Marketing Magazine SG - May 2016 by Marketing Magazine Group

MARKETING MAGAZINE SINGAPORE EDITION

THE ART & SCIENCE OF CONNECTING WITH CONSUMERS

MAY 2016

SINGAPORE

marketing-interactive.com

MAY 2016

HEAD OF MARKETING, SOUTHEAST ASIA, MASTERCARD

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Rezwana Manjur, Deputy Editor rezwanam@marketing-interactive.com Vivienne Tay, Journalist viviennet@marketing-interactive.com Editorial – International Matt Eaton, Editor (Hong Kong) matte@marketing-interactive.com Production and Design Shahrom Kamarulzaman, Regional Art Director shahrom@lighthousemedia.com.sg Fauzie Rasid, Senior Designer fauzier@lighthousemedia.com.sg Advertising Sales Johnathan Tiang, Sales Manager johnathant@marketing-interactive.com Ee Kai Li, Account Manager kailie@marketing-interactive.com Erica Loh, Account Manager erical@marketing-interactive.com Laura Lai, Account Manager laural@marketing-interactive.com Ong Yi Xuan, Advertising Sales Coordinator yixuano@marketing-interactive.com Advertising Sales - International Sara Wan, Senior Sales Manager (Hong Kong) saraw@marketing-interactive.com Event Production Hairol Salim, Regional Lead - Events and Training hairol@marketing-interactive.com Event Services Yeo Wei Qi, Regional Head of Events Services weiqi@marketing-interactive.com Circulation Executive Deborah Quek, Circulations Executive deborahq@marketing-interactive.com Finance Evelyn Wong, Regional Finance Director evelynw@lighthousemedia.com.sg Management Søren Beaulieu, Publisher sorenb@marketing-interactive.com

Discussions around content marketing are evolving from being a marketing concern to a business concern. While everyone acknowledges it’s nothing new, in the realm of the online world, it requires a new strategy and a fairly serious one. What was initially seen with scepticism, written off as just another jargon the industry is obsessed with, eventually evolved to become a nice-to-have. Now, most of that has been proven wrong – the importance of a proper strategy and resources for content cannot be underestimated. From hiring one content person to setting up a whole team around it, to getting an agency on board for content to establishing newsrooms, we have seen it all in Asia Paciﬁc. Different companies are at different levels of growth when it comes to content, but what’s common is they are all becoming more and more serious about it. We spoke to several ACMA members earlier this year on what they think content marketing will be like in 2016 and all of them emphasised on the growing need for content to play the role of a differentiator for the business and not just marketing. As Edward Bray, head of marketing, APAC, marketing solutions for LinkedIn, said: “Content marketing will no longer be the sole responsibility of the marketing team. The rise of social selling means that content creation needs to be a collaborative effort between marketing and sales. Organisations that embrace this concept will extend the reach of their content through sales channels and are more likely to achieve sales and marketing alignment.”

In another recent interview in Marketing magazine, Andrea Edwards, of The Digital Conversationalist, said: “You cannot be successful at content marketing if you operate in a marketing silo.” And dealing with internal structures is perhaps the biggest challenge confronting content marketing. For most organisations it is no longer a question of “why” content marketing; it’s about when, what, and most importantly, how? Therefore, at this year’s Content 360, we paid extra focus on answering the hows of content marketing through our line-up of excellent brands, and speakers who shared the stories of their brands. Read all about content marketing – right from coming up with the right team, to the formats that work to managing KPIs around content – in this edition. And as marketing becomes more and more business-centric, see what Debbie Goldingham, head of marketing, Southeast Asia, MasterCard, has to say about the new age of marketing, in our proﬁle section. Enjoy reading! Photography: Stefanus Elliot Lee – www.elliotly.com; Makeup & Hair: Michmakeover using Make Up For Ever & hair using Sebastian Professional – www.michmakeover.com

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

THE BUSINESS OF CONTENT MARKETING

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

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

Rayana Pandey Editor

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CONTENTS

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4 A MONTH IN NEWS A round up of a month of news from Singapore and the region.

15 UOB’S MILLENNIAL AMBITIONS Rezwana Manjur looks at the reasons behind the local bank’s latest focus.

19 WHATSAPP’S BOLD MOVE TO PROTECT USER PRIVACY What does this signal for other players? Vivienne Tay writes.

24 PROFILE: DEBORAH GOLDINGHAM, HEAD OF MARKETING FOR SOUTHEAST ASIA AT MASTERCARD There is no such thing as cracking marketing goals without meeting business objectives, says Deborah Goldingham in a conversation with Rayana Pandey.

28 READY FOR THE NEXT LEVEL? Why are marketers still scared of embracing e-sports? Rezwana Manjur finds out. Deborah Goldingham, head of marketing for Southeast Asia at Mastercard, says there is no marketing success without overall business success.

34 IS THE SILVER GENERATION A RETAIL GOLDMINE? Are marketers missing the mark when it comes to the elderly? Rezwana Manjur finds out.

42 MASTER REPORT: DECODING THE WORLD OF PROGRAMMATIC Programmatic is more than just a buzzword now. Our latest Master Report explores its possibilities.

50 ROUNDTABLE: WHAT A GREAT LOYALTY PROGRAMME CAN DO FOR YOUR BRAND What does it take to create a really good loyalty programme in the digital era? Rezwana Manjur writes

54 CONTENT 360 Read all that was discussed about content marketing and what the future holds.

SCAN TO SUBSCRIBE!

19 15

KEY TAKEAWAYS: >> Considerations when it comes to marketing to the elderly. >> Benefits of being involved in e-sports. >> Understanding content marketing and unleashing its potential. W W W .MA R KET ING - INT ERAC TIVE . COM

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NEWS

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

A journey through the years Singapore’s Land Transport Authority released a video tugging at viewers’ heartstrings, coupled with nostalgia with how Singapore’s public buses have changed over the years. Titled “Journey”, it follows a couple’s journey through decades with the SBS bus as it evolves, paralleled with their enduring love which transcends time and boundaries. This video comes as Singapore’s new ﬂeet of lush green buses prepare to debut in late May.

ORBA chooses Leo Burnett The Orchard Road Business Association (ORBA) appointed Leo Burnett Singapore as the design agency for Christmas On A Great Street 2016, the year-end festive Light-Up along Orchard Road. They will lead the conceptualisation, design and planning for this year’s light up. The scope of work includes the development of promotional communications material for the Light-Up.

H&M appoints new agency H&M appointed ZenithOptimedia as its new media agency partner following a pitch. It will be responsible for planning and buying across all media for H&M in Singapore and Malaysia. H&M previously worked with OMD in Singapore and UM in Malaysia.

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StarHub scores touchdown StarHub gained the rights to be the ofﬁcial broadcaster of the HSBC World Rugby Singapore Sevens, which was aired on Singapore’s only free sports channel SuperSports Arena and on StarHub’s in-house SuperSports channels. World Rugby Sevens news is also available on StarHub’s daily sports news show SuperSports 360. On-air trailers werel also shown on StarHub’s pay TV network to spread awareness of the series. ADSKOM spreads wings ADSKOM, a Singapore-based programmatic advertising technology platform, is expanding its team and services into India. Rajeev Saxena was appointed its new country director based in New Delhi. According to eMarketer, with India’s digital ad market set to surpass US$1 billion in 2016 alone, digital display ads dominate the nation, representing more than 60% of the country’s total digital ad spend. STB eyes Hong Kong travellers Singapore Tourism Board launched the “Singapore Weekend” campaign supported by a video and online guidebooks to showcase different attractions and how to take a day off to make the most of an extended threeday weekend in the garden city. A three-day, three-night itinerary starring local actress and singer Ava Liu was created to show Hongkongers how to make the most of their stay in Singapore.

SPH’s $6.8 million investment Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) invested SG$6.8 million in Brand New Media, a content marketing firm. Through the deal, both parties aim to offer advertisers video solutions for integrated marketing campaigns which will cover multiple touchpoints. According to BNM, led by Damien Bray, clients will now enjoy stronger and more holistic solutions for content creation and target distribution across print, digital and radio channels. Linking up with APAC LinkedIn unveiled its new data centre in Singapore, its first outside the US. One of the six data centres for LinkedIn globally, it has invested SG$80 million so far in the new centre which spans 23,500 square feet. It seeks to enhance the experience for users and clients across Asia Pacific, following the surge in users which doubled to reach over 85 million members from January 2013 to the end of 2015.

The emoji face challenge The Media Literacy Council created a set of eight emojis represented by four core values: respect, responsibility, empathy and integrity. Members of the public have also been encouraged to take the Emoji Face Challenge, which encourages them to mimic one of the eight emojis created by taking a selﬁe or a video of themselves. It aims to promote a safer, responsible and positive use of the internet.

Dentsu’s new agency model A new agency model called Dentsu Mobius Media (DM2) has been created. The creation is a result of merging two network brands – specialist digital agency Dentsu Möbius and global media agency Dentsu media. The new entity will be led by CEO James Hawkins, who was previously CEO of Dentsu Möbius in Asia. Hawkins is also the chief digital ofﬁcer for the Dentsu Media Network across Asia Paciﬁc.

AVA rolls out food trucks AVA partnered with SPHMBO to target working professionals to gain their support to buy and eat local produce. AVA rolled out its second food truck workplace roadshows at Ocean Financial Centre, One-North (Fusionopolis) and Toa Payoh HDB Hub. Visitors could taste local produce with specially created dishes made from locally farmed ingredients such as eggs, fish and vegetables. AdAsia opens in Singapore AdAsia Holdings launched its first office globally in Singapore, providing global marketing services and new-generation TV advertising product development. It will be led by Kosuke Sogo, CEO and founder. The launch comes at a point where the GDP and advertising market have grown significantly in various Asian countries. Launches in Thailand, Indonesia, Tokyo and the Philippines are in the pipeline.

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NEWS

A prime partnership SPHMBO partnered with South Beach Consortium to market a suite of digital advertising screens which include a 48-square metre facade LED screen and an in-lift screen network with 28 units of 13.3 inch LED screens. South Beach is a mixed-use development, strategically located on Beach Road bordering Singapore’s central business district. This prime location captivates an affluent group of office executives, hotel guests, retail patrons and vehicular traffic along Nicoll Highway. Occupiers from a range of industries include Facebook, Sanofi, Rabobank, Bain & Company and Boeing. New appointments The National Council of Social Service appointed Wild Advertising & Marketing, along with GroupM media agency Mediacom, for a disability awareness campaign. The agencies are tasked to create an integrated campaign to promote public awareness of people with disabilities. It aims to engage Singaporeans to understand the barriers faced by people with disabilities, appreciate their abilities and make Singapore a more inclusive society.

Story sharing with DBS DBS launched a new campaign to promote its new DBS Singapore Gallery. Inviting six Singaporeans to the gallery, participants were paired up with someone from a different background in the “Take a seat, pick an art piece” story-sharing social experiment. Inspired by the iconic paintings in the gallery, they found themselves sharing personal life experiences and perspectives with one another.

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Stepping out to be kind The Singapore Kindness Movement partnered with Mediacorp OOH Media to launch an outdoor campaign to encourage Singaporeans to make kindness a personal responsibility as well as a conscious decision to act on it. The campaign, “Kindness. It’s up to us”, utilises six-sheet panels in the city. Mediacorp says more than 5,800 people have already interacted with the panels since its launch.

New launch by Guinness Guinness launched its Guinness Foreign Extra Stout limited edition series, featuring artwork on its bottles and cans based on Singaporean cultural icons such as the Keong Saik Building and Marina Bay Sands to local foods such as Kueh Tutu. In line with the launch, it partnered with the founders of Humans of Singapore to produce an exclusive coffee-table book called, Men of Singapore.

Carbon wins Beko over again European home appliances brand Beko reappointed Carbon as its social media agency in Singapore and Malaysia. Carbon will assist Beko with localising content, community management and engagement, social media buying and digital strategic counsel. Beko is also the ofﬁcial sponsor of FC Barcelona along with Qatar airways. It has 14 production facilities in ﬁve countries and a presence in more than 100 countries.

MINI Asia appoints GOVT MINI Asia appointed GOVT Singapore as its creative agency following a multi-stage pitch process. The local agency will manage MINI Asia’s advertising and digital communication needs. It will handle the Singapore, Philippines and Vietnam markets and the appointment is for three years. The incumbent for MINI Asia was Kinetic which has been its creative agency for the past six years.

Invest or save? AIA Singapore partnered with SPHMBO to unveil a giant lenticular installation at the Ocean Financial Centre, in what they claim to be Singapore’s ﬁrst largescale installation. Depending on the direction a viewer is walking, they will see either the word “invest” or “save”. The lenticular approach was taken to highlight the dual-element effect of saving and investing which Savest™ brings to its customers by promising long-term savings and growth potential of investments. SportCares appoints agency SportCares Foundation appointed Asia PR Werkz as its PR agency on retainer for one year. The agency is tasked to provide strategic counsel and media relations services for SportCares, which works to improve the lives of underprivileged children and youth-at-risk in our community through sport. SportCares has reached out to more than 8,000 children and youth – linking needy beneﬁciaries, passionate volunteers and community spirited donors.

Kinetic’s gracious statement Following MINI Asia’s appointment of GOVT as its new creative agency, Kinetic Singapore posted a statement on its Facebook page congratulating the latter in what seemed like an incredibly gracious move. The incumbent also thanked MINI Asia for its six-year collaboration, drawing positive responses online and from GOVT who in turn praised it as well.

StarHub to move in-house StarHub is tipped to be moving its social media duties in-house. The telco was last working with GroupM social media agency Vocanic. The move comes months after the telco hired social media expert Rod Strother from Lenovo as StarHub’s VP of digital transformation. The role is a newly created one within StarHub and covers all areas of digital, including social, e-commerce, dot. com and others.

France gets Créative The Créative France campaign was launched in Singapore by Singapore’s French Embassy and Business France to support the international development of the French economy. Three focused industry ﬁelds, particularly high technology, aeronautics and gastronomy, have been chosen to showcase French ingenuity. As the sixth largest economy in the world, the campaign reinforces France as a leading destination for global businesses.

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EXPLORING THE OFFLINE SIDE OF SHOPPER Who said the physical retail space is dead? Many brick and mortar retailers are reinventing themselves. Coupled this with the increase in mobile and social engagement, and the advancement in shopper technology, the onus is now on brands to make the shopping experience and transaction between both online and offline as seamless as possible.

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NEWS

Live Your Legend Harley-Davidson rolled out a global campaign which inspires passionate customers to “Live Your Legend”. It focuses on lifeenriching moments as well as the unforgettable bonds of family and friends formed by riding HarleyDavidson motorcycles. Adding to the campaign, Harley Davidson will curate conversations in social media using #LiveYourLegend and showcase real-life stories from Harley-Davidson riders. Twitter turns 10 Twitter turned 10 on 21 March with #loveTwitter trending globally on none other than Twitter. The social networking service also put out a blog post stating 10 ways the platform has changed marketing such as authentic brand voice, real-time marketing, creating cultural movements, new digital creators and personalised content. It also talks about the hashtag and how it created new forms of visual expression.

FIFA’s ﬁrst Chinese sponsor Wanda Group partnered with FIFA for a time period of 15 years. This follows the group’s acquisitions of Infront Sports & Media in Switzerland, the World Triathlon Corporation in the US and the endurance sports sector of Lagardère Sports & Entertainment in France since 2015. The partnership allows the global marketing rights to all of FIFA’s competitions, including the FIFA World Cup.

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Iris SPORT launched Iris launched Iris SPORT, a new sports marketing division with a collective of specialists from sport, lifestyle and entertainment backgrounds. It will work closely with the micro-network’s consulting, CRM, data and insight team, iris Concise, to add commercial rigour across all activity – from identifying the right partnership or inﬂuencer, to evaluating the activity and proving its worth. It will provide performance metrics from sponsored assets, real-time analysis of the activity and better integration of campaign metrics from the start.

Jabra appoints Lewis Jabra appointed Lewis as its global lead PR agency for APAC, UK, US and France. The appointment was made after an initial project Lewis worked on. Now, the agency will deliver PR support across APAC and other regions and a global campaign will be managed by its international division. The global campaign will cover a wide array of activities that will target both business and consumer audiences. Walmart penetrates China Walmart aunched a cross-border e-commerce service, “Walmart Global Shop”, available in China on its mobile app to serve customers with more quality and authentic products from overseas. By downloading the Walmart app, customers gain access to imports and home delivery service from bonded areas. App users can also enjoy the same quality after-sale services as store customers such as a worry free return and refund policy.

#MoreThan just a campaign Telenor Group, the Norwegian telecommunication giant, launched a new campaign titled #MoreThan across Asia. The campaign broke across Malaysia, Thailand, India, Pakistan, Myanmar and Bangladesh and was created by creative agency The Secret Little Agency. It runs across print, TV, digital, and social channels and spotlights consumers’ personal stories.

Weber adopts FB platform Weber Shandwick became the first PR firm to adopt the Facebook at Work collaboration platform. This has been made available to all its 3,500 employees worldwide, of which 900 are in Asia. The PR firm said this was part of its efforts to explore and understand new innovative communications platforms for employees and clients.

Boss hires Huo Hugo Boss China appointed Taiwanese actor Wallace Huo as the “Man of Today” – the Hugo Boss ambassador in the country, following a doubledigit sales decrease in China. The brand released a series of photos featuring the actor in windbreakers to promote its Spring/Summer 2016 men’s suits. To align its sales strategy, it closed around 20 stores in the market earlier this year.

HOW MUCH DOES THAT COST?

UNDER THE SNOW DOME Evian recently introduced its newly designed PET bottle in Asia, which is sleeker and with cleaner lines. The bottle sports a “label-less” look, of which the front features a simplified, elegant reduction of the previous logo design – a panorama of mountains which celebrates the water’s source in a corner of the French Alps. Being an icon of the premium category globally, Evian wanted to renovate the brand so consumers would be reminded of the water’s purity and freshness. By bringing the giant snow dome to Singapore, where consumers could enter it for a bit of fun and a wintery experience, the brand wanted to remind them of the source of purity. Alongside the Evian snow dome, the brand also ran a consumer promotion across Singapore. While the snow dome was in the centre of Singapore only from 31 March

to 3 April, there are activations at store level which ran until the end of April. This was amplified with the help of digital platforms such as targeted websites and Facebook. The Evian snow dome idea first emerged from Dubai, where Mindshare UAE developed the concept. It was brought to Singapore and the brand engaged with Kingsmen Exhibits to build it in Asia, and also partnered with Carat media. The cost was about SG$100,000.

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NEWS

I Am Cait with H&M Former Olympic gold medalwinning decathlete Bruce Jenner, now known as Caitlyn Jenner, signed a deal with H&M for one of its sports campaigns. According to the Telegraph, this was part of the brand’s attempt to show diversity. This was conﬁrmed on Jenner’s Twitter feed as well as H&M’s. Jenner is part of the famed reality stars Kardashian’s stronghold and one of the world’s most celebrated athletes.

