public relations firm Hill+Knowlton Strategies acquired digital agency Rice5. No acquisition price was revealed, but Rice5’s unaudited revenues for the year to 31 December 2013 were HK$16.6 million, with gross assets at the same date of HK$6 million.

The news comes only days after another independent agency Metta Communications announced it had been acquired by China-based holding group BlueFocus.

HOW MUCH DOES THAT COST?

INVASION OF THE GIANT JUICE BOXES Sony Entertainment Television (SET) launched a campaign creating 3D larger-than-life juice cartons measuring up to 2.9 metres at key locations in the Central Business District, Serangoon Central and Holland Village.

This is to promote season two of its American country music drama, Nashville, upcoming new medical drama series, The Night Shift, and the latest season of the reality culinary competition, Cupcake Wars.

The juice cartons carry details on SET’s upcoming programmes, with each show having its own prime spot.

The campaign was done by creative agency The Local and on Clear Channel Singapore’s platform.

The campaign is targeted at SET’s female audiences. According to SET, “troops” of men will be roving through key locations on

the island to hand out free juice cartons re-labelled with promotional materials of the featured shows.

Members of the public are encouraged to strike a “wickedly juicy pose” with the hunky ambassadors or one of the largerthan-life bus shelter panels and snap a photo to enter SET’s Facebook contest.

SET’s campaign will also encompass print, television, digital and social media. The ball park for the media and production for the giant juice boxes is about SG$32,000.

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NEWS

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AUDIT WATCH

BITES TO GET AUDITED Getting active Virgin Active appointed Saatchi & Saatchi Thailand as its creative agency. The appointment comes as Virgin Active launches its new flagship fitness club in Bangkok this month. Saatchi & Saatchi has been confidentially working on the launch for the past few months, providing advertising, branded content, design, PR and activation, as well as overseeing social media activity. Mark Cochrane, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi Thailand, said the brand aimed to be “the most loved fitness brand in Thailand”.

Fresh connections Out-of-home ad provider Clear Channel Outdoor (CCO) is rolling out an interactive mobile advertising platform globally called Connect. Advertising panels on CCO’s pedestrian-accessible sites globally will be turned into mobile launch pads, enabling consumers to access interactive content from advertisers via their smartphones. CCO first launched its mobile platform in the UK with a nationwide rollout in 2013 that included 10,000 mobileenabled sites.

A man and his car As part of its 80th anniversary celebration, Nissan launched a new programme that embodies the “love stories” between Nissan drivers and their cars in Japan until August. A documentary depicting the real-life story of one family’s “love story” was created for the promotion and awareness of the campaign. Nissan claims the campaign has led to the increase of a number of Nissan owners renewing their cars.

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Magazines Integrated is launching Bites magazine in July, as a guide for food enthusiasts.

Presented over 48 pages, the monthly tabloid will delve into Singapore’s edible urban landscape to deliver the latest restaurant, café and bar reports, buffet and deals listings, beverage reviews and more.

The magazine will also have a fully responsive online presence through social media channels such as Facebook and Instagram. This is the publishing firm’s latest foray into a food publication since the launch of epicure in April 2010, a gourmet lifestyle magazine.

“With the wide circulation of Bites, we are effectively reaching out to a different target of valueconscious foodies,” says publisher Cecilia Goh. The first edition will hit the market in July, running

with a print circulation of 20,000 copies. It will be distributed free to a select list of shopping malls, cafes, restaurants, cooking schools, country clubs, specialist clinics, hotels, car and kitchen showrooms, electronic and furnishing stores, tertiary institutions and outside MRT stations.

Readers who prefer the digital version of Bites can download it onto their iPad or Android tablets.

As a show of commitment to advertisers, Bites will be audited one year after its launch.

Selfie strategy US-based digital agency iStrategyLabs created a “selfie mirror”, giving vanity chasers worldwide the ability to capture the perfect self portrait. The high-tech mirror, called S.E.L.F.I.E (Self-Enhancing Live Feed Image Engine), allows users to capture the exact same image reflected on the mirror. The photo are automatically posted on Twitter.

Get stripped Doritos is marketing its latest chips in plain silver coloured packs in the US, removing all visual aid. The packs simply have labels plastered in red, yellow and blue with a generic batch numbers. Nothing else is revealed about the flavours.

The experiment, titled “Bold Flavor Experiment”, encourages consumers to try the three different flavours and vote for their favorite.

Not just skin deep Arcade created a campaign for the launch of Unilever’s Clear Hair & Scalp Care range in Japan across broadcast and print. With Japan facing significant societal shifts, the campaign platform ‘Strong is beautiful’ is designed to map out a new territory for Japanese beauty that deliberately steps beyond the kawaii imagery that dominates many Japanese brands.

Hell on earth New Zealand’s pizza chain Hell Pizza put up a controversial billboard ahead of the Easter weekend. The tagline for this billboard ran with the line: “Made from real rabbit. Like this billboard.” The chain has also been actively promoting the pizza on its Facebook page, putting up fun facts about rabbits. Some have since taken offense to the ad.

Flashing made cool Calvin Klein Underwear put an extra layer of sexiness on its latest social media push. To hook Hong Kong consumers and their desire to show off wealth, the label has rolled out a media campaign in Hong Kong to ask social media users to share their Calvin Klein underwear’s at #mycalvins, a platform built from its previous global digital push in February.

A consolidation Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) handed Leo Burnett Manila/Arc Worldwide Manila its social media account following a seven-way pitch. “Beyond a social media plan, their proposal showed a clear understanding of how BPI will utilise social media to drive business,” Virginia Brocka, digital marketing head of BPI said. This is the first time the bank has consolidated its entire social media under one agency.

Forever young Evian launched the second stage of its global Amazing Baby & Me 2 campaign, tying it into the Spider-Man 2 movie. Building on the idea that there’s a superbaby within everyone, Evian encourages people to take a fresh look at everyday problems through aTwitter activation. Evian hopes to provide fun solutions that encourage its followers to let their inner “super-babies out to play”.

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1 Campaign Sony Entertainment Television Brief The campaign promotes season two of the American country music drama, Nashville, upcoming new medical drama series, The Night Shift, and the latest season of the reality culinary competition, Cupcake Wars. The juice cartons carry details on SET’s upcoming programmes, with each show having its own prime spot.

Client

Sony Pictures Television (SPT) Networks, Asia

Creative

The Local (Outdoor media and print creative)

Media

Clear Channel

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2 Campaign Share it to end it Brief The social media activation campaign is designed to raise awareness and spark a conversation on bullying.

A 100-second illustration film for CABCY was created, which portrays a bullying victim’s silent suffering.

The film gets shorter by a millisecond each time it is shared on Facebook and will disappear after 100,000 shares, ending the victim’s misery.

Only the last frame will remain, which people can still share on Facebook to continue the conversation.

Client

The Coalition Against Bullying for Children and Youth (CABCY)

Creative

JWT Singapore and XM Asia

Media

None

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3 Campaign Anywhere and Everywhere Brief Through the campaign, Skyscanner hopes to raise awareness of its brand and how it makes planning for travel easy, and also delight people with a free holiday. The campaign is heavily publicised through digital media, mobile ad networks and social media such as Yahoo, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. In addition, there are out-of-home executions, including posters at 122 bus stops island-wide, double-decker buses and giant outdoor digital screens.

Client

Skyscanner

Creative

Leo Burnett Singapore

Media

Havas Media

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4 Campaign Taste the French Way of Life Brief Kronenbourg beer launched a regional integrated brand campaign with the help of BBH Asia Pacific across print, digital, point-of-sale, out-of-home and all brand collaterals.

BBH Asia Pacific was first handed the Kronenbourg business in October 2013 and was tasked to create a new brand strategy for the French beer brand in the region. The new campaign is also built off strong Asian insights.

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Client

Kronenbourg

Creative

BBH

Media

OMD

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

M AY 2 01 4 M ARKE TI N G 1 1

6/5/2014 7:30:14 PM

NEWS ANALYSIS

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4 TIPS TO TACKLE MULTISCREEN MARKETING CHALLENGES With consumers simultaneously using multiple screens, here are four tips for brands to ensure their messages are reaching the right audience at the right time.

With consumers simultaneously using multiple screens, the opportunity for marketers lies in delivering consistent, integrated campaigns as users shift between screens.

Specific to multi-screen marketing opportunities, AdReaction, a global study

by Millward Brown, found consumers are most receptive to micro videos, TV ads with interactivity and TV ads promoting mobile apps, Facebook pages and websites.

Asia Pacific surged ahead of the global average in terms of total screen time (439 minutes versus 417), with smartphones taking up the lion’s share (159 minutes to 147). Screen time for laptops (115 minutes) and tablets (60 minutes) was also higher than the global average. TV was the only screen to fall short (104 to 113 globally), highlighting the opportunity for multi-screen marketers in the region.

Other key APAC findings include: – A typical APAC multi-screen

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user

consumes just over seven hours of screen media per day during a five-hour period.

In line with global figures, smartphone usage takes the lion’s share (36%) with total minutes ahead of the global average (159 versus 147).

– 39% of screen time is simultaneous usage of TV and a digital device, ahead of the global average (35%). Of this, 17% is meshing (simultaneous usage for related content) – again ahead of the figure seen globally (14%), and 21% is stacking (simultaneous usage for unrelated content).

– Shifting remains the biggest multiscreen marketing opportunity.

With nearly 61% of screen time spent shifting brands can take advantage of using synergistic multi-screen campaigns, potentially targeted at mobile given its inflated usage in APAC.

– TV does still act as the trigger medium for screen activity in APAC. In terms of continuation, smartphone dominates among all other screens (smartphone 51%, laptop 40%, tablet 26%).

– Marketing receptivity is higher for TV than for ads on digital screens in line with global figures.

But there is an opportunity in APAC for synergistic attention-grabbing campaigns and making the most of TV and smartphone activity. Consumers are receptive to interactive TV ads and notice TV ads that advertise apps. Brands who can optimise between these screens in a meaningful way have a lot to gain.

A market-wise breakdown: Understanding local market nuances becomes critical for brand strategies and media planning.

Regional numbers from Asia Pacific were higher

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than global consumption patterns, driven primarily by use in Indonesia and the Philippines.

While in other regions smartphones dominate daytime screen usage, in Asia Pacific they are the dominant screen in the evening as well. Of the total time screens are being viewed, “shifting” among individual screens throughout the day remains the dominant form of screen use, at 61% of screen time. This remains the largest multi-screen opportunity in Asia Pacific.

• Users in Thailand, for example, engage in meshing at a higher proportion than the global average (28% versus 14%), while users in Australia are stacking more (28% versus 22%).

• Indonesia and the Philippines topped the global table in terms of total time spent between screens at 540 and 531 minutes respectively.

• Laptop minutes in China (161) are the highest in the world.

• Within the region, Japan had the lowest consumption at 343 minutes.

• Tablets deliver difference for brands, with receptivity notably high in the Philippines.

More on the findings here:

Four tips for brands in a multi-screen world: Be consistent – Whenever someone engages with you, whatever screen they’re using and wherever they are, your brand experience and messaging should be uniform.

The biggest multi-screen opportunity is not simultaneous connections between screens, rather a consistent presence across screens.

Pepsi’s “Get Hyped for Half Time” was a successful month-long multi-screen campaign which culminated in its sponsorship of the Super Bowl half-time show.

Be connected – Think about second-screen experiences and how your marketing can interact engagingly between screens and travel seamlessly across screens.

New multi-screen behaviours offer exciting opportunities for interactions between screens.

Although not all brands will be able to achieve this, second screen play-alongs can be popular.

Kia’s “Game On” play-along app illustrates how a brand can promote meshing. During the Australian Open tennis grand slam, TV viewers were encouraged to use their smartphone to return a serve from Sam Groth on TV. The brand was well integrated in both the TV ad and app – keeping Kia top-of-mind as an official sponsor.

Be considered – Some screens are better than others at communicating particular aspects of your brand’s personality.

All screens can achieve all brand-building tasks, but different screens do imply certain attributes and can play specific roles. Let these starting assumptions work to your advantage.

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Vanish uses TV to not only advertise its “Tip Exchange” Facebook app, but also to keep Vanish salient.

Meanwhile, the digital component of the campaign allows for deeper engagement with the brand, content and other brand users, in an attempt to differentiate itself from other brands, in a useful and engaging way.

Be concise – Think carefully about how to overcome resistance to ads on digital screens.

Use mobile-friendly, shareable content that entertains first, informs second.

Vivo, a Brazilian telecom brand, launched a TV and social media campaign to concisely promote its benefit of good network connectivity.

The brand used the “pega bem” hashtag (which means “it’s wonderful, it’s good”) and asked consumers to post good moments of their lives with this hashtag.

This year’s study was conducted among 16 to 44-year-old multi-screen users. Research was conducted in 30 countries among more than 12,000 consumers. The APAC sample size was 3080.

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6/5/2014 9:37:17 PM

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IS SINGTEL’S PRICING FOR WORLD CUP 2014 A SNEAKY MARKETING MOVE? Now that SingTel has secured rights to World Cup 2014, it is charging non-subscribers high prices to watch the match. Was this a sneaky marketing move? Rezwana Manjur asks.

Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) has secured the rights to bring the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil to all television and mobile screens in Singapore. However, the way SingTel plans to charge customers has left it open to criticism.

SingTel has priced the plan where content will be offered at no additional charge for consumers who sign up for its contracts. But otherwise, those who wish to enjoy the matches without a contract will have to pay a hefty price of SG$105.

Several football fans Marketing spoke to were outraged by the price, although some said they would still pay the fee.

Johnathan Tiang, 27, expressed outrage at the price, but said he would pay the money anyway. “It’s ridiculous, but yes I would still pay for it.” Ryan Reuben, 40, said: “SingTel is too much. This is a ploy to benefit from this commercially. But how will it work out if they piss off their customers?”

