Marketing Institute of Singapore | The Singapore Marketer (Jan - Mar 2019)

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REBRANDING SINGAPORE

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12 The Four Ages of Branding 15 Seizing the ASEAN Opportunity

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jan-mar’19

Editor’s Note

THE SINGAPORE MARKETER January - March 2019 Editor Gerry Gabriele Seah Sub-editor Sylvia Huang Contributing Writers Catherine Barr Randall, Interbrand, Jonathan Bernstein, Lynette Pang, Manfred Abraham MIS EXECUTIVE COUNCIL President Mr Roger Wang 2nd Vice President Dr Roger Low Honorary Secretary Ms Gerry Seah Honorary Treasurer Mr Ken Tay Asst Honorary Treasurer Mr Lee Kwok Weng Production, Advertising & Circulation Ivan Koh marketing@mis.org.sg Sylvia Huang author@mis.org.sg Design & Layout Kelvin Wang Cover Photo Kelvin Wang Publisher Marketing Institute of Singapore 51 Anson Centre #03-53 Singapore 079904 Tel: (65) 6327 7580 Fax: (65) 6327 9741 Email: singaporemarketer@mis.org.sg Website: www.mis.org.sg

Dear Readers, Welcome back to another issue of The Singapore Marketer (TSM). In this issue, we explore branding, an integral aspect of every organisation.

Beyond the vision and mission of a company, an organisation’s brand articulates purpose and provides focus for a business. It shapes the way the company behaves and relates to her stakeholders, regardless internal or external.

Seth Godin, renowned American author and marketer puts it simply: “A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.”

Consumers select brands based on resonance with their own personal values – where there is a match and shared values, you have a loyal customer and brand advocate.

While the definition of a brand has not changed, the landscape for branding has been radically transformed by social media and technology.

Content is king and consumers now crave unique brand experiences.

Social media allows consumers to communicate directly with brands, shifting from a traditional broadcast model, to a highly time sensitive two way communication model. Brand participation and collaboration has never been easier. However, marketers now have little control on what consumers say about their brands on social media. Thus, brands need to constantly redefine themselves to translate strong brand ideas into stories, tangible experiences, practices and values to inculcate brand loyalty. This requires collaboration and constant communication between internal and external stakeholders. Therefore, branding is no longer just the responsibility of the marketing department.

In this issue, we delve into ‘performance branding’ with BrandCap, an international brand consulting firm that has worked with global brands to apply creative brand thinking to solve business challenges, making an impact where it matters most.

In our cover story, we explore the world of nation branding as we speak to Lynette Pang, Assistant Chief Executive (Marketing) from Singapore Tourism Board, on how Singapore leveraged the movie, ‘Crazy Rich Asians’, to further its ‘’Passion Made Possible” global brand campaign.

Industry chat sees us talking to new online marketplace Upmrkt, on what it takes to build an online brand presence from scratch.

Happy reading!

Gerry Gabriele Seah

Editor

The Singapore Marketer is a quarterly magazine published by Marketing Institute of Singapore.

The views expressed in The Singapore Marketer do not necessarily represent those of the Marketing Institute of Singapore. No responsibility is accepted by the Institute or its staff for the accuracy of any statement, opinion, or advice contained in the text or advertisements, and readers are advised to rely on their judgment or enquiries, and to consult their own advisers in making any decisions which would affect their interest. All materials appearing in The Singapore Marketer is copyright. No part of the publication may be reproduced without prior written permission of the Marketing Institute of Singapore. The Marketing Institute of Singapore welcomes contributions and letters. These might be edited for clarity or length. Articles, letters and requests to reproduce articles appearing in The Singapore Marketer should be sent to the Editor, Marketing Institute of Singapore, 51 Anson Road, #03-53 Anson Centre, Singapore 079904 or write to singaporemarketer@mis.org.sg or marketing@mis.org.sg.

Content Page

04 COVER STORY Rebranding Singapore Crazy Rich Asians Movie Interview with STB

FOCUS 08 Performance Branding

LEARNING SITE 12 The Four Ages of Branding

GURU TALK 15

Seizing the ASEAN Opportunity

INDUSTRY CHAT

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Creating a new online marketplace: Upmrkt

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Rebranding Singapore

- Crazy Rich Asians Movie Interview with STB

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Cover Story

The Singapore Marketer speaks to Assistant Chief Executive, Lynette Pang, Singapore Tourism Board, to find out how Singapore has leveraged the Hollywood hit movie ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ to strengthen Singapore’s country brand, as well as increase awareness of Singapore has a destination.