Get ready to be dropped off To convey the airline’s marketing slogan “unexpected delight”, Jin Air released three funny videos showing the company dropping passengers off at destinations by skydiving or even ﬁghter aircraft to push its brand awareness. One of the videos saw the Korean low-cost carrier introducing a “direct drop service” in which passengers are transported in large cargo planes and dropped off at destinations by skydiving.

NZTA’s new driving campaign The New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) released a video titled “Hello” to get drivers to put their passengers ﬁrst and drive phonefree. Deviating from anti-texting campaigns, which bank on fear appeal to highlight the dangers, NZTA took a humorous and refreshing approach by focusing on the perspective of the passenger. The video had over 1.7 million views on YouTube and nine million views on other social media platforms.

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New launch by Omnicom Omnicom Health Group has launched TBWA\WorldHealth, combining two of its healthcare agencies LLNS and Corbett. Sharon Callahan has been named the CEO. In addition to her new role, she will also continue to serve as chief client ofﬁcer of the Omnicom Health Group. Robin Shapiro, former president of Corbett, will serve as group president of North America. Additional management will be drawn from Corbett, LLNS and TBWA\ WorldHealth.

Islamic move draws criticism With more global brands tailoring their approach to reach the growing market of Muslim consumers, who make up a fourth of the world’s population, it is no surprise several brands such as Uniqlo, D&G, Mango and H&M have made a move into Islamic fashion. However, Pierre Bergé, former partner of Yves Saint Laurent, criticised the movement saying “creators should have nothing to do with Islamic fashion”.

‘Don’t love me, hate me’ Nike China joined hands with Wieden+Kennedy Shanghai to craft a provocative spot embodying the spirit of Kobe Bryant as he bid farewell to Chinese fans. Dubbed “Don’t love me, hate me”, Bryant shares his secret weapon on the court in this 60-second video transforming fear of failure and hatred from those around him into fuel to be better.

AUDIT WATCH

DRIVING ADVERTISER ER CONFIDENCE From this year onwards, Global Business Press has changed the title of Asian Airlines & Airports (AA&A) to Asian Airlines & Aerospace (AA&A). The magazine has a long history, fi rst being launched 24 years ago in 1992. Currently, the magazine is bimonthly and the circulation for the magazine mostly focuses on the Asia Pacific region. The magazine is ABC audited and it fi rst began the process in early 2014. Siva Sachi, chief operating officer of publishing, explained the decision was made to provide advertisers with a credible outlook so as to promote the magazine and give its clients more confidence with the circulation numbers it was claiming. Currently, its total average circulation per issue is 8,094. “Advertisers want to know that

they are getting a good return on their investment. Therefore every reader of a publication has a value to the advertiser,” he said. If an audit is not done, publishers run the risk of claiming greatly inflated circulation value to justify the return to the advertiser. He added if a publication is audited, then the advertiser is confident the claim on the circulation is true as it has been verified by a reputable third-party audit bureau such as the ABC.

Huawei employs Hollywood Huawei appointed Henry Cavill and Scarlett Johansson as global product ambassadors for the unveiling of its latest P9 series, after a recent similar move with Lionel Messi. It also collaborated with global camera brand Leica, releasing a preview trailer at an exclusive launch event at London’s Battersea Evolution. Cavill and Johansson are slated to make appearances in the P9 series television commercial. Global dominance Blis, the location-based advertising technology company, secured US$25 million in series B funding from major new investors. The investment will launch Blis into the US market as well as allowing expansion in existing Hong Kong and Singapore markets and the development of new technologies and products. The investment will help fund the continued expansion and the scaling of international sales and marketing activities.

SK-II empowers women Skincare brand SK-II launched a video empowering single women to not let the pressure of marrying before turning 27 dictate their future. Called “Marriage market takeover”, the video covers the pressure women face from their parents and society to marry young and chronicles their road to acceptance. The inspirational video garnered more than 2.7 million views on Chinese social media within three days.

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

1 Campaign Brand campaign Brief City Serviced Ofﬁces launched a new campaign featuring intriguing stories detailing the exceptional service from the CSO team. The campaign is executed across outdoor sites in the central business district, together with a refreshed website and printed collaterals. It is based on real-life experiences and was created with the help of independent agency Blak Labs. Client

City Serviced Ofﬁces

Creative

Blak Labs

Media

Internal Media Spaces

2 Campaign Hello Kitty Hello Kit Kat Brief Kit Kat and Hello Kitty came together with the help of a catchy song and a colourful and cute set conceptualised by J. Walter Thompson. It has been rolled out on social platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and television. The jingle was also played in-store during the FairPrice Radio Show. Client

Nestlé (Kit Kat)

Creative

JWT Singapore

Media

Mindshare

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3 Campaign Bioré UV Perfect Spray Brief Kao Singapore launched a new campaign called “Bioré UV Perfect Spray” to drive awareness and educate commuters on the damaging effects from exposure to the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays, which cannot be seen with a naked eye. For its OOH executions, hourly readings of UV levels are displayed across Clear Channel’s Play digital screens to reinforce the importance of sunscreen. Client

Kao Singapore

Creative

Hakuhodo Singapore

Media

IPG Mediabrands

4 Campaign Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge Brief To promote the newest additions to the Galaxy range of products, Samsung partnered with SPH Outof-Home Media to create one of the largest billboards in Singapore, nestled on the façade of Paragon along Orchard Road. Covering a width of 16.2m and 16.4m in height, the billboard aimed to reach out to afﬂuent and entertainment-seeking audiences to promote the latest Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge.

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Client

Samsung

Creative

Cheil

Media

Starcom Mediavest Group

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

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OPINION: AD WATCH/WEB WATCH

Mohan Prabhakar Creative director TBWA\Singapore

AD WATCH HOT: First on Twitter

NOT: #IGIVEADAYOFF

Twitter has had its ups and downs. But what hasn’t changed is that news still breaks on Twitter before it does anywhere else. I loved the simplicity of these ads featuring the actual timelines of news events such as the Bin Laden operation, the Sichuan earthquake and the royal baby. Featuring the original tweets that started each story, the campaign builds the legend of those who saw and reported ﬁrst. Of course, the mainstream news agencies don’t get spared with the unﬂattering positions they occupy way down the respective timelines. The art direction hits the spot by crafting bespoke timelines constructed from the elements of each story. All in pretty Twitter blue.

There’s been plenty of talk about this initiative to give domestic helpers their precious day off. The cause is right, but here’s what’s wrong. The questions feel scripted, and the answers a bit pat. But more importantly, by wagging a ﬁnger at mums, it misses the point that this should be about the domestic workers and how their basic rights are routinely trampled upon. Why is the helper being presented as a rival for their child’s affection rather than a valuable ally? If mum has a job to go to, is it surprising the helper knows more? Does shame trigger kindness? And where’s dad in all of this? Is he too busy with manly duties? Yes, I do believe that parents should spend more quality time with kids. But that’s probably another campaign.

Sanchit Mendiratta Partner Happy Marketer

WEB WATCH HOT: sutd.edu.sg

NOT: sp.edu.sg

Finally, I came across a university website that not only addresses all questions an excited teenager would generally ask, but also inspires them to take action. As a prospective student, the ﬁrst three things I notice are the programme details; the possible employment opportunities; and the cool stuff I get to build and do my research on – this assures and intrigues me at the same time. The following section about research, innovation, news and upcoming events is information-heavy, but still doesn’t overwhelm. The “Why SUTD?” accordion on the banner is unconventional, but beautiful, and the testimonial photographs are all so real – so much better than formal headshots or weird stock photos. By the way, kudos to the person who sneaked the distinct personas on the secondary menu at the top. The home page kept me engaged and I found myself reading until the end ... slow claps!

Isn’t it a crime to have a non-responsive website? The ﬁxed width layout with empty columns on the sides leaves me asking for more. The banners look really corporate with those arrows and awkward photographs – all of which, if you notice, have people cropped somehow. RIP composition. RIP rule of thirds! The second half of the page talks about the polytechnic, learning opportunities, notable alumnus and the internal magazine content – everything is good, but it doesn’t really nudge me to click and explore. The brochure ware box layout is not going to work for their cool target audience. In the end, I found myself looking at the footer for the site map and more detailed links, which, I think, perhaps makes more sense than the three menus at the top of the page. Wait, why would a website have three menu bars?

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27/4/2016 8:36:06 PM

16 June

Four Seasons Hotel Singapore

Analytics for Action With more and more companies embracing the power of data and embedding analytics into business processes than ever before, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s getting crowded. How can you integrate and advance your analytics to remain competitive? Analytics 2016 returns with a solid line-up of data and digital experts from companies including Dell, Levi Strauss & Co, Cartesian Consulting and more to tackle your organisationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s key challenges of maximising insights and taking your analytics capabilities to the next level. Find out more at www.marketing-interactive.com/analytics/sg/

Early bird rates (until 13 May) Client-side marketers: SG$ 890 Solutions providers: SG$ 1,690

For more information, contact: Nirah Aziz, project manager +65 6423 0329 niraha@marketing-interactive.com

Featured speakers

Kameel Vohra

Global Launch Marketing Manager Dell

Knowledge Partner

Prakash Chandrasekar

Abdul Rahim Bawa

Regional Head - eCommerce Strategy, Vice President, B2B Marketing Planning and Analytics, AMA and Analytics (SEA) Levi Strauss & Co. MasterCard Singapore

Exhibitor

Brought to you by

Belle Chua

Digital and Social Analytics Lead StarHub

Sandeep Mittal

Founder and Managing Director Cartesian Consulting

DIRECT MAIL CASE STUDY

UOB MAKES A STATEMENT WITH ITS CUSTOMERS How UOB used paper to get consumers to consider e-statements.

Going green: UOB’s clever direct mailer helped customers get rid of their paper addiction.

In this digital age, one would believe that the printed form was surely turning obsolete. From the decline in newspaper subscriptions to the growth of iBooks and Kindle, reducing paper and going digital was the only way forward. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case when it came to bank statements. UOB has made available the subscription to e-statements for all its customers with storage up to five years (so you can still retrieve back-dated statements any time you need). No more bulky filing, no paper wastage. Sounds simple and convenient, yet there was still a group of loyal customers who felt more secure with a physical, tangible document which they could file away. After all, it was a habit built over time. Why change it when it doesn’t need to be changed? Naturally, these customers did not have email addresses we could reach them at. The best way to reach them was through direct mail. The most counter-intuitive approach to selling the benefit of e-statements, one would say. Using paper to un-sell paper statements. And everyone knows how this mail is treated – after all, with over one in two Singaporeans

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receiving a mailer at least once a week with messages ranging from virility enhancements to credit card deals, direct mail has gone the way of e-mail spam – often crumpled up and tossed in the trash. Our challenge: How do we use “junk mail” to get customers to reduce “junk mail”? In the advent of social engagement, we decided to capitalise on social events. Leveraging off the annual Earth Day celebrations, UOB encouraged Singaporeans to save trees by going “e-” in the most unconventional way possible – a piece of junk mail that could grow into a plant. We embedded ﬂower seeds into our direct mail with instructions on how customers could turn the mailer into a potted plant and grow a little tree of their own, while learning about the beneﬁts of going “e-”, including subscriptions to e-statements. This served as a unique visual reminder to customers on e-statement subscription, while cleverly using a trendy social occasion to increase talk-ability of this service. To amplify this campaign, customers could promote their efforts on Facebook through

a “social tree” – an electronic tree that kept growing as more and more subscriptions were garnered. In the ﬁrst week alone, UOB received over 11,000 e-statement subscriptions. Not too bad, for a piece of paper that started out as trash.

THE MAIL Objective Increase e-statement subscriptions among diehard fans of monthly paper banking statements.

Target audience UOB customers who were habitual paper statement ﬁlers. It wasn’t that they weren’t digitally savvy – they were just too lazy to break a habit.

Results In the ﬁrst week alone, UOB received over 11,000 e-statement subscriptions.

Lian Ju Han Senior vice-president, head, strategic segment, digital and wealth banking marketing, UOB

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27/4/2016 8:35:32 PM

NEWS ANALYSIS

UOB’S MILLENNIAL AMBITIONS Rezwana Manjur looks at the reasons behind the local bank’s latest focus. UOB aims to serve one in two millennials by 20191

2QH LQ ¾YH

credit card transactions in Singapore is made on a UOB card

Millennials’ wanderlust and desire to share culinary experiences shape their spending habits

The UOB YOLO

Millennial spending

20%

accounts for of UOB's total card spend

One in three

9 in 10

Spent 13%

have entered the workforce, many as young professionals2

more on food and travel compared to older customers

They are also true digital natives

millennials bank with UOB Travel-related services account for 35% of all online spend

Nearly ¼ of their total spend is done online

UOB grows its suite of millennial-focused offerings with the launch of UOB YOLO

1 2

Adoption of contactless payment grew 60% between 2014 and 2015

Exclusive 1-for-1 movie deals

Features Southeast $VLD¶V ¾UVW µTXLFN read’ card face,

Priority access

designed to make the e-commerce experience more convenient

Dining deals

8% rebate

at the latest restaurants such as Naughty Nuri’s and Maziga

on weekend dining and entertainment

to popular bars and clubs such as Kyo and Timbre

UOB’s main channel of engagement for UOB YOLO customers will be via RI¾FLDO

instagram account @IWannaYOLO

Unless otherwise stated, all statistics are based on UOB data, as well as the UOB Young Professionals Survey, which was conducted in January 2016 and polled 621 UOB cardmembers aged between 26 to 35 years old Source: “Age Pyramid of Resident Population”, Singapore Department of Statistics, http://www.singstat.gov.sg/statistics/visualising-data/charts/age-pyramid-of-resident-population

Source: UOB

UOB has launched its ﬁrst Millennial -focused credit card called UOB YOLO. The name of the card derives from the popular Millennial mantra: “You only live once.” The card was launched armed with data obtained from the spending and lifestyle habits of Millennials and a customer poll the bank conducted earlier this year. With the new card, UOB hopes to serve one in two Millennials over the next three years as they will soon make up the largest demographic of customers in Singapore. To ramp up marketing efforts for the new card, a microsite has been created, with more about the latest entertainment events and lifestyle and dining deals at its dedicated Instagram account @IWannaYOLO. Jacquelyn Tan, managing director and regional head of cards and payments, said the UOB YOLO card was part of the bank’s larger strategy to serve young professionals’ ﬁnancial needs “in one of Asia’s most prosperous economies”. She explains this is vital because within the next decade, Millennials’ spending habits will

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form the backbone of the future economy as they will become the largest segment of the local workforce. Currently, Millennial spending already accounts for 20% of UOB’s total card spend. Statistics given by the bank also show that in 2015, UOB’s Millennial customers were more willing to spend on dining and entertainment compared with the older generations and they spent 13% more on food and travel as compared with customers above 35. “One in three Millennials in Singapore currently banks with UOB. We expect the number of our Millennial customers to increase as we introduce more products and services that meet their lifestyle and banking needs,” Tan said. Millennial-focused offerings This is not the ﬁrst time a local bank has created a customised card to target youths. In 2011,OCBC launched its Frank credit cards targeting the youths of Singapore. Customers could customise their credit cards from various designs.

UOB is also experimenting with the card’s actual feel by featuring a “quick read” card face where card numbers are shown in a four-byfour stack on the top right hand corner instead of the usual horizontal line. Taking it one step further, UOB YOLO customers can also make contactless payments with tokenised security by tapping their Android smartphones at more than 10,000 NFC8-enabled terminals in Singapore through the bank’s mobile app UOB Mighty. The app further offers them access to exclusive local dining deals and authentic food reviews. With the new card, UOB aims to give Millennials priority access to popular bars and clubs such as Kyo and Timbre, latest dining deals and rebates on popular travel websites. In fact, travel accounted for the largest share of all online spend (35%). Top travel websites included Agoda, Tiger Airways, Scoot, Jetstar and Expedia. “We are conﬁdent that UOB’s digitalisation journey will be relevant and will make banking and payments more convenient for our customers,” Tan said.

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27/4/2016 8:35:07 PM

NEWS ANALYSIS

WHO WERE YOU FOOLED BY THIS YEAR? It was once again that time of the year when the industry gets a little cheeky and displays its creativity. This year we spotted several brands in the region getting a little naughty. Jetstar

and an increased heart rate, letting you connect immediately with the person’s contact details. Last, but not least, the cup contains sensors for yawn frequency and blink rates to calculate when your next coffee break should be. The Starbucks Reusable Cup+ carries cool features that coffee-lovers would wish for in their ideal world. If this were true, coffee lovers would be rejoicing everywhere indeed.

Everyone’s favourite experience with drinking a Coke is their very ﬁrst sip, and Coca-Cola Singapore knows it all too well. The brand is claiming its new sip size Coca-Cola is now being offered in the tiny packet of 10ml, which is great when all you need is one little sip of the ice-cold beverage. Oh the horror, if this came true, for all you Coke lovers. Lazada Singapore

Scoot Airline carrier Jetstar has proudly crowned Singlish as its official customer-facing language. This, it claims, is its first steps towards greater market localisation. The first Singlish Jetstar flight will take off today and takes place after the cabin crew have undergone mandatory Singlish lessons. The Jetstar website also boasts Singlish as a new language option. Passengers can apparently look forward to hearing announcements such as “kiap your seat belt tight” and “kin kin return to your seat”. Admitting to Marketing this was just a stunt, the team at Jetstar said this was a way for the airline to resonate better with its Singaporean customers and to provide them with something to laugh about. Starbucks Singapore

Scoot always has something cheeky up its sleeves and this year was no different. It carried out a straw poll among its Facebook fans, asking them to vote for the next sauce to be introduced to the Scoot Café. The four choices given to fans, however, seemed to be quite questionable, to say the least. The choices were durian, smelly tofu, salted egg yolk, and Vegemite. The top choice emerged to be the salted egg yolk sauce. But Marketing understands this was an April Fool’s Day teaser for an actual marketing campaign that rolled out recently.