Meanwhile, competitor StarHub is also taking shots at SingTel for the move, saying

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it “sets a precedent for operators to acquire exclusive content at high prices” and “lock customers into extended contracts”.

Jeannie Ong, chief marketing officer of StarHub, said: “We do not support overbidding of content prices by our competitor, as it will have long-term adverse implications for the industry and Singapore viewers.”

Ong argued a joint bid would have spread the cost of the content and allowed both operators to offer the tournament at a more affordable price. “Unfortunately, our competitor chose to acquire the rights exclusively.”

A SingTel spokesperson rebutted StarHub, saying a joint bid with the latter was one of the first options explored, although this was later ditched as both were not able to agree on a joint offer.

“With a very real threat of Singapore not having the World Cup, we had to proceed with the next option, which was to go on our own.

The price eventually secured was reflective of global sports content costs – contrary to our

competitor’s unsubstantiated comment, we did not overbid. We negotiated as low a price as we could achieve and have now delivered for the first time ever a compelling option for fans allowing them to enjoy the thrill of the World Cup for free,” she said.

She did not comment on fans’ sentiments.

SingTel had earlier sought MDA’s approval to acquire these key matches on an exclusive basis, as part of its overall deal with FIFA, and was given the approval by the government agency, the MDA told Marketing. This is on the condition that it sub-licenses and makes available these matches to free-to-air broadcaster MediaCorp.

MDA has also required the four key matches of the World Cup 2014 (opening, semi-finals and finals) be made available on free-to-air television channels.

The securing of broadcast rights for Singapore audiences comes a little later than most of its neighbouring nations as Hong Kong, Malaysia and Indonesia had long before secured their broadcast rights to the 2014 World Cup.

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6/5/2014 7:29:32 PM

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SIA TO TAKE OVER FORMULA ONE SPONSORSHIP SIA and Singapore GP speak up on why the sponsorship has moved from SingTel to the airline.

Rezwana Manjur writes.

Is Singapore Airlines (SIA) taking over as title sponsor for Singapore’s Formula One (F1) night race? The answer is yes.

SIA has signed on as the title sponsor of the Singapore Grand Prix which will take place from 19-21 September this year.

“We are thrilled to be taking up the title sponsorship of the one of the most exciting night races in the F1 calendar, and we are especially pleased to be doing so in the lead up to Singapore’s 50th birthday next year,” SIA CEO Goh Choon Phong said.

SIA ran two full page ads in the Straits Times (pictured) as well as on its social media assets: F1’s CEO Bernie Ecclestone said: “We are very happy to have SIA join the F1 family by becoming the title sponsor for the extremely popular F1 Singapore Grand Prix, which was the first F1 night race and demonstrates Singapore’s forward thinking, an attribute Singapore Airlines has always achieved.”

What happened to SingTel? For the past six years, SingTel has been the title sponsor. Whilst it did not comment on the parting of ways with Singapore GP, at a SIA press conference executive director, Singapore GP, Michael Roche said SingTel felt “it was the right time to let the partnership go.”

Roche added that SingTel would still be a partner in terms of helping to advertise the event on its platforms such as mioTV and on SMS. However, he added that now that SingTel is no longer title sponsor, the Singapore GP was free to work with other telco players such as StarHub and M1.

SingTel issued this statement from Allen Lew, country chief office, Singapore: “This has been a fantastic partnership and we are pleased to see that another flagship Singapore brand will be taking over the reins.”

What does it mean for the SIA brand?

As for SIA, a spokesperson said that because the F1 race pushed tourism, the airline would stand to benefit from the influx of tourists.

Under Goh Choon Phong’s leadership, SIA is making bold moves to reinvent its business model, according to Lawrence Chong, CEO of Consulus. Chong cited recent developments such as the tie-up with Tata for the new Indian

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A new name on the track: Will the new partnership take off?

airline and making a more serious play in the budget category as becoming a threat to the business.

“So sponsoring F1 is definitely great for the brand because it signals that this is a time for boldness and SIA is going to do that,” he said.

“In my opinion, F1 is a global brand which represents audacity so this certainly helps to reinvent SIA to emerge as a more relevant brand for our age. The other plus point is, F1 is a sport that has always adopted some of the world’s leading technology and SIA is trying to bring in more intuitive features – aided by technology – into its experience so it will be interesting to see if other forms of collaboration emerge out of this relationship.”

Joseph Baladi, head of consulting, Leo Burnett Institute of Behaviour said the key reason F1 came to Singapore was and remains all about bringing more tourists to the city that

would in-turn boost business – particularly service and retail. “Based on this alone, it is totally unsurprising that SIA would take on the lead sponsorship role for the event,” he said.

“It makes total sense for SIA to position itself as the perfect, “official” carrier for all incoming tourists planning to attend the event and visit Singapore. The airline’s global reach will provide opportunities for strong and relevant campaigns that are also cost-effective,” he added.

Marketing plans ahead Marketing duties for the event will come under SIA’s ad agency, TBWA, as part of its existing contract. Singapore GP will also work on certain marketing duties in-house.

Neither SIA nor Singapore GP commented on the cost of the sponsorship, but said negotiations had been ongoing since after last September’s Grand Prix.

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6/5/2014 7:28:41 PM

NEWS ANALYSIS

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SHOULD FAST-FOOD BRANDS BE SPONSORING ATHLETES? It is an age old practice that brands sponsor famous athletes. But do these partnerships really make sense? Rezwana Manjur asks.

FC that will see both brands engaging fans through joint promotions.

PepsiCo has also bought the title sponsorship to the Indian Premier League cricket for five years starting in 2013 for US$71.77 million. This was nearly twice the deal signed in 2008.

Sports sponsorships are no small business.

In a study by PwC in 2012, the global sports market was worth US$130 billion. Sponsorship contributed 30% of the amount. PwC also predicted that by 2015, global revenues from sports sponsorships are expected to be US$145 billion, with Asia Pacific contributing 19% of the revenues.

Unlikely bedfellows: Should unhealthy food brands be sponsoring athletes?

With the Winter Olympics now over, the issue of sports marketing is once again in the limelight.

With a global outcry quickly rising over unhealthy food marketing, the age-old practice of unhealthy food brands sponsoring athletes is increasingly being called into question.

Last week, Sara Deon, value (the) meal campaign director from watchdog body Corporate Accountability International, wrote an open letter to Olympic medallists pleading with them “not to accept sponsorships from McDonald’s, a corporation that drives the worldwide epidemic of diet-related disease”.

The letter went on to state that for more than four decades, McDonald’s has sponsored the Olympics to “forge an undeserved association between health and its unhealthy brand”.

“Sponsoring the Olympics and high-profile athletes enables McDonald’s to mislead people worldwide into thinking that its brand is healthy,” Deon said.

“While on the surface, these relationships might seem innocuous, they are powerful marketing tactics designed to associate the fast-food corporation with symbols of health and build brand affinity and trust among children. But you can stand up to this misleading marketing.

You can be a voice for children’s health […]”

Athletes aside, entertainers are also under fire for promoting unhealthy foods, which their critics claim, clash with their actual image.

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For example, a Pepsi campaign endorsed

by Katy Perry was criticised by the health group, The Centre for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), which accused the singer of putting her young fans at greater risk of obesity and other illnesses by promoting the brand.

Singer Beyoncé also felt the heat when CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson said in a letter to her: “Your image is one of success, health, talent, fitness and glamour. But by lending your name and image to PepsiCo, you are associating those positive attributes with a product that is quite literally sickening Americans.”

Unhealthy food brands and athletes: unlikely bedfellows?

However, it has been an age-old practice that brands sponsor famous athletes.

For example, fast-food chain McDonald’s, a sponsor of the Olympics since 1976 and the FIFA World Cup since 1994, signed up Olympic swimmer and US multiple medallist Dara Torres to front its campaign during the run-up to the 2012 Olympics.

According to PwC, this was done in an attempt to change the perception of the brand and “promote exercise and balanced eating”.

In another example, Dunkin’ Brands Group signed a multi-year marketing partnership with the Liverpool Football Club (FC). The F&B giant now has marketing partnerships with Liverpool

Getting involved with the brand Marketing spoke to National Sport Climbing Team athlete Hazlee Muhammad. He is currently sponsored by Allsports Equipment, PETZL and Five Ten. As an athlete, Muhammad conceded he would not want to consume unhealthy food on a regular basis as part of his fitness regime.

“According to my principles, as an athlete I should project a responsible image as it reflects on the sport that I’m doing. Taking up an unhealthy sponsor may project a negative image and influence the public especially the youth,” he said.

However, he added that conditions vary among sponsors, depending on what the company and the athlete agree on.

Andrew Jeffrey, marketing director of CocaCola in Singapore and Malaysia, said when sponsoring athletes, the company does expect the individual to consume the products.

“We need to ensure that the fit is genuine between our brand and the athlete as our consumers are always savvy to the truth. You must have an affinity with the brand to be a true spokesperson,” Jeffrey said.Jeffrey also added that typically Coca-Cola sponsored sporting events rather than individual athletes.

Like McDonald’s, he adds that Coca-Cola hopes “to encourage and inspire people to lead healthy active lifestyles”.

Ultimately, the decision lies with the athlete, said Muhammad. “The consumption or use of products would definitely depend on whether the terms proposed by the company is in agreement with my principles and purpose as an athlete.”

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6/5/2014 7:27:49 PM

Global Talent.

National Service.

Calling the brightest brains in advertising and marketing.

“

This country needs you.

�

You, who have just picked up your first trophy, or your umpteenth one, at the Marketing Magazine’s Agency of the Year Awards.

Time for this nation’s best creatives to conjure up new gameshow formats, new sitcoms that don’t suck, new storylines for epic 100-episode dramas.

And standing there with you in that same ballroom are your fellow award winners.

Time for the family to be united once more following the same show everyday, or going on a marathon watching binge together.

Never mind who’s your colleague or who hails from a competitor company.

What if we banded ALL the award winners (and award finalists) together to form committees and collectives charged with this mission – Saving Singapore with fresh new ideas.

Currently, the PAP government already gathers various representatives from different industries in order to garner their feedback and thoughts on key issues.

But have they experienced what can happen when you bring together our industry’s most ingenious and resourceful minds and souls?

Of course, to meet that gaping need, freeflow has a Broadcast Content Division geared up to produce your bright new ideas. So call us now!

And what else can be improved?

Well, everything else - because this country is always looking to make things better in every area it can, being progressive, future-ready.

Not taking anything at all for granted.

Because in these times, you need to arm yourself with the best ideas so that you don’t end up like the once-great city of Alexandria.

At freeflow productions, we are fortunate to have encountered some of the most interesting raconteurs and agent provocateurs walking through our doors.

Mind you, these are the clients or creatives who collaborate with us to come up with great work.

And they are not all Singaporeans – some are, while others come from Australia, Canada, China, Malaysia, Spain, the Philippines, the U.K. and the U.S. They all live and work here now, at freeflow productions and at the agencies we work with.

Just as our advertising and marketing here has benefitted from the global and local talent working together - Singapore deserves to have the best ideas from these guys too.

Here’s to SG50 and beyond!

Yours truly, Singapore.

And what in Singapore needs saving?

Well, for starters, our local Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) television programmes.

Enough already, with the Internet age dividing parent and child, brother and sister. Enough already, with each and everyone we know watching something on the web, on his or her own.

www.freeflow.com.sg

The patriots at freeflow productions A 10-year-old video production house at 89 Neil Road

www.vimeo.com/freeflowproductions

www.facebook.com/freeflowproductions

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John - Australia v 55 years old v a premium customer of AUS Financial, which manages 70% of his investment

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Shireen - India v 23 years old v shops 2-3 times a month v often listens to friends’ recommendations

Epsilon’s 2013 Consumer Loyalty Study An analysis of customer engagement that enriches loyalty

Wei - China

Misako - Japan

v 34 years old v a member of MaxMiles for 7 years v enjoys being treated like a valued customer

v 41 years old v a housewife with 2 children v always opens emails from her preferred grocery store for relevant offers

s-Country Epsilon Cros lty Study Loya Consumer CHINA

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EpsilonIntl_A4_Loyalty_Print_29-01-2013.indd 1

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1/29/13 11:56 PM

MARKET SPOTLIGHT: TURKEY

TWITTER BAN IN TURKEY: IS IT REALLY THE RIGHT MESSAGE? The question that begs to be asked is why is the Erdogan & Co. blaming the channel rather than the messenger or the message itself? Rayana Pandey writes.

In another case of growing tensions between governments and social media, Turkey has moved to block Twitter.

In March this year, Turkey’s prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed Twitter was used to spread “wiretapped recordings that have damaged his government’s reputation”. However, after he first announced the ban, users could still bypass and access the social media site, including Turkish president Abdullah Gül himself.

According to global reports, Turkey is now stepping up the ban ensuring the usage of Twitter is curbed nationwide. “Internet service providers in the country are now blocking the addresses used by the site, making it significantly more difficult to get around the restrictions,” The Guardian reported quoting analysts.

What’s Twitter doing?

Meanwhile, Twitter, which coincidentally is celebrating its eighth birthday, isn’t staying mum on the issue. In the first round of communication it said:

As the government stepped up its efforts to implement the ban, Twitter again displayed its support to its audience saying this:

Governments banning internet giants are by no means a new development, but every time such a move happens, it raises a question on the role of social media and the way it is dealt with by governments in distress The recent ban on Twitter in Turkey is a classic case of an establishment becoming insecure and abusing its power to control

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Shutting down Social media: In a world which is being reshaped by social media, is it a good idea to ban a platform?

communication channels in a nation for its own benefit, says Prantik Mazumdar, managing partner of Happy Marketer.

