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ISSUE 265 OCTOBER 2020
SPECIAL EDITION
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ISSUE 265// SEPT 2020
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In this special issue of MARKETING magazine, we step out of the Covid shadow and brave a print edition to bring you a deep exclusive about an organisation that has been adapting and changing with the evolving definition and demands of marketing communications.
Their “one for all and all for one” culture today pervades the entire corporate ecosystem which went from a staff strength of 11 a few years ago to a human-bolt of holistic synergy totalling over 200 people across 5 offices in Malaysia, and an office in Manila.
When Entropia first opened its doors, it confused the marketplace with what it stood for, as the original founders came from a media specialist agency.
Shared responsibilities have opened shared possibilities for shared prosperity. If you look at why they are investing in e-commerce, creative capital, digital assets like AI, UX, CX, CRM, marketing automation, analytics, futureready digital platforms and apps, big data and real-time research, you’ll begin to understand what the future is looking like.
But in no time, they started bringing new meaning to the term hybrid agency while bridging consultancy, creativity and collaboration into one. Starting from a no-holds-barred mindset and looking into the pandora box unshackled from legacy constraints, Entropia started to shape itself around marketer-first needs, making the leap to everything good imaginable for product, brand, service, image, and the pursuit of happiness. This gave marketers a rare look at communications as they journeyed with a business enabler who was not shy of introspection and course-correction as partners in a shared destiny.
Hopefully, our cover story will give you a richer understanding of this phenomenon known by many successful marketers by one hybrid name: ENTROPIA.
... We believe the new generation of category disruptions will originate from native industry 4.0 players, and our vision is for our clients to anticipate and lead that future decisively, rather than be reactive when it hits...
ENTROPIANS EMBRACE INDUSTRY 4.0 Industry 4.0 is changing the world of business like never before. And COVID-19 has played out ten years’ worth of this change in the last six months. The everyday life experiences of people are going to be enhanced with rich new layers of relevant and highly immersive content, thus heightening our learning, working, shopping, socialising and entertainment. We talk to the leaders at ENTROPIA, Prashant, Rama, Sourabh and Taher, on Demand 4.0, Extended Reality, AI and Machine learning, and IOT for B2C.
PRASHANT KUMAR SKIPPER ENTROPIA
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Prashant Kumar Founder & Senior Partner
Ramakrishnan C.N Partner
Sourabh Agrawal Partner
Neeraj Gulati Partner
Syahar Khalid Partner, Integrated Media
Jane Chong Principal, Integration
Vamsi Vanka Principal, Data & Technology
Zaheer Kaisar Director, Creative Experiences
Farhah Isyqi Director, Integration
April Toh Principal, Integration
Cherry Lee Director, Creative Experiences
Soo Mei Goh Principal, Integration (Media)
Zachary Low Director, Creative Experiences
Jonn Dogra Director, Creative Experiences
Min Tze Lim Director, Experiential Innovation
Graham Williams Principal, Extended Reality
Let’s tackle the main subject head-on: Marketing 4.0… PRASHANT: A lot of the industry 4.0 technologies such as AR/VR, Machine learning/AI, IOT and Blockchain, etc. are going to change everything. For starters, people are already living a great deal of their lives through media, so high quality anticipatory intelligence based on machine learning will help them pack so much more life in a given day. IOT is set to redefine customer value propositions via real time data
and personalisation. And Blockchain is set to pervade the basic infrastructure of living via distributed and automated controls and compliance mechanisms. What is Entropia doing about these shifts? PRASHANT: Over the last two years, we have launched service offerings into many of these areas, becoming the first industry 4.0 ready consultancy or agency in the country. Today, we have end-to-end services in the areas of
Extended Reality – the entire spectrum of AR and VR technologies with a full-fledged inhouse studio called EXR, and within the last year we have won more than a dozen clients in this area. Additionally, we have developed B2C IOT prototypes from scratch to help solve real world customer and client problems via our ‘Aladdin’ offering – developing proprietary frameworks and mapping opportunities for our clients. Our ambition in the next three years is to take industry 4.0 capabilities to 80% of our
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Pavan Kharbanda Partner, Finance & Investments
The Extended Reality Spectrum of Immersiveness
Taher Chhabrawala Principal, Technology
Samantha Tay Principal, Integration
John Woo Director, Experience Design
client base and integrate it into their intrinsic marketing thinking as a great strategic opportunity that can more than pay for itself. RAMA, how will Extended Reality change people’s experiences? Extended Reality or XR is the umbrella term for all the technologies that enhance the human immersion into a synthetic reality using their senses. In this vast spectrum between ‘Reality’ and ‘Virtuality’, there are three prominent areas
– AR, MR, and VR. Augmented Reality (AR) is the constructive augmentation of virtual onto the real world; Mixed Reality (MR) is the additive meshing of real and virtual, where there is an exchange of interaction or influence with each other, and finally; Virtual Reality (VR) is the destructive of the real world transporting the user to an entirely virtual space. The impact of XR can be seen with the use of filters and face recognition apps that are increasing in popularity due to the sheer seamlessness of the experience. We foresee that XR will impact every sector like entertainment, health, tourism, property, education, sports, marketing & advertising, and more. COVID-19 has accelerated the pace of adoption due to the sheer need for virtual solutions. How do you see Extended Reality bringing competitive advantage to brands? RAMA: XR can do so across the marketing funnel, right from Discovery, Interest, Engagement, and finally, Transaction. And at EXR, we offer a full stack of XR strategic solutions right across the marketing value chain. We also work on XR applications beyond marketing, especially in areas of training and education, where we have seen tremendous interest. For example, a real estate developer may want to showcase what the balcony view from the 30th floor of their new project would look like in 2022. They can show this to their prospective customer via a VR headset in their showroom, or use webAR to engage with customers who are not able to come to the gallery. At present EXR is already working with clients across Telco, Packaging, Automotive, FMCG, Beverages, Manufacturing, Aerospace, Real Estate, and many other industries are joining the spectrum.