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The brand encapsulates Singapore’s never-settling spirit of enterprise in making passions possible through grit and determination.

What is the brand identity STB is looking to shape for Singapore with this movie? What kind of associations does STB want to establish for Singapore through CRA? As part of STB’s marketing strategy, our destination marketing work involves a comprehensive suite of activities, ranging from marketing campaigns, media and content partnerships to strategic partnerships and journalist visit programmes. We are constantly on the lookout to leverage opportunities to drive destination awareness of Singapore, which also complement our new Passion Made Possible brand.

As Crazy Rich Asians is set in Singapore and showcases our destination in a way that celebrates our culture, food and attractions, we believe the movie can augment STB’s efforts. Beyond Singapore as a destination, due to the large Singapore-based cast and crew involved in the production, STB is also focusing our marketing messages around our home-grown talents and personalities, as they are a key anchor of our new Passion Made Possible brand.

The film shines a spotlight on our Singapore talents, and how they are making their passions possible on a global stage. Through them, we believe the story of Singapore, and how it is Passion Made Possible, can also be told.

While well received by Americans and critics, Singaporean critics have pointed out the lack of ethnic minorities, public housing, public transportation. Lavish parties and luxurious lifestyles depicted in the movie are quite removed from everyday life in Singapore – what does STB have to say about this?

Being fictional, the movie obviously does not reflect the whole of Singapore nor the lives of Singaporeans in general. With Singapore being prominently featured, we hope that the movie can pique the interest of viewers, especially in the North American markets. For many, it can serve as an introduction to Asia as well as Singapore, and it will hopefully intrigue them to discover more about us, as well as come away appreciating Singapore as a unique country with distinct energy, grit and soul. Many aspects featured in the film and book is great starting points for STB to reveal Singapore’s experiences and offerings to visitors.

For example: 12 local venues were featured in the movie. These include Newton Food Circus, Esplanade Park, Gardens By the Bay and Ann Siang Hill among many others. The movie pays homage to Singapore’s diverse foodie culture, showcasing hawker fare from Newton Food Centre as well as homemade Nyonya treats. Viewers will also be introduced to the quirky Ann Siang area with its array of restaurants, clubs, pubs and bars. The film also depicts Peranakan culture, including Peranakan snacks and outfits such as Nyonya kebayas.

Singapore designs were also on display in the movie, which featured brands and designers such as Aston Blake (sported by actor Jimmy O. Yang who plays Bernard Tai), Q Menswear (worn by Remy Hii who plays Alistair Cheng), and Lisa Von Tang (worn by various cast in Tyersall Park scene).

It is also important to note that the movie represents a truly “Madewith-Singapore” effort. In total, 12 Singapore-based cast members and 297 Singapore crew members were involved in the filming, including 20 interns and fresh graduates from Nanyang Technological University, LASALLE College of the Arts and Ngee Ann Polytechnic

Cover Story

The Soft Power Index, an annual study by branding firm Portland, ranked Singapore in 21st position among 30 countries in terms of soft power, down one spot from last year. The study highlighted Singapore’s strengths in enterprise, digital connectivity, while drawing attention to the areas of improvement – cultural offering, diplomatic footprint amongst many others. What other kinds of ‘’soft power assets’’ is STB looking to establish and strengthen for Singapore?

In August 2017, STB, together with the Singapore Economic Development Board, unveiled a unified brand Singapore – Passion Made Possible, to market Singapore internationally for tourism and business purposes. The brand encapsulates Singapore’s neversettling spirit of enterprise in making passions possible through grit and determination. The new brand has been well-received on both the domestic and international fronts, as well as by our travel trade stakeholders who found our storytelling approach, which focuses on sharing the stories of Singapore and their people, to be unconventional and refreshing.

With the Passion Made Possible brand, STB has taken an insideout approach by celebrating Singapore’s people, talent and stories, which forms a key aspect of our brand campaign. This year, we continue to bring the brand to life by celebrating Singapore’s people, talent and stories through marketing campaigns, consumer events and industry partnerships, across 16 key overseas markets. Our

campaign and marketing activities will feature around 80 Singapore personalities and talents, whose life stories embody Passion Made Possible. Passion Made Possible starts with Singaporeans but connects us with the world through its underlying concept. We believe it will help potential tourists and businesses think of Singapore as a preferred destination to visit and location to invest in, build affinity with them and in so doing, create more opportunities for Singaporeans to chase their dreams and succeed.