To make the online shopping experience truly effortless, Lazada Singapore is proud to introduce a new function on its mobile app. Working with local developers, Lazada Singapore will be rolling out its revolutionary “Wink to Cart” function, available on both Android and iOS devices. Because swiping and tapping is so mainstream. Bandlab

Coca-Cola Singapore

Starbucks Singapore presents the Starbucks Reusable Cup+, the innovative coffee cup that is indeed too good to be true. Its automated drink generator calculates the optimum drink for you and automatically ﬁlls up your cup. The cup’s “date-dar” alerts you when it detects a combination of prolonged gazes at you

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This agency is hilarious. Bandlab, a free multi-platform digital audio workstation headquartered in Singapore, announced its new project “CatLab”. Hearing the music industry is going towards dogs, Bandlab brainstormed further and realised there is a “whole feline digital ecosystem” that is still not explored musically. The new platform would allow “mewsicians” to open up their ideas for collaborations with

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NEWS ANALYSIS

other feline music makers around the world to create a new cat-egory of music that unites every age, race and demographic. Purr-fect. Digi Telecommunications

show, according to AllKpop. 1004 lucky viewers would be chosen at random to visit the ﬁctional “Uruk”, a place in which the drama is set in. Visitors would apparently get to ﬂy there from Incheon Airport, and make a parachute skydive landing on the island.

tourism industry, especially for airlines and accommodation providers.” Good one guys. Google Maps

Burger King France

Having had enough of “righties” (people who are right-hand dominant) ruling how products are designed in the world, Digi has launched a new lefty-friendly smartphone, LFT1-4U. It features ﬁngerprint login technology and singlehanded camera stabilisation – both optimised for the left hand. Digi’s Facebook post ends off with #AprilFoolsOrNot. What do you think? Uber Hong Kong

Can I steal your fry? Of course not, because Burger King has launched “single fries”, the ﬁrst fries to be sold individually. France’s Burger King restaurants released a new product on April Fool’s Day named “the single fries”. It claimed customers could choose the size of the french fry (small, medium or large) and the individual sauce to go with it (ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard, curry or barbecue). Contiki

Hong Kong’s Uber says today it has launched the revolutionary service “UberPLANE” which aims to take its business to new heights. That sounds amazing, but I hope you didn’t fall for it. KBS

If you have the K-fever, you must have noticed the popular Korean drama Descendants of the Sun taking the internet and global fans by storm. According to the K-pop entertainment website, on this April Fool’s Day, broadcasting station for the drama, KBS, took to Facebook to announce a special event for viewers of the

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Google has always been one of the most enthusiastic April Fool’s Day observers, and this year the tech giant embraced the day with something a little special. You can explore “funky town” on Google Maps today. Just open the search interface and you should see “explore funky town.” You’ll get a little animation of peg man dancing. Samsung

Contiki claimed today that for the ﬁrst time in 25 years, Contiki will not bring together its employees from around the world in 2016. Instead, launching its ground-breaking “virtually unlimited” product, the leader in youth travel cancelled its global meeting to host a virtual reality conference to celebrate its ground-breaking virtual reality itinerary. “We have been experimenting with virtual reality for over 18 months now and are proud to be the ﬁrst travel company in the world to introduce complete virtual reality travel itineraries for all senses,” said Sam Morrah, director of sales and marketing at Contiki. “It is such an important move that we decided to cancel our global conference and meet virtually instead. “As people increasingly become time-poor and technology improves, Contiki is taking travelling to the next level. “Our new ‘virtually unlimited’ product is the future of travel and a disrupter to the entire

It’s been less than a month since Samsung unveiled the new Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge, but the company posts a teaser for the #TheNextGalaxy which draws out the number 8. And, of course, S8 is not out today! The writer is Wong Jeng Teng, an intern at Marketing magazine Singapore.

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27/4/2016 8:51:38 PM

NEWS ANALYSIS

BRANDS, STOP CLUMPING ASIA AS A WHOLE Why this has led to creativity averaging out, Rezwana Manjur writes.

Time to be different: Many know Asia is diverse, but do their business s strategies truly take this into account?

Asia is made up of a mosaic of cultures and heritages. Differences in regions can either be extreme or have subtle nuances. While most global brands are aware of the immense potential the region holds, do they really take into account this diversity when coming up with marketing plans for “Asia”? Marketing sat down with Jean-Baptiste Danet, CEO of branding agency Dragon Rouge, for his views on the matter. He said, unfortunately, most clients were still clumping Asia as an entire region rather than looking at individual cultures. “This has led to the averaging out of creativity in the region, but consumers don’t want average creativity,” he said. Because Asian consumers are quickly becoming more and more aware, and are fairly well-travelled and savvy, offering them average products will inevitably force them to look outside of Asia. He goes as far as to say that global brands

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should take a page out of the branding books of Asian clients. In fact, he added, the region is no longer behind in terms of branding. Consumers and brands both know what they want and at what price. The point question is: how will global brands talk to consumers in this region? “In the past five years, definitely there’s a radical shift,” he said. Over this period, Asian brands, which were seen as low-cost brands, have evolved their image to being “good value for money brands”. “These Asian brands might not yet be luxury, but they are still high-end brands which are very different from when they started. I think we see more creativity from these brands going into the west, than we see in those coming to Asia from the west,” he said. Kheireddine Sidhoum, global creative officer at Dragon Rouge, added that sometimes brands try to export international concepts to fit the local people, but often this approach fails. This

concept will not resonate with local consumers simply because they don’t lead the same life. The role of branding agencies The changing media landscape has also put immense pressure on clients. This is largely because mistakes are now always in the open. “With the change of media landscape, there is even more focus on branding agencies as the brand guardians. Because now every single mistake the brand is doing is visible somewhere, you cannot hide anything,” Sidhoum says. He added that to win the hearts of consumers, brands and their branding partners needed to think of ideas that can actually help solve problems. It is no longer just about aesthetics. “The main thing is to ﬁnd good ideas. Lots of clients are trying to focus too much on aesthetics, but the only thing consumers care about is whether you are solving something for them today. Yes or no,” he says.

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NEWS ANALYSIS

WHATSAPP’S BOLD MOVE TO PROTECT USER PRIVACY What does this signal for other players? Vivienne Tay writes. responsibility as well as in the interest of mobile device manufacturers and software/application providers (WhatsApp in this example) to provide watertight security/encryption to prevent hackers from accessing user data, added Prakash Kamdar, CEO of Isobar Singapore. “The challenge and debate centres around whether it is lawful and morally right for a few in the law enforcement community to be given back door access to encrypted data for the purposes of national and citizen security,” he said, adding that Apple and Facebook understand and appreciate governments wanting to seek such access for very legitimate reasons.

Privacy issues: The tough task of juggling between consumers’ privacy and helping governments.

In a move following a hotly debated international issue of how much access should law enforcers have in users’ online communications, WhatsApp has announced a complete end-to-end encryption which allows messages to only be accessible between sender and recipient. Now, when more than a billion people use the latest version of the app, every call, message, photo, video, ﬁle and voice message sent will be encrypted by default, including group chats. In light of the recent high-proﬁle clash between Apple and the FBI over an encrypted iPhone linked to one of the shooters in the San Bernardino terrorist attack, such an update strengthens the private messaging app’s stance on the privacy of its users. According to Rajeev Bala, co-founder and CEO at Predator Digital, the scale of this endto-end encryption exercise is impressive. To give an illustration of the scale, Apple uses end-to-end encryption for messages that travel over iMessage, which is only available on iPhones. There have been about 800 million iPhones sold, but taking into consideration that some of these devices may not still be in use and not everyone uses iMessage, the number comes down considerably. Another thing to note is that when users back up their iMessages to iCloud, the end-to-end encryption is effectively useless. “On the other hand, WhatsApp has brought end-to-end encryption to its billion users with a

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team of just 15 engineers! That is not something to be scoffed at. I am also very interested in how this will play out for Telegram (competitor of WhatsApp), which has a self-described focus on security. End-to-end encryption in Telegram is not by default and doesn’t exist for group messaging.” While from a customer’s point of view, WhatsApp’s recent move to strengthen encryption is welcome news, it is yet to be seen how the US government, the Justice Department and FBI will react to the move, according to Prantik Mazumdar, managing partner at Happy Marketer. What also remains to be seen is how does this impact WhatsApp’s potential plan of serving targeted ads on their platform since this encryption may make it difﬁcult for the ads to be contextually relevant. “We must remember that two years ago Facebook spent a whopping US$22 billion to acquire WhatsApp and it’s only a matter of time before they start monetising the platform, and ads are a likely source of revenue for them, similar to what they did with Instagram,” he said. And if ads are not contextually relevant to the messages being exchanged, it may not be a big differentiator and WhatsApp’s value could diminish. As more and more people use their mobile devices for daily communication, experience sharing and commerce, it is both the

Their struggle, however, lies with: 1. Basic human rights of privacy. 2. Once one person has back door access, it is entirely possible for others (with not so good intentions) to gain the same access. Kamdar’s personal opinion is it’s not so much a question of whether or not back door access should be granted to relevant ofﬁcials within the law enforcement community, it is more a question of how mega tech companies and governments can work together to prevent rogue criminals from gaining the same access, as challenging as it is. “It would be unreasonable to expect our respective governments to protect our lives, as we do, and yet insist they not be given the tools and information to do so in the interests of personal privacy,” he said. “Not an easy problem to solve by any stretch (as there are very valid arguments and counter arguments to support each side of the fence) however, one that needs to be solved regardless as we live in unprecedented times.” Nick Pan, regional head of planning and strategy at VML Singapore, thinks the move is a great way for instant messaging giants to set an example for the digital world. “To the man on the street, the strengthening of WhatsApp’s encryption is good news, but I doubt the average user understands what has changed technically. The real impact I believe is that with this move, the big boys are setting an example for the rest of the digital world. Hackers will still hack and it just means they will take slightly longer,” he said.

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NEWS ANALYSIS

HOW ADS DAMAGE THE CONSUMER EXPERIENCE Are your ads interrupting an otherwise great customer experience? Vivienne Tay reports. Is that pesky ad interrupting your buying experience? Well, you are not alone. According to a recent report by HubSpot, ads are damaging consumer experiences. It also quantiﬁes the popularity of ad blocker tools. The study states that ads are damaging consumer experiences, with 80% of consumers across Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia leaving websites due to the interruption of online ads, with 50% installing ad blocker tools. Globally, ad blocking cost publishers close to US$22 billion in 2015 alone, representing a cause for concern among traditional advertisers who must rethink methods of audience engagement. The new research uncovered that the higher levels of ad blocker penetration was among Millennial audiences, along with its impact in improving consumers’ online experiences. Generated from HubSpot’s global

interruptive ads survey, The Effectiveness of Advertising in Asia Pacific investigates the interaction between marketers and consumers

with ads in the future. Take a look at some of the insights from the report.

1. Millennials have the highest adoption rate of ad blocker software; with Adblock Plus – the world’s most popular ad blocker app – reaching 300 million downloads worldwide. Have you installed or do you have plans to install adblocker? 46%

43%

30% 27% 18% 13%

13% 6%

18-24 years old

25-34 years old

35-44 years old

I have already installed an adblocker

45+ years old

I plan on installing an adblocker in the next 6 months

Base: 580 global consumers

2. Email and sponsored advertising generate the most neutral experience, but 77% of respondents revealed they would unsubscribe from a brand’s distribution list if they were sent too many messages. Email and sponsored advertising generate the most neutral experience. Did these ads/actions generate a positive or negative experience? Average rank where 1 = extremely negative and 5 = extremely positive Email newsletters

3.57

Sponsored Twitter ads

Source: Hubspot Global Interruptive Ads Survey, Q4 2015 – Q1 2016

Television commercials

Email newsletters

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29/4/2016 11:30:12 AM

NEWS ANALYSIS

PANAMA PAPERS: HOW DO YOU RECOVER FROM THE FALLOUT? Mere association with the largest online leak is damaging in the eyes of the public. What should those named in it do about it? Marketing’s intern Jeng Teng asks. Following the largest online leak in history, politicians and celebrities alike have been exposed, with hidden financial dealings of either themselves or their relatives or close friends. Those named included the Chinese President Xi Jinping, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, among many others. The 2.6 terabytes leak, which included more than 4.8 million emails and three million database files, has revealed how many of the world’s elites are stashing money away in tax havens such as Panama, but it would be wrong to say that everyone named in the Panama Papers has committed tax fraud or other crimes. Cho Pei Lin, managing director of Asia PR Werkz, told Marketing: “It is unfair for individuals to have their reputation tarnished for setting up offshore structures, especially when it is a common practice for many legitimate businesses and is not an illegal act.” Nevertheless, it is certain that an association to the saga is outright damaging in the eyes of the public. Well-known public figures such as Jackie Chan and Lionel Messi have also been named in the leak, both for owning companies that were represented by Mossack Fonseca, the law firm from where the documents leaked. According to The Straits Times, Messi has threatened to slap a Spanish newspaper with a defamation suit after the publication accused him of “setting up a tax fraud network” by using a shell company represented by Mossack Fonseca. For those who have been linked to this Panama Papers exposé, having their personal financial records and dealings revealed to the world can provide them with grounds to sue those responsible for the leak. However, in a situation where perception greatly matters, is taking an aggressive stance through lawsuits a recommended course of action? Cho believes legal action can be necessary. “Defamation lawsuits and other legal actions are sometimes necessary for such individuals or companies to state their innocence on record and to put a strong case forward that they have been defamed. Taking such legal actions strongly supports their claims of innocence and

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When the stakes are high: If a crisis happens, it’s best to come out publicly and deal with it.

makes a convincing case in the court of public opinion,” she said. “Of course, they must indeed have legitimate reasons for setting up the offshore structures and not be found subsequently involved in illegal transactions.” Additionally, there are other steps to be taken in response to such a crisis, according to Lars Voedisch, managing director of PRecious Communications. Voedisch told Marketing that while this case can be looked at from a legal perspective, those who are named need to also address it as a moral one, as their image and brand could be at stake. He agreed that legal action can be taken if individuals feel they are wrongfully accused, but they ﬁrst have to speak on the facts to minimise room for public speculation. “If you’re under ﬁre, in this case or others, it’s all about getting it right, getting it fast, and getting it out. Clarify the situation and possibly make decisions like apologising for any wrongdoing if necessary and share it externally,” Voedisch said. “Clarifying the situation using facts is the key, and it is important that those named do not attempt to hide or lie, which could make matters

worse.” An example to look at, as Voedisch mentioned, could be Maria Sharapova’s doping incident. The athlete addressed the matter directly and quickly, which allowed her to control how the story was told as she left little to speculation. Meanwhile, Mossack Fonseca has come up with a detailed statement clarifying its stand on the matter. According to the law firm, the reports rely on supposition and stereotypes, and play on the public’s lack of familiarity with the work of firms like theirs. On tax evasion, it read: “Our company does not advise clients on the structuring of corporate vehicles and the use they may make of them. We likewise do not offer solutions whose purpose is to hide unlawful acts such as tax evasion. Our clients request our services after being duly advised by qualified professionals in their places of business. Moreover, it should be made clear that tax avoidance and evasion are not the same thing. For example, a client can use the structures provided by us for tax optimisation of his/her estate, such as taking advantage of provisions in treaties for avoiding international double taxation. Such behaviour is perfectly legal.”

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NEWS ANALYSIS

THE FUTURE OF MOBILE ADVERTISING IS NATIVE What does this signal for other players? Vivienne Tay writes. Nearly two-thirds (63.2%) of all mobile display ads will be native by 2020, summoning $53 billion in total advertising spend, according to a new research study conducted by global business analyst IHS Technology and commissioned by Facebook’s Audience Network. As part of its research methodology, IHS conducted a series of in-depth interviews with leading publishers, app and game developers, trade associations, agencies, music services, ad networks and tech vendors in 25 countries across Europe, Asia Paciﬁc and the Americas. “For publishers, this can mean longer time spent on your property and increased revenue. For advertisers, native can mean more value for your business. On Audience Network alone, where 83% of the content is native, we see CPMs seven times higher for native ads compared to banners,” Facebook in a statement said.

Here are some highlights from the research: • By 2020, 75.9% of all digital ad spend will be mobile. • Native advertising will generate 63.6% of all global mobile display advertising and amount to $53 billion by 2020. • In APAC, native advertising will amount to $14.1 billion by 2020 ($3.6 billion third party native). • APAC will record the largest increase in native advertising spend in the next ﬁve years at a 177% compound annual growth rate between 2015 and 2020. • Third-party in-app native ads, like those served on outside publishers through Audience Network, will continue to grow at an annual average rate of 70.7%, and account for 10.6% ($8.9 billion) of all mobile display advertising by 2020.

Native advertising will generate 63.6% of all global mobile display advertising and amount to $53 billion by 2020

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24 MA MARKE RRKE KETTIN TING ING G MAY 201 20 1 6

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PROFILE

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS CRACKING MARKETING GOALS WITHOUT MEETING BUSINESS OBJECTIVES, SAYS MASTERCARD’S DEBORAH GOLDINGHAM IN A CONVERSATION WITH RAYANA PANDEY day before her 21st birthday, while waiting at the airport to head home, Deborah Goldingham spots a job ad at American Express. A week later, she starts her ﬁrst full-time corporate job as product manager at AMEX. And since then, the current head of marketing for Southeast Asia at MasterCard has not looked back. At AMEX, she was looking after the corporate card marketing, and after few years of doing so, dipped her toes into merchant marketing, working with strategic merchant partners to try and get card usage up. It was in 1996 when she got a call from Visa to join as an account manager. Three years after that she took on the role of country manager. It was also a year before the Olympics which Visa was sponsoring. Being the youngest country manager for Visa at the time was a fantastic learning curve for her as she went all the way from being an account manager to driving complete country responsibility of the P&L. It was a little over three years in the role when Goldingham was offered a role at MasterCard – a company she has now been with for 13 years. She took on the Southeast Asia role six years ago and has since been looking after the entire spectrum of marketing for the region. Having worked across all the top brands in the payments industry, she has witnessed the transformation ﬁrst-hand. A prominent leader in this space, she believes the industry has come a long way. Back in the day when she started, it was all about building physical acceptance at scale and issuing plastic cards. Today it’s about driving commerce with electronic payments leading with digital across emerging and developed economies and merchant segments. “Payments is one of the exciting industries to be in. Not only does it play out across every consumer category – be it FMCG or travel or retail – it plays a major role in driving commerce across geographies and industries, from large to small-scale businesses and from nascent and emerging market segments to mature markets,” she says.