What have you been up to recently? RAMA: We recently converted everyone’s living room into a virtual BMW showroom, so consumers can explore the BMW X5 xDrive45e M Sport at any time and any place; we also held a celebrity-filled Augmented Reality Raya concert for Goodday Milk in response to the MCO and conceived WONDA’s Gap-puccino – a safe social distancing utility for consumers - using webAR technology, all without the need of downloading an app. Also, we converted the entire history of the UMW group into a virtual interactive museum that can be experienced in their offices and roadshows, serving as a training, recruitment, and equity builder for the Group. Our earlier work also includes an immersive and fully interactive VR experience for UMW and Rolls Royce called Soar Into the Sky, where users could step into the RollsRoyce part manufacturing plant; and an AR eye health test for Alcon’s Systane eyedrops brand – bringing a traditionally offline test to an AR filter based test. SOURABH, What is the difference between Data Science, Machine learning, and AI? How will it change organisations? Data Science is about drawing INSIGHTS from data that can help an organisation make better and informed decisions. Today, the availability of huge volumes of data allows brands to personalise customer experiences, delivering relevant products, mitigating risk and fraud, etc. And using predictive analytics lets you identify hidden patterns in data that you didn’t even know existed. You may be wondering why so many Data Science applications sound like AI applications. Well, this is because Data Science overlaps the field of AI in many areas. The concept of AI has been around since antiquity. The layout of modern AI, however, was constructed by classical philosophers who
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tried to describe human thinking/intelligence as a symbolic system. Thus, AI is the ability of machines to understand/interpret data, learn from data, and make ‘intelligent’ decisions based on insights and patterns drawn from data. Machine learning is a subset of AI; and also used in scenarios where you need machines to learn from huge volumes of data. Datafication and digitalisation are the catalysts for the future of work. In the workplace, AI will continue to benefit higher-skilled workers with a greater degree of flexibility, creativity, and strong problem-solving skills, and AI-powered robots could increasingly displace highly-educated and skilled professionals, such as doctors, architects, and even computer programmers. And how do Machine learning, big data and AI bringing competitive advantage to Marketing and CX? SOURABH: With so much data being fed back to marketers, we are soon reaching a pivotal moment, where tailoring the customer experience to the interests of the individual customer, will be achievable. In the past, doing this with accuracy and to scale has been limiting. But AI is now making it possible. Content, message, tone of voice and visual expression can be adapted to the tastes of the individual. Another shift taking place is the access to the consumer. So far, we’ve enjoyed a fairly direct path to the consumer through retail, online and mobile. But the growing use of virtual assistants will place a formidable barrier between marketers and their customers. We’re now using Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant to search our options, instead of going directly to the brand at source. Consciously or not, we’re bypassing the opportunity to be immersed in the brand experience. How will brands reach the customer when Siri stands in the way? Consider if you will, a typical transaction. Somebody is swiping through their Instagram feed, and they see a product they like. Weirdly, it’s something they were just looking at the day before. Perhaps unbeknown to them, they’ve just been targeted by a brand using AI, to analyse search habits and expose potential customers.
Continuing with the customer, they place an order activating a whole sequence of logistical events. The smart factory picks the product, it’s dispatched to the delivery company guided by geospatial data. In the meantime, the customer receives a reply in the blink of an eye, reassuring them when they can expect their purchase. Take the experience one step further. The customer received the product, but it was faulty. So, they go to the vendor’s site, where instead of interacting with another person, a chatbot processes their request. Through machine learning, a response is provided to answer the customer accurately and far quicker than a human could. Any examples? SOURABH: We have deployed our proprietary customer journey mapping tool - ELON for one of the growing F&B clients, collecting data across online orders, call center, instore WIFI, contests, social media listening and creating a unique customer profile and clusters based on behaviours, taste graph and motivations. An AI-led prediction engine is helping us predict not just the sales and channel preferences for future orders, but also manpower gaps for delivery business based on historical data. We are using another proprietary predictive tool, Prescient, for one of the largest beverage delivery startups in Malaysia, utilising location data to optimise delivery footprints, and simulations in media allocations to drive marketing effectiveness and ROI. We also do churn prediction, smart bundling and correlative targeting based on past transaction data. Beyond tools and platforms, we apply custom solutions. We have built in an AI led emotional intelligence platform for the largest P2P parenting portal in Malaysia (owned by a dairy brand). It listens to social conversations, engagements with utilities and predicts the mums’ needs and the life stage for which a custom offer is designed and served. It has resulted in increasing product lead to conversion (buying) by +68%. TAHER, What is the Internet of Things for B2C world like? As the digital world is increasingly converging with the physical world, today’s consumer
journeys are not a straight line. They are multichannel, and consist of digital, as well as physical ‘things’ connected through sensors and data to other objects via the internet. Business to consumer (B2C) IoT is essentially about connecting with the consumer through smart devices and gadgets; learning about consumer habits at an intimate level and using this data for a better customer experience. IoT is the gold mine of data for marketers because of its ability to silently and unobtrusively collect complex behavioural data. Consider the types of IoT-enabled devices that will increasingly be utilised by the general consumer: coffee makers, thermostats, home automation systems, and wearable devices like smart watches are just a few. How will IoT help brands? TAHER: IoT can be leveraged in every stage of the brand experience, including brand awareness, insight, contextual relevance, satisfaction, efficiency, loyalty, innovation and conversion. It brings competitive advantage because it improves the customer experience and helps retain customers by getting them locked into the product ecosystem. We have been working on developing HolyTruth – an IoT-enabled feedback terminal which brands can use to collect customer feedback right at the point of experience. It has inbuilt WIFI connectivity and comes with a mobile app to monitor the feedback and gather insights in real time. Also, we are working on IoT-enabled merchandising, which has touch sensors that help consumers share the feeling of touch with their loved ones who are away from home. PRASHANT, how has Entropia fared with the COVID-19 lockdown? I would sum up our fare as ‘blessed’. We had our own share of budget cuts and spending holdbacks, but overall, we are grateful to have been spared the worst. Before the lockdown was announced, we already started working from home. We honoured all our signed-up recruits; repurposed unutilised capacity; and continued to invest in futuristic areas. In the five
... The quantum leap in the processing power of mobile phones and the mass availability of them, has made the deployment of such experiences more cost-effective than ever before...