While it’s common practice for various governments to request or order websites and social media sites to censor content, it is another thing to try and completely “root out” a popular social networking channel such as Twitter.

“The question that begs to be asked is why is Erdogan and co. blaming the channel rather than the messenger or the message itself?” he says.

“If he does believe the allegations being made are fake and vile, I am sure he can take the concerned parties to task through the legal avenues available.”

According to Mazumdar, a channel such as Twitter provides an equal opportunity for all to communicate and air their views. Hence, it would have been smarter and more effective if Erdogan had chosen to actively share his perspective and amplify the reach of his voice to the 4.173 million followers he has on Twitter (the third largest for an individual profile in Turkey) rather than attempt to ban the channel.

“On the whole I think such episodes are a blot on Turkey’s rise as an emerging market and will do no good to investor confidence,” he said.

“I would have thought that following the Arab Spring in 2010, a country like Turkey would have taken a more sensible approach towards monitoring and mediating online conversations. It is vital governments create balanced policies governing internet broadcasting rather than take such undemocratic and ineffective stances.”

For the first few days, the ban had very little impact on the Twitter activity from Turkey.

As per a report from Twitturk, the country had been posting about 500,000 tweets every 10 hours despite the ban; on a usual day Turkey posts about 1.8 million tweets every day.

“This should be a good learning lesson for Erdogan and co. that in today’s world it is quite cumbersome to ban access to such sites given the numerous VPN-based work that’s available out there,” Mazumdar said.

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8/5/2014 11:54:21 AM

OPINION: BRAND HEALTH CHECK

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THE DILEMMA OF SELLING SINGAPORE SINGAPORE’S VISITOR ARRIVALS Visitor Arrival Year (In thousand)

2010

2011

2012

2013

11,641,70

13,171,30

14,496,10

15,466,00

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DIAGNOSIS Singapore’s dilemma: What is brand Singapore really?

It has been four years since the Singapore Tourism Board debuted its YourSingapore brand position.

While it’s no easy task marketing a country as a destination, with its multiple facets, the STB’s marketing account has always been a multi-million dollar affair, with agencies hotly contesting for the business when it goes up for pitch every four years.

As the country inches towards an even bigger marketing push – the SG50 (which will take place next year), where various government agencies are pulling together a major effort to market Singapore – its efforts so far deserve consideration.

Moreover, a simple video targeted at the Filipino market by STB recently, created mass anger and drew its marketing strategy into question.

A poorly executed three-minute video with a C script and plot drew much criticism. The video featured a Filipino couple marvelling at Singapore’s attractions, and ends with the wife springing a surprise pregnancy result on her husband. Some questioned why the government agency would even approve such a poorly done execution.

While the tourism numbers continue to climb, does STB need to clean up its marketing better, especially with such a large budget available?

During the criticism of the video for the Philippines, STB executive director Oliver Chong rebutted the public outcry and asked the public to suggest creative ideas.

With the SG50 looming, how else can the STB steer its marketing efforts?

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Joseph Baladi Head of consulting Leo Burnett Institute of Behaviour

Government agencies that are scrutinised by different groups of stakeholders with different interests rarely manage to satisfy all their constituencies – at least at the same time – regardless of what they do. The STB is no exception.

The video is probably its most harshly criticised work over the past six to eight years. It managed to raise the ire of not only Singaporeans, but also many of the very people the communication was targeting.

Never mind the year-on-year record numbers of tourists the country managed to attract, Singaporeans appeared to be resolutely displeased with how their country was being portrayed.

Should public disapproval be tactfully ignored? Rising tourism numbers is only part of the story. The other part always questions how much more or better could the effort be. To that end, STB would probably benefit by interpreting public disapproval as a sign its advertising – regardless of results – could be improved.

The public represents the organic DNA of the Singapore brand – its identity.

Alongside differentiation, the single most important characteristic of all strong brands is authenticity.

To do this, STB will need to pull back from a strategy that customises “personalised travel experiences” to different customer audiences in different countries to one that reflects a more coherent and consistent identity of the Singapore brand.

Ambrish Chaudhry Regional strategy director The Brand Union

“Amazing”, “Incredible”, “It’s more fun in …”

Tourism campaigns in the region are many things, but self-effacing or understated isn’t one of them. So when STB came up with YourSingapore it seemed to be an interesting alternative to the hyper-adjectival branding of other regional country brands.

YourSingapore seemed to have captured the essence of what Singapore offers as a tourism destination – a multicultural, vibrant city experience that thrives on diversity.

However, the promise of individual experiences has not been fully leveraged in subsequent communications. There has been a tendency to fall back on familiar destinations and landmarks. There seems to be a lack of the diversity and energy that is part of the Singapore experience. Simply put, there is not enough of the unexpected.

There have been many things said about the STB ad in the Philippines. The one thing that stuck with me was how the couple didn’t once interact with anyone from Singapore. Call me sentimental, but for me it’s in the small interactions such as a tête-à-tête with the taxi uncle or sharing your table at a hawker centre, where the uniqueness of Singapore truly lies.

The essential challenge for STB is to transform perceptions of Singapore from a convenient stopover to a vibrant destination in its own right. It can only do so by keeping the YourSingapore proposition fresh, interactive and constantly evolving.

TREATMENT Baladi’s brew: • Don’t ignore public ire.

• Articulate a consistent and coherent identity of Singapore.

Chaudhry’s cure: • Communicate the more obscure, but genuine aspects of Singapore culture.

• Keep evolving the proposition instead of the usual travel spots.

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6/5/2014 7:45:38 PM

OPINION: AD WATCH/WEB WATCH

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Chris Chiu Founder/chief creative officer Ren Partnership

AD WATCH HOT: StarHub – Hi Hannah

NOT: Yeo’s – Remembering Yeo’s

Film has always been one of my favourite mediums.

The ability to elicit an emotional reaction during the course of doing our job is something I’ve always appreciated. And the “Hi Hannah” spot from StarHub is one of the better spots of late that I feel has done this. Beautifully produced, this spot took its time to let the simple idea unfold – which was the secret to this success I reckon. Patience is often the thing most clients have a hard time appreciating – often, wanting to telegraph the whole plot as soon as possible. Thankfully, not so in this case. The casting was wonderful. I enjoyed that with such a wonderful lead, the supporting cast was tucked far enough away so as not to interfere. Kudos to the advertising agency, production people and especially to the client.

It was tempting, but eventually just too easy to have picked the recent STB video for this. So I have to thank one of my art directors for helping me pick this campaign instead, from when he took the train to work recently. The soft drink category is a tough one – simply because so much great work has been done in the past – which is why agencies and clients are often clutching for a creative platform or positioning that differentiates, while remaining relevant and contemporary.

This one didn’t do any of the above.

The crafting was very average; and in a six-sheet outdoor execution, poor crafting, unfortunately, magnifies the missed opportunity. A pity, because as a thought, “growing up with Yeo’s” is a decent starting point. The brand has a strong heritage and therein potentially a gold mine for creative messaging; sadly the chance to take that initial nugget somewhere stronger was lost.

Phil Ely APAC head of comms Lowe Profero Sydney

WEB WATCH HOT: medium.com

NOT: woolworthsonline.com.au

Medium doesn’t do anything that we haven’t seen before on a website, but I love it because it does what it does so well. The guys who made the site obviously had a clear idea of what they wanted their site to do – deliver a great reading experience for the user. The site’s architecture and design is brilliantly simple, but still feels new and polished. It doesn’t ask you to dive into unnecessary complex navigations – you have a couple of options and a page to scroll down, creating a “just one more article”-style experience, which after using content-heavy sites such as news.com or Mashable, is very refreshing. The component I love the most is how the site manages comments. It has moved away from the usual “comment at the bottom” approach and allows readers to comment on individual lines in the article. This makes the addition of comments much more meaningful. A brilliant example of a site that understands what it is for and delivers just that, with one or two little innovations that really make a huge difference to the overall site experience.

For a company that puts so much focus and investment in its in-store experience, buying your groceries from Woolworths online is a very tedious experience. Not that many people would say the weekly grocery shop is a particularly enjoyable task, but I for one would rather walk the isles with my ninemonth-old son screaming at me from the seat in the trolley than click my way through this site for a week’s worth of shopping.

The user experience does what it needs to do functionally and would be fine if you were only buying a couple of products, but when filling a virtual shopping trolley it just makes you click through too many options to find what you need. On top of this, the amount and quality of product information is very inconsistent and the product images are often too poor a quality to be able to see properly. With a bit of user experience architecture and interface design work, this could be a great experience, which if people start using in volume, would have a hugely positive impact on Woolworths’ business and profitability.

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DIRECT MAIL CASE STUDY

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LUX SPARKS UP ITS PRODUCT RANGE A sensory sensation awaited Lux’s target audience in a direct mailer. Here’s how the brand pulled it off.

The Spark of life: Lux rejuvenated its brand with a cheeky campaign aimed at couples.

In conjunction with the relaunch of LUX and its all-new collection of fine fragrance skin treats in Singapore, the brand customised an exclusive Spark Kit to bring to life the campaign idea of “Igniting the Spark” through a multi-sensory approach of smell, sight, touch and interactive experiences. Each Spark Kit was exquisitely put together with the purpose of giving women touchable soft skin and a great fragrance to ignite the “Spark” with their partners through smell and touch.

Dressed in luxurious silk and pink, the Spark Kit design was inspired by the Soft Touch variant from the LUX Classic Collection as well as the Ignite Your Spark campaign – with research on how women ignite the Spark in their relationships with their partners. The research, conducted among women aged 18-49 in Singapore, showed us women associate igniting the Spark with a beautiful fragrance and touchable soft skin.

To communicate the LUX Spark research findings, the recipients of our Spark Kit were treated to the LUX Soft Touch body wash, infused with Silk Essence™ and a rose

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scent, a pair of dice which suggested various combinations of intimate activities for couples to ignite the Spark, creating an interactive yet mischievous experience for the couple, and an insert with tips to ignite the Spark.

The Spark Kits were also meant to be invitations to the brand’s first and biggest PR event, the House of LUX Singapore on 16 April.

Within the Spark Kits, we included a cut-out of a perfume bottle, teasing guests to collect their very own bottle of Soft Touch at the House of LUX event, where they were up close with award-winning perfumer and creator of the Soft Touch fragrance, Calice Becker.

Being the first and biggest brand relaunch here, a total of 140 Spark Kits were created. Each and every Spark Kit was sprayed with the Soft Touch fragrance and hand-delivered to editors of major media houses, beauty writers and key opinion leaders. Photographs of the Spark Kits later became drivers for pre-event buzz in social media spaces owned by publications and social influencers.

From Facebook to Twitter, Instagram to the blogosphere, the LUX media drops generated a

huge social presence, sparking conversations such as “The sensual LUX teases our senses – with an invitation to its house” and “Thank you LUX for the lovely box set, naughty date dice included.”

THE MAIL Objective: To relaunch Lux and its all-new collection of fine fragrance skin treats in Singapore.

Idea: A Lux Spark Kit direct mailer to act as an event invite.

Results: More than 150 media guests, bloggers, and retail partners attended the House of LUX at 72-13 Gallery on 16 April to witness the unveiling of the all-new LUX collection, while social conversations of the brand relaunch continue online.

Susanne Arfelt Rajamand, Marketing manager Unilever Singapore

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PROFILE

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PROFILE

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Singapore has been drawing in multinational corporations to set up global or Asia Pacific functions in the nation – with the likes of Unilever and Mead Johnson having set up here in recent years. One of the most recent of these is Shell, which set up its regional headquarters in Singapore this year.

I caught up with Traci Alford, head of fuels branding for Shell.

Traditionally from a FMCG marketing background, Alford cut her teeth at Cadbury Schweppes working on brands such as Schweppes, Dr Pepper, Seven Up, as well as Cadbury, Trident and Halls.

She also talks about moving through several different roles over the years – brand management, key account management at Walmart, business director and even finance.

But holding a global marketing role has its challenges.

“From an external perspective it’s gauging how much you should standardise as opposed to localising. All big companies have that challenge,” she says.

The next challenge comes internally – managing a global team. For Alford, she is the only one of her global team in Singapore, while the rest

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are based in Europe. She says she was based here for the company to have a greater focus on the East.

“Everyone has different agendas; everyone is in a different life cycle.

There are external factors, different competitive sets. Taking multiple countries on a journey can be a challenge,” she says.

SHELL’S MARKETING PHILOSOPHY Then there is the challenge of marketing fuels – a traditionally sensitive sector to mass-market.

If there was ever any doubt, BP’s 2010 oil spill fiasco only highlighted the sensitive nature of the business. Shortly after, Shell launched its bold brand positioning with its global brand campaign, “Let’s Go”, intending to showcase how Shell is behind multiple energy sources and cleaner fossil fuels. This ran without a hitch until 2012 when Greenpeace activists led a fake counter campaign mocking Shell.

In general, for Shell’s fuels business, marketing primarily takes place through its distributor model or its retail experience.

“The key marketing strategy for our fuels is to ensure we have a great

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PROFILE

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experience. The difference between fast-moving consumer goods and the retail environment is that it has to be holistic. When someone drives under the canopy, tops up his fuel, does the pump work? Does the pay system work? There needs to be a consistent retailing experience as well as making sure you build a differentiating fuel brand.”

Another part of Shell’s strategy is to bank on the premiumisation of its products – selling on the idea of a higher variant of the product in question. This is a strategy she is familiar with. She was with Cadbury when it bought an organic business, creating the world’s first fair trade chocolate and effectively beginning the premiumisation of Cadbury’s product, which was traditionally mass-market only.

“The way we are structured, we will always be quality or premium.

We will never be price fighters because that’s just not who we are. We pride ourselves on being technologically advanced, having the best in the world.”

FROM FMCG TO FUELS And there are many more disciplines she is bringing from her staunch FMCG background.