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But what helped lay a foundation for her career in marketing were two things. First, the skills she picked up while helping her dad with his retail store in Auckland. It was her first experience in assessing buyer behaviour and converting visitors into shoppers. “It was where I first learnt to understand the need of the consumer and turning a visit into a transaction. That has never left me,” she says. The other and the most critical factor was her exposure to managing P&Ls at Visa, one that taught her an important lesson. “You [as a marketer] can either be a cost centre or a revenue centre, and you can choose what you want to be,” she says. Her belief? For marketers to succeed, business objectives have to come first and the marketing/comms objective second. The relevance of business P&L in marketing is way more than what it used to be when she first started. “You can sell whatever you want, but unless it’s driving the P&L or driving the numbers, and benefiting the business in the long term, it does not matter,” she says. And in her role, she has to drive two P&Ls, or that’s how she sees it – one for MasterCard, a brand that does not see itself as a card issuer, but a technology company that facilitates secure transactions between merchants, banks and cardholders, and the other for its partners. While MasterCard doesn’t own direct relationships with customers, it invests heavily in insights into customer behaviour to support two of its most important stakeholders – issuers or the banks, and the merchants. Its approach across the region is to bring deep consumer insights to both issuers and merchant partners to align and add value to their priorities and strategies in the markets. When working with issuers, it partners with them to deliver new programmes, products and services from both a lifestyle and relationship POV with their customers. In working with merchant partners, it develops programmes that align its insights to consumers who travel, shop, dine, play and desire unique experiences as well as integrating platforms and products that deliver a superior cardholder experience whenever and wherever they

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PROFILE

“By being locally relevant and combining a compelling reason to use electronic payments versus cash, we can build a brand through content that engages consumers and delivers financial security and integrity in the system.” pay. “And so we need to look and consider both of those at the same time. If our programmes don’t help them with their business objectives, then it’s pretty much of no use,” she says. Therefore, the starting point for her is to look at the profile of the issuer in the market it is operating in, understand what its focus is and suggest customised solutions. And that, Goldingham and her team does for partners across Southeast Asia. Within the region, Thailand provides an opportunity for the brand to develop awareness among affluent consumers who love to experience life and travel to places where experiences matter. MasterCard launched Priceless Thailand as part of its global Priceless Cities programme and is focused on partnering with the best there is in Thailand to provide exclusive access to experiences and offers for cardholders to enjoy those truly memorable moments. “We believe that by providing priceless experiences for these consumers in Thailand, we will be their preferred brand every day, everywhere.” Looking at Malaysia, it provides a great opportunity for MasterCard to engage with mass affluent consumers to drive everyday spend across core categories and create preference against cash. It does so by delivering engaging content and relevant offers and experiences targeting consumers when and where they need them throughout their daily lives. Indonesia represents a huge opportunity for the company to move cash transactions to electronic payments both online and at the point of sale. And all of that sits well with MasterCard’s overall vision which is to

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become a “force for good” in a world beyond cash. “By being locally relevant and combining a compelling reason to use electronic payments versus cash, we can build a brand through content that engages consumers and delivers ﬁnancial security and integrity in the system,” she says. But is it not a challenge to manage issuer marketing, merchant marketing, brand as well as PR for a region as diverse as Southeast Asia? According to Goldingham, it is more a motivation than a challenge. “You can be having a discussion with a bank in Myanmar or Cambodia or Singapore at the same time. They are fundamentally different and at different stages of growth, but they’re all trying to do one thing – trying to understand how to deliver something new to their consumer. It is fascinating.” This is the sort of customer-centricity that will help marketing drive value for the business. Her golden rule is to never lose sight of the consumer. “For marketers, it is important to literally immerse yourself in data and constantly ask questions about the data. Keep measuring what you’re doing and prove that it’s being measured,” she says. Marketers don’t need to be geeks, but need to know the art of asking the right questions. “Work with the business and understand how things tick. Open the hood of everything you’re dealing with and don’t just take things at face value. Really question every part of the business and think where you can actually add value, because what you need to know is not always on the surface,” she says.

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MARKETING FEATURE: E-SPORTS

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Whether you were the biggest geek in school or are now the office jock, you need to wake up to the realities of e-sport. For those of you not familiar with the term, e-sports is basically organised, competitive gaming, and usually comprises multi-player teams playing against one another. Globally, brands such as Coca-Cola have woken up to the budding possibilities of this field. For several years, the beverage giant has been involving itself in major e-gaming events such as the League of Legends World Championship in the US market. In fact, for a few years now, the company has even had a head of global gaming. Other brands such as Nissan, Intel, Nike, NBCUniversal and Toyota have also started investing in this arena. However, many client-side marketers Marketing spoke to in APAC were not yet comfortable with their experiences in this arena. Agency players were not surprised that marketers were hesitant “This is the most untapped segment of entertainment. Films are filled with product placement, but with gaming, especially mobile gaming due to lower barrier to entry, brands can own the entire game,” Ashley Ringrose, the founder of Soap – Linked by Isobar told Marketing. But that is not to say the giants of Asia are not picking up on the trend. In fact, at the tail end of March this year, Chinese billionaire Jack Ma and his team of experts at Alibaba decided to dip into the gaming pool. Alibaba Sports Group (AliSports) paid Singapore-listed e and m-commerce company YuuZoo Corporation Limited, a multimillion US dollar fee to organise and run the World Electronic Sport Games (WESG). AliSports and YuuGames, together, are planning to launch 1200 e-sports events this year in 15 cities across China, which is home to more than 100 million e-sports fans, and more than 440 million gamers. While AliSports might have been formed to target China’s highly well-paid sports industry, it has clearly seen a light at the end of the internet sports tunnel. In fact, the group plans to invest US$15.4 million for WESG alone. Moreover, WESG will have 20 appointed e-sports clubs competition centres and contest participants will compete for a lucrative US$5.5 million in prize money. At the press conference, Zhang Dazhong, CEO of AliSports, said: “Sports is a multi-billion dollar business in China, with massive growth potential. That is why Alibaba is investing heavily in this vertical. Linking sport and technology

GAMERS

CREATORS

VIEWERS

MONEY

MARKETING

OPPORTUNITY ESPORTS AUDIENCE GROWTH

Asia-Pacific will account for

2014, 2015, 2015 & 2019 | GLOBAL

44%

OCCASIONAL VIEWERS

+11.2%

ENTHUSIASTS

CAGR

of the Esports Audience in 2016

2014-2019

+13.3% +11.2%

YoY

165

YoY

MILLION

12%

125 111 114

MILLION

256M

131

115

19%

180

MILLION

2016

MILLION

25%

44%

MILLION

2014

2015

2016

2019 NAM

APAC

REST OF WORLD

Source: Newzoo 2016 Global Esports Market Report

AVERAGE REVENUE PER ESPORTS FAN GROWS ESPORTS REVENUE PER ENTHUSIAST | 2012-2020 | GLOBAL

$15

Comparing esports and traditional sports

>$2Bn

The average annual revenue per fan of basketball

ALTERNATIVE OPTIMISTIC SCENARIO

makes sense to a certain extent. As the Esports Economy matures, draws more advertisers and

$20

$11

increases its merchandise and ticketing revenues directly from consumers, the average

The average annual revenue per fan of the NBA

TOTAL ESPORTS REVENUES

annual revenue per fan will continue to rise

$1.0Bn

$60

REPORT SCENARIO

toward that of traditional sports.

$6.0

The average annual revenue per fan of the NFL

$7.6

This coming year, we anticipate $3.5 per esports fan, still almost five times lower than

>$1Bn

that of basketball ($15 per year) but up from

AVERAGE REVENUE PER ENTHUSIAST

$3.5

$2.2 in 2014. Using a conservative scenario, we estimate the annual average revenue per

$2.2

$0.46Bn

$0.19Bn 2012

2013

GLOBAL NUMBER OF ESPORTS ENTHUSIASTS

2014

90M

esports fan will reach around $6.0 by 2019.

TOTAL ESPORTS REVENUES

2015

2016

131M

2017

2018

2019

2020

180M

Source: Newzoo 2016 Global E-sports Market Report

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MARKETING FEATURE: E-SPORTS

enhances the quality of life. That is what we want to do through AliSports.” And what’s in it for YuuZoo? YuuZoo will gain a significant number of new users, who will be added to YuuZoo’s fast-growing user-base, and of course, it will generate additional revenue from promotional fees, advertising revenue and e-commerce sales. In fact, according to research by e-sports and mobile intelligence experts Newzoo, the global e-sport revenue generated via advertising, sponsorship, media rights, merchandise and tickets and additional game publisher investments will reach US$463 million in 2016. Already, the amount gamers spent in Southeast Asia reached almost US$1.1 billion in 2014, of which 60 million consumers spent an average of US$18.40 on games, with six key countries accounting for 99% of the total revenues generated in the whole region. These countries are Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. And, of course, media rights companies such as MP & Silva are also seeing value in this segment. Most recently, the company bagged the global marketing rights of Garena, a Southeast Asian internet and mobile platform company. The foray into the space for MP & Silva will see the company work closely with Garena to secure brand partnerships and maximise commercial opportunities in Asia Pacific for three major e-sports properties. Beatrice Lee, MP & Silva’s managing director of Asia Pacific, says that in this arena, there’s a sponsorship opportunity that is yet to be realised. Quoting NewZoo studies, she adds that Southeast Asia comprises more than 126 million gamers. This figure is set to double by 2017. What is heartening for Lee is she is now seeing brands from tech, mobile and lifestyle express interest in this space arena and discuss aspects such as entitlements and potential sponsorship platforms. Other possible avenues of branding, which are also being discussed with clients, include featuring logos during live game-play and screen saver loops, broadcast sponsorship, online advertising, media and promotional exposure, as well as product placement and activation at the tournaments. Combating prejudices Despite the compelling statistics and marketing trends, several advertisers in Asia still remain hesitant and may not consider e-sports or gaming as an established form of mainstream

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Getting in on the action: E-sports provides a great chance for brands to spread their message.

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MARKETING FEATURE: E-SPORTS

entertainment yet. Elicia Lee, director of gaming property platform Eliphant, told Marketing it is still a challenge to get sponsors for gaming events, especially mainstream brands who still view gaming as being a niche market. Eliphant currently owns two gaming properties, GameStart Asia, a gaming convention in Singapore, and also BEast of the East which runs regional e-sports tournaments. Particularly in Asia, she adds, there is also a lingering stigma that gaming is bad for you. “Many people do not realise that with the explosion of smartphones and mobile gaming, almost everyone has played a game at some point. Gaming is going mainstream,” she says. When probed as to where she feels the hesitation is coming from, she says it is probably the fear of the unknown. “A lot of people are unfamiliar with gaming, and thus are hesitant to invest, especially when they are unable to see direct or tangible ROI from sponsoring one or two events.” However, Lee is quick to understand clients’ perspectives as well, given the industry is still up and coming and there have been a lot of experimental initiatives which might not have worked out in a brand’s favour. One recent example is the Shanghai Major which saw many technical and production difficulties and was criticised by gaming enthusiasts. “I’ve seen brands who have invested in badly run or badly promoted events and gotten burnt, which has damaged their perception of the gaming market’s potential.” Seconding her sentiment is Dennis Yu, digital and gaming media planner at Maxus. Yu agrees that many companies are still harbouring the idea that “gamers are geeks, male and antisocial”. But in reality, the demographic profile is changing with there being more casual/mobile gamers and a half-and-half split when it comes to gender. The rise of mobile adoption and an evolution of the casual gamer has led to an influx of the female demographic. Moreover, the ubiquity of smartphones has fostered a rise in “burst” style game-play where playing time is made in bite-sized increments instead of one consistent session. For the casual gamer, one who is not a heavy user of video games, this is a perfect medium. “We find that females are filling this demographic extremely well, explaining why Candy Crush has such great integration with females and subsequently casual gamers,” Yu says. Lawrence Robertson, associate director of sales for Infront Pan-Asia, also pointed out a very poignant issue with the world of e-sports.

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PRIZEPOOL CONTINUES TO GROW 2005-2015 | GLOBAL

$61.0M

+70% YoY

$36.0M

$18M

$19.8M $13.1M

in prize money, with only $1.6 million coming from publisher Valve.

$9.7M $3.6M

$4.4M

2005

2006

$6.4M

$6.1M

$5.2M

$3.5M

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

Once again, the biggest prize pool in 2015 belonged to The International, which topped

2012

2013

2014

2015

Source: Newzoo 2016 Global Esports Market Report

A DESIRABLE DEMOGRAPHIC AGE/GENDER OF ESPORTS ENTHUSIASTS | 2015 | GLOBAL M10-20

M21-35

M36-50

F10-20

M51-65

F51-65

F21-35

F36-50

F51-65

Esports entertains a young and desirable

demographic with Enthusiasts aged 21-35

ENDEMIC BRANDS

NON-ENDEMIC BRANDS

representing 54% of the Esports Audience. This

F36-50

M10-20

age group is increasingly difficult to reach

20%

through traditional advertising as they spend

F21-35

16%

less time watching TV, listening to the radio and reading printed media.

115

F10-20

Several brand have entered the esports

MILLION

industry as sponsors. Initially, these were M51-65

mostly endemic brands, but last year saw a big

M36-50

M21-35

11%

increase in non-endemic brands entering the

37%

space. We expect even more non-endemic brands to make their move into the esports industry in 2016. You can see why on the following pages.

ENTHUSIASTS ARE HIGH EARNERS EMPLOYMENT STATUS AND INCOME BRACKET | 2015 | GLOBAL Aside from their desirable demographics, Esports Enthusiasts are also more likely to have a high income and a full-time job than the general online population. They are big spenders on digital media and gamerelated products. They also spend more on digital media subscriptions such as Netflix, HBO and Spotify than the online population.

This goes against some perceptions that the Esports Audience consists of people who don’t work and have nothing to spend.

ONLINE POPULATION

ESPORTS ENTHUSIASTS

53%

65% 48%

32%

31% 29%

In Brazil, Esports Enthusiasts are more than

more likely to have a Spotify subscription and almost twice as likely to be subscribed to Netflix

37%

15% 8%

Unemployed

Full-Time Job

Low Income

Middle Income

High Income

Source: Newzoo 2016 Global Esports Market Report

Source: Newzoo 2016 Global E-sports Market Report

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MARKETING FEATURE: E-SPORTS

lifestyle genre they are following. “Given how challenging the fragmented media landscape is, e-sports platforms offer a more focused avenue to reach audiences who spend an average of three hours daily consuming e-sports content,” Lee says. Tom Kelshaw, director of innovation at Maxus, also adds: “I know a lot of marketers who’d be interested in spending upwards of four hours a day, and six to 12 moments a day in front of audiences. Gaming gives them this opportunity.” Moreover, gamers are a very engaged and loyal bunch. They are also extremely vocal about their tastes. “I like to depict the gamers as an echo chamber. When one person likes something, they will tell their friends who will echo their sentiment,” Yu says, adding there is a large amount of room to gain market share with a target audience that is receptive and ready for the “attention” coming from brands. Eliphant’s Lee also adds that while gamers are a picky bunch, once brands have won them over, they can be extremely loyal customers in the long term.

Game on: E-sports is taking off in Asia, providing marketers with new and great opportunities.

“Given how challenging the fragmented media landscape is, e-sports platforms offer a more focused avenue to reach audiences who spend an average of three hours daily consuming e-sports content.” Beatrice Lee, MP & Silva’s managing director of Asia Pacific

More and more, consumers and brands are extremely concerned with issues around healthy living. Issues such as obesity and other negative connotations still surround the world of e-sports, he says. Sports on the ground, he says, attracts millions of fans because it is real-life drama. No matter how immersive and captivating these worlds and games are, for many, e-sports still remains virtual and cannot replicate real life. “Brands who seek out partnerships and sponsorships are always seeking an element of authenticity from an association, and online gaming along with e-sports, can sometimes struggle to recreate this,” he says. MP & Silva's Lee is of the view that while variety and diversity in the gaming industry is

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usually a great thing, one of the main challenges the industry faces is there’s an assortment of e-sports leagues around the world. “The international e-sports following is heavily splintered across various leagues and tournaments and there is no governing body for the overall e-sports arena like how FIFA or the IOC is to football or multi-sport competitions,” Lee says. As such credibility may sometimes be a factor. Zooming in to the target demographic Why e-sports makes sense for marketers, adds Lee, is because of the proﬁle of viewers it attracts with an average age of 21 to 35. Sponsors are always keen to know what media this demographic are consuming or what

The key to the next level However, education is needed and necessary for this industry to bloom. “We do our best to engage potential sponsors and help them understand the audience, and work with them to maximise their participation. We also have to manage expectations and tell people that if you want to win over the gaming audience, it’s an ongoing commitment,” Lee says. Ringrose adds that brands need to rethink what the gaming industry is like today. It is now a piece of interactive communication which consumers would normally pay for and would spend hours playing with. “Why pay to have an ad at the beginning of a ﬁlm in the cinema when you can be the thing they are playing while they wait for the movie to start? And then play on the train home,” he says. Great advancements are being made in the gaming industry as an ad medium with extremely elaborate in-game integrations, including product placement and even key gameplay changes; all of which are being well received by the gaming audience. “The advent of e-sports as a growing worldwide sport has deﬁnitely fostered the legitimacy of gaming as a channel and has added another avenue to bring capital into a growing segment. It stands to reason that more companies are taking notice of the opportunities available in video games,” he adds.

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ARE MARKETERS MISSING THE MARK COMPLETELY WHEN IT COMES TO THE ELDERLY? REZWANA MANJUR WRITES.

34 M AR K ET I N G MAY 2 0 1 6

unveiled $3 billion Action Plan for Successful Ageing 3 . However, while the growing importance of this generation is starting to be recognized, the CPG industry at large continues to focus on the young and family demographics.

MARKETING FEATURE: SILVER GENERATION

The silver generation faces a number of challenges when navigating the retail

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .landscape . . . . . . . . . . .in . . .search . . . . . . .for . . .products . . . . . . . . . .and . . . . services . . . . . . . . .that . . . . .meet . . . . . .their . . . . .specific . . . . . . . . needs. ................................... Nielsen undertook a specific study of the mature market to understand these challenges and discover if their needs were being met by manufacturers and retailers today.

As I stood twiddling my thumb on my mobile, my mother struggled to read the label on the packaging of dried fruit snacks. She had heard about unhealthy levels of sodium in that product and was concerned whether to make the purchase or not. Unfortunately, she had left her prescription glasses in the car and was having a difficult time reading the information at the back of the pack. My mother is 58 and this is not an uncommon problem among those in that age bracket. According to Nielsen’s latest survey, Turning Silver into Retail Gold, 67% of elderly consumers aged 55 years and above have indicated that more products need to have clearly labelled nutritional information. This group also currently accounts for 40% of Singapore’s grocery spending and is projected to grow to 24% of the overall population by 2030. Clearly, they present viable business opportunities for retailers and manufacturers. But are local retailers and brands aware of this potential? Is there enough being done to win the hearts and carts of these players? “In forty years time, nearly four out of every 10 Singaporeans will be over 65 years old. So reviewing how your brand caters to older consumers isn’t just good PR, it’s good business sense,” says Katie Ewer, strategy director for JKR. And this isn’t just about making labels easier to understand with bigger type; it’s also about making packs easier to open, making products easier to find and making supermarket navigation more straightforward. “Bear in mind that in 40 years, all those silver consumers will also be silver surfers, buying their groceries on line. Making sure that your brand can get noticed and chosen when it’s 16mm high on a mobile page, is a consideration that’s been woefully neglected by brands and online retailers alike,” she adds. Gale Choong, head of marketing at Unilever Singapore, who makes routine retail checks, agreed with the survey results and said there hasn’t been a “massive conscious effort” from FMCG players. This is despite many recognising the trend and the need to adapt to suit the silver generation. But she noted, food is a growing area of experimentation. Herve Simon, group marketing director for Ayam Brand, also shared that going forward the market will see many companies create products that are geared to the ageing population. He said that for food brands, an ageing population means an evolution of nutrition.