RAMA COMMUNICATION & EXTENDED REALITY ENTROPIA
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TAHER TECHNOLOGY ENTROPIA
...As in the early days of social media, companies that embraced the technology head on will fare far better than those who dismiss it as a mere fad...
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...Datafication and digitalisation are the catalysts for the future of work. Organisations will need to plan and make workplaces, processes and products smarter...
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lockdown months, we’ve added 32 new people and we keep adding. We rolled back much of the pay cuts after a month, as we sensed the crisis bottoming out. We also created an Entropia Empathy Fund, where Entropia matched staff contributions ringgit to ringgit. At the end of it, we helped eight NGOs who were supporting the frontliners in their everyday battles. How has COVID changed the industry? PRASHANT: In some very important ways. Between November 2019 and June 2020, we launched three new services – EXR, Empathy and Medici. EXR – our Extended Reality services offering moved in to help clients create inspiring virtual experiences, since physical engagements were not possible. Empathy, our sustainability consultancy offering, is helping large corporations discover their ‘brand ikigai’ – what helps them stay relevant in a purpose-driven world, where more and more people expect brands to engender a genuine and meaningful relationship with the society and the planet. Last but not the least, Medici, our end-to-end eCommerce offering is helping clients accelerate their eCommerce play. It is this understanding of new age communication that has helped us win 24 new clients in the last six months, including Tenaga Nasional, Telekom Malaysia, Proton, UEM, Bank Negara, Sime Darby and PepsiCo, among others.
SOURABH CX & COMMERCE ENTROPIA
How do you frame your competition? PRASHANT: Good competition makes us better. So, at Entropia we truly respect competition and those few times when we don’t win, we introspect with integrity and brutal candour, as to what we could have done better, instead of denying the quality they may have brought to the table. Also, the truth is, the real competition for the industry today is the future. And we are all in it together. Global networks are becoming less important, with several of them folding up in Malaysia or moving from ownership to affiliate status, as more and more clients are smart enough to place a premium on real value, rather than impressive global scale. If there is one thing we have learnt is that there are no shortcuts. Irrational excuses, gossiping, bitching about, ganging up, smear campaigns, and all such cynical acts are nothing but silly distractions from the real business of getting better. Bomohs don’t work, brains do.
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EXTENDED REALITY (EXR) CASE STUDIES
ENTROPIA EXTENDED REA recognition embedded, we were able to track head, facial and eye movement, and simultaneously discovered a way to track if a user blinks, and for how long they could hold their stare before blinking. The filter mimics the science of a physical eye test where the idea is to avoid blinking for 15 seconds while staring into your smartphone screen. And if you blink, you lose, and Systane will provide a simple diagnosis. A pop-up then appears, showing the result of the test. This was efficient for us as this smart eye test cost less than 1/3 of the cost of a conventional offline test. We reached 89% of our 6.5 million target audience in less than 30 days, and beat our last best sales record. We also achieved a PR value of RM1.3million. XR SHOWROOM BMW - Showroom at Home Consumers were stuck at home for months due to the lockdown, and weren’t able to visit showrooms, which made it near impossible for automotive brands to launch a car. So we decided to bring the BMW X5 Plug-In Hybrid to consumers’ homes via a state-of-the-art Digital Showroom that would allow prospective customers to experience the car on their smartphones via Augmented Reality (AR). This immersive experience was made possible through cutting-edge web-based Augmented Reality technology – all without the use of a specific mobile application. We wanted to take this opportunity to create buzz and massive PR on the launch, to be the talk of town, and for various industry leaders from technology to automotive - to cover this unparalleled story. To further enhance the user journey and experience, the WebAR is equipped with a dropdown menu where users can visit BMW’s website to book a test drive or even a car right away. By using Web-based AR, car dealerships can use their first party data to instantaneously share the WebAR URL link with their potential prospects who were still uncomfortable or wary of visiting their dealership showrooms. The buzz for the AR Showroom surpassed the estimated earned media value at more than RM1,500,000, enabling BMW to exceed their goals for this launch.