First, despite the company’s fairly painful experience online, digital is where she hopes to take the brand. In terms of media spend, it only takes up 10% of the budget. But she believes the brand needs to increasingly be part of a dialogue with consumers.

“For a business like Shell, it is difficult, not everybody likes us for various reasons. We have to be selective; we take incremental steps instead of running out there. Not all digital mediums are for all businesses, not all of them drive value,” she says.

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Another thing she believes her FMCG background has brought to her current role is rigour and process when it comes to planning marketing disciplines.

“I have a philosophical belief there are two things that make companies outstanding – one is the brand, two is the people. Do I have the right people in place and are they delivering? So the latter is about having more discipline,” she says.

“Some marketers have the misconception that marketing equals communication and that the main goal is making money. But it is ensuring that what we do every day is delivering something for the bottom line, and not just in the short term.”

The next thing is focus. She talks about modelling the budget on where the company sees the most impact. “If we have to make choices from investment preferences – if we can’t do it well, we don’t do it in that country. We do it in the countries we can. Once we get those economies of scale or value, we spread the pie. It is more around budget allocation.”

FUELLED BY FACT Ultimately, she describes herself as an “insights-based” marketer, which she explains, is necessary for her global remit.

“The challenge you have in a global role is your instincts are going to be based on your experience. Over a period of time, you have to come off that base. When you are having a dialogue with an individual country, you have to look at the facts.”

JWT has been working with Shell globally as its creative agency for the past decade, and Edelman for public relations duties for the past four to five years.

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Anastasia Nazarova MDIS Student (2014)

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CONTENT 360 2014 DATE: 2 – 3 April 2014 VENUE: InterContinental Hotel Singapore 1 Johan Buse, vice-president, consumer marketing, SingTel, speaking on the role of online videos in content marketing.

2 Lee Boden, chief, Kudos Content, talking on the art of content marketing.

3 Ben Heyhoe Flint, CEO and founder, Asian Sponsorship News, speaks about metrics for content marketing.

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4 Moderator Rayana Pandey, editor, Marketing magazine, with panellists (from left): Shaun Davies, Southeast Asia lead editor, Microsoft; Enrique Pinilla, head of digital and e-commerce, APAC, 3M; and Rod Strother, director, digital and social centre of excellence, Lenovo.

5 Moderator Elizabeth Low, deputy editor, Marketing magazine, with panellists (from left): Johan Buse, vice-president, consumer marketing, SingTel; Krishnadeep Baruah, senior director, marketing, BBM, APAC, Research In Motion; and Veronique Meffert, head, group digital marketing, Great Eastern Life Assurance.

6 Miguel Bernas, director, digital marketing, SingTel, on what to bear in mind when creating online videos.

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7 The audience at Content 360.

8 Sirpa Ikola, senior marketing director, South Asia, HTC. 9 Shaun Davies, Southeast Asia lead editor, Microsoft, on the role of content marketing in building brand equity.

10 Pete Mitchell, global media innovations director, APAC, Mondelēz.

11 Rod Strother, director, digital and social centre of excellence, Lenovo, on creating a content strategy from scratch.

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12 Anthony Hearne, regional director, SEA and India, Outbrain, and cofounder of Asia Content Marketing Association, on storytelling with a purpose.

13 Jagdeep Singh, commercial EUC marketing programme manager, APAC and Japan, Dell.

14 Panellists (from left): Richard Hollingum, marketing services lead, APAC, SapientNitro; Sandeep Khanna, founder and CEO, Karma Asia Consulting; and Yvonne Chan, head of marketing and communications, Asia, Coutts.

15 Roundtable discussions during content café.

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NEWS ANALYSIS

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7 TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE CONTENT MARKETING Tips on how to drive spend, brand advocacy and engagement with your brand’s content.

Finding the right direction: A brand might lose its way if there is no sound strategy for content marketing within the organisation.

With content influencing consumer decisions more than ever, corporate communicators and brand marketers are pressured into publishing more compelling content. But, just how much impact does content actually have when it comes down to increasing spending, brand advocacy and engagement?

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Waggener Edstrom (WE) Communications’ research – Content Matters: The Impact of Brand Storytelling Online in 2014, – sees that communications and marketing professionals are facing increasing pressure to measure the ROI of their campaigns and connect spending to bottom-line results.

As for the incremental impact on spending as a result of regular exposure to branded content online, brands in Singapore appear to be generating long-term financial value, said the study. Sectors that profited most were food and beverage and healthcare.

For healthcare product brands, findings

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showed consumers who followed brands online spend 172% more on related products and services (per purchase). The incremental impact on spending for food and beverage products was a 108% increase on the purchase of related products (per week).

Although not as engaged as other markets such as the Philippines and India, 82% of local respondents stated they followed a brand on social media. On the other hand, Singaporean consumers appeared to be less likely to share information about products and services (65%) or to participate in contests and giveaways on social media (69%).

This was particularly true for brands in the mobile device sector, where 77% of respondents stated they followed brands in this category.

However, overall, consumers in Singapore appeared to be less engaged with brands online, as they ranked seventh for brand engagement of all markets covered in this study. Nearly 77% respondents stated they obtained information about products and services on social media, while 75% stated they looked for the latest deals and promotions on social media.

Meanwhile, another study by Outbrain also found Singaporeans were the least engaged with paid content.

“Communications professionals across Asia find themselves under increasing pressure to prove the ROI of their investments in digital content. Our new research reveals a clear relationship between brand storytelling online and increased consumer spending, referrals and engagement,” said Stephen Tracy, APAC lead at Waggener Edstrom’s Insight & Analytics (I&A) practice. “Put simply, the more consumers engage with brand content, the more they spend on brands.”

So how do you make content marketing work for you?

Here are some tips from the agency: 1 Think long term Resist the pressure to measure short-term returns in relation to your investments in content marketing. Findings show there is a strong relationship between consumers’ level of exposure to branded content and their likelihood to spend more on products or services (in some cases as much as 257% more). However, this is a long-term relationship, and you need to focus on creating great content through a sound strategy. If you do this, the financial returns will come.

2 Measure influence, create advocacy WE’s findings showed that levels of advocacy can fluctuate drastically across borders and business sectors, but the bottom line is advocacy is something you need to measure

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“Put simply, the more consumers engage with brand content, the more they spend on brands.”

Stephen Tracy — APAC lead at Waggener Edstrom’s Insight & Analytics (I&A) practice

and should seek to increase. Promoters of your brand create influence and purchase intent, and you need to ensure you have both the people and tools to measure, identify and engage brand advocates.

measurement and optimisation framework in place which can tell you how effective your strategy is and what business value it is creating for your brand.

7 Measure what matters

3 Create rich content experiences As we’ve seen in some markets, such as Australia and Japan, high levels of social media usage and brand engagement online do not go hand-in-hand. Simply posting updates to your social media profile every day isn’t enough to create advocacy, engagement or increased spending. Create rich content that is relevant to your audience and suitable for the social network (e.g. Twitter versus Instagram), and most importantly, create content that rewards your audience for their loyalty.

4 Speak with your audience, not at them Results showed that consumers are more likely to look for information about products and services on social media than click on an advertisement online. Having a presence on any social network, be it Facebook, Sina Weibo or Instagram, requires you to go beyond simply posting promotional material online by creating a dialogue with your audience. Such a dialogue can improve perceptions toward your brand, create advocacy and even increase customer spending.

5 Think mobile Mobile messenger apps are rapidly evolving into fully featured social networks, and as we saw with our results, apps such as WeChat are becoming increasingly more popular in markets across Asia Pacific. It’s important you consider the role and purpose of any social network before adopting it, but the rapid proliferation of smartphone technology across Asia Pacific, particularly in emerging markets, has ensured social media’s future on mobile. That being said, if your content strategy doesn’t have a mobile component, it’s time to review and refresh your strategy.

6 Keep your content strategy fresh Building a successful content strategy is not a one-time endeavour. As the results of this study have shown, there is a demand for rich content from brands. But marketing through social media is a constantly moving target as the demographic and psychographic traits of your audience, as well as their needs, can change over time. This means you need to have an effective

Effectively measuring the impact of your content marketing strategy requires you to go beyond the standard approaches to measuring ROI. Be wary of silver bullet solutions, such as onesize-fits-all formulas that promise to tell you the financial value of every like, click and share.

Understanding the true business impact of your content requires hard work and tailored analytical solutions that consider your business objectives, business landscape and customer needs. The approach presented in this study is just one approach to go about measuring the ROI of content. No matter which approach you choose, just make sure you measure what matters most.

Where does the rest of the region stand?

The WE study found that across all markets digital consumers appeared to be the most connected with brands in the mobile device sector, with 72% of all respondents stating they currently follow their favourite mobile brand online.

The second most connected sector was consumer electronics and appliances (excluding mobile devices), with 61% of respondents stating they actively follow brands in this category. Overall, it appears the technology brands generate the largest followings on social media across Asia Pacific.

On the other hand, digital consumers appeared to be much less connected with brands in the travel and tourism as well as the healthcare sectors, as only 48% of respondents for each sector stated they currently followed their favourite brands on social media.

Meanwhile, when it comes to paid content, the Outbrain study found the technology and internet, health and electronics categories have the highest bounce rates, which means visitors who enter the site “bounce” or leave the site rather than continue viewing other pages within the same site. Meanwhile, content related to news, sports, and business and finance showed the highest levels of engagement.

WE’s regional study surveyed more than 2,200 consumers between the ages of 15 and 60 across Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea and Vietnam.

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From strategy and creation to marketing, what are the challenges marketers face in content marketing? About 120 senior marketers gathered at Marketing magazine’s first-ever conference on the topic – Content 360 – to discuss this area which has suddenly gathered prominence and is now at the forefront of brand-building – all thanks to the digital revolution. Here is what was discussed at the event.

Platinum Sponsor

Gold Sponsors

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2. Fragmentation – With media fragmentation and device proliferation becoming the norm, how do you ensure your content reaches consumers across markets? This problem gets magnified when catering to multiple markets given the different popular media platforms in each market. You need to rely heavily on data to tailor your content.

3. Intent – Nearly 74% of the time, users consume content to entertain or educate/ inform themselves. How do you tailor content to fit your brand?

Four steps of content marketing Step 1: Plan for discovery While the usual approach is to jump straight to content creation once you have identified your target audience, Hearne advises to resist and think about the platform first and understand why your audience is on that platform. This will then aid the process of content creation.

Step 2: Publish worthwhile content A no-brainer, but you must know the difference between content and advertisements, Hearne said. It is easy to lose the audience’s trust if the content you provide them is a blatant plug. Quoting research, Hearne said 71% of consumers trust brands that provide useful information without trying to sell.

3 OBSTACLES TO CONTENT MARKETING AND HOW TO OVERCOME THEM At Marketing magazine’s inaugural conference, Content 360, Outbrain’s APAC lead Anthony Hearne outlined four steps and three key obstacles to content marketing. Here they are:

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Three obstacles to content marketing 1. Noise – There are about two million blog posts written every day – that’s enough content to fill TIME magazine for 770 years. How do you make your content seen, read and received?

Step 3: Matching content with intent If you are doing any form of content marketing, you need to get the intent of the audience right at the given particular platform. There are many examples on the internet where, in between articles, you have links that when clicked on lead you to another page asking you to fill up your contact or credit card details for example.

That’s fraud, said Hearne. “You’ve got to keep the content marketing space clean if you intend to keep up the trust of the audience.”

Content marketing is providing value without needing a transaction straightaway.

Step 4: Track influence If you’re going to build content you need to gauge what impact it will have. Many marketers dismiss the discussion around tracking engagement and remain fixated on tracking sales. If you can’t cut through the noise, you are not going to get an opportunity to make a sale, said Hearne.

“We advocate tracking everything, but not only sales,” he said. Other metrics are equally important, such as unique visits, how many page views did the content generate, did the audience come back to your content, and so on. “These metrics require more emphasis than is being placed currently,” he said.

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CONTENT OPTIMISATION: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW Have we fully realised the potential of content marketing? Or is this just the tip of the iceberg?

Timi Siytangco, director of brands and agencies, Southeast Asia Outbrain writes.

Why content marketing needs a proper strategy: Simply creating content isn’t enough.

There is no doubt content marketing has established itself today as an essential component of brand engagement online.

In a survey conducted a year and a half ago by Econsultancy[1], 64% of respondents considered content marketing to be their own discipline such as search engine optimisation (SEO) or email marketing, and 91% either had a content marketing strategy or are defining one.

Content distribution online for non-media brands has also gained a defined framework.

Every corporate content marketer worth their salt today depends on a mix of search, social channels and content discovery for their distribution strategy. This ensures all bases are covered: A company’s content can be found whether customers are proactively searching for it, receiving it as a recommendation from their social circles or discovering it serendipitously as part of their online media diet.

But have we fully realised the potential of content marketing? Or is this just the tip of the iceberg?

At the moment, very little resource is dedicated to optimising content so that each asset effectively drives desired user behaviour, and thus becomes a tool to achieving business objectives.

As the saying goes, you can bring a horse to

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water, but you can’t make it drink. The question for all content marketers then, to borrow language from the financial world, is: How can you optimise the performance of the assets in your portfolios?

Content optimisation can be applied to all elements that make up a piece of content. Any element – topics, headlines, content length, placement of calls to action, location of video and browser optimisation – can be enhanced to help content realise its potential and A/B-tested so that each branded article or video drives as much engagement and response as possible. In this way, brand content gains a longer shelf life, increasing the return on investment.

Take headlines for example. Every editor knows a well-crafted headline is a critical ingredient of every successful content piece. If the headline isn’t appealing to the reader, the article simply doesn’t get read.

Unfortunately, in many situations, the headline is decided as an afterthought, or with little consideration for how it will be presented to readers in specific media formats or devices.