12%

2004

2014

30%

24% 2030

forecasted

Products with easy-to-read labels

TEA

TURNING SILVER INTO RETAIL GOLD | M ARCH 2016

PRODUCT RELATED

CALORIES

**g

PROTEIN

**g

SUGAR

**g

SODIUM

**g

UNMET NEEDS

Products with clearly labelled nutritional information

67%

咖啡 44%

Local language on packaging

Source: Nielsen’s “Turning Silver into Retail Gold” survey

“Marketing by any age segment is a very delicate task whether teenage or an older age. Many older people resent being overtly marketed to on the basis of their age.” Kim Walker – CEO of Silver Group Asia

Hence, the focus for brands will be a shift in creating food products which will address the nutritional changes for that segment, with a key concept of ageing well. For Ayam Brand specifically, fatty fish and coconut products are 6

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two main categories under its umbrella, the brand intends to capitalise and promote. Dairy company FrieslandCampina is also a fast mover into this field, recognising the growing elderly segment is an important one in Asia.

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MARKETING FEATURE: SILVER GENERATION

Last year, it created Optimel, its first product in Asia, which was launched in Hong Kong and targeted at those 40 and above. The various ranges further broke down the categories into 40+, 50+ and 60 and above and respectively catered to the nutritional requirements and needs of people in each of the age range. Ada Wong, head of public affairs and communications at FrieslandCampina Asia, explained the company saw the “rising trend towards self-care and taking ownership of one’s health and nutrition” among older consumers and has worked with local retail partners, health authorities and other relevant stakeholders to ensure it could meet the nutritional needs of consumers worldwide. Chris Martell, managing director of Geometry Global Singapore, however, was of the view that the top unmet needs of today’s ageing shopper, complements larger consumer trends. There is currently an increased focus on health and wellness, and this is not unique to elderly shoppers alone. Much like their younger counterparts, the elderly, especially those in developed economies, are reinventing ageing by living longer, busier and more satisfying lives aided by technology. Hence, brands and their retail partners need not simply look at solving problems for the elderly, but rather shoppers as a whole. Dedicated investments From the same Nielsen survey, 65% specified that they have difficulty in finding shopping aisles dedicated to ageing-needs products. As such, we asked retail players if dedicated aisles for older generations were needed. Gerry Lee, deputy CEO of Singapore at NTUC FairPrice, told Marketing that recognising the growing segment of seniors in Singapore and the need to cater to its needs, FairPrice has piloted stores in the Bukit Merah and Lengkok Bahru areas which are specially catered towards such customers. Some of the features found in the stores include wider checkout lanes, larger signage and clearer price tags, rest areas with benches and water coolers, and call buttons and magnifying glasses around the stores. “We’ve also introduced a dedicated aisle for products which are targeted for seniors’ needs such as grip bars, adult diapers and dietary supplements,” Lee said. NTUC FairPrice is also working with HPB to include collaterals in its stores which helps encourage healthy eating and grocery shopping. It runs promotions such as a 2% seniors 36 M AR K ET I N G MAY 2 0 1 6

Personal care products that meet my special needs

46%

Foods with smaller-sized portion

Food products that meet my special nutritional diet needs

46%

38%

MUST-HAVES

NICE-TO-HAVE

Attentive staff

SHOPPING ENVIRONMENT

UNMET FULFILLED NEEDS NEEDS

40%

PRODUCT RELATED

Healthier food options Product availability in the frequented channels Products with easy-to-use product packages Products with easy-toopen product packages

48%

Wheelchair-friendly facilities

63%

48% Wide range of product categories to meet elderly needs

Source: Nielsen’s “Turning Silver into Retail Gold” survey

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discount on Tuesdays for those 60 years of age or older, and a 3% Pioneer Generation discount on Monday to entice the older shoppers; and more than 100 of its frontline staff have also undergone specialised training on how to serve seniors. While Martell encourages brands to make investments which make life easier for the older shoppers, he added brands need to be smart about how they spend their marketing dollars. He said: “If planning dedicated products/ experiences for ageing consumers, then design for older eyes and amplify the brand through emotional and functional benefits they care about. Beyond that, age is just a number.” Moreover, product visibility today isn’t just an issue for older eyes. Many categories in stores, as well as online, are far too complex and are sold with little thought to how a shopper decides on what to purchase. “This is damaging for the retailer and brands being sold, while the consumer may be missing out on benefits from a product he/she

“If planning dedicated products/experiences for ageing consumers, then design for older eyes and amplify the brand through emotional and functional benefits they care about. Beyond that, age is just a number.” Chris Martell – managing director of Geometry Global Singapore

didn’t even notice,” he said. In many categories, he explained, it’s less a matter of segmenting products or experiences by age, and more a matter of investing in the experience overall – simplified information that helps shoppers make better choices being key here. In categories, age segmentation of products could benefit the experience and differentiate a brand, but more important is clearly communicating the benefits this generation cares about for the product to standout. Kim Walker, CEO of Silver Group Asia, said that having shopping aisles dedicated to ageing-needs products works for “age-silo” products. Older consumers, depending on their

age, buy a much wider range of products and services. Hence, creating a dedicated aisle and attempting to bundle all “ageing” products into a specific store or aisle can lead to retail failure. “Marketing by any age segment is a very delicate task whether teenage or an older age. Many older people resent being overtly marketed to on the basis of their age. That’s why so many age-based marketing initiatives aimed at older consumers have failed,” he said. Like any other consumer segment, attitudes and purchasing patterns of older shoppers will be influenced greatly by life stage, income, education, age and, in the unique case of older consumers, their physical condition.

CHALLENGES FOR THE SILVER GENERATION Trouble finding food products to meet specific dietary requirements. While there are many healthy food alternatives in the market, 38% elderly consumers have trouble finding food products that meet their special dietary needs. The Singapore Health Promotion Board has identified some of the common problems faced by the silver generation, including lactose intolerance, difficulty in chewing and a poor appetite. With a limited range of offerings that cater specifically to these needs, many elderly people have to settle with alternatives such as baby foods or general food products that do not address their actual issues. Lack of innovation in personal care products for the ageing consumer. As we age, our needs evolve – our hair becomes thinner and more brittle; our skin is drier and less elastic. While hair and beauty products exist in the market for specific needs, there is little focus on how these needs differ for the elderly consumer. Product packaging and labelling are not “elderly friendly”. Product packaging is another area that represents a challenge to many elderly consumers. Small print and lack of clarity on nutritional information are cited as some of the common challenges the elderly have when purchasing consumer packaged goods. Adjusting these features would make it easier for senior grocery buyers to navigate through the wide array of products and help improve their purchasing journey. The retail environment is not “elderly friendly”. Age takes a toll on the physical body and mobility issues become a daily concern for many of the elderly. Lack of elderly friendly facilities (for example, benches for resting) is one of the common problems faced. Many elderly consumers may also not understand promotional communications written in English and therefore, assistance or translation in their known language is required. Inattentive retail staff is also a challenge in many retail environments. Excerpt from Nielsen’s “Turning Silver into Retail Gold” survey

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ADVERTORIAL Strategy and execution Prominent bus shelter panels became interactive voting panels with electronic counters to show the public’s collective response. Upon seeing a scenario of an irate customer ranting at a waitress for spilling his drink, members of the public reacted by pressing one out of three buttons on the panel, be it to take a video and post it online, to intervene and try to calm things down or to do nothing and mind their own business. The ﬁve panels were at bus shelters in front of the International Plaza, Midpoint Orchard, Lucky Plaza, Royal Plaza on Scotts, and SMU’s Lee Kong Chian School of Business. Located in Singapore’s CBD and shopping district, it reached out to a vast number of locals and tourists, allowing the public to see their responses resonating with the rest of the community.

Singapore Kindness Movement Campaign by Mediacorp OOH Media

Client Singapore Kindness Movement Campaign period 31 March – 13 April 2016; 21 April – 4 May 2016. OOH format 6-sheet creative. Campaign objective Singapore Kindness Movement aimed to challenge Singaporeans through its “Kindness. It’s up to us” campaign – to not only acknowledge that a nation of kindness starts with every individual, but to make the conscious decision to act out one’s innate kindness despite their reservations.

Tulipmania

Client Gardens by the Bay

by Mediacorp OOH Media Campaign period 7 April – 18 May 2016. OOH format 6-sheet creative, Opti-Prime, Digi6 and 6-sheet suburb network. Campaign objective In Gardens by the Bay’s fourth year of organising Tulipmania, it aimed to reignite the ﬂoral display’s novelty by attracting Singaporeans and tourists to rediscover the origins of tulips and its signiﬁcance on Turkish arts and culture.

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Results Within the initial campaign period, about 12,000 interactions were recorded, with 5,311 people choosing to intervene and try to calm things down. This high visibility placements in the heart of the city demonstrated that creative 6-sheets can effectively reach out and engage the public in an interactive manner. Good results prompted the extension of the campaign for another two weeks, held at four bus shelters outside Tangs, Concorde Hotel, One Rafﬂes Quay and The Sail @ Marina Bay.

Strategy and execution 6-sheet creative bus shelter panels brought a sampling of the Turkish floral aesthetic to the public, with Turkish-style arches and 3D tulip patches resembling the gateway to a Turkish tulip garden. Being showcased at 10 locations, mostly located near tourist-centric city areas such as Fullerton Hotel and Midpoint Orchard, as well as a few heartland hubs such as Toa Payoh Central and Tampines, it captures the attention of tourists and locals who live, work or play in these prime and high-traffic locations. Gardens by the Bay was also on Mediacorp OOH Media’s Opti-Prime, Digi6 and 6-sheet suburb network to garner maximum island-wide exposure within the first month of the display. In addition, a trivia contest was held during the display’s opening week on Mediacorp OOH Media’s omnified bus shelter screens for the public to interact with the screens via dynamic NFC and win a pair of tickets to the conservatories. Results This campaign demonstrates that the utilisation of the various island-wide platforms, along with 3D engagement and interactive omnified panels, can extend brand engagement and create opportunities for public participation, thus amplifying awareness of the floral display towards the public.

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ADVERTORIAL

OCBC Christmas by Mediacorp OOH Media

Client OCBC Bank Campaign period 3 – 30 December 2015. OOH format 3D ﬂagship, Coach Advertising, Opti-Prime, Digiboard, Digi6 and 4 Prime Campaign objective To drive its credit cards’ usage among existing OCBC card holders, as well as to increase credit card acquisition among the public as it promoted the perks and exclusivity of owning an OCBC card. Strategy and execution Illuminating Orchard Road wasn’t just the

Own the season’s rarest bloom by Mediacorp OOH Media

Client UOB Campaign period 3 – 23 December 2015. OOH format 6-sheet city network, Digi6, OTMB Truck. Campaign objective UOB aimed to drive card activation from existing UOB cardholders, encouraging them to spend more with their cards during the year-end festive season, along with attracting new card subscriptions from the public.

Christmas lighting, but also the 3D Christmasthemed flagship on top of the Tangs bus shelters. OCBC bedazzled the streets of Orchard Road by decking the roof with its adorable toy soldiers among large gift boxes, accompanied by OCBC credit cards and its campaign tag line, “Because it’s Christmas”. On the 4 Prime and the OptiPrime screens, it also presented the public with five different television commercials celebrating the festive season as well as their seasonal deals redeemable with their OCBC card. Mediacorp OOH Media’s newly launched coach advertisements were also used in this campaign. As a value-added service, OCBC cardholders received a free ride along Orchard Road when they flashed their credit card. The full utilisation of the coaches helped to drive credit card usage and visibility of OCBC’s marketing effort. Results The designated flagship platforms on the Orchard belt not only dazzled the public by tying in with the Christmas festivities, but gave advertisers the chance to captivate the public with fresh and out-ofthe-box ideas. Tied together with coach advertising and Opti-Prime, the cross-platform strategy enhanced the effectiveness of the campaign in engaging more people. It cultivated brand loyalty as the shuttle services became a value-added service exclusively for OCBC cardholders.

shelters on Orchard Road, was a limited edition Vivienne Tam tote bag, which was not for sale in Singapore. This fascinating display attracted the attention of cosmopolitan crowds walking along Orchard Road, who are UOB’s main target audience. With a minimum spend of S$1,800, UOB cardholders could “own the season’s rarest bloom”. Aside from the gutted panels, UOB leveraged on Mediacorp OOH Media’s On The Move Billboard (OTMB) trucks, decorated to suit the Christmas season, touring around the city streets to gain the attention of the nearby trafﬁc as well as the public. The campaign was also on the city 6-sheet network. Results This cross-platform campaign brought more elements of engagement to its target audience, combining a creative gutted panel with an active mobile billboard. The 6-sheet gutted panel provided a fun and refreshing way to engage the target audience, and captivated the attention of more than 200,000 Orchard Road visitors during the weekends. The OTMB truck ampliﬁed its visibility beyond the bus shelter panels along Orchard Road.

Strategy and execution Inside 6-sheet gutted panels, along high visibility

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ADVERTORIAL Strategy and execution Using double-sided 6-sheet creative panels installed at Thomson Road, Yishun, Paya Lebar and Toa Payoh, it featured a see-through character cut-out, with Ninjago characters by the sides. When members of the public stood behind the panel’s see-through cutouts, it would appear as though they were featured in the advertisement together with their favourite characters from the LEGO series. Implemented together with Opti-Prime, TVC and mall screens over a period of four weeks, the ad was strategically located in suburban areas that targeted families and children as the interesting creatives sparked great interest among the target audiences. To drive online publicity, the public snapped a picture with the 6-sheet creatives and 6-sheet posters island-wide, they stood a chance to win a 3D2N getaway to LEGOLAND Malaysia.

LEGO Ninjago and The Realm of Shadows

Client LEGOLAND Malaysia Campaign period 3 – 30 December 2015.

by Mediacorp OOH Media OOH format 6-sheet creative, 4 Double sided Creative, OptiPrime, Digiboard, Digi6, Mall digital screens. Campaign objective The campaign aimed to generate publicity and promote the launch of LEGOLAND Malaysia’s LEGO Ninjago and The Realm of Shadows live show to attract more Singapore residents and tourists to visit the theme park during the holiday season. It also aimed to create more online conversations and interactions through social media.

i Light Marina Bay 2016

Client Urban Redevelopment Authority Campaign period 3 – 30 March 2016.

by Mediacorp OOH Media OOH format 2D Flagship, 6-sheet, 12-sheet, DigiBoard, Digi6. Campaign objective The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) aimed to raise awareness of the i Light Marina Bay 2016 event to the public. Mediacorp OOH Media helped to expand its promotions of the event to the suburbs, in line with the event’s aim in promoting environmentally responsible behaviours for a sustainable future.

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Result The panels were so attractive that members of the public immediately started posing and posting onto Instagram once it was set up. It achieved a very high engagement rate on Instagram, as it was hitting the right audience with the right messages. This creative campaign perfectly integrated online and ofﬂine media to generate awareness and hype for LEGOLAND Malaysia.

Strategy and execution Mediacorp OOH Media took the opportunity to launch the 2D lightbox in the campaign. The illuminated lightbox, being the first of its kind, featured the Marina Bay skyline mounted on the roof of a bus shelter outside United Square, promoting the event to oncoming traffic as well as passersby around the area. Though the panel looked like a typical 2D Flagship during the day, the display transformed into an illuminated lightbox at night, fitting the event’s theme of being a sustainable light art festival. The back of the panel, facing the shopping mall, featured motion LEDs, lighting up each of the four sections in rotational intervals, to bring a sense of the festivity to families with young children who live and shop around the area, as well as office workers who work around the Newton/Novena/Thomson area. In addition, the campaign was also on the 6-sheet, 12-sheet, Opti-Prime, Digiboard and Digi 6 platforms. Results This campaign demonstrated that Mediacorp OOH Media’s newly improved 2D lightboxes can increase campaign awareness among the public. Through attracting passers-by with its eyecatching animated lights, and improvements to the panel’s visibility with improved illumination and vibrancy, it made a distinct impact on the public.

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DECODING THE WORLD OF PROGRAMMATIC

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The latest buzz in marketing is deďŹ nitely more than just a buzzword. Programmatic holds the promise of making targeted marketing a reality if done right. But, as with all things new, marketers and agencies need to thoroughly educate themselves about its pros and cons, dos and donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ts. Our latest Master Report breaks it down. BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

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WHY HAS THE APAC MARKET MISSED OUT ON PROGRAMMATIC TV?

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Recently NBCUniversal said it was expanding its programmatic media product by launching NBCUx for linear TV. Advertisers can use data and automation to build media plans that include premium linear TV inventory across NBCUniversal’s entire portfolio of cable and broadcast entertainment networks. Currently, only a select group of advertisers and their agency partners in the US are able to utilise this new offering. NBCUniversal told Marketing it had no plans to extend the service into the region, but did not clarify further. NBCUniversal simply said: “While, as a company, we prioritise harnessing internal expertise and innovations across all areas of the business we have no announcements to make in Asia at this time.” However, with Asia Pacific quickly embracing programmatic capabilities, we asked several agency leads if the road NBCUniversal was treading on was the right one. Grace Liau, GM of VivaKi APAC, said the choice to not launch in APAC was not surprising. While it certainly makes sense in North America, where NBCUniversal’s audience would be able to go for a more premium strategy, advertisers and marketers in this region still have some catching up to do. “We still need to do more on highlighting the value of digital data and getting them to be comfortable with the investment that’s needed,” she said. “The fact is this market is still mired in print and TV, with major local media houses still having a long way to go before they’re at a competitive level of maturity in comparison with North America.” Liau added that another major issue in the region is scale which NBCUniversal would likely look to in the US, where upfront buying is the norm and great shifts have been seen to extend to TV buying. This cannot be immediately replicated in Asia Pacific or Singapore where programmatic adoption is still in its infancy. The decision by NBCUniversal highlights the uncertainty of what level of scale the company would have in this region. Ideally, major local players would need to take a cue from the more mature markets and emerge from the comparative programmatic “stone age” before companies such as NBCUniversal see viability for such a service here. However, sitting on the other side of the fence is Sanchit Sanga, chief digital officer of Mindshare Asia Pacific, who is surprised it is not launching in the market given the opportunities that exist in the market. “Considering Singapore is the regional hub for some of the most sophisticated marketers around the world, there is no reason programmatic TV would not take off here with aplomb,” he said. “This region is crying for TV companies to become programmatically savvy and connect their inventory into automated pipes powered by data.” He added the marketing fraternity was ready and willing to invest behind multi-screen targeted campaigns to reduce the deficiency of TV around targeting. Specifically, Singapore as a market, he explained, has reached a point of maturation and this can be seen by both cable TV operators Singtel and StarHub launching versions of their programmatic TV offerings last year. Now both companies are working with a different set of data and technology partners to build on this service layer. “Data is liquid and accurate across Singapore, all the key technology partners have a base here to power these services, no reason to wait,” he said. Sanga added infrastructure wise the region was ready in most markets, and now it was simply the case of TV and broadcast companies accepting the reality and moving fast to embrace it.