XR HEALTH Systane - First AR Filter Eye Test in the world Imagine staring into your mobile phone – to test your eyes! That’s exactly what global eye care brand, Alcon, asked consumers to do for their Systane brand. As the largest eye care brand in Malaysia, Systane has long tried to diagnose Malaysians with dry eyes through opticians’ recommendation and at on-trade pharmacies like Watson, Guardian, etc. So we tested consumers’ eyes for dryness through an Eyedration Augmented Reality (AR) Test. As each of the Facebook & Instagram Stories filters have the capability of facial
XR MUSEUM UMW Galeriku – Museum Like No Other In 2006, UMW Group established a physical museum in Malaysia to showcase the company’s corporate heritage, history, progress and growth – from its humble beginnings in 1917, to its present-day status as an international, public-listed conglomerate with global interests. In 2019, the company’s decision to discontinue the physical gallery, and to relocate the exhibition to a digital home, sparked the search for a solution to keep their 100-year heritage alive. UMW joined forces with EXR to create - The UMW Galeriku VR museum - a fully interactive and immersive experience. From the moment you put on the VR headset, the simulated experience evokes a sense of immense nostalgia as you immerse yourself in the group’s most significant moments and interact with some of the founder, Mr Chia Yee Soh’s favourite items: books, an antique typewriter, radio set, a clock, and a globe to show UMW’s key plant areas. The experience also features a coffee table book on the wooden table, featuring the first Toyota Corolla KE 10 assembled by UMW in 1968; the Perodua Kancil 1993; as well as the first Komatsu bulldozer, which was part of UMW’s distribution in 1965. The entire interactive VR experience takes 20 minutes to fully explore and is a permanent fixture in the Group’s headquarters and available for all their stakeholder engagements around the world. XR UTILITY WONDA - Gap-puccino social distancing COVID-19 has made everyone aware of social distancing, however, the majority of people do not have an intuitive sense to judge physical distances of 1m or 6ft. EXR and WONDA’s Gap-puccino is a first-ever social distancing guide that helps users keep a safe social gap using webAR. Coffee brings people together, but WONDA Gap-puccino encourages Malaysians to keep a safe physical distance via a visual guide using their phone camera. For best results, users
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ALITY (EXR) CASE STUDIES
were prompted to use the tool while standing with the phone camera pointed down to the floor at an angle of approximately 45 degrees. Easy to comprehend, WONDA’s Gap-puccino highlights areas around the user as either ‘caution’ or ‘danger’ as indicators for measuring safe distance between people. Users simply have to open the link on their smartphone browser to use the utility. This was a path-breaking innovation loved by people, who frequently shared their own experiences of using the tool, thus spreading the word and sparking interest in other users.
XR ENTERTAINMENT Goodday Milk - Selamat Selebraya Amid the lockdown this year, it would be an understatement to say that people have had a drastic shift in their perception of reality. Anticipating the consumer need for safe entertainment and physical distancing during Hari Raya in Malaysia, EXR partnered with milk brand, Goodday Milk to launch the first-ever web-based Augmented Reality (webAR) celebrity home visits to celebrate the occasion. Goodday’s ‘Selamat Selebraya’ allowed consumers to teleport three top celebrities virtually into their home, by just clicking a link on their mobile. With this innovation, this year, Malaysians got a unique opportunity to celebrate Raya with singer Andi Bernadee, Mark Adam, and artist Elfira Loy right in their own houses. Better yet, users could walk around the celebrity, take pictures, make the celebrity perform a song, and personally receive a Raya wish for them and their family, all without the need of downloading an app. This extraordinary feat was achieved through cutting-edge web-based Augmented Reality technology without the use of an App, 3D volumetric capture and character modelling. More than 10million Malaysians were reached through this campaign, and it is still the talk of the town.
XR EDUCATION UMW Aerospace – Soaring into the sky In 2015, UMW Aerospace signed a 25-year contract with Rolls-Royce, worth RM830 million, attaining the prestigious title of the first and only Malaysian Tier-1 supplier of the Trent 1000 fan cases and Trent 7000 engines. Whilst UMW builds its stature as a pivotal nerve centre in providing technical know-how and transfer technology, they knew they had a more important task at hand - to nurture and empower the next generation. UMW custom-created an immersive and fully-interactive Virtual Reality experience called Soar Into the Sky. Through the experience, users can step into their Rolls-Royce manufacturing plant to experience the incredible production process of the Trent 1000 fan case. Equipped with the Oculus VR headset, children can interact with, assemble, and learn about the parts and processes through 3D animations, and with the help of ‘W’, our AI navigator. A linear, non-interactive, 360° version was also created. It can be viewed through YouTube, by simply inserting a smartphone into a VR headset/cardboard. To bring this magical VR experience to people, UMW launched it at a flagship event, in collaboration with Amanah Saham Nasional Berhad, with 150,000 visitors this year. We also distributed more than 1,500 VR headsets to Malaysian school children, so they can experience and be inspired to Soar into the Sky.