Here are three simple things a content marketer can do today to optimise headlines: Keep headlines to a moderate length: A headline length between 60 and 100 characters performs best[2].

Negative isn’t always bad: Using a negative superlative in a headline (such as “worst” or “never”) drives a 63% higher click-through rate than positive superlatives (“best” or “always”)[3].

Label your content: How many times have readers clicked on a link only to bounce because they find a video or PDF instead of an article?

By indicating the format in the headline, readers know exactly what they’re getting, and fewer surprises mean more engagement[4]. (Source: Outbrain research) Where, how, and even when content is delivered can also be optimised. For example, Outbrain’s recently released Asia Pacific Content Consumption Trends report, based on data pulled from a global network of more than 100,000 sites, showed consumers in the region consume most of their daily content diet at night, suggesting that would be the best time of day for content marketers to reach out to their audiences.

The report also showed mobile and tablet devices are the platform of choice for content consumption at night. The key takeaway for brands, therefore, is they need to optimise content for mobile and take advantage of mobiletargeting options[5]. (Source: Outbrain research) Content is becoming a fixture within the marketing mix, but brands have only begun to scratch the surface on the impact content can truly deliver. Simply creating content isn’t enough.

As the battle for eyeballs grows more intense with new content being added to the web every second, content marketers are challenged to make their content stand out to draw an audience and ultimately cultivate brand awareness. As with other marketing channels, analysis, testing and insights are key to establishing its effectiveness beyond doubt, in the boardroom and with consumers.

[1]

Content Marketing Survey Report, Econsultancy, October 2012 [2] How Headline Length Impacts Engagement, Outbrain, August 2013 [3] Headlines: When the Best Brings the Worst and the Worst Brings the Best, Outbrain, July 2013 [4] How Labelling Blog Posts Impacts Engagement, Outbrain, May 2013 [5] APAC Content Consumption Report, Outbrain, January 2014

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WHY SINGTEL CHOSE GORDON RAMSAY TO PUSH ITS BRAND A key to successful content creation and engagement is to create tension, reveals Johan Buse, SingTel’s consumer marketing lead. Rezwana Manjur reports.

Who could forget the stunt pulled off

by SingTel last year when the telco brought international superstar chef Gordon Ramsay down for a hawker centre cook-off?

Ramsay went head to head with local hawkers to create the nation’s favourite cuisines to see if he could come out on top.

Industry professionals had at that time raised the concern Ramsay’s personality and that of SingTel’s brand might not sit well together.

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SingTel’s biggest competitor StarHub had also hinted towards Ramsay’s personality being too much for SingTel to handle.

However, during the recent Content 360 conference, SingTel’s Johan Buse said the stunt drew in a 23% increase in brand awareness, proving the critics wrong. #HawkerHeroes ended up trending for four days with 288.5K unique visitors to the site. Overall there were 386,400 visits to the

campaign site in 17 days, while 50% of the visitors to SingTel’s website had never been there before.

Nonetheless, the feat was not an easy one to complete and for a telco brand, said Buse, creating conversations is always hard.

However, he admitted that connecting the campaign to the overall SingTel brand remained a challenge. “The next challenge was connecting the content from the campaign to the brand since phones are clearly different from chicken rice,” he said.

While the easier route could have been to just plaster the SingTel brand across many platforms, what the telco wanted was to create a discussion and open up a dialogue. It wanted to evoke a brand connection to what people were passionate about.

“Promote discussion and trigger discussion but don’t try to manage it,” he said. Local radio stations and DJs were roped in to facilitate the conversations and raise the question of whether local cuisine had what it took to match up to international standards.

Another key to successful content creation and engagement is to create tension, said Buse.

The Ramsay brand was certain to do this – being both a provocative and polarising name in the food industry.

“Using tension helps create dialogue with customers to shift the mindset about your brand.”

Armed with this, the brand both facilitated channels of discussions with locals and moved away from the image of just being a telco to take on the role of a multimedia company and facilitator of conversations.

The voting aspect of the campaign also allowed consumers to feel part of the content creation process where they were able to navigate the direction of the campaign and the food options they wanted Ramsay to have a hand in trying to recreate.

According to Buse, ultimately at the end of the day, the real stars were the local chefs.

“This was less about Gordon Ramsay and more about the local Singapore culture and food people care about,” he said.

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SINGTEL’S 5 TIPS FOR DIGITAL CONTENT Even the best creative work is wasted if no one finds out it exists - set aside a budget for distribution. More tips here.

SingTel has spent the past three years refining and investing in its social media and digital content strategy. In the past year alone, SingTel has produced a wide variety of content – from educational infographics to award-winning video campaigns such as the #Need4GSpeed and #HawkerHeroes.

For brands looking to venture into digital content designed for social media for the first time, the path forward may look daunting and pockmarked with risks. Here are five tips to guide you: 1. Aim for the heart, not the head One of the first things we learnt from working with the giant social media network Facebook was the useful sanity check question: “Why will they care; why will they share?”

When a consumer decides to share a video or re-tweet an article, it is usually either because they find the content thoroughly upsetting (to which the reaction is, “I have to share this!”) or find the content so amusing (to which the reaction is, “I have to share this!”). #HawkerHeroes worked particularly well for SingTel, not just because of the presence of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, but also because it delved into an issue close to Singaporeans’ hearts: local heritage and cuisine.

As tempting as it sometimes gets to fill marketing content with information, just remember if this was only about appealing to rational minds, social media would be about the viral distribution of white papers.

2.Accept the fact you are not Ellen DeGeneres “Please make this viral” is a phrase social media marketers dread. Too often, making material viral is seen as the only goal worth pursuing.

But unlike DeGeneres, most mere mortals (or brands) will never be responsible for the next Most Retweeted Tweet in History.

Instead, understand where this piece of content fits into your overall campaign strategy.

Is it meant to educate? Or call attention to an issue? More realistic metrics such as video views or clicks to a campaign site may be a more sensible goal.

3. Have a good budget for production, but set aside a budget for distribution first Often, all the resources are poured into production with an expectation that something so brilliantly creative or funny is sure to go viral.

(See tip two.)

But even the best creative work is wasted if no one finds out it exists. Especially in today’s

extremely cluttered media environment where hundreds of hours of video are being uploaded to YouTube every second, the chances of your shiny new video being discovered organically get smaller by the day.

Combining an influencer outreach programme, traditional PR and an initial burst of paid media, can give your content that boost it needs to get an audience’s attention and get that “share” snowball rolling. #HawkerHeroes, SingTel’s most successful campaign from last year, may have looked like a random viral campaign. But it only came to life through a complex multi-channel strategy whose execution was planned down to the minute-by-minute detail.

4. Get your consumers involved The best content campaigns are the ones where the audience gets in on the action.

Consumers can be valuable co-creators, as we have seen in a number of campaigns from Old Spice to Oreo.

SingTel’s #Need4GSpeed enlisted consumers to provide their best applications of a high speed mobile connection which were then translated into comedy sketches by comedian Hossan Leong.

5. Keep it simple One common mistake brands make is to make participating in a campaign too complex, which can be an obstacle to a social media campaign’s success.

I personally prefer to apply the “60-second rule”. Ask yourself, will responding to the content or participating in the discussion take more than 60 seconds? Years ago, brands relied heavily on mechanics such as photo submissions and anticipated no more than 10% of the audience would actually participate, while the rest simply watched. Today the hashtag offers a much simpler way to participate and lowers the barrier to entry.

Content-led social media campaigns need not be so daunting. While there are always risks, they can be extremely rewarding for any brand with the right concept and adequate planning.

The writer is Miguel Bernas, director of digital marketing at SingTel.

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WHY OREO’S DUNK IN THE DARK MOVE WAS A FAILURE OF SORTS Mondelez’ Pete Mitchell reveals the strategy behind its brands’ hyper social campaigns and how these became so bloody sticky.

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By now, Oreo’s Dunk in the Dark move during the Super Bowl 2013 has become a realtime marketing case study – of sorts.

Here is what happened during the Super Bowl 2013. There was a power blackout for a few minutes during which Twitter went ablaze with people tweeting about the outage. Oreo took advantage of this to tweet a post: “Power out? No problem, you can still dunk in the dark.”

The campaign got 20,000 likes on Facebook within one hour, 15,000 re-tweets during the game and 46,000 entries into the Instagram promotion.

But according to Pete Mitchell, global media innovations director at Mondelēz International, the campaign was, in part, a failure. Why? “Because we failed to amplify it through paid media – had we incorporated elements of paid media, this piece of content would have been amplified manifold, much more than it did on organic reach.” “This is one area in which we are trying to improve in,” said Mitchell, speaking at Marketing magazine’s recent Content 360 conference.

But this won’t be achieved overnight.

Mondelēz has already been working on its real-time content strategy for a while now.

For example, for its 100th year campaign, the challenge was how to make the brand look young.

It came up with a 100-day plan – a daily twist to its communications based on what the team involved picked up during real-time happenings, news features, iconic birthdays and everything that was trending online. It also created a game, which had four million downloads and was the number one app in 12 countries.

Mitchell added that in-app ads were also slipped in the game, which got users to dunk Oreo cookies.

During the Sochi Winter Olympics this year, it created buzz around its brands such as Cadbury, Dentyne, Oreo and Ritz by creating teams which would work from dawn to dusk to create relevant content around memorable moments during the Olympics. For example, there were images of the Oreo or Ritz being used as “medals”.

“Every day was a production day. We had the decision makers, including PR and legal, all in a room to facilitate real-time campaigns,” Mitchell said. This was done in partnership with its agency partners. He added that marketing in this manner “democratises the creative process”.

This is now becoming part of the marketing culture in the organisation. Mitchell also said that integrating traditional and social media was part of the strategy, adding it took “a lot of guts” to integrate and do well on both.

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WHY B2B MARKETERS SHOULD CARE ABOUT CONTENT MARKETING Here’s how Dell made B2B content marketing work.

Rayana Pandey writes.

While many B2B marketers are stumped when it comes to content marketing, these numbers should show the importance of them taking it up, nonetheless.

Almost 70% of the sales cycle is completed before the sales person meets the customer.

Ninety two per cent of buyers use online resources to research before meeting the salesperson – but only 26% of B2B marketers

do content marketing. Then again, that number is set to go as high as 60%.

Therefore, it is important to influence customers before your sales person turns up on their doors or competitors grab their attention, said Jagdeep Singh, commercial EUC marketing programme manager at APJ Dell.

“It is also important to provide content whose sole aim is not to conclude a sale, but to

enhance the knowledge of the customer about the solutions which are out there.”

When it comes to content, it is imperative brands, especially B2B brands, emphasise effectiveness over creativity. “You could have the most creative ideas, but if it doesn’t reach the right audience in the most relevant way possible, it’s not doing anything,” he said adding that the right content inspires, educates, entertains and convinces.

“If it fails these tests, it is not great content.”

Citing the example of Dell’s Tech centre, he said the centre, which is another landing site within Dell which educates visitors about products, was not created with the intention to make a sale immediately. Rather, it was created with the intention to make training easier.

However, over the years it has led to incremental revenues.

In eight months of 2013 alone, it generated 2600 leads for the company and 40% more revenue from existing customers who underwent the free trainings.

“There is a hunger to learn [among audiences]. They are that much more stoked if they [customers] are not bombarded by messages to buy things,” he said.

Among its customers, Dell often invites a few who can come to its events and talk to other customers. “We have also created a content online community where people who use Dell and love it, share their knowledge; we do not pay them or anything, but we see amazing results.

They are all tech guys uploading their videos and such and we have more than one million views each month.”

Content marketing tips for those marketing to SMEs There are two. SMEs look up to big businesses and aspire to become one. Entrepreneurs who have made it big are their heroes – not celebrities – so cater your marketing strategy to put these heroes in front of them. And second, peer endorsement works really well in getting SME clients on board.

Dell’s “Take your own path” was one such campaign. It was Dell’s first global campaign using real business entrepreneurs all over the world as heroes to promote Dell and its products, aimed at SMEs. While it started in India, it was soon picked up by nine countries and featured a total of 30 heroes. “We used the same content across channels because it is relatable,” Singh said.

Having the right content quantity and quality makes or breaks marketing communications, he said. “Content marketing is an idea whose time has come; the ROI from traditional marketing activities are diminishing.”

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Social media is no longer a buzzword.

It’s a reality which has permanently altered consumers’ purchase patterns and the way they consume media. Brands, however, still have much to learn. What does the changing social media landscape mean for them? Marketing, in its latest Master Report, explores this issue.

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Facebook made it clear in December last year the drop was driven by its shift in focus from fans to target audiences. While Facebook assured brands they could continue to reach their fans with organic posts, the empirical data shows the social giant’s approach is to brutally decrease the organic reach in a short amount of time to a level where organic posting might not make sense from a business perspective.

“Companies will have to ‘pay to play’ on Facebook in the future,” Lyngsfeldt said.

Facebook’s declining organic reach is not a surprise anymore, but for marketers it is a warning, of sorts, to get working on a complete social experience and putting a check on their over-reliance on one social media platform.

Recent months have seen the organic reach of Facebook company pages decline significantly. According to MEC, the average organic reach stood at less than 5.87% in February this year on average across 43 different fan pages.

“In August 2013, the organic reach was 15.09% – so it’s been a sharp drop in just seven months and we expect this trend to continue,” said Thomas Lyngsfeldt, digital director of MEC.

WHAT MARKETERS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THIS: Rod Strother, director of the digital and social centre of excellence at Lenovo, said at Marketing magazine’s recently concluded Content 360 conference: “Facebook is like a crack dealer, unfortunately. We are all hooked on it.”

“If you [brands] are already in the game, it is too late to back out. But you have to look at your dependance on the platform and start thinking about other platforms as well.”