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“WE STILL NEED TO DO MORE ON HIGHLIGHTING THE VALUE OF DIGITAL DATA AND GETTING THEM TO BE COMFORTABLE WITH THE INVESTMENT THAT’S NEEDED. THE FACT IS THIS MARKET IS STILL MIRED IN PRINT AND TV, WITH MAJOR LOCAL MEDIA HOUSES STILL HAVING A LONG WAY TO GO BEFORE THEY’RE AT A COMPETITIVE LEVEL OF MATURITY IN COMPARISON WITH NORTH AMERICA.” Grace Liau — GM of VivaKi APAC

THE FUTTUREE OFF TV According to Basil Chua, CEO of AsiaMX, TV advertising in Asia Pacific is projected to reach US$53 billion in 2019. Data from PricewaterhouseCoopers also says that growth is expected to continue in the foreseeable future. AsiaMX is pioneering the development of the business with Asia’s first programmatic TV advertising exchange. Programmatic TV advertising is the use of software platforms and algorithms to automate the buying and selling of TV advertising. Its exchange looks to improve the effectiveness of advertising by using audience data and gives advertisers privileged access to high-value linear TV advertising assets. “Today in Asia Pacific, TV advertising is sold primarily through the direct sales channel to media agencies and advertisers,” he said. “In some cases, it is sold through media representatives. The buying process is typically tedious and time-consuming, involving lots of paperwork and phone calls. Consider that each campaign involves negotiating with multiple TV channels, perhaps from different countries, and you begin to fathom the enormity of the job.” He added there was an urgent need to bring efficiency to the TV advertising trading process by taking a leaf out of the digital advertising book. This was a trend noted by AsiaMX as it brought on board clients such as A+E Networks Asia, Turner Asia Pacific, as well as Thailand’s BEC-Tero Entertainment and Nation Broadcasting Corporation. These were the first wave of TV networks offering premium advertising assets from 11 highly rated channels such as Warner TV, Cartoon Network, History Channel, Nation TV and Channel 3. “With the softening of the macroeconomics in the region, TV companies and advertisers are looking hard at new ways to extract value for their businesses, providing a perfect environment for the adoption of programmatic TV.” Presently, AsiaMX has access to more than US$60 million in programmatic advertising assets on behalf of leading pay-TV and free-to-air networks. These assets include premium prime-time, off prime-time, online video and mobile advertising inventory. “Advertisers will now have privileged access to high-value ‘first-look’ advertising assets that are brand-safe and have 100% viewability.”

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THINKING OF PROGRAMMATIC? WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW Understanding programmatic

How does programmatic media buying work?

Programmatic is being used by more marketers to bring efficiency and efficacy to their advertising efforts. It is predicted that 83% of all display advertising will be purchased programmatically by 20171. However, more than half of the marketers surveyed by the Boston Consulting Group in July 2015 said their understanding of programmatic was very poor, poor or average. While marketers are increasing their adoption of programmatic technology, understanding of exactly what it is and how it works remains unclear2. Programmatic is the automation of process and decisions, driven by data and powered through machines. What does programmatic mean in the context of media buying? Recall the days when stocks were traded via phone and fax. Buying advertisements used to happen the same way. As you can imagine (or remember), this process was incredibly manual and time-consuming. Programmatic evolved as a way to make media buying more effective and efficient. While programmatic isn’t a strategy, it can be used as the key part of an effective digital advertising plan. For instance, programmatic can be used for audience targeting and segmentation and the execution of premium ad buys. Crucially, programmatic doesn’t mean real-time bidding (RTB) or automation although it does encompass both. The RTB protocol is used to employ media buying within programmatic technology, and programmatic does allow you to automate certain functions of technology based media buying.

•

Demand-side platforms (DSPs) connect directly to inventory and are the de facto way in which programmatic buying occurs. Conversely, supply-side platforms (SSPs) work on behalf of media publishers trying to maximise the sale of their inventory. In the mid-1990s, ad networks emerged as a way to bring together like-minded, afﬁnity based sites in a network model. You no longer had to go to multiple individual publishers; rather, you accessed a group of several publishers. With this model, advertisers could then reach more of the fragmented internet audience through aggregated inventory. From there evolved ad exchanges, a concept pioneered by Right Media (a company bought by Yahoo! in 2007) that allows media buys to be executed in a technology-based way across an exchange. Each individual impression is auctioned in real-time and sold to the highest bidder, removing complexity and consolidating efforts for both advertisers and publishers. Real-time bidding provides efﬁciencies in both cost and targeting ability by enabling the purchase of display inventory on a perimpression and per-user basis through a rapid bidding system. The outcome: the ability to show the right ad to the right customer at the right time for the right price.

Getting started If you’re a marketer who wants to invest in a digital-ﬁrst way of advertising, adopting technology is imperative. The programmatic adoption curve is happening and there’s no better time than now for your organisation to jump in and use the technology. As you consider your approach to programmatic media buying, keep in mind these four key areas that are crucial to informing your decisions.

1. People Ask yourself: “Do you feel you have the right internal or external resources to begin your journey with programmatic?” Programmatic raises questions internally across publishers, brands and agencies. Be honest about your company DNA. Are you a DIY-type business with technical minds in-house that can fully execute programmatic buying or are you willing to invest in developing that talent? Will you require an external partner to implement and manage programmatic for you?

2. Data You must understand from whom you can source data, because as you are building programmatic into your digital marketing plan, you should also be crafting a data strategy. Learn all you can about the different types of data and how each might fit into your marketing efforts. • First-party data is your own data from your site and your customer files. This data tells you about the known visitors to your website and customer base. • Second-party data is another brand’s first-party data. This data can be used to prospect for new customers and retarget current or lapsed ones through finding affinity – and behavioural-based points. Second-party data leads you to customers you don’t yet know. • Third-party data is typically a large volume of data you pay for to access for media-buying purposes. You layer this data with first-party

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Develop a strong attribution model that will prepare you to conquer these cross-channel consumers.

4. Experiment

C EN

AR SP

OU TC OM E

•

CONTROL

Programmatic and today’s evolving advertising technology now deliver the ability to test everything. You can test across channels, creative units, different audience buckets, targeting techniques and more, and run different strategies against each other to optimise. Consider these points as you develop your testing plan. • Always be testing – either internally or externally. Test creative elements within audience segments and across screens and devices. Using A/B testing will help you determine which creative works best for different channels. • Fully leverage analytics and insights – you can do this through constantly running and re-running campaigns to access untapped data streams, and then cycle and iterate so you understand what worked and didn’t work.

Sources 1

eMarketer, Is the Future of Programmatic Premium? December 2013 http://

Boston Consulting Group, The Programmatic Path to Profit for Publishers,

www.emarketer.com/Article/Future-of-Programmatic-Premium/1010430 July

2015

https://www.bcgperspectives.com/content/articles/media-

entertainment-marketingprogrammatic-path-profit-publishers/

ABOU UT MEEDIAM MATH

or second-party data to attain audience reach you can’t quite get on your own. Once you understand the data landscape, you can determine the internal and external resources you need to grow this portion of your programmatic efforts.

3. Channels The path to purchase is now varied and incorporates a range of channels your target customer might use at any given phase of the buying cycle. A consumer might hit the awareness stage on a smartphone, get to consideration on a laptop and purchase via a tablet. Each channel isn’t created equally. You can’t simply employ a strategy for display on a desktop and use the same data proﬁling and banners for your other channels. As you employ the next steps in your digital marketing strategy, you need to think about which media channels you will combine and how you will use them in different ways. • Consider the consumer experience. For instance, you’ll need to determine how you will reach the consumer who works from a laptop during the day, but comes home and plays on their tablet. • Adapt your messaging to account for these differences in consumption across channels.

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MediaMath (mediamath.com) is a global technology company that’s leading the movement to transform traditional marketing and drive transformative results for marketers through its TerminalOne Marketing Operating System™. A pioneer in the industry, introducing the ﬁrst demand-side platform (DSP) with the company’s founding in 2007, MediaMath is the only company of its kind to empower marketers with an extensible, open platform that unleashes the power of goal-based marketing at scale, transparently across the enterprise. T1 activates data, automates execution, and optimises interactions across all addressable media, delivering superior performance, transparency and control to all marketers; and better, more individualised experiences for consumers. MediaMath has won 19 out of 20 head-to-head competitive tests and has delivered triple digit year-over-year growth since inception. It has a seasoned management team that leads 12 global locations across ﬁve continents. Key clients include every major agency holding company, operating agency and top brands across verticals.

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From traditional marketing to programmatic marketing THE CLIENT This well-recognised brand had ﬁrst established their business over a century ago, beginning as a mail-order catalogue-driven company. Today, they are a national merchant specialising in outdoor gear and apparel, selling merchandise via catalogue, online and in-store. THE CHALLENGES AND GOALS The client ﬁrst began their journey to programmatic in 2013 with the main goal of gaining ownership and control of their own data to better address their audiences online. They wanted to translate the same level of targeted reach and penetration they saw from their catalogue business and achieve that in the digital space. With the overarching goal of having better control over their data, the client’s top priorities were: • Find new customers (prospecting). • Address a younger audience (below the age of 55). • Activate its proprietary data to drive as effective ROI as possible.

beginning, MediaMath provides the client with extensive training and support to ensure the client is meeting their goals and objectives. This includes complimentary client trainings through MediaMath’s New Marketing Institute. Offering basic to advanced courses in digital marketing and programmatic, the New Marketing Institute ensures clients are well-trained and certiﬁed on the technology to guarantee client satisfaction. SUCCESS FACTORS The client’s primary objective was to optimise campaigns towards ROI during the peak December holiday shopping season. Using MediaMath’s TerminalOne, the client exceeded ROI goals across all three campaign strategy types (ﬁrst-party targeting, prospecting, and re-marketing), with re-marketing being 134.6% above the goal. While the client’s goals and priorities have remained the same since working with MediaMath, they have advanced their marketing practices to drive transformative results – rethinking their approach to how they measure success.

11.6% ABOVE GOAL

15.4% 134.6% ABOVE GOAL

ABOVE GOAL

THE SOLUTION Leveraging programmatic techniques and technologies, the client has been able to apply the principles of marketing science across the customer journey and across channels. ACTIVATE DATA With the goal of better targeting their audiences online, MediaMath works with the client to leverage their existing data to inform their online campaigns. Using MediaMath’s data management solution to onboard their ﬁrst-party data, the client was able to slice their data hundreds of different ways to develop insights. For example, taking online and CRM data of customers who previously purchased, MediaMath was able to create different custom segments such as consumers below 50, high-value customers and peak-season buyers. Using these custom segments, the client was able to ﬁnd and target these audiences in online media. MEDIA EXECUTION With an integrated platform that runs RTB and programmatic premium channels, the client ran campaigns in display, video, mobile and in private marketplaces, constantly optimising their campaigns directly back to ROI goals. CLIENT ENABLEMENT As programmatic knowledge and skill sets can be limited in the

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First-party targeting

Prospecting

Re-marketing

Strategy type

• • •

Connecting ofﬂine to online to leverage data insights across the business. Embracing the “test and learn” approach to understand what drives greater efﬁciencies. Measuring the exact impact of their marketing dollars and understanding what’s actually driving the most success.

In becoming a modern marketer, the client has fully realised the potential programmatic has to accelerate their digital business. They are turning data into insight and transforming the customer experience with that insight; they have fully adopted the internal culture and processes to do so – they are reading and reacting, and making changes in real-time to deliver better results in every aspect of their digital marketing today, and into the future. They are a marketing visionary.

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DRIVE BUSINESS OUTCOMES Programmatic technology is fundamentally changing the way marketers interact with consumers.

MediaMath is your partner in that transformation. We help you have one-to-one conversations with your most valued audiences across all your channels.

CMY

Our goal is to help maximise the return on every dollar spent.

Outcomes. Transparency. Control.

Visit mediamath.com to learn more!

EVENTS

WHAT A GREAT LOYALTY PROGRAMME CAN DO FOR YOUR BRAND A good loyalty programme is core to all businesses today, but with consumers’ lifestyles evolving rapidly and being spoilt for choice, does loyalty even exist? During a recent roundtable organised by Marketing with several senior-level marketers, attendees shared their views on the future of

Date: Thursday 17 March 2016

Venue: FLUTES@ National Museum

Sponsor:

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loyalty and their current struggle of targeting and engaging their audience. Keeping the attention of consumers in an environment where media is fragmented and attention spans are dwindling is tough, but what can really help marketers is data that they have from their loyalty programmes at their disposal. Rahul Asthana, regional marketing director APAC of Kimberly-Clark Asia Pacific said for the brand, the data garnered from loyalty programmes help create more personalised and targeted promotional campaign. For the pampers and diaper segments, by knowing parents’ purchase patterns, the brand can figure out the size of the baby and send promotions to parents for specific products. Also, weeks prior to the baby’s diaper size changing; the brand can start re-connecting with consumers by offering promotions or content. By doing so, it can connect with the customers at the crux of their purchase journey

and keep top of mind brand recall. This ultimately helps the consumers from moving away to competitors and reduces the chances of them wanting to try new products. “You know when the purchase is going to be and you send it to the mom right before she purchases the product. This helps ROI because you are not wasting promotions,” he added. Creating a great loyalty programme in the digital era In a market such as Singapore which is hyper exposed to loyalty programmes, and is digitally savvy, brands need to be innovative in the way they craft out their loyalty programmes. According to Chen Peng, GM at Aimia, while clients today are aware they are way beyond the points and rewards era, many still cling onto it as a security blanket. “In my years of experience running loyalty programmes, in most cases points and rewards WWW. M ARKE TI N G- I N TE RAC TI VE . C OM

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Rezwana Manjur Deputy editor Marketing Magazine

Goh Theng Kiat Chief marketing ofﬁcer OCBC Bank Singapore

Clement Soh Regional CRM manager Zalora Singapore

Andrew Cefai Senior director of regional marketing APAC Hilton International Singapore

Mayank Dutt Country head marketing and branding global Consumer Group Citibank

Rahul Asthana Regional marketing director APAC Kimberly-Clark Asia Paciﬁc HQ

Matthias Schuecking Head of marketing APAC Airbnb Singapore Singapore

Katya Kroupnik Community engagement lead & marketing manager Uber Singapore

Henry Christian Customer relationship manager Wing Tai Holdings

Mei Lee Senior vice president digital CRM & e-commerce COMO Group

Jason Ong Group senior marketing communications manager CapitaMalls Asia

Kevin Kan Managing director Aimia Singapore

Chen Peng General manager Aimia Singapore

just don’t work. We now need to ﬁnd a fairly digital approach to loyalty and make that shift,” he said. Kevin Kan, managing director of Aimia, added that today brands needed to be willing to innovate in the world of loyalty and embrace initiatives such as tap or NFC technology. This is vital as consumers seek more and more convenience. Mayank Dutt, country head marketing and branding global consumer group of Citibank added that if brands keep focusing on a points system, they are ultimately going to lose out, said Dutt. “Be it 5, 10, 50 or a 100 points, the customer doesn’t care anymore. The idea is to create value for what the point is worth,” he said. How you do so is by making the offer memorable and targeted. “Give the right reward for the right consumer. If the consumer is an avid traveller and brands keep giving him shopping deals, he will not be interested and the brand will lose out. Loyalty has a lot to do with advocacy. Advocacy comes W W W .MA R KET ING - INT ERAC TIVE . COM

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about when your customers take care of other customers,” said Dutt. He explained that is how loyalty is built and at the end of the day, loyal customers will lead to other loyal customers for a brand. Challenges in today’s loyalty space “My biggest challenge is that there is a lack of loyalty,” said Goh Theng Kiat, CMO of OCBC

Bank. He explained that while the efﬁciency of technology is unquestionable and deﬁnitely helps in creating innovative programmes, it also increases the costs of loyalty programmes, which in turn, puts pressure on the bottom line margins. Meanwhile, COMO Group’s SVP of digital, CRM and e-commerce, Mei Lee, was of the view that while technology has changed both the M AY 2 01 6 M ARKE TI N G 5 1

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EVENTS

loyalty and customer landscape tremendously, there is still a lack of technology available to marketers to automate and personalise the marketing functions. She added there are not sufficiently adept tools to integrate loyalty and CRM into other channels. “I don’t feel there are technology platforms out there that are really effective and get the job done in an integrated way and at scale,” she said. Another pain point for Lee, much like many other marketers in the room, was data. While there is an influx of data and information, many believe it is not being utilised or analysed in the best way possible. “We all have similar challenges. How do you get customers, keep customers and grow. We all collect data, but the question is: how do you get insights and use them?” said Dutt. For many in the retail business, such as Wing Tai Holdings, who have a good reason to venture into the e-commerce field, the problem is marrying the online and offline world. One challenging problem is how to complete the cycle – to know the customer who has just checked out the latest collection online is also

the one visiting your store. Henry Christian, customer relationship manager at Wing Tai Holdings, said that despite all the challenges, this data is immensely important in not only understanding customers and building a loyalty programme, but also in pinpointing which part of the sales funnel is not delivering the desired results, and how to ﬁx it. So, while data can be daunting, it brings its own rewards by helping create a relationship with consumers who may not have tried your product. “It’s important because we need to know when sales are not coming in. With data, it is easier to point out if the issue is with footfall or

is it the issue with poor conversion? Are people coming into the stores and being put off by the store staff or is it a product issue?” Asthana added that KCC often needs to target ﬁrst-time mothers who have never used the products. Having data on consumers and creating a soothing or informative piece of content can help gain trust, in such cases he said. “We need to target the consumer even before she uses our products. So sometimes for us gaining her trust could be through a simple thing such as providing information and content,” he said. First-time mothers are often in a different head space than other consumers. Making sense of data – whose job is it? Reading data is vital, and today, all marketers must understand data and not be intimidated by numbers. Katya Kroupnik, community engagement and brand manager at Uber, said: “When hiring professionals today, it doesn’t make sense for us to hire people with just big ideas but no background with data, so you hire to have a range of skill sets.” Only then can data be read effectively and also communicated to the rest of the business. Airbnb’s Matthias Schuecking, head of marketing for APAC, added that data is at the heart of the company and is driven top-down, simply because one of the founders came from an engineering background and has embedded a strong data and analytics team which is going through it on a daily basis. “We are addicted to ﬁnding out more and understanding patterns and behaviours and adding value. So we have a strong team of data analysts not in just HQ, but also APAC,” he said. For Citibank, the team is structured in a way where data analysts are now part of the

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marketing team. While they remain as a different function, the lead is the same to ensure linearity. “It is important to structure your team such that the analysts are not far from marketing and each other. With the data team part of the marketing team, the story begins with us and ends with us,” Dutt said. Marketers acknowledged the fact that marketing today is no longer what it used to be. “Not many of us are launching fully cooked

marketing campaigns right from the beginning. I think we launch something that’s almost there and we look at the data and tweak the campaign as we go. That’s the new way of marketing and thus the marketing and analyst teams need to work closer together,” KimberlyClark’s Asthana said. Aimia’s Chen added that in the past there were marketing teams and then IT teams. If the former needed data, it would go to IT. But

today, there is no hard and fast rule. Different companies will adopt different ways of handling data. “Ultimately, if you can link the customer to the transaction that’s where you can get the most value and that’s the magic. If you can’t, the value-add is still pretty limited. Depending on the amount of data a company has, the company can structure teams differently,” he said.