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DATA SCIENCE, MACHINE LEARNING, AI CASE STUDIES
Nippon Paint First eCommerce one-stop online paint shop in Malaysia In June 2020, Entropia launched Medici – an end-to-end eCommerce offering for brands, distributors and retailers across the region, combining strategic, technological, and operational support to accelerate their eCommerce play. As consumers in Malaysia are becoming more reliant on eCommerce platforms, Nippon Paint responded to this shift by officially launching its e-store, the first eCommerce one-stop online shop for painting needs within the coatings industry in Malaysia. The e-store comprises of a comprehensive range of painting tools, supplies, and advisory guides for the customer’s convenience. From paint category selection, colour selection, as well as painting tools, the e-store offers a step-by-step guide for customers. Nippon Paint also flaunts an AI led colour recommendation engine which allows you to connect Facebook and uses your social data to recommend colour inspiration for your home and office spaces. Aimed at providing consumers with a seamless experience journey, the e-store is a “virtual hub” for dealers to serve and engage with customers in the digital space. Utilising Medici, Nippon Paint set up the store from start to finish in just two weeks, with overall sustained WoW increase in metrics like user growth; page views; through traffic; e-com conversion rate; and return users.
Fonterra Brands Connected Mums Club Fonterra Malaysia created Connected Mums Club (CMC) with the vision to ‘Support mums to be the best they can be’. But the growing churn base was alarming and raised questions about the community’s existence. Most mums would join the CMC community during pregnancy, but once they gave birth, they would get busy with their baby and seldom came back to CMC. Plus the biggest challenge was Malaysia’s legal policies on – “no direct brand communication to mums from the time child is born until one year”. Our idea was to move away from just an emotional approach to evolve as a true lifestyle partner and create something more rewarding. We created Heart Points: the more you love CMC, the more we love you back - a program uniquely crafted for Connected Mums Club members. By understanding the underpinning gaps, we planned to leverage on one sentiment that remains intact and is invulnerable to swings of change: rewards. Using existing CRM data to segment mums and activating these, we created awareness around the newly-launched rewards program. To build momentum and drive engagement, we created a weekly game for our online fans: to celebrate CMC members, talk about the Heart Points rewards, and boost usage. The Heart Points rewards translated into real business results.
Fonterra Brands Malaysia’s First Live Chat Nutritionist Mums are always on the lookout for answers and solutions specific to their pregnancy needs, and these needs evolve with what the baby wants. So, our idea was to get a 24/7 live chat nutritionist to support mums’ lifestyle needs and answer any queries they might have, to deliver “money can’t buy” experiences. We used a layered combination of tech-forward solutions to drive a true omnichannel ecosystem: 1. Coupling our Emotion AI-enabled chatbot - ADAM that could understand individual mums’ life-stages and needs based on interactions in the community and have hyper-personalised conversations. 2. WhatsApp for business to reconnect with mums on a personal level and understand affinities with the community. 3. A new rewards program meant to drive higher engagement within the community and allowing mums to redeem attractive merchandise. 4. Tied behavioural intelligence and data using Salesforce to craft and deliver personalised communication for mums. 5. Social media channels to amplify these tools and create trust and awareness.
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... Our idea was to move away from just an emotional approach to evolve as a true lifestyle partner and create something more rewarding. We created Heart Points: the more you love CMC, the more we love you back - a program uniquely crafted for Connected Mums Club members...
Heineken Personalising every pint of beer Heineken Malaysia currently sells many different styles of beers
in Malaysia, but the bigger question was, how can they make the Heineken experience so contextual and personal that consumers are just left awestruck? We created a data engine that could capture everything about the consumer and marry this data with creative campaigns, Heineken offers, offline event experiences, and more. This data ecosystem for Heineken: 1. Gives a 360 view of the consumer and their activities 2. Helps identify unique audience segments for personalisation 3. Enables enriched insights and data modelling 4. Enables offline to online consumer mapping to deliver an omnichannel experience Entropia’s proprietary CDP tool, Elon sits at the core of building this taste graph of every beer drinker - an omnichannel customer journey mapping platform. Elon helped Heineken to integrate the data footprint across campaigns, customer relationship management (CRM), website, eCommerce, customer service, events and offline activations. Using data-driven improvements and AI augmentation in its operations, marketing, advertising and customer experience, Heineken can now create hyper-personalised and event-driven marketing experiences. As a result, we could identify consumers who have affinities to specific styles of beer within the Malaysian landscape, we grew our database, and increased media efficiency within the campaign period.
With the help of the live chat nutritionist chat data, we were able to understand the endless possibilities of using emotional intelligence This resulted in higher page engagement on the website; and an increase in overall sample requests. Thousands of mums initiated a conversation with the live chat nutritionist, and rated us highly for response quality.
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COVER STORY PEOPLE
How to win post-pandemic war for talent Dan Pontefract
... When we don’t recognize the effort, we ignore an employee’s value... Coming soon to a socially distanced office near you, a new battleground will emerge: the “post-pandemic war for talent.” And it could get ugly. The pandemic is certain to take us well into 2021. If leaders act now, they just might retain their talent and fend off any poaching or, worse, employee fleeing. Here are five ways they can instil a little more care into their leadership style and stave off the potential for that post-pandemic war for talent. Chat About Norm A leader will set up a private chat with each of their team members to discuss a series of norms that likely have never been discussed, let alone created. For example, does the team member have a preferred communication style? Would they rather not receive texts from the boss? Having a chat about “norm” means you care enough to inquire about their preferred working style.
Ask For Help Instead of trying to solve every problem that comes your way on your own, request assistance from the team. Your vulnerability is an act of caring. Who might help you with the problem?
No answers are required. Just listen and let them unload.
If something has gone sideways, who from the team can help you get things back on track?
Recognise Their Efforts Sending a templated thank-you card on a service anniversary is not the type of recognition that really means anything these days. How about offering kudos at the next team meeting?