According to Strother, brands need to look at whole communities across all platforms.

“I wouldn’t say Facebook is dead, but as marketers, you do have to look beyond it. If not, you will just end up pouring more and more money into it,” he said.

According to Susanne Arfelt, head of marketing at Unilever Singapore: “Marketers need to be bold in reassessing the role of Facebook and review it as a reach tool rather than the engagement tool it used to be.”

Explaining it further, she said as a reach medium, marketers should now compare the efficiency of Facebook to that of magazines, OOH and TV rather than view it separately as a way of having deep and meaningful conversations with fans.

MEC’s Lyngsfeldt echoed the point. “Engagement can still play a role on Facebook depending on the objectives, but most campaigns on Facebook will have a reach and awareness purpose in the future. Facebook is now a broadcast channel, with the benefits of social context and engagement.”

AVERAGE ORGANIC REACH OF FACEBOOK POSTS 16.00 %

15.09 % 13.23 % 12.19 %

12.00 %

11.24 % 9.02 % 7.93 %

8.00 %

5.87 % 4.00 %

0.00 % AUGUST 2013

SEPTEMBER 2013

OCTOBER 2013

NOVEMBER 2013

DECEMBER 2013

JANUARY 2014

FEBRUARY 2014

Source: 43 Facebook brand fan pages monitored in Australia

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INTERNET PENETRATION VS. FACEBOOK PENETRATION OF INTERNET USERS Internet Penetration Facebook Penetration of Internet users 120 % 96 %

100 %

94 %

80 %

60 % 85 % 40 %

32 %

30 % 22 % 20 %

0% THAILAND

INDONESIA

PHILIPPINES

Source: www.internetworkdstats.com + Pyxis

THERE ARE A FEW CONCERNS ARFELT HIGHLIGHTED: 1. The space will be very competitive and everybody will be fighting for the same mind space in limited inventory.

2. Posting without ad spend makes little sense – and brands will be unable to consistently support every post, which surely will bring engagement down.

According to Unilever’s Arfelt, this also means redefining the way it works with its social media agencies. “The agenda in the social agency has been very focused on Facebook due to its scale, we now need to work together to see how we can drive the conversation with our consumers across other engagement platforms and compare these with the much more limited organic reach of Facebook.”

AND HERE’S WHAT ARFELT EXPECTS FACEBOOK TO DO: 1. A post needs to be drafted differently going forward and Facebook needs to support companies with clear direction on what works and what doesn’t.

2. Is the new direction a long-term commitment – or just another temporary change? Facebook should clarify that.

3. Facebook needs to work tighter with suppliers to explain the new directions happening within Facebook – now and for the future.

FACEBOOK IN APAC Facebook reaches more than 250 million people in APAC and has proven to be an effective reach and awareness driver like TV. The primary role of Facebook is now in the top of the marketing funnel, according to Lyngsfeldt.

There are a number of reasons for the effectiveness of Facebook advertising, including the low cost, reach, targeting opportunities, impact of creatives, social context and cross-device opportunities.

Facebook will be an essential part of advertisers’ mobile strategies in APAC because all the reasons above are fully applicable to mobile.

Furthermore, the mobile usage of Facebook, relative to computers in APAC, is one of the highest in the world, emphasising the importance of mobile.

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According to MEC, Facebook is becoming increasingly important in APAC because of reach. Many of the low-middle income countries in APAC have an extremely high Facebook penetration from the overall internet penetration. In low-middle income countries such as Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines, however, the internet penetration is very low.

“This is expected to increase significantly in these countries over the next couple of years, so assuming the Facebook penetration remains at the same high level, we anticipate substantial reach opportunities on Facebook in these countries in the future,” Lyngsfeldt said.

LYNGSFELDT ON WHAT’S DRIVING THE NEW FACEBOOK PARADIGM The cynics would say Facebook used the incentive of communicating with fans for free as bait to engage companies on Facebook. Now it is asking companies to pay for reaching fans they already paid to acquire.

Now it’s publicly listed, Facebook’s stock price is heavily dependent on advertising revenue, putting it under enormous pressure to keep growing that revenue. This pressure has forced Facebook to identify new revenue opportunities in advertisers’ marketing budgets.

Facebook realised it was receiving a very low share of the overall Facebook budget, as weird as that may sound. The total Facebook budget is defined as all brand activities on Facebook, including community management, organic posting, Facebook apps and Facebook media spend. Facebook’s average share of the total Facebook budget has probably been about 40%, so it had a substantial financial incentive to lower the organic reach. This will push advertisers to pay for reaching fans and audiences on Facebook.

Facebook has become a broadcast channel with high impact ad units in the news feed and high reach, and it has identified TV budgets as a new revenue opportunity – this is one of the reasons for the new Facebook paradigm. Facebook is in the process of realising its financial potential in advertising revenue, which has translated into a significant increase in the stock price over the past four months.

The new Facebook “pay to play” paradigm means many companies have to rethink their social strategy and make important decisions.

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IS SOCIAL MEDIA ROI A MYTH? Today, we no longer question if social media is just a passing fad. Social media has reached a level of mainstream adoption with 777 million users in Asia Pacific (eMarketer), and most marketers agree to its importance.

However, the big question is: How can marketers drive a tangible business performance through social media?

According to an interview with 410 CMOs conducted by Forbes, only 15% of the respondents have seen a proven and quantifiable impact from their social media endeavours. Most marketers still find it challenging to measure ROI and justify their social media expenditure.

In this article, we will be sharing five tips on measuring and managing social media ROI. TIP #1: DEFINE YOUR ROI Many marketers zoom in on the dollars and cents when talking about ROI. It’s not wrong, but to solely give ROI a monetary definition is being myopic to the long-term impacts of a well-executed social media strategy.

In defining the ROI of social media, Forrester has identified four factors to consider: 1. Financial: Is there an increase in revenue or reduction in costs?

2. Brand: Has brand awareness and perception improved?

3. Risk management: Is the organisation better at managing a crisis and reputation?

4. Digital: Did the organisation increase its earned and owned digital assets?

Before starting any social media engagement, it’s crucial marketers list the areas (based on the four factors above) where they expect ROI and set relevant KPIs to determine success.

TIP #2: BUILD SOCIAL TOUCH-POINTS WITH YOUR AUDIENCES One of the drivers of conversion is the quality of interaction (or touchpoints) your brand has with your target audiences.

These touch-points may include something as impersonal as an unsolicited and untargeted advertisement or an interactive social portal that encourages customers to share ideas they have for your products and services. (For example, “My Starbucks Idea” solicits business ideas for Starbucks from customers. Popular ideas are then selected to be executed.)

Quality and deeper brand interactions are more likely to drive ROI and are also easier to track. It’s important for marketers to think beyond the usual boundaries of social media.

Table 1 below shows 25 use cases of social CRM as listed by research company, Altimeter Group, which are also possible touch-points marketers can build with their audiences. The highlighted boxes are the more commonly applied use cases while the rest are use cases that are under-explored.

TIP #3: CONNECT SOCIAL DATA WITH BUSINESS OBJECTIVES With the business objectives and KPIs defined, marketers need to set up relevant metrics to measure their success in achieving them. Based on these metrics, a social media campaign may be devised around the intended business objectives and KPIs. In monitoring and measuring success, some of these analytics and insights tools may be useful: 1. Facebook insights: Track performance of your Facebook page and advertising.

2. Google Analytics, trends, keyword planner and webmaster tools: Suite of tools from Google to measure website traffic, search trends and search engine visibility.

3. Social listening tools: Mine and analyse social mentions on the web and spot trends and track audience sentiments.

For example, if a company has an objective to build awareness for a new consumer product, relevant social data (listed in order of importance) which correlates to brand awareness includes: 1. Emails from users/prospects to customer service expressing interest or asking questions.

2. Product mentions, comments and shares on social media, blogs and forums.

3. Trending searches on the product.

4. Fan acquisition on Facebook.

5. Traffic on website.

6. Clicks on advertisements.

7. Impressions on advertisements.

By assigning weighted values (based on importance) to the above social data, marketers will be able to define an arbitrary parameter for brand awareness and this can then be benchmarked against future campaigns and even sales volume for in-depth ROI measurement.

TIP #4: INTEGRATE AND TRACK ACROSS MARKETING CHANNELS It’s common for marketers to leverage multiple digital channels at the

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Source: Altimeter Group

same time. Equally common, is a major problem created by “technology silos” where different technologies are independently managed across marketing teams with minimal or no mutual communications. These “technology silos” make it almost impossible to measure the impact of a digital campaign across various digital channels.

There are two factors to look into when attempting to break out of these “technology silos”.

1. Technology: The right technologies can be applied to monitor and track performance across channels. Google Analytics is also crucial in tracking referral traffic to help marketers understand the effectiveness of every channel.

2. Structure: “Technology silos” can be broken by restructuring the marketing team to follow a holistic direction with processes, documentation and communications between teams.

TIP #5: REVIEW AND REALIGN GOALS PERIODICALLY In measuring ROI, it’s important to evaluate what worked and what did not work. Also crucial, is the tracking of actionable insights from social media activities – insights that allow marketers to make business decisions.

Marketers should also evaluate which channels to leverage and which platforms/devices to be present on to achieve maximum reach and ROI. Example: A few years ago when we helped one of our clients to setup a new Facebook Page, the primary objective was to acquire fans.

After a year, when the number of fans was at a decent level, we shifted the focus of ROI measurement to lead generation and engagement and fan acquisition was given less weight. Currently, after rounds of goal realignment, we have other ROI metrics like brand perception and conversions adding maximum weight to the mix.

ROI is all about defining tangible objectives and metrics around them. Marketers who are able to get a grasp on the numbers as well as understand their interrelation will be better equipped to define (and

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redefine) goals, and structures more effectively, ROI-driven social campaigns and tracking strategies.

The article is written by Leon CK Leong, chief business development officer, TO THE NEW

ABOUT TO THE NEW TO THE NEW is an end-to-end digital services network specializing in SMACK Services (Social, Mobile Analytics, Content and Knowledge).

With a client promise mise of ‘Online Online For Your Bottomline Bottomline’,, TO THE NEW believes in helping g clients use social and mobile media as business enhancing rather than han mere advertising.

TO THE NEW’s ’s expertise is underpinned by proprietary products cts and global partnerships in the space of social analytics, digital media, cloud services, ces, social CRM and big data.

TO THE NEW W houses digital brands zz, Techsailor, Ignitee, like ThoughtBuzz, IntelliGrape and Tangerine Digital under its umbrella and collectively manages the mandates for 150+ 0+ clients in Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, nes, China, India, UAE, Europe and d the United States.

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NTUC’S MEMBERSHIP “LABOUR OF LOVE” CAMPAIGN CONTEXT The National Trades Union Congress’ (NTUC) objectives are to help Singapore stay competitive and workers remain employable for life; to enhance the social status and wellbeing of workers; and to build a strong, responsible and caring labour movement.

NTUC’s vision is to be an inclusive labour movement for all collars, ages and nationalities.

One of the challenges NTUC faces is the engagement of the PMETs (professionals, managers, executives and technicians) in the workforce.

PMETs are socially savvy and are likely to own a smartphone, but at the same time, their attention span is short. It’s therefore important NTUC appeals to the PMETs on an emotional level before engaging them with brand messaging.

adoption, the campaign encouraged users to share a coffee with their friends via a social invitation on the application. Users redeemed their coffees at participating Wang Cafe outlets on Wednesdays during the campaign period. They were also requested to scan a QR code to record the redemption.

RESULTS Performance of the campaign was measured by the reach it achieved.

Below are the key metrics identified by Techsailor to best represent the reach and the accompanying results: • • • • •

STRATEGY/EXECUTION With support from its digital partner, Techsailor, NTUC conducted the “Labour of Love” campaign for two months in the middle of last year in celebration of every job, every worker and every member.

The campaign extended this appreciation by giving a free coffee to everyone who connected with NTUC via the “Labour of Love” Facebook mobile campaign application. To drive word-of-mouth

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Visitors to the campaign: 66,874 (88% reached via mobile devices).

Registered campaign participants: 12,804 (19.1% of the visitors).

Number of coffees shared by users: 130,215.

Number of coffees redeemed: 24,111.

Increase in Likes on NTUC’s membership Facebook page: 13,837 (increase from 67,218 to 81,055 Likes).

In addition to the above, this campaign connected with audiences on an emotional level, deriving earned media through users’ expressions of their pleasure or appreciation on their coffee redemption. Some of these experiences were captured and shared on NTUC’s Facebook page by the users themselves. It’s noteworthy that 88% of the users accessed the campaign on their mobile devices, which reflected the campaign was successful in engaging with today’s social and mobilefirst workforce.

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SNICKERS ADVENTURE CONTEXT The year 2013 was ending. In the period leading towards Christmas, Snickers sought a campaign to stand out against other “gifting” chocolate brands. As it stood, Snickers was yet to be associated in terms of this seasonal period.

Snickers was already associated with being “sporty”, “adventurous” and “dynamic” – and with the purpose of the campaign to capture the imagination of Singaporeans during the year-end period, which was also a time where people were off work and school and travelling a lot, the Snickers Year End Adventure was born. The main objective of the campaign was to cement the notion that Snickers complements any adventure and should also be at the top of anyone’s mind during the festivities.

The campaign asked Snickers’ Facebook fans to share their last year-end adventure of 2013 – and in return, Snickers would reward the lucky winner with their first adventure in 2014. The four-week campaign ran on multiple platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. The brand thought it was also time to test new ground to launch Snickers into Instagram, which has resonated well with the Singaporean youth segment.

STRATEGY/EXECUTION Starcom Malaysia, the agency behind the campaign, created the #SnickersAdventure experience – “Have your last adventure as 2013 draws to a close and let Snickers reward your first 2014 adventure.”