WHAT IS THE FUTURE OF LOYALTY MARKETING? “I think it is all about giving your customers and audience the added value that doesn’t feel weird, is easy to redeem and is linked to their lives.” • Matthias Schuecking, head of marketing, APAC, Airbnb “Building an ongoing relationship versus seeing loyalty as transaction.” • Rahul Asthana, regional marketing director, APAC, Kimberly-Clark “Consumers will be even more time-starved in the future and the loyalty programmes that can identify and solve customer pain points effectively will win.” • Henry Christian, customer relationship manager, Wing Tai Holdings “The transactional side is a given, but the future lies in how you build on the experiences and expand upon them. Companies need to innovate and keep pushing themselves to create those experiences – whether it is access to events, life-time experiences you can’t get anywhere else or improving experiences for time-poor consumers. It has to be exclusive, but connected to your core audience. At the end of the day, companies need to help consumers lead better lives.” • Andrew Cefai, senior director of regional marketing, APAC, Hilton International “The future lies in how an organisation really knows the customer and demonstrates it through truly good predictive modelling. We all talk about it, but we haven’t seen a really good demonstration where a customer can feel an organisation really knows him/her and what he/she really wants.” • Goh Theng Kiat, CMO, OCBC Bank “SVEG: Simple and seamless, valued, experiential and gratitude.” • Kevin Kan, managing director, Aimia Singapore “The term loyalty per se, doesn’t really exist anymore. It is very subservient and today, it is more about relationships. What is important is value, simplicity and unique experiences for people and how you consistently deliver it again and again rather than just at point of sales.” • Mayank Dutt, country head of marketing and branding for the global consumer group, Citibank “It is about redefining what exactly loyalty means for your company and breaking it down into business objectives you want to achieve, metrics or KPIs you want to hit and then coming up with initiatives to execute those plans.” • Clement Soh, regional CRM manager, Zalora “Loyalty programmes, with more competition in the industry, need to be more accessible than before. We need to offer special experiences across touch-points. It has to be seamless and be creative and surprise and delight customers.” • Katya Kroupnik, community engagement and brand manager, Uber “The future of loyalty is all about integration and connecting the dots. I think loyalty has always been a little isolated from communications, marketing and ultimately presenting it to customers in the way it is structured. So the future of loyalty is really connecting the different channels and infusing it into everything else which is part of the business. At the end of the day, people are part of your loyalty programme because they love your products. We need to go back to the basics, and how we can add value to the customers – whether now or in the future.” • Mei Lee, senior vice-president – digital, CRM and e-commerce, COMO Group “There’s a consistent need of adding value that is hard for your competitors to match and customer experience is what all major brands are aiming for. However, the question is about finding experience and scale. To deliver an experience for 1% of your top customers is easy, but how do you create a unique experience in a scalable manner to touch 70% to 80% of your customers? So, the next generation of loyalty programmes is the automation of customer experience that can be perceived to be as personal as possible – with integration and simplicity. From an organisational perspective, building a truly unique experience and delivering that in a scalable manner to the majority of the customer base is the next issue for the industry to resolve.” • Chen Peng, general manager, Aimia Singapore “The future of loyalty is in making it easy and relevant for consumers and shoppers for brands to build the consumer base. It might sound easy, but it is very difficult to do, especially when an organisation is a large corporate. It is difficult to move into being consumer-centric. Customers are moving fast and we are having to chase after them.” • Jason Ong, group senior marcom manager (customer loyalty and business insights), CapitaLand Mall Asia

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From creation to dissemination and amplification, the third annual content marketing conference, Content 360, saw senior brand decision-makers delve deeper into the hows of content-led marketing. From case studies to real-time content marketing exercises, the audience immersed themselves in discussions around best practices in this space as they shape marketing in Singapore and the region. 54 MA R KET ING MAY 201 6

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Gold sponsors

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CAN BRANDS MAKE MONEY OFF CONTENT? Great content can help your brand accomplish various goals, but is making money one of them? The answer could be yes, according to Tony Chow, director of creative and content marketing for Asia Pacific at Marriott International. “In fact, a long-term goal for Marriott is to be a media company. We are setting our eyes on making our first full-length feature film and that will be a revenue source from content. In a couple of years, we may be leveraging avenues such as MIPTV to distribute content,” he said, adding that content distribution will be a big priority for the brand going forward. Speaking at Marketing’s Content 360 conference, Chow highlighted the transition from traditional marketing to content marketing. We are no longer selling rooms, we are selling experiences. “The reality? You’ve got to serve champagne quality service in beer budgets, so it’s time to get smarter about content,” Chow (pictured) quipped. For brands to build lasting relationships with consumers using content, they need to start thinking and acting like publishers, something that is a long-term goal for Marriott. “We have an opportunity here as a brand to be the world’s best travel-lifestyle publisher,” he said. Marriott’s global and content studio is one such example. It is a multi-platform studio developing, producing and distributing content that aims to engage, inform and entertain target audiences across multiple screens. Not only does it produce hero content (that is, big investment content done once or twice a year) such as the video series Two Bellmen, it also has its own newsroom to keep abreast of the industry and world happenings, which allows it to create relevant and real-time content for consumption. Two Bellmen is a comedy film about two bellmen who prove their company loyalty when the JW Marriott LA Live comes under siege by “The Purple Panthers,” the primary antagonists of the movie. The three Cs – content, community and commerce Chow explains the 3Cs of content marketing for Marriott – content, community and commerce (refer to chart). Content encompasses the time spent creating the deliverable (i.e. videos), it also refers to the engagement in terms of

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likes, shares and comments. Views are also an important part of the picture because it helps track progress and possible demographics. Community comprises of subscribers, followers and members of its loyalty programme. Chow also stressed the importance of leveraging Marriott’s loyalty programme members as they are most likely to be brand advocates who can help spread the brand message more effectively. Out of the three, commerce takes a more tactical approach, consisting of bookings, media buys and licensing fees with regards to distributing the content which is also another key factor for content marketing success. Videos: Are they really that important? Among all other forms of content, Chow said video is the one that works best for the brand.

“I am a believer of videos because a video says a thousand words. We have a lot of content on the website and our custom magazines. While we focus on those equally, the role video plays for us is different. For us, storytelling comes across best in videos,” he said. Also talking about videos and a proper investment in them at Content 360 was Radha K Raman, marketing director for Asia Paciﬁc at Brightcove. She highlighted the difference between brands owning their own video streaming platform versus advertising on free platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo. She cited Hugo Boss as a great example of a brand which is effective in utilising its digital properties to raise brand awareness through customer engagement. The brand livestreamed its New York Fashion week directly from its website on top of its YouTube channel to achieve greater reach. She stressed the importance of landing pages when it came to initiating a call-to-action to improve conversion rates. This is especially important for companies that utilise email marketing campaigns. A good way to maximise conversion in e-newsletters would be to draw viewers to click the image in the email and be taken to the landing page that plays the video. Having the video play on the landing page allows one to put other related content such as information and even e-commerce links which can help aid sales. Furthermore, having the video run on one’s own website enables brands to track site visits and potentially convert a viewer into a customer. YouTube may not be “YourTube”

CREATIVE + CONTENT KPIs CONTENT

COMMUNITY

TIME SPENT +

SUBSCRIBERS +

ENGAGEMENT COMMENTS, LIKES, SHARES +

FOLLOWERS +

VIEWS

ACQUISITION (REWARDS, EMAIL SIGN-UPs)

COMMERCE

BOOKINGS + MEDIA BUYS + LICENSING FEES

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“YouTube is synonymous with video and YouTube is an obvious choice for marketers because you want to fish where the fish are. But YouTube is not a video marketing strategy, it’s merely a distribution channel – one that comes with its own set of challenges and limited opportunities for brands to own and control the experience,” Raman said. She highlights the downside of using free video platforms (FVP): • Poor SEO – although videos considered high quality are rewarded in search results, reaping those rewards are only possible if the videos are embedded in your own site. • Lack of context: On YouTube, anything goes. A viewer could see competitor ads and irrelevant content being served next to the brand videos. • Lack of branding – both YouTube and Vimeo limit the brand and customisation options on a brand’s channel. Moreover, when brands embed their player on their website, it’s the YouTube or Vimeo branding that shows up, thereby diluting the experience. • Limited admin controls – with free players, anyone across the company who has administrative rights has full access to the channel – there is no way to limit levels of administrative access. • Denied access – there is potential to miss out on an audience for countries such as China and workplaces which block FVPs. • Superficial analytics – analytics on these platforms are superficial because when it comes to tracking lead-generation and ROI on FVPs they can’t be tied to individual prospects. • Analytics’ consequences of making video edits – no matter how minor the change, all viewing history and stats associated will be lost on FVPs. • Lack of user experience control – with YouTube your content is subject to advertising and this can affect the user experience journey as these ads could be from an actual competitor. “As video marketers, we’re no longer delivering impressions, we’re delivering marketing results. If a prospect downloads a PDF, you know they downloaded something. You don’t know if they actually read it, what content they consumed and you have no way to tell sales if this is actually a hot lead, or what the lead knows,” she said. Why visual content is paramount to success Jetstar Airways has also been successful in the past year when it comes to creating visual content which touches on all the key points

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mentioned. Focusing on localised content which is both funny and emotive, it capitalised on FVPs to help spread the brand awareness. Sharing her views at Marketing’s Content 360 conference, Chantal van Wijnbergen, head of marketing and PR for SEA at Jetstar Airways, talked about the airline’s journey this year in engaging customers through videos. “The beauty of videos is the ability to capture a more complex story when pictures can’t,” she said. Showing sensitivity towards local cultures and holidays, Jetstar launched a campaign during the Chinese New Year period last year, which matched singles through the power of the zodiac and gave them a chance to escape the judgment of singlehood from relatives during the holiday season and possibly “meet their true love”. In November last year, Jetstar

ran a campaign for December babies who felt neglected during the festive season because their birthdays were too close to the Christmas holidays. Wijnbergen shared the positive response to the campaign and also highlighted the importance of going back to your consumer and listening to what they want and then making a connection to the brand. “Nothing is more boring to consumers than a corporate birthday,” Wijnbergen said. Jetstar’s success with its videos lies in the importance of localising content for the Southeast Asian market to be able to better connect with its audience; which shows the stronghold that visual content, particularly video, has on the whole content marketing game – a highly talked about topic during the Content 360 event.

HOW MUCH CONTENT IS TOO MUCH CONTENT? In a panel discussion at Content 360, Don Anderson, co-founder and head of outreach for Asia Content Marketing Association, posed a few questions around content quality versus quantity and budgets. Here are some excerpts from the conversation. Anderson: “Is there such a thing as too much content?” Chris Reed, global CEO and founder of Black Marketing: “It’s not a conversation about excess content, it’s about using the existing content fully. There are many instances where we see a company develop content and top leaders share it on LinkedIn, but the staff hardly share that content. How you get your employees in the habit of sharing content is critical. A lot of them are not using the right kind of content in the right ways. Simply producing content is not enough, amplifying it is equally important.” Gerald Ang, global digital leader for GE: “Speak when it’s needed, be meaningful and find a natural rhythm in your content. Be simple and purposeful. Think of your year-long calendar as a blank canvas, and then fill it up with selected moments you want to own.” Anderson: “ACMA did a survey last year and participated marketers suggested only 20% of their marketing budgets is going into content marketing. What sort of budgets are you seeing and what is the money being spent on?” Ang: “20% is a good baseline and it goes up depending on media and co-creation partnerships. The marketing team has to look at what will drive business results and focus accordingly. Of the 20%, about 10% goes in production, but you also need to include media and measurement budgets. For us, we focus on earned media for which we don’t have to spend and then look at owned and earned in that order. We focus on earned, owned and paid media in that order. “In terms of medium, we are digital first. We look at spending on TV only in rare cases when it is absolutely relevant, otherwise our focus is online. Other than that social listening is also a big area of focus for us.” Tony Chow, director of creative and content marketing for Asia Pacific at Marriott International: “We are moving away from traditional advertising and our focus is largely on content. We aim to do 1-2 Hero content, the budget for which could run into a few millions, and then focus on what we call the Hub content, which require relatively smaller budgets. We are not doing anything on TV or print at the moment. It is all digital.”

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IT’S NOT ALWAYS ABOUT SALES are meant to be dynamic. This is the content you really want to “go viral” and is worth putting a bit of money behind. A great example of this was the marketing that companies planned around the birth of Great Britain’s Prince William and Kate Middleton’s baby where they were able to preplan their messaging, so they could put some resources behind their efforts. However, most could only expect their content to have a short shelf life.

Content marketing is an area that has picked up immense speed in recent years. Nonetheless, the investments made in this space are not always the fastest to bear fruit. Players in this ﬁeld say it may take months or sometimes years before your efforts show results. However, C-suite level executives are not always ready to wait around that long to see the results. So what’s the solution? Probably a shift in mindset to realising not all marketing is about immediate sales. One marketer who believes in this is Anna Bory, GM of Audi Singapore, who was speaking at Marketing’s two-day conference Content 360. Bory (pictured) is of the view that for luxury brands speciﬁcally, content marketing cannot always be about sales. She said: “Not every marketing initiative in the luxury industry is about direct sales.” For those in the luxury space, like Audi, sometimes it is about brand awareness. One such campaign where the brand was able to move away from sales and gain brand awareness was its SG50 campaign last year. The brand decided it would take locals back in time using VR capabilities. The brand worked with different government bodies and the National Gallery to ensure accuracy of the information it was feeding to consumers. “Our budget for this execution was only 30% of our usual media budget. So we needed to communicate smartly,” she explained. To ensure the initiative really resonated with participants, a free on-ground event was also created. “Having a sales KPI for such a campaign would have killed the idea. In this way, the pressure of sales was lifted and the team had the freedom to come up with ideas,” she said. Bory admitted that while there wasn’t

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a totally accurate science of measuring the impact of the campaign, it tracked the footfall to stores, during and post the campaign, and combined it with on-ground surveys to establish a correlation. The campaign saw a more than 1.85 million Facebook reach, 287, 995 YouTube views and more than $600,000 in PR coverage. “However, having done one successful initiative helps us with our second one for R8,” she said adding that not all campaigns and content initiatives need to always go viral. Hence, it is important when creating innovative ideas to come up with the right metrics and KPIs. “Brands should stay away from KPIs that will kill your content idea.” On a similar point, Christie Poulos, global head of video at King Content, added that not all content needed to be relevant for both now and the future. What content needs, however, is a clear strategy. Quoting Julie Fleischer, director of media and consumer engagement at Kraft Foods, she explained the various kinds of content out there: PRODUCED Pre-planned Dynamic Viral

High Production Values

PERISHABLE

EVERGREEN

Lightweight Opportunistic Real time

Test & Learn Versioning Curation

EXECUTIONAL Source: Julie Fleischer, director of Media & Consumer Engagement, Kraft Foods.

Perishable and produced (top left): These are content pieces that may be planned, and

Produced and evergreen (top right): This is content that is built to last a very long time and, thus, requires a greater investment to produce. For instance, Kraft created a series of cooking videos that features celebrity chefs, which could then be reused every year as seasonal content. Perishable and executional (bottom left): This content is real-time and opportunistic, but may not have a lot of staying power – however, it can be quite impactful at the time of its distribution. An example of this was Oreo’s Super Bowl tweet – a real-time effort that didn’t require much advanced planning and execution and used Oreo’s existing distribution channels such as Twitter. However, in such cases it is important to note that to be real-time, you need the right people and processes in place to take advantage of current events and trends. Executional and evergreen (bottom right): This is content you continually create to be used in multiple ways, such as the recipes and food ideas Kraft publishes on an ongoing basis. Because of the nature of this type of content, marketers can continually test what’s working and make adjustments when needed. This is not an area where a lot of money needs to be spent, but it’s the best place to keep an eye out for future content ideas. At the end of the day, said Poulos, content marketing allows organisations to develop realistic, sustainable and measurable publishing plans that keep their content on track in the long term. “Content marketing cuts costs by reducing redundant or extraneous publishing efforts, while increasing effectiveness of existing assets. It aligns communication across channels so that web content, print collateral, social media conversations and internal knowledge management are working toward the same goals in channel-appropriate ways,” she said.

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WHAT AN END-TO-END CONTENT MARKETING PRACTICE LOOKS LIKE With content’s growing role in marketing, and marketing predominantly going digital, global technology company Cisco needed to re-look at the way it was leveraging content. What these changes necessitated was a move from talking campaigns to talking stories. Sharing Cisco’s journey of content marketing, in particular hiring and managing a team around content, with delegates at Content 360 was Rashish Pandey, director of marketing for Asia Pacific. Pandey defines content marketing as storytelling at scale that drives a desired action. And what makes good content is what he calls SHARP – shareable, humorous, actionable, relevant and professional. See the chart below: From creating one or two massive reports every year, Cisco is now creating a flurry of shareable and bite-sized content out of these reports throughout the year for continued engagement. But this switch, however simple it may look on the surface, has been a complete change-management journey, one that is still ongoing, according to Pandey. Once the vision of content-led marketing was established, Cisco set out to piece the puzzle together step by step – with talent being one of the most important things. What was clear was it didn’t want to outsource content marketing to an agency. It continues to use agencies, but the entire process is controlled and run internally. What’s the risk in outsourcing? While agencies are a great support to the brand, if the content muscle isn’t built in-house and brands rely too much on agencies, the content will become undifferentiated at the end, Pandey explained. Having in-house capabilities also allows brands control over the process which helps in the brand being agile, when it comes to content marketing. In Cisco’s case some of its subject matter experts are capable of publishing content without the need for it to go through an agency. With this in mind, it set out to create a new structure for its team. It created four new roles, each with a distinct job scope operating under a guideline of how to come together as one team. He said: “These are all the roles we thought that we needed to build an end-to-end content practice.” The roles are: • Customer experience manager – or

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Getting Started Shareable

Findable and accessible

Presented in layers/modules

Snackable formats

Humour

Memorable – catches attention

Cuts through digital clutter

Simple, punchy and visual

Actionable

Drives to the next logical step in a journey

Accessible CTA links

Relevant

User goals

User context (right time/ place, etc.)

Tied to user needs, not just business

Professional

Within brand’s key areas of authority

Known, reputable experts/data

Trustworthy

Content is not complex. We just need to be S.H.A.R.P.