When you ask for help, you immediately offer up a trust bond. The more trust bonds, the more likely the employee wants to stick around.
Why not send a private text or DM, acknowledging something that they’ve completed or done well? Randomly call them up just to say, “great job.”
Establish 10-Minute Listening Sessions Listen. Leaders don’t do enough of it. Team members crave contact time with the boss, but it’s even more impactful if you’re just there to listen. Once a week, set up a 10-minute listening session with all of your team members. Let them riff on whatever it is that is irksome.
When we don’t recognize the effort, we ignore an employee’s value.
Dan Pontefract, former Chief Envisioner at Telus, is a leadership strategist and the author of Lead. Care. Win. How to Become a Leader Who Matters. Pix courtesy of www.123RF.com
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“Donald Trump paid no federal income taxes in 11 of 18 years. In 2017, after he became president, his tax bill was only USD750.”
Based on tax-return data obtained by The New York Times
“We need our advertising to appear in a trusted medium. If we appear in a medium that is not trusted, consumers aren’t going to trust our message.” Micaela Lopez Parma - Regional Media Lead for Colgate-Palmolive commenting in KANTAR’s Media Reactions report 2020 about a world growing cynical of platforms by the day.
“The skirt goes until the knees, I can see the knees, how can this dress be allowed?” The highly quotable Dato’ Sri Bung Moktar Radin, complaining about Seputeh MP Teresa Kok’s ‘indecent’ red dressing in Parliament in 2014. He is and now one of three Deputy Chief Ministers of Sabah.
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Malaysian Media Conference now on Oct 23 as industry catches breath
“Having been a digital marketer for a decade, I put myself in a business owner’s shoes and just can’t imagine running my online marketplace without getting critical information about my storefront performance and how it stacks against competitors.”
Denstu Aegis Network brings marketplace technology to Malaysia
Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN), as part of driving its Digital Society Agenda which champions inclusivity, trust and sustainability, has gone Live in Malaysia with an amazing solution for leveling the playing field across online marketplaces. The proprietary data-driven optimisation software for Lazada and Shopee sellers called d-Commerce Metrix comes at a time when the rapid scaling of marketplaces has led to a surge in competition amongst brands and SMEs. Sudhansh Jadon, Head of Digital spearheading e-commerce initiatives says, “With more than five million sellers getting more than 440 million orders every year, marketplaces have evolved as the new normal; this trend is here to stay. D-Commerce Metrix gives brands and sellers the only real datadriven opportunity to stand out in the crowd and optimise store performance to provide unique experiences to their customers.” Andrew Turner (picture), Chief Business Officer and Founder of DAN’s Marketplace X, adds: “Having been a digital marketer for a decade, I put myself in a business owner’s shoes and just can’t imagine running my online marketplace without getting critical information about my storefront performance and how it stacks against competitors.”
The annual Malaysian Media Conference, or MMC, is now on October 23 as the industry scrambles to find its footing since the announcement of the Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO) extension last month. The landmark event is now in its 14th year and serves as a check-point for industry professionals to come up to speed on what’s the state of the nation when to comes to all things media in marketing communications. “We are all off to staggered starts since RMCO and felt I that we should give more time for the industry to settle down, and decided to push the event by another month,” comments Prof Harmandar Singh aka Ham who, with MARKETING magazine, has been organising this event for almost one and half decades. “The registration fees are 100% HRDFClaimable and it is the only event of its kind in our industry,” says Ham, who spends most his waking hours tirelessly publishing the WEEKENDER which enlightens the industry for free every Friday. The full-day Conference on October 23 showcases 20 speakers and panelists and will be held at the Sime Darby Convention, which adheres to the highest COVID-19 protocol standards*. Please register here, https:// marketingmagazine.com.my/event/malaysianmedia-conference-2020/ * Ham himself is an ExCo member of MERCY Malaysia and has been active since the virus hit Malaysia in late January. “Permit me to thank some truly amazing companies and individuals from our industry who stepped up to support us in our fight against COVID-19. You know who you are, and you have my utmost respect,” adds Ham. Pic courtesy of 123RF
Visual Retale champions leaders
Visual Retale, Malaysia’s specialist digital out-of-home (DOOH) media owner launched its #CELEBRATINGMALAYSIA campaign in conjunction with Malaysia Day. #CELEBRATINGMALAYSIA featured personal messages from Malaysian leaders, displayed across its billboards within the Klang Valley throughout the month of September. Sailendra Kanagasundram (Sai), Chief Executive Officer of Visual Retale told MARKETING, “The devastating impact of COVID-19 continues to be felt across the globe and we are thankful to all parties who have played a role to support the containment. From our healthcare officials who have demonstrated world-class care in facing this pandemic, to the government whose initiatives include financial aid where possible and all frontliners who have worked tirelessly through the Movement Control Order (MCO).” The campaign was also supported by prominent media industry players such as Co-founder of Ampersand Sandeep Joseph, CEO of GroupM Chanchal Chakrabarty, CEO of Mediabrands Bala Pomaleh, CEO of PHD Media Eileen Ooi, CEO of Publicis Group Tan Kien Eng, and CEO of Trapper Media Group Sivanathan Krishnan.