The movie depicts many of Singapore’s top tourist attractions, how has STB leveraged the movie to help with profiling Singapore as a tourist destination? What kind of social media and digital strategies have been used to support the movie feature?

We see Crazy Rich Asians as a natural opening to get the conversation going about Singapore and pique interest in visiting the country. However, to us, “Crazy Rich” should not just be about the opulence and luxury showcased in the film, but Singapore’s actual richness in terms of our diversity, as well as the depth and breadth of experiences for both locals and visitors.

Therefore, STB is working with Warner Bros and other partners on marketing initiatives to leverage the movie’s release in markets such as the United States, Australia, Japan and South-east Asia. Through these initiatives, we aim to bring out the true breadth and depth of what Singapore can offer, and what most visitors will get to see and experience.

For example, we have used the opportunity to create video content featuring the movie’s Singapore cast (Tan Kheng Hua, Janice Koh and Fiona Xie) to showcase the richness and depth of experiences that can be enjoyed in Singapore. These videos can be seen on our VisitSingapore website.

STB created social content to leverage the buzz about Crazy Rich Asians and Singapore around the world, especially in the U.S. We also created content based on spikes in conversation about hawker food / filming locations, to further highlight Singapore’s culture, food, nightlife and attractions.

On top of our initiatives, we are heartened that several tourism stakeholders have also leveraged the movie’s success to design their own innovative products such as Crazy Rich Asians-themed tours.

Some examples include: Local tour guide Phil Choo’s Crazy Rich Asians tour, which tracks down locations featured in the book and film. Wok ‘n’ Stroll’s Crazy Rich Asians – Behind the Scenes Food Tour, which treats participants to food, featured in the movie such as carrot cake and roti prata. Jane’s Singapore Tours also runs a Crazy Rich Asians tour which takes visitors to locations featured in the movie such as colonial-era bungalows, as well as areas like Bukit Pasoh and CHIJMES. Monster Day Tour’s ‘Crazy Rich Asians: Singapore in a Nutshell: Introductory City Tour’ takes visitors on a guided tour of some of the movie’s filming locations.

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PerfoRmance Branding The Singapore Marketer explores performance branding with Manfred Abraham, CEO of newly minted branding firm, BrandCap, to find out more on how to leverage brand thinking to solve practical business challenges.

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BrandCap is a performance branding specialist. What exactly is that?

Performance branding is about using creative brand thinking to solve business challenges and make an impact where it matters most. Too often, branding only influences the marketing strategies and initiatives of a business, failing to drive core areas like HR, product/ service development and innovation.

It also tends to focus on long-term strategies, without thinking of what can be done in the short-term to capitalise on market opportunities.

Performance branding is rooted in a commercial understanding of business, so we apply brand thinking where it delivers the best return.

Apple is a great example of this approach; it is driven by the powerful brand purpose of humanising technology. This purpose is woven into everything it does; from product and service (uncompromising, intuitive design), environments and operations (destination stores, Genius bar and Today at Apple), people and culture (Genius boot

camps, Apple University and EQ training) and its communications (light years ahead of the competition). As a result, it sweats its assets and spends a staggering $8 billion a year less on marketing than Samsung to achieve similar revenues. You do the maths!

What are some of the common pitfalls experienced by brands wanting to break into Asia?

A common mistake that we see repeatedly is ‘short-termism’. Often an organisation’s desire to move fast means that they fail to build a solid foundation to make growth focused and effective. Brand is viewed little more than a logo rather than a strategic lever to help shape the offer, customer experience and organisational culture.

A problem specific to brands looking to enter the market is their tendency to treat the region as if it is homogeneous. European brands would not be naïve enough to try and lump the UK and France together, but seem surprised when their brand fails to translate to a Singaporean audience having first

tailored it to Malaysia, or assuming that Hong Kong and Harbin are the same just because, on paper, they are in the same country.

Of course we are also in a great position to help Asian brands break into the West. This is an exciting proposition as we are seeing the appetite for Asian brands to grow in Europe and America. However, in order to be successful in these lucrative markets, it is crucial to leverage the brand in order to curate the right customer experience and offer.

Can you provide us with an example of how performance branding works?