Provides integration across channels

Source: CISCO

the people champions. They are the custodians of customer insights. • Content managing editor – or those who have the power to say no to people within the organisation and still survive. They look at all the possible content pieces that could possibly run and choose the ones that would get the brand the most traction and engagement, much like an editor at any reputed publication. • Subject matter experts – those who understand the product are not necessarily engineers, but are capable of publishing content with authority and authenticity and in the tone that appeals to the audience. • Content marcom manager – quite literally the one that juggles a thousand balls without dropping one. They are the creative soul of all that gets published. “All these roles are in the process of getting ﬁlled up within Cisco and its subsidiaries worldwide,” Pandey said. Managing this team across geographies

requires being prescriptive to some extent, but with an awareness that content marketing isn’t a linear process. “We are prescriptive about who needs to attend the weekly meetings, for example, and what their role is, what is the expected outcome, how did the past performance work and so on. “But the important thing to note is that these meetings ensure we are agile, adapting to the needs of the business and working towards the outcome accordingly.” In such a massive transformation, training and preparedness becomes critical – from taking the teams through the basics of storytelling, to a digital-ﬁrst approach to content, to the nittygritty of real-time and relevant content. So is rewarding these efforts. Cisco has a number of internal recognitions in place for various stages of content marketing. “The journey isn’t an easy one – it is complicated and requires a cultural change. But daring to start is crucial,” he said.

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29/4/2016 12:07:03 PM

‘AD-BLOCKING CAN MAKE US BETTER MARKETERS’ It is easy to view ad-blocking as a threat when it comes to reaching out to consumers and telling them what your brand has to offer. However, disallowing access to a site’s free content unless ad-blockers are switched off – as some publishers are doing – may not be the wisest thing to do, according to Roshni Mahtani, CEO and founder of Tickled Media. Countering ad-blockers this way is shortsighted; instead, more focus should be placed on creating relevant content that viewers will be interested in. Mahtani, along with Kevin Hagino, senior regional brand manager of LEGO Group, and Phil Townend, managing director of Unruly, were part of a panel discussion at Marketing magazine’s Content 360 moderated by editor Rayana Pandey. In an August 2015 study by Adobe and PageFair, ad-blocking was estimated to cost publishers nearly US$22 billion during 2015, and at that point, there were about 198 million active ad-block users around the world. The number since has only grown. Moreover, with

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some telcos in the UK and other markets now mulling over blocking ads on their network, brands are beginning to become wary, and digital media publishers such as Google and Facebook are gearing up for a tussle. Why do people install ad-blockers? Ads can be intrusive – especially those that interrupt what the user is doing. Moreover, sub par content makes it easy for people to ignore ads. In fact, many speakers at the conference highlighted in jest that, statistically, users are more likely to successfully climb Mount Everest than click a banner ad. The basic premise for ad-blockers to ﬂourish? Ads are intrusive, disruptive to the user experience online and are irrelevant. Content evolution versus media evolution According to Townend, the emergence of programmatic advertising shows how fast the media landscape is evolving. While that in itself may not be a bad thing, if content does not evolve at the same pace, it will be a garbage in, garbage out story, regardless of the medium.

Brands should be fixated more on fixing the content rather than figuring out the cheapest medium to disseminate content. “If media is evolving at a million miles per hour and content is only evolving at ten, then we have a problem because the content quality is not improving at the same speed as the improvement of the automation,” Townend said. Supporting his observation, Hagino said: “I think we are all guilty of it, because the media is so powerful, that I think it makes us focus too much on the hows versus the whats.” According to Hagino, although consumers are busy and stressed out nowadays, they still wish to be part of the branding process – for brands they love. When it comes to finding the right messaging, he feels there is a need for brands to go back to the fundamentals and challenge themselves to getting the messaging right. “They [consumers] have a stronger voice,” he said, adding they like to be challenged by the content put out by brands. Hagino shared the story behind LEGO’s

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SG50 campaign where it invited kids to design a Singapore of their choice. “Rebuild” started with LEGO enthusiasts in Singapore envisaging what the metropolis might look like in the next 50 years. Ideas ran from futuristic skyscrapers, dominating highways to towering offices. The brand then asked the builders of tomorrow, the children, to “rebuild” their ideal Singapore. The campaign launched with LEGO Singapore holding the Rebuild Your Memories Competition followed by the launch of the four LEGO SG50 limited edition Singapore icons mini builds. The LEGO SG50 event saw the public participating in a live construction of an 8.5 foot dragon playground made out of LEGO bricks. Talking about how successful the campaign was for LEGO, Hagino said a big reality in the online world today is that only the best content will get noticed. He added: “Ad-blockers will make us better marketers. It is the survival of the fittest for content. If ad-blocking becomes more mass, we will have to find better ways of creating and distributing content.”

thereby making the experience disruptive and intrusive. “It is insane today because we always talk about the importance of putting the user in control and at the centre of the experience,” Townend said, adding that a way for brands to work around ad-blockers is to create content that users want to view and share. Some publishers have taken the honest and upfront approach by stating how watching this ad helps them keep their content free. Townend said that was a good strategy because it was polite. “The ﬁrst thing we do when we look at a YouTube skippable ad is to see how much time of ours will it take. If it’s too much, the users will skip it right away, as they feel like they don’t have 90 seconds of precious time to give away. “However, ask someone for six seconds of their time like on a Vine-looped ad, and they’ll gladly stay with the brand for even longer”, Townend added, citing the contradiction of sixsecond videos or Vines, which many brands in the West are using to reach out to their consumers. “The average dwell time on a branded Vine is

“Ad-blockers will make us better marketers. It is the survival of the fittest for content. If ad-blocking becomes more mass, we will have to find better ways of creating and distributing content.” Kevin Hagino – senior regional brand manager of LEGO Group

When ads aren’t always hated According to Mahtani, successful marketing is all about targeting the right type of consumer with the right type of message. In a survey Tickled Media ran, it found only 18% of Singaporean mothers saying they ﬁnd advertising relevant. The others felt the messaging was wrong in most ads. However, the number varies from market to market. For example, in the Philippines, 60% of mothers loved advertising as it allowed them to have more awareness of what’s out there. Mahtani emphasised on the importance of understanding demographics across markets and customising content for them. Publishers and brands, therefore, need to constantly produce content accordingly. While there is no prescriptive number of content that should be published, Mahtani said at Tickled Media, the content is produced keeping “search” at the heart of content creation. Being honest and upfront helps The advent of the internet took a surprising turn, speakers said. Rather than ﬁnding a more suitable tactic to advertise, brands copy pasted the TV strategy onto the internet,

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20.2 seconds, which is over three loops. So ask someone for 90 seconds they give you ﬁve, ask someone for six seconds and they give you 20! Ask for less get more!” Creating content versus curated content There is no such thing as too much content, provided the brand is clear on if the content is pull content or push content. According to Mahtani, “pull” content hardly runs out of steam because there is a demand for it. For instance, “potty training” alone can comprise a hundred different combinations if a brand is targeting mums. Push content, however, has limitations because it is not something that the audience is needing more information on. On top of these two there is resource content, which includes long form, infographics and may take a few days to complete while lifestyle requires some thought and usually takes a few hours. “Pull content is unlimited whereas push content isn’t; we can only push so much,” Mahtani said. Create connections that count At the cusp of a great message is how you are

able to connect with your audience and where, which RadiumOne’s Charlie Baillie, shared more about during his presentation on “Building a connected content strategy”. “Ensure you know where the conversations are happening, especially with the likes of instant messaging platforms, which is where all the data is, in Asia Pacific. By not having visibility on that you are potentially missing out on opportunities,” he said. Here are his pointers on how you can create connections that count: • Wrap and track your own content – all of it. • Ensure you have visibility into “Dark Social”, that is, web traffic that’s not attributed to a known source and is hard to track. It could be that you are missing 70% of the leads available to you – this can give you precious insights that might have been missed previously. • Work with providers who can gather and activate the data in real time, not weeks and months – that way you can keep track of brand conversions and respond quickly whenever needed. • Operate and execute across all channels – so you can keep up with consumers who also use multiple platforms. Key benefits of connections that count • Strengthens real-time data collection capabilities. • Grows owned media audiences organically. • Informs and improves paid media investment. • Insights guide content creation and distribution. • Amplifies social and PR strategies. Timi Siytangco, director of brands and agencies for SEA at Outbrain, also talked about the importance of thinking about the brand and seeing how it intersects with consumer interest. She mentioned that consumers have three moments of attention, and connecting with them during those moments is essential in bringing your brand message across. These moments are the intent moment, the influence moment and the interest moment. She also advocated that content should be in-feed and not interruptive. Talking about certain content myths, she said despite the short attention span of audiences, longer videos can still be effective in connecting with an audience because it gives more room for the development in storytelling. “The next time someone tells you not to make a long video, get a second opinion,” she said.

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28/4/2016 10:13:14 AM

BRANDS, STOP TRYING TO BE THE HERO OF YOUR OWN STORIES

To tell a story is not a new phenomenon. In fact, it has been done since the caveman and craftsman era. What we have now realised is that the simpler the story, the easier to remember. One of the best storytellers today, said Norliza Kassim, head of digital engagement and content, global digital marketing, Standard Chartered Bank, is Donald Trump. Agree or disagree with his views, the man is indeed polarising. He can no doubt stir up emotions which in turn leads to conversations because people just want to connect over his comments. “Human beings are wired to recognise and share stories,” she said. Storytelling is the best way to connect and that’s the heart of content marketing. She urges that to learn good storytelling, marketers should look to Hollywood. While the steps seem relatively simple, execution takes tons of practice and patience. Step 1: Meet the hero First and foremost, you need to set up your hero which should ideally be the customer. “You need to identify your customers’ needs and gain insight to their lives and set them up to be the hero of your story,” Kassim said. Step 2: Confrontation This is where the bulk of the story happens

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and where you realise the pain points of your consumers. This is also the point where the hunt and discovery process peaks. According to several studies, quoted by Kassim, a person typically consumes 8.9 pieces of content when trying to resolve an issue or make a purchase. Hence, at this point, smart brands can create content that will help the customer move into the resolution phase. Step 3: Resolution This is where content marketing can bring sales and marketing functions together because it is where you put the customer at the centre of your brand purpose and come up with the best plan of execution. When you have executed all of this right and built trust with your consumers, that’s where you can begin to have a conversation with relevant and engaging content and educate them. The brand’s role is to guide the customers along, it is not to mandate, said Kassim adding: “The role of the brand is not to be the hero or the protagonist. That is for the consumer. The role of the brand is to be the mentor or the guru. Be part of the 8.9 pieces of content consumers take in.” Ultimately, the purpose is to move from talking about products and services and into customer needs. “It’s not easy to have a conversation with

customers. You need to be there where they are and be useful and trustworthy in your language,” she said. Meanwhile, John Williams, vice president for Southeast Asia and South Asia at BBC Worldwide, added that to really get the trust of your consumers you must move away from simply trying to be authentic and preaching ideals to having a purpose. “Nobody would dispute the importance of authenticity to brands – but authenticity does not establish meaning. Authenticity may mean being true to an ideal concept, but we mustn’t confuse these ideals with the real meaning of a brand in people’s lives,” Williams said. He added this is important more so now than ever before because consumers have become accustomed to ﬁlter out brands mentally, emotionally and increasingly through technology. “Ad blocking and falling attention spans are proof points. You have to demonstrate why consumers shouldn’t ﬁlter out your brand.” Having a brand purpose allows brands to be rooted in consumers’ experiences – and a sense of what matters to them. Like Kassim, he added brands needed to establish understanding by identifying consumer pain points and identity if they want their audiences to invest time listening to their advertising messages.

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CAREERS

CAREER PATH Yong Reei Pyn Marketing manager At-Sunrice GlobalChef Academy

First job?

Business development executive at MediaBanc Group. First job in advertising/ marketing?

Marketing and admissions manager at Raffles College of Higher Education. Best job?

My current job. I love the varied exposure, the multiple market stages of development, the corporate culture and the gastronomic culinary exposure from around the world. Perks of your current job?

I get to sample amazing food creations by master chefs from all around the world, and best of all, enjoy free lunch every day cooked by our own students at the academy. Marketing professionals you admire?

Walt Disney – he created a truly remarkable Disney World that could literally market itself – and Steve Jobs. He may not have been the first to merge design and technology, but he brought it to higher levels of success not seen or envisioned before. Best career advice you’ve been given?

You need drive, an entrepreneurial spirit, pragmatic thinking and an ego to make it in marketing. Why a career in marketing?

Marketing is a dynamic industry that every business and industry needs. IT is also one of the most creative industries where you are able to apply design thinking skills and creativity to the job. If you weren’t in marketing, what would you be?

A creative director or any creative role as I was brought up in a family with various design backgrounds. How do you wind down?

I enjoy doing art and craft and spending time with my family and two sons, Ryan and Randall.

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JOB SHUFFLE OOH advertising firm JCDecaux appointed Evlyn Yang as its managing director. Yang replaces Ashley Stewart who is departing to pursue personal interests after 18 years with the company. She has been with JCDecaux Singapore for more than 16 years, driving business growth and building strategic partnerships. Yang was previously the deputy managing director of JCDecaux, and before that, assistant general manager with SMRT Media. The Media Publishers Association Singapore (MPAS), appointed Olivier Burlot, CEO of Heart Media, publisher of Men’s Folio, WOW (World of Watches), L’Officiel, Art Republik and Palace magazines, as president. He has 20 years of publishing experience in Asia and will work closely with executive director, Alexander Knight, and an EXCO to make MPAS’ 10th year memorable and build the community. AXA named Thomas Buberl as CEO following Henri de Castries’ (pictured) decision to retire. Buberl joined the group’s head office in Paris following his appointment as CEO and he will work closely with Castries and Denis Duverne, deputy CEO, to finalise AXA’s new strategic plans that are expected to be released in the middle of the year. Castries has decided to retire and step down from the board of directors. Publicis One named Alice McCreath as chief financial officer, Maree Prendergast (pictured) as chief talent officer and Karen Lim as

the communications director. In Asia, Nicolas Menat has been appointed regional chief executive officer, and Ricardo Roces as regional chief financial officer. All the newly appointed global and regional leaders of Publicis One are already in their new roles and are fully operational in their respective markets and nominated by Jarek Ziebinski. Publicis Media announced a string of new eadership roles across Asia Pacific. The appointment follows the global restructure of the Publicis Groupe. Leading Singapore now is Gareth Mulryan as CEO Publicis Media. Heading India as CEO is Anupriya Acharya. Greater China which includes China, Taiwan and Hong Kong is Bertilla Teo. New Zealand and Australia is headed by Matt James. Chris Nolan was appointed COO of Publicis Media Australia and New Zealand, and Mykim Chikli is COO of Publicis Media Greater China. Hyper Island appointed Otto Ruijs as its new managing director for its operations in Singapore. His responsibilities include shaping Hyper Island as a digital catalyst for companies and individuals as they prepare to navigate the digital age. He was previously the learning design director in the company and formerly ran the Singapore office of ?What If! Innovation Partners for three and a half years. Jennifer Kuperman was promoted to the head of international corporate communications at Alibaba. She is currently serving as vicepresident and head of strategy for international corporate

affairs to lead Alibaba’s global communications strategy and execution since her start in 2014. She will replace Jim Wilkinson, the current head of international corporate affairs, who will be leaving Alibaba to start a new entrepreneurial venture. Burda Singapore appointed Lauren Tan as editor of Prestige Singapore. She replaces Genevieve Jiang, effective 7 April, who is leaving to pursue other personal interests. Previously the deputy editor of the magazine, Tan has been with Prestige since 2008 and has led supplementary titles such as Prestige Lifestyle and Wealth and Living. Eyeota appointed co-founder, Trent Lloyd as managing director, APAC, which is a newly created role. He has 20 years of experience in the industry and co-founded Eyeota with Kevin Tan, Kristina Prokop and Christofer Sandberg five years ago. This follows an announcement of US$7 million in Series A funding plus further data partnership announcements with Ipsos, CoreLogic and GfK. iProspect appointed Lei Sorvisto as managing director of iProspect Singapore, based in the Singapore office. She replaces Luke Janich who is leaving the agency after five years to pursue his own startup digital consulting business in Vietnam. She has over 13 years of multi-disciplinary experience in marketing strategy, digital transformation, channel business development and partner development.

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27/4/2016 9:14:29 PM

LAST WORD

WAS THE NEW INSTAGRAM ALGORITHM NECESSARY? Several publications are calling it the “impending doom”, others have said it is the “death by algorithm”. Those are some of the concerns raised as Facebook’s photo and video-sharing app Instagram looks to introduce a new algorithmic feed. This new feed will replace the current chronological timeline that it currently offers. To quote Instagram in its blog post earlier this month: “The order of photos and videos in your feed will be based on the likelihood you’ll be interested in the content, your relationship with the person posting and the timeliness of the post. As we begin, we’re focusing on optimising the order – all the posts will still be there, just in a different order.” If you were on Instagram when the news first broke like I was, it seemed as though many influencers and bloggers were in a panic mode urging users to “turn notifications on”. Many mistook that the changes would be rolling out today. The “turn on” feature, as Instagram explains, was to help protect users from losing views when the new algorithmic timeline is rolled out. In response to the online flurry happening on Instagram, the company took to Twitter to assure its users the changes are not happening yet. Since its announcement of the new change, Instagram has received numerous feedback from its users. An online petition has even been created against the new algorithmic feed, urging Instagram to give users a choice in choosing how they should be viewing their timeline. While the move may help heaps with the social media brand’s

Not happy: Not all changes are welcomed as Instagram is discovering.

monetisation plans, as a regular user of the platform, I find the change somewhat unnecessary. Fellow Millennial and budding influencer, 21-year-old Rachel Wong, who has more than 4000 followers, also shared her concerns with Marketing, saying the new change will make it harder for smaller accounts like hers, who are looking to grow their following. “Since I’m trying to grow my follower count, I feel like this change is going to make it harder,” Wong told Marketing. “Because (the number of likes I get) aren’t exactly at the range of ‘popular’ or ‘top posts’ standard, I doubt my posts will be the ones that are pushed to the top of others’ feeds.” As for myself, I deem my Instagram timeline as a personal curated space and a reflection of my personality. Currently, I follow more than 500 Instagram accounts. This ranges from photographers, bloggers, chefs, celebrities, and last, but not least, my family and close friends – all of which I would like to have equal screen time with. This new change, with numerous accounts asking followers such as myself to turn on post notifications for their uploads, adds an added pressure to consumers such as myself to further narrow my following. Also, by turning on the notifications of those I follow, I will be receiving notifications each time a photo is uploaded on Instagram. I certainly don’t want that given that I have already turned off my WhatsApp group chat notifications to prevent my phone from buzzing every few minutes. Moreover, just because I follow a celebrity who is holding a bottle of shampoo, doesn’t necessarily mean I will buy that shampoo. And if I have to see that post of the shampoo every time I log into my account, chances are I will un-follow the account. The writer is 21-year-old Wong Jeng Teng, an intern at Marketing magazine Singapore.

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