“We are all off to staggered starts since RMCO and felt I that we should give more time for the industry to settle down, and decided to push the event by another month,”
Hair-raising blunder by Unilever
South Africa’s biggest retailers will no longer sell TRESemmé hair products, following protests over an advert that denigrated black hair. Pictures of African hair were labelled “frizzy and dull”, “dry and damaged” in an online advert for TRESemmé products featured by pharmacy
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chain Clicks. White hair, meanwhile, was labelled “normal” and “fine and flat”. Clicks has removed TRESemmé products, a Unilever brand, from its shelves after an advertisement posted on the drug retailer’s website was accused of being racist. Chief executive of Clicks, Vikesh Ramsunder apologised, adding that an audit of all promotional material is being “urgently implemented” as well as diversity and inclusivity training. Protesters in South Africa have mobbed Clicks beauty stores after it ran the ad. One shop sustained minor damage after being firebombed, police said.
Studio DL joins REXKL to showcase students’ work
The “Tengok Betul Betul, dari KL ke Amerika” exhibition is on from October 3-18 at the First Floor Foyer of REXKL. The exhibition features black-andwhite photographs from 8 Studio DL Photography Workshop Foundation students. This is a project by David Lok, one of Malaysia’s most accomplished photographers, of Sepet fame, who established Studio DL a commercial photography studio, and Lim Sok Lin, a senior photographer in Studio DL in their effort to give back to the society. This year, Lok and Lim’s passion for education and community work culminated in the launch of the Studio DL Photography Workshop. The 12week foundation-level class titled “Introduction to Photography: the essential foundation” commenced in March at REXKL and is the first of Studio DL’s three-level courses open to the public. Their very first graduated class in July comprised of people from all walks of life coming together to explore photography for the first time, including two scholarship-holders, one from Pure Life Society (a home for orphans and underprivileged children) and another student from Dignity for Children Foundation (an NGO that provides education to the urban poor and migrant children) respectively. The exhibition marks the culmination of 8 students’ journeys in the Introduction to Photography course.
Facebook lawan towkay
The Prime Minister of Australia has shot back at Facebook for threatening to shut off news on its platforms in Australia, in a retaliatory attack on a new regulatory code that would force it and Google to pay publishers for content. He compared Facebook’s threats with the move by Amazon to block Australians from its US store in response to the government’s decision in 2018 to
charge GST for international online purchases. He reminded Facebook, “I remember Amazon said to me: ‘Well, we’re not going to pay this tax’ when it comes to the low value threshold. They threatened to pull Amazon, and they did, and they were back three months later.” The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) unveiled the draft code in July, which proposes to make global tech giants pay news media for content through an arbitrative model. It will also force the companies to give media organisations advance notice of algorithm changes. Failure to comply could result in the tech giants paying up to 10% of local revenue in fines in addition to payment of publishers for content. Legislation enabling the code is due to go before Parliament by December. Picture credit: Gangster Paradise App
MAA has also elected new council members from CIMB Bank, Heineken Malaysia, Nestle Products, Nippon Paint Malaysia, Mondelez Malaysia Sales, Tune Group, Procter and Gamble, Digi Telecommunications and Unilever Malaysia. MAA was established in 1964 as the voice of Malaysian advertisers dedicated to marketing and brand-building representing 70 major advertisers with a collective ad spend of about RM5 billion.
Tourist arrivals drop 68.2% in first 6 months MAA re-elects Kadri
The Malaysian Advertisers Association’s (MAA) Annual General Meeting was held recently and the association has re-elected its President and Vice President, Mohamed Kadri Mohamed Taib and Claudian Navin Stanislaus respectively. Kadri who is also the vice-chairman of the Advertising Standards Advisory (ASA), is the Public Affairs and Communications Director of Coca-Cola Malaysia. With over three decades of experience, Kadri is considered an industry veteran. According to Kadri (picture), Coca-Cola Malaysia’s Director of Public Affairs and Communications, one of the key areas the association will be focusing on is enhancing government stakeholders’ perception of MAA. Navin (picture) is the Head of Advertising and promotions of Baba’s.
Malaysia registered 4,252,997 tourist arrivals in the first half of 2020, marking a decrease of 68.2% compared to the same period in 2019. Last year, Malaysia received over 13.3 million tourist arrivals from January until June. For the first six months of 2020, the tourist expenditure recorded a total of RM12.5 billion, a decrease of 69.8% compared to RM41.6 billion received for the same period last year. In terms of the number of excursionists, or the daily visitors to the country, Malaysia recorded a total of 1,712,140 arrivals from January to June 2020, a decrease of 64.2% compared to 4,782,587 excursionists who visited Malaysia in the same period last year. According to the data from the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), neighbouring ASEAN countries including Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam and Indonesia recorded similar decrease due to the ban on international travel imposed to combat the pandemic in the respective countries.
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In selected TCRS outlets they secretly recorded customers’ reactions. The footage was then pieced together to create a share-worthy Merdeka video, which was released on TCRS’ social media channels . June Song, marketing manager for The Chicken Rice Shop, comments, “Entropia came up with a brutally simple idea to showcase the love we have for our country.”
How to get millions of views with zero media spend.
Despite having no media spend or marketing budget allocated for a Merdeka Day campaign this year, Entropia and The Chicken Rice Shop (TCRS) conceptualised and executed an on-ground activation for the chain which went viral. The video shows, in every outlet where the anthem was played, staff stopped serving customers and even shoppers outside of TCRS stood to attention as every single person observed the national symbol with pride. Within a few days, the campaign amassed a whopping 4.2million organic views, and 690k engagements across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and Whatsapp.