Snickers’ Facebook was used for multiple calls for entries.

The experience also leveraged other social platforms such as Instagram and Twitter.

Fans were asked to hashtag #snickersadventure, #[activity], #[location] when submitting entries, which increased the organic reach of the experience.

Photos from Instagram were pulled into the Snickers’ Facebook page and selected photo entries were also repurposed into video format at the end of each week to be used as viral content.

The fans took an immediate liking to #SnickersAdventure. Fan engagement at 14% (“People Talking about This”) for December was over six times more than in previous months.

Non-fans readily joined in the campaign, and were converted as the fan base grew by 24%.

RESULTS Active jet-setters, adrenaline seekers and mobile youth were eager to share their adventures. Content generated from users gave a ROI of seven times the investment.

Twenty seven days, 1143 pictures, five million impressions and 47,000 clicks later, Snickers ended 2013 on a high note; while the #SnickersAdventure winner received her first 2014 adventure.

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While the importance of customer loyalty has been established, the deluge of (big) data, the ever-evolving digital landscape, and the rising importance of a coherent omni-channel approach are leaving marketers puzzled. With more than 130 senior marketing professionals, Marketing magazine’s second Annual Customer Loyalty conference went deeper into the current issues concerning customer loyalty and engagement. Read all about the event here.

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5 WAYS TO KEEP YOUR CUSTOMER LOYAL How have the basics of customer loyalty changed with the advent of digital and social media in particular? Elizabeth Low writes.

At Marketing’s recent Customer Loyalty 2014 conference, several global and regional brands spoke about how they were keeping their customers loyal to the brand.

In a digital age where consumers increasingly expect everything to be done instantly, how can brands increase customer loyalty?

1. Engage customers The problem with loyalty programmes is that consumers don’t actually get value from brands they are loyal to, said Namita Mediratta, the global director of consumer and marketing insights at Unilever.

She talked about getting tactical with customer loyalty efforts and surprising customers.

“The element of surprise in loyalty is important.

Think of McDonald’s toys or Kinder Surprise.”

She also gave the example of Coke’s

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campaign, when it worked with agencies so consumers could print their names on Coke bottles, calling it an effective online campaign.

This may be helpful for industries that have longer customer life cycles as well. Chen Peng, general manager of Aimia, said such brands may want to try tactical ways of increasing frequency of interaction with customers for industries that have longer customer life cycles, such as cars, for example.

2. Make it convenient for them Apart from merely delighting consumers, consideration must be put into making a service convenient for them.

“Delighting customers doesn’t build loyalty – reducing their effort does,” said Vijay Venugopalan, head of CRM and UC practice for AMEA at BT Advise, emphasising the need for

firms to look into their practices and make things easier for consumers to work with them.

“If you make them wait a long period of time, it reduces their satisfaction and makes it harder for them,” he said, talking about how the consumer would eventually hate the brand.

Brands should also take the chance to then make the processes work for themselves. “You need to make it easy for you too and that helps eliminate costs. What is the charge? What do you want to achieve?

3. Use social media wisely While social media is a must-have for most brands, consideration must also be put into assessing how it is used. For example, only 1% of users are influenced by likes and +1s.

“Think about whether this really affects loyalty,” said Wong Wan Ling, a consulting

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and strategic marketer for the banking and technology sectors.

Wong added: “Invest in more social media channels only if you have the resources to maintain them.”

Tanya Watia, COMO Hotels’ global director of CRM and partnerships, highlighted the demands of social media, and staffing that demand.

“Social media does not end after our day jobs. Social media response comes in lightning speed. You need someone who can respond to it. And you need a generalist. You can’t have someone who only responds to marketing.

Customers don’t care … there is no such thing as office hours for Twitter and Facebook.”

4. Get rid of useless data The next question is making good use of data, including that from social media.

Watia talked about the challenges of using data correctly.

“You can gather thousands of likes, but what does that mean to your business? You have this

many negative posts compared to positive, what do you do with it? The systems have not been configured to record these indications as a form of data points yet.

“If you have issues tracking them in the first place, how do you find them as a data point within the system?” she asked, highlighting the challenges many face with integrating social media data with other CRM data.

She also shared how brands needed to clean up the existing data and get rid of unnecessary ones. “There is a need for a central IT system where all the data is clearly presented.”

Others suggested small and simple ways to tackle the data glut.

Santosh Katti Sudheendra, marketing director of Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, said most companies actually have the data they

need in-house, but it was a matter of asking the right questions and the right people.

He warned against outsourcing data without proper insight. “If you simply dump your data with an analytics firm, it’s garbage in, garbage out. You must explain the business problem.”

Added Hywel Evans, regional director of decision science at Aimia: “Analytics is often seen as a toolkit for answering questions, (and should) not (be) a predefined way of doing things.”

5. Choosing strategic brand partners Ajay Mohan, director of partner marketing and sponsorships, consumer marketing and sales, at Intel Asia Pacific and Japan, talked about how choosing the right partners could yield results for brands.

“Two plus two is better than one. It becomes an interaction engine, a whole affiliation process. They can make the conversation bigger and more meaningful for the customer,” he said, adding this would build on the strength of both brands.

“One plus one is not two, it should be three or 3.5,” he added, talking about the effectiveness of such partnerships.

Both Mohan and Brenda Pek, head of marketing and events for Asia Pacific at RollsRoyce Motor Cars, agreed on the effectiveness of using such partnerships for brand loyalty.

Pek talked about Rolls-Royce’s strategy of working with other brands for the luxury sector to reach out to more targeted audiences.

The conference was sponsored by Aimia and eBay Enterprise as gold sponsors and CPR Vision as a sponsor.

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6/5/2014 8:36:13 PM

How to reach the shopper Anytime Anywhere Shopper Marketing returns and will take an in-depth look at what marketers of today really have to do to reach their customers in a world that’s connected 24/7.

featured speakers include

Hywel Evans Regional director of decision science APAC Aimia

Brian Hui VP, head of marketing Amazon China

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Han Zantingh Managing director Asia BrainJuicer

Kensaku Konishi President & chief executive officer Canon Singapore

Darren Fifield Head of marketing solutions eBay Enterprise Asia Pacific

Stanley Kee Managing director, Southeast Asia GfK

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1/4/2014 9:51:29 AM

IS YOUR BRAND EASY TO DEAL WITH? There are fundamental changes in today’s consumer behaviour. Consumers are taking control of their interactions with organisations – they are driving innovation and change.

As a result, organisations are becoming increasingly distanced from customers and finding it harder to interact and engage with them.

This is driving businesses to look at how they can change the way they work and manage their customers differently.

BT Consumer business (provider of voice, broadband and TV services in the UK) faced similar challenges.

Before making any change, we took a step back and started an autonomous customer research procedure to understand customer behaviours and trends. The findings led us to pioneer a programme that has had a profound impact on our business.

We could create a customer-centric organisation that in turn improved customer loyalty. As per our research, 46% of the customers said brand loyalty was a thing of the past.

One in two respondents said they never

had enough time and so they wanted to do business with organisations that were proactive and saved their time. This insight was reinforced by a Harvard Business Review article that said customer effort (amount of work a customer must do to get a work done) is a driver of loyalty.

In 2010, inspired by this insight, BT Consumer business started conducting surveys among our customers on how easy we are to deal with. The survey showed that making things easier is the single strongest driver of BT loyalty and customers finding things easy are 40% less likely to churn.

Based on the findings, BT pioneered the “Net Easy” programme to identify customers’ difficult journeys and simplified, eliminated or automated our processes to make things easier for them. With this experience, we have created a structured framework on how to make things easier.

It starts with asking customers across touch-points a simple question: “How easy was it to get the help you wanted today?”

The responses are then analysed from various aspects such as customer profile, reason, channel of contact and advisor attributes to create actionable insights.

The next few steps involved mapping the difficult journeys and funding high-impact optimisation programmes to remove such obstacles. Our experience has shown that such initiatives have significantly minimised not only the customer churn, but also the overall cost to serve.

What more? Building a customer-centric organisation – “Making Things Easy” – is fairly simple for employees to understand and contribute to, thus leading to better staff engagement. For example, through this programme, BT staff generated more than 1000 such ideas last year of which 375 were implemented.

The writer is Vijay Venugopalan, head of CRM and UC Practice, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, BT Advise, BT Global Services.

WHY AN OMNI-CHANNEL APPRAOCH IS VITAL TO BUILD LOYALTY Over the past decade, we have seen a spike in investment across different physical and digital channels, particularly in the retail space.

Retailers still celebrate shopping channels, as if the physical store and the different devices through which sales are conducted – the laptop, phone or tablet – are standalone pipelines to the consumer. In many ways, the fidelity to the channel is understandable.

The phrases “multichannel” and “omnichannel” have been useful for retailers as a framework to think about different avenues for e-commerce, and as a roadmap for how to shore up their functionality. And it made sense, initially, for retailers to respond to the challenges of digital commerce by attempting to manage it on a multichannel basis.

However, the realities of today are different. The multichannel model has led to an expensive channel-focused model that involves multiple marketing, merchandising and supply chain teams; needlessly

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complex, individually broken-out profit and loss statements; and even different accounting methods based on which channel sales originate from.

Similarly, on the customer-facing side of things, barriers have hardened between sales channels. Trade promotions are inconsistent across channels, products are unavailable instore because units have already been sent from distribution centres to fulfil web orders, customer loyalty information is haphazardly applied across channels, and even basic customer payment information has to be retyped again and again.

The costs and complexities of continuing on this path are too great and offer too few rewards for the customer experience. It’s a faulty formula that leads to failure.

Today’s hyper-connected customers have taken things into their own hands and become more tech-savvy than retailers. They have, or are starting to, embrace show-rooming at physical outlets before purchasing products online. They have learnt how to exploit their own shopping

data for deals, and have become experts at taking advantage of online coupons and offers.

They have the tools, literally at their fingertips, to not only immerse themselves in a retailer’s brand, but also to skewer that brand on blogs, YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp, Viber or Twitter if the brand promise is broken or the seamless shopping experience disrupted.

To respond, retailers need to embrace what we, at PwC, call “Total Retail”. This means two things: first, a unified brand story across all channels that promises a consistently superior customer experience, and second, an integrated back-office operating model with agile and innovative technology.

Total Retail places the entire focus of the business on the customer, not single-point solutions for each channel.

The writer is Matthew Lloren, PwC Southeast Asia Consulting, Singapore.

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SENIOR APPOINTMENTS

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ABOUT AMBITION

Ambition is a leading global boutique recruitment business with coverage across Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and United Kingdom. Founded and listed on the Australian Securities Exchange in 1999, the company has grown to become a prominent specialist player within marketing recruitment. For more information, please visit www.ambition.com.sg.

REGIONAL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT LEAD F 12 0-5',% 31',#11 F 6!#**#,2 *-,% 2#0+ ! 0##0 -..-023,'27 F -+.#2'2'4# 0#+3,#0 2'-, . !) %# 30 !*'#,2B + 0)#2',% 2#!&,-*-%7 4#,"-0 '1 #6. ,"',% '21 0# !& ," '1 *--)',% $-0 , #6.#0'#,!#" 31',#11 "#4#*-.#0 5'2&', 2&# "'%'2 * "4#02'1',% ',"31207@ #.-02',% 2- 2&# -$ 31',#11 #4#*-.+#,2A 7-3 5'** + , %# ,#5 ," #6'12',% 120 2#%'! 0#* 2'-,1&'.1 ', 2&# 0#%'-,A ',!*3"',% 4#22',% ,#5 . 02,#0 -..-023,'2'#1A ,#%-2' 2',% 2#0+1 ," !-,20 !21A ," + ',2 ',',% 1#,'-0 *#4#* . 02,#0 #,% %#+#,21@ -3 5'** "#4#*-. 31',#11 .* ,1 ," !--0"', 2# 5'2& ',2#0, * ," #62#0, * 12 )#&-*"#01A !-,"3!2 "3# "'*'%#,!# -, ,#5 "'%'2 * + 0)#2',% . 02,#01 ," 2#!&,-*-%'#1 1 5#** 1 #4 *3 2# !-+. ,7`1 *-,% 2#0+ 120 2#%'! .* ,1 $-0 2&# 0#%'-,@ - /3 *'$7A ',"'4'"3 *1 +312 .-11#11B F 0#!-%,'1#" "#%0## ', 31',#11A -++3,'! 2'-,1 -0 #/3'4 *#,2 F 1-*'" 5-0)',% ),-5*#"%# -$ 2&# "'%'2 * "4#02'1',% #!-1712#+ ," #6'12',% ,#25-0) ', " 2#!&,-*-%7 F #6!#**#,2 !-++3,'! 2'-, ," 50'22#, 1)'**1 F #6.#0'#,!# 5'2& i, ,!' * +-"#**',% ," 0#4#,3# $-0#! 12',% Contact Richel Hidalgo on (65) 6854 5606 or email richel.hidalgo@ambition.com.sg quoting reference number RTH25626.