Leo Burnett’s #Fight4OurPlanet campaign
Leo Burnett launched an environmental campaign, #Fight4OurPlanet, in partnership with National Patriots Association, National Monument, Nature Education Society (NEST) and the Free Tree Society. The campaign supports the Malaysian government’s pledge to plant 100 million trees by 2025.
... We need to come together and work towards bringing about a momentous change. So, let’s embark on making #Fight4OurPlanet a global campaign that would make a difference... Tan Kien Eng
Tan Kien Eng (picture), CEO of Leo Burnett Malaysia, says, “Our planet is experiencing severe climate and ecological emergency with irreversible and catastrophic damage. We need to come together and work towards bringing about a momentous change. So, let’s embark on making #Fight4OurPlanet a global campaign that would make a difference. By doing so, we can help regain mother earth’s glory for a better tomorrow.” A social media challenge related to the campaign saw 25 famous influencers, who believed in the cause, pledge their support to plant a tree. Iska Hashim, Executive Creative Director, Leo Burnett Malaysia, shares, “The on-going social campaign is receiving tremendous support from Malaysians. We secured approximately 600+ followers on social media within two weeks of launch. Tertiary students from Universiti Malaya, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), USCI University and many more reputable college and universities in Malaysia are currently replicating the challenge.”
The campaign offers a visual interpretation of the sensation that accompanies eating KFC chicken. It allows viewers to imagine the sound a mouth makes when biting into it. Client: KFC Agency: Geometry Country: Argentina
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Unleashing Your Creative Kraken
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COVER CREATIVE STORY WAVE
by Szu H. Lee
Have you ever scratched for inspiration, hit a wall, and then lost all willpower to continue? You’re not the only one. Mental fogginess and apathy are plaguing creatives in all lines of work, but these counter-productive mental states ― of heightened anxiety and uncertainty ― don’t have to be institutionalised into our routine. Our clients demand agility. They want us to build more brand equity with less. They want more innovation to stand out against the clutter. The pressure is on; challenge accepted. I am of the firm belief that by applying lessons from interdisciplinary artists to the world of marketing, we can proactively take control of our mental superpowers and deliberately enjoy creative flow states. Think of Van Gogh’s Learning System One of the first things I learned managing a diverse team is that everyone may experience the same anxiety, but each has a unique learning system that snaps him/her out of it. The trick is to remember that Van Gogh saw natural turbulence in stars where no one else did. My job as Creative Officer isn’t to prescribe some vision of valhalla that I want, but to draw out
the superpowers of my creative team. I’d recognise those superpowers and give them all the space in the world to breathe. And then look for and nurture secondary ‘superpowers’ that they didn’t even know they possessed. Form Creative Habits Like Twyla Tharp The hardest thing to manage in this industry is the assault on the senses. Multiple digital devices going off. Ad hoc problems. Organisational emails. Social media alerts. Add to that a barrage of Covid-19 news. Amidst that noise, we need to be levelheaded perfectionists at our craft, from concept development to mood-boarding to execution of the final deliverables. Twyla Tharp, award winning choreographer, would underscore the importance of forming creative habits. She’s 78 years old and still working! I’ve learned to set hard boundaries and to protect time to be with my muse every day. Extending this to my team: scheduling brainstorm sessions, sound boarding ideas at the same time every day, makes our whole bodies more efficient at it.
Pay Attention like Michelangelo During the lockdown, everyone was so busy taking snapshots of Zoom meetings and posting TikTok dance videos. To me, if you’re busy getting attention, then you’re not paying attention. Michelangelo would never have seen a statue inside every block of stone ― never carved David ― if he had been posting selfies on Instagram. We’re living in an age of fragmented attention, and I always remind my colleagues to pay attention. It’s important to know what audiences are thinking. To put yourself in their shoes. To really listen to how branded messages land along the consumer’s journey. If consumers take the time to post reviews online, we, as creatives who put content out there, must pay attention to what they say. Learn to keep learning, like Terry Pratchett Even if we weren’t in an economic recession, we would still need to teach ourselves new things. We should all be auto-didacts like Terry Pratchett, who’s a genius. The kaizen spirit of constant learning is something my colleague Hwa Huang and I have always believed in and practiced. My team and I find repeatedly that learning new skills in one area ups our game in other areas. Someone who took improv theatre became spectacular at taking ideas and repurposing them into new campaign concepts. Beyond investing in our passions, learning harnesses the curiosity that drives us. Szu is Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Merdeka LHS and Dentsu LHS at Dentsu Aegis Network, the first global marketing services group built for the digital economy. Szu has worked with clients across Malaysia, acting as strategic brand consultant providing creative communications solutions.
OPEN FOR NOMINATIONS
CMO
AWARDS 2020 CLOSING DATE: 20 OCTOBER, 2020
OUR ESTEEMED JUDGES Chief Judge:
Advisor:
PROF. JOHN D CHACKO
GREG PAULL
President International Advertising Association (IAA) Malaysia
RENZO C VIEGAS
DATO SRI SHAZALLI RAMLY
Principal R3 Worldwide
KAREN CHAN
Founder and Executive Director Crescer Sdn Bhd
Founder Small Business Revenue Creation Consultant
Chief Executive Officer AirAsia.com
SURINA SHUKRI
MAY LIM
DATO’ WILLIAM NG
Chief Executive Officer Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC)
Managing Director, Asia The Arnott’s Group
President Enterprise Asia
MARKETINGMAGAZINE.COM.MY/CMO2020