REGIONAL SALES MANAGER F #%'-, * -..-023,'27 F 0-5',% !-+. ,7 5'2& 120-,% ! 0##0 .0-1.#!21 F utkAkkk ," ulmkAkkk ~ -,31 30 !*'#,2B *# "',% *- * ',# -+. ,7A '1 !300#,2*7 0#!03'2',% $-0 #%'-, * *#1 , %#0 2- *# " 2&# 1 *#1 #$$-02 !0-11 )#7 , 1' + 0)#21@ #.-02',% ',2- 2&# #,#0 * , %#0A 7-3 5'** *--) 2- + 6'+'1# 1 *#1 %0-52& 5'2&', 2&# 0#%'-, 7 !&'#4',% "'120' 32'-,A 4-*3+#A ,#2 1 *#1A ," %0-11 .0-i2 2 0%#21@ -!31',% -, i4# )#7 + 0)#21 -321'"# -$ ',% .-0# 7-3 5'** 3'*" . 02,#01&'.1 5'2& "'120' 32-01 ," 1#2 ', .* !# #12 .0 !2'!#1 2- + 6'+'1# 2&-1# 0#* 2'-,1&'.1 ," 3*2'+ 2#*7 1 *#1@ -3 5'** #6#!32# ** -$ 2&# 1 *#1 ','2' 2'4#1 2&0-3%& 2- 0#2 '* !312-+#01A ," 3'*"',% 0 ," 1 5#** 1 1 *#1@ - /3 *'$7A ',"'4'"3 *1 +312 .-11#11B F )#7 !!-3,21 #6.#0'#,!#C 1#**',% ',2- 13.#0+ 0)#21G&7.#0+ 0)#21 F 2 *# 12 q 7# 01` 1 *#1 #6.#0'#,!# F #6.#0'#,!# $0-+ * 0%# +3*2', 2'-, * F #6.#0'#,!# -0 . 11'-, $-0 5',# F 0#%'-, * #6.#0'#,!# '1 , "4 ,2 %# 32 ,-2 ,#!#11 07 Contact Matthew Gardner on (65) 6854 5633 or email matthew.gardner@ambition.com.sg quoting reference number MXG23242.

2 .0-4'"#" '1 $-0 0#!03'2+#,2 .30.-1#1 -,*7 31',#11 '!#,!# 3+ #0B mkkqllqsk @ '!#,!# 3+ #0B lk pllr@

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SENIOR APPOINTMENTS

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SENIOR APPOINTMENTS

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6/5/2014 9:03:04 PM

What are the forces redefining market research?

Find out all about them on 27 June 2014 Grand Park City Hall Hotel,Singapore 9.00am – 5.00pm

Research Asia Interactive returns in 2014 and will take an in-depth look at the developments, challenges and the future of market research.

Gold Sponsors

(Registration starts at 8.00am)

Sponsor

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CAREERS

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CAREER PATH Raymond Tan Senior brand manager Carlsberg Singapore

First job? L’Oréal Singapore.

I was the brand custodian for brands such as Redken, L’Oréal Professionnel, Maybelline and Garnier for eight years.

First job in advertising/ marketing? L’Oréal Singapore

working on Redken.

Best job? Every job is considered

the best. I give my best at every job that I decide to take on.

Perks of your current job?

My job allows me to meet amazing individuals (pub and restaurant owners) who share their dreams and passions of being an entrepreneur every day. The experience has been invaluable and enriching.

Worst job? There is no such thing as a worst job. Every job comes with its own set of challenges, but as they say, “Don’t limit your challenges. Challenge your limits”.

Marketing professionals you admire? I think everyone has

something to teach and truly, everyone that I’ve met in the course of my career – my bosses, my partners, my staff, have inspired me in some way.

Best career advice you’ve been given? “Marketing” is an

ever-changing animal and change is the only constant.

Why a career in marketing?

Marketing is an exciting and dynamic world, with everchanging platforms to engage consumers and market products that fill the needs of various consumer groups.

If you weren’t in marketing, what would you be?

An engineer.

How do you wind down?

Chilling out with friends and kicking back with a bottle of Somersby in my hand. There is something about the crisp taste that makes you want to relax.

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JOB SHUFFLE FOX International Channels Asia appointed Joon Lee, executive vicepresident of content and communications for Asia Pacific and the Middle East who currently oversees all channels, content and marketing across the region, to the role of managing director of Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. This includes Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Ferdi Wieling joined the Reading Room Singapore as executive creative director where he will steer the creative direction across Asia. He was previously the creative group head at Reading Room London.

His new position of the Singapore Group allows him to contribute to the growth of Reading Room APAC from Singapore.

Millward Brown appointed Nichola Rastrick (pictured) managing director of Southeast Asia.

She succeeds Gonzalo Fuentes who was appointed CEO of Millward Brown Latin America. She brings more than 18 years of market research experience to the role. Meanwhile, Narayanan Radhakrishnan took on the role of chief client officer for Southeast Asia from Priti Mehra who is now the managing director for the Singapore office.

Adrian Koh joined Omnifluence as a partner. Koh has a dual focus of consulting and launching a new business unit in the coming quarter. Previously, he was

Evernote’s regional PR and marketing lead for APAC. He brings experience from his work in local markets across the region.

He also held public policy roles in government agencies such as the Ministry of Law and the former MCYS. Publicis Groupe’s digital agency DigitasLBi hired Justin Peyton as chief strategy officer for Asia Pacific to lead strategic moves across the regional client portfolio. It also hired Mark Newton as head of media for Asia Pacific to expand DigitasLBi’s media credentials. All of the new hires will report to Roy Capon (pictured), chief executive for Asia Pacific, who is based in Singapore.

Jean Lin, CEO of Isobar Asia Pacific, was named global CEO of the digital agency with immediate effect.

She leads the network from Shanghai and takes over the role from Mark Cranmer, who stepped down from the leadership of Isobar and will leave the company in June. Lin founded wwwins Consulting in Taiwan in 1999 and later sold the company to Aegis.

Red Fuse Communications, the WPP full-service integrated agency, appointed Charlie Newbery head of media for Asia, dedicated to serving all of Colgate-Palmolive’s brands worldwide. He reports to regional managing director Jason Oke and leads the delivery of all media services for ColgatePalmolive across Asia, including a regional media team in Hong Kong, overseeing implementation across the network.

The Media Shop appointed Lee Chee Wee as digital director. He joins with more than 10 years of experience in digital brand equity management and online marketing for multinational companies. He joins at the juncture of its planned expansion into the Asia Pacific region.

Grey Group Asia Pacific promoted Shahvez Afridi to head of strategy to look after all of Grey Group’s strategic thinking on the Procter & Gamble account in the APAC region.

Afridi reports to Nirvik Singh, chairman and CEO of Grey Group Asia Pacific and Tamara Ingram, president and CEO of team P&G. Afridi has 19 years of end-to-end consumer insights and brand strategy experience.

Havas Worldwide Singapore’s chief creative officer Victor Ng is leaving the agency. Ng first joined the Havas Group in 2008 to help beef up the then-Euro RSCG team. He then left in July 2010 to join DDB Shanghai. He returned to Havas in February 2012.

Omnicom Media Group Asia Pacific expanded its accountability team and appointed Sofia Savvidou as the head of trading and accountability APAC. Meanwhile, Paul Moreton (pictured) was promoted to chief investment officer. In his new role, he has a comprehensive remit encompassing the investment community to deliver best-inmarket investment strategies and value for clients in the region. Both will be based in Singapore.

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LAST WORD

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A ROOKIE’S EXPERIENCE OF THE ADOBE SUMMIT Here’s what made Rezwana Manjur’s first Adobe Summit memorable.

Adobe Lehi campus at Salt Lake City.

No one has it easy visiting the US, think of all the Visa hassles.

I had some, but after a somewhat rocky start, I reached Utah to attend my first Adobe Summit this year.

After almost 24 hours of travel, I landed in Salt Lake City in Utah on a Sunday night, two days ahead of Adobe’s annual conference. While on board the long haul flight from Singapore to San Francisco, before transiting to Utah, I’m certain I saw some of our lovely marketing friends and readers.

But both sides quickly averted prying looks and understandably so given the “sleep face” mask we all had on. I understand, guys. No hard feelings.

Pre-conference day: The day before the conference, the Adobe team took us down to the Lehi campus. The lucky (#blessed) folks based at the Adobe Lehi Campus at Salt Lake City gave us a tour of their 280,000 square foot property. The open concept facility, made primarily of wood and concrete, hosts about 1000 staff members and was equipped with an indoor basketball court, an outdoor basketball court, a soccer field, gym facilities, a gaming room and a store filled with Adobe goodies.

Not only that, the campus also had beautiful modern art in the form of installations and other quirky facets (check out the wall decorated with just an old computer mouse). All this while looking over the beautiful snowcapped mountains of Salt Lake City.

And this one is for my shopaholic friends, guys and girls included. Just a few steps from the venue of the conference was Utah’s outlet malls parading brands such as Michael Kors, Coach, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and so many, many more. (Now, you know why I’m, going on and on about the trip, don’t you?)

Anyway, retiring to our hotel rooms at about four in the afternoon, completely jet-lagged, the APAC press members all had time for a quick catnap while the Adobe team worked tirelessly through to ensure a smooth experience for us. We then congregated again at 7pm for an amazing steak dinner with the rest of the international press from Asia and Japan.

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Day 1: Kicking off the annual summit with a rock and roll concert feel (check out the pics) was Adobe’s Brad Rencher, SVP and GM of digital marketing. He talked about the various innovations and partnerships the organisation had formed in recent times – the most recent being it joining hands with SAP. Also taking the stage was Shantanu Narayen, president and CEO of Adobe; Jeff Titus, GM of digital technology solutions and strategy at Audi of America; Julie Bornstein, global CMO of Sephora, and various other keynote speakers.

Following a three-hour session, we were shuffled to a press room to have our luxurious buffet-style lunch before heading out to breakout sessions of our interest. The enormous convention hall, which was swarming with marketers, analysts, press and tech vendors and providers, saw a steady stream of people walking in and out to attend sessions they were interested in.

At the end of the productive afternoon, the press and analysts were invited for a quick bite and drinks and to do what we do best – network.

Here’s a quick round up of day one: Day 2: The second day of the conference was the most exciting day of my life ...

OK I’m kidding.

The keynote session, which kicked off at 9am, drew about 7000 people. Adobe’s John Mellor, VP of strategy and digital marketing, took to the stage and delved into the changes marketers needed to make to reinvent themselves for the digital stage.

Also on stage was Seattle Seahawks’ Richard Sherman and actor/ director and Sundance founder Robert Redford. The entire two hours blazed past as these inspiring individuals completely out of our industry gave us valuable life lessons which I’m quite sure every marketer in the room related to.

Zen and sophisticated, Redford spoke about how it’s not success which propels us forward, but failure from the risks we take, and how his life revolving around the Sundance Institute has been all about risk and reward. Meanwhile, the 26-year-old Seahawks football star Sherman (who

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LAST WORD

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is a charming handsome lad with a vibrant personality – yes I am swooning) also shared his insights into planned calculated risk.

The rest of the day was spent attending various talks held by marketers, tech gurus and business leaders. What many of us were eagerly waiting for was what was known as “The Sneaks”. This was a session where the best and brightest products were put on display before hitting the markets.

Last year seven out of the 10 sneaks presented made it to the market. This year we saw the following: #RealtimeOffers This product is said to give insight into real-time customer behaviour on your website and marketers can use the tool to look at their customers behaviour and decide on the next move based on this – all in real time. #EventTriggers A real-time event trigger which allows marketers to offer a shopper who has abandoned his online shopping cart to be re-targeted via push notification to a person’s mobile phone when they enter a retail store location. This will be signalled by Adobe’s iBeacon utility. #UberSegments Uber Segments allows analytics administrators to create new segments by combining existing ones without having to go through the set-up process all over again. #AutoInfographics Through this feature, marketers can publish reports to the marketing cloud so others can access them and update the data as and when more information comes in. It is aimed to help marketers by saving them time from doing repetitive tasks to update reports. #BehaviorandBuzz This feature lets marketers dig into their products and see what big events are impacting sales.

Swoon-worthy: Here are some snaphots of the star-studded event.

#LocationTargeting Basically, Eric Stonestreet’s iPhone was sent a push notification with information about various products and items as he made his way around the stage. This was done using Adobe’s iBeacon that generally uses Bluetooth wireless to detect nearby smartphones.

This session was hosted by Stonestreet. In case you don’t know who he is, he is Cam from Modern Family. And if you are not sure what Modern Family is, you my friend, are missing out on one of TV’s greatest pleasures!

The star-studded Wednesday did not just end there.

We were soon ushered down to the end of the hall where Adobe created its very own music festival/carnival feel. The Adobe Bash was sponsored by McCann, and held indoors. Playing on stage were indie bands such as Walk the Moon and Fictionists. They were the opening acts for the Grammy winning band Vampire Weekend. While not familiar to the indie music scene, Vampire Weekend quickly won my heart and my fan girl ways, minutes into playing its first song.

Here are some pictures from the bash.

Day 3: Day three was relatively laid back and to be honest, that was exactly what many of us in the press room needed after the night-long partying and, of course, soaking in all the content from the conference.

While we relaxed and caught up with some 200 emails we left behind in Singapore, the Adobe team was busy setting up for another fun-filled night to keep our summit experience going.

The last night was, my friends, the epic karaoke night where many

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busted a move and a tune in the hope of becoming the champions in the eyes of their digital marketing peers. American Idol, had nothing on this!

Here are some of the things I took from the conference: – Technology and creativity are not in a battle Technology undoubtedly drives change, but it can only do so when it goes hand-in-hand with creativity. There’s infinite possibilities and technology aids in helping that imagination become a reality.

– The marketing role is not what it used be Traditionally, those who went into the marketing field did so as a means to express creativity. But today, top brands are fast realising the marketing field is now a numbers game. Data scientists are the support system to every marketer’s evolutionary process. While marketers are in the driving seats, it’s the data scientists who now hold the roadmap to future destinations.

According to Adobe’s Rencher, today the CMO and CIO have had a shotgun marriage and the fruit of this marriage is what will be the driving force of change in marketing.

And lastly, tech geeks know how to party. Don’t doubt the techie next to you. A couple of shots and a good round of music, and they will be busting a move or a tune. The entire conference proved digital marketers work hard and play hard. Until next time, thanks Adobe for a great trip!

Adobe paid for this journalist’s trip to Adobe Summit 2014, held in Salt Lake City, Utah.

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6/5/2014 9:51:19 PM