Iconic Asian retailer Lane Crawford (Hong Kong) came to us with a simple question – “where can our brand take us?” In the context of a globalising luxury market, the established retail business was looking at strategically employing brand to propel them even further ahead of the crowd. We worked with a cross functional team to set a stretching vision and articulate a positioning that put brand at the

Focus

Manfred Abraham

CEO of BrandCap

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2019 will also be all about consumer control.

For instance for travel brands it is not about creating tailored packages around customer segments – it’s about enabling individual customers to create their own travel experience.

heart of their customer and partner experience. From there, we worked through the implications for their concurrent business planning process, identifying organisationalwide strategic objectives and the actions required to make them happen. They are already benefitting from this approach and performing extremely well as we continue to work with them on making their newly defined brand a reality throughout the business.

Property development is a booming sector at the moment. Does performance branding work for this too?

Absolutely! The property market was made for performance branding.

Property markets across the globe are facing up to the prospect of significant, structural change.

These range from increasing government regulation, technological disruption including the rise of online estate agents and shifting wealth demographics and foreign investment. All the while underpinned by ever more volatile geopolitical and economic outlooks.

Responding to these changes is proving tricky for many real estate businesses. However, there are opportunities in this market to better leverage brand to grow. In these uncertain times, renewing their brand strategy to focus on their customers is crucial – understanding

how they’ve evolved, their customer journey and overlaying a brandled customer service experience.

Tactically, this can help shorten purchase cycles, support secure repeat purchase, drive differentiation and, ultimately, justify price premiums. This is exactly how we helped property development firm, Base, when it had ambitions to scale rapidly in China and then other Asian markets. To achieve this, it needed a clear, compelling brand to align the newly formed team and set standards for design, experience and marketing.

Having identified a creatively minded audience as the core opportunity for the business, we developed a brand concept focused on bringing great design and an inclusive experience to Base’s local neighbourhoods. More than just spaces, Base’s purpose is to create hubs of vibrant life, places for living, socialising and working, that are a destination for international guests and locals alike. Each project is delivered in an industrial, pared back, yet warm design with subtle Chinese influences – a distinctive look in the market.

This approach also worked in the UK, where the property development market is somewhat flatter than it is in Asia. We worked with Landsec, one of the biggest property groups in the UK to create a new brand for their biggest retail outlet, Gunwharf Quays in

Portsmouth. The brand needed to fuel its growth and position it as a must-visit destination for affluent customers within a wider catchment than its existing base. We developed a brand strategy that put emphasis on experience and defined an internal culture focused on great hospitality with a commercial flair.

The new strategy was brought to life through a fresh visual identity, which helped premium-ise the outlet, thus attracting more high-end brands and increasing customer visits. As a result of our work Gunwharf Quays had a record-breaking summer holiday trading period and sales are up year on year too.

We’ve also worked with Westfield, the largest retail property group in the world. A recent project saw us testing an appealing concept for what would become Italy’s largest shopping mall, based in the iconic fashion capital of Milan. Using a research-based approach we identified tension between the older and younger Italian generations and their different appetite for a new shopping experience. We consequently created two options for the brand, one with a distinctly local flavour and the other more overtly international. The two platforms both performed well with consumers suggesting the proposition for the mall should combine the best of international shopping with iconic elements of Italy. The mall is due to open in 2020.

Focus

BrandCap regularly publishes new intellectual property, such as your recent eBook on platform branding.

Could you share your thoughts on what’s going to big in branding in 2019?

We are getting more requests from clients that need to engage their workforces so brand and organisational culture will be a big thing. Over the last 12 months there have been significant global HR scandals from Google to Facebook and many in-between. Employers increasingly have a duty of care and those that take the attitude that they can build a brand from the inside out will ultimately win. Nothing is more powerful than an internal brand advocate, likewise there is nothing more damaging than a member of staff bad mouthing the organisation.

2019 will also be all about consumer control. For instance for travel brands it is not about creating tailored packages around customer segments – it’s about enabling individual customers to create their own travel experience. Brands that are able to create a segment of just one through a carefully curated and strong brand framework will reap the rewards.

You started out in London, but have quickly expanded into the States and Hong Kong. What is it about these markets that attracted you?

We’re very fortunate to be one of the very few businesses (less than one per cent) to have achieved scale-up status. These are organisations that have launched since 2012 and have grown by more than 20 per cent over a three-year period. This signalled that our fresh, board-level approach to branding was gaining traction.

We soon attracted multi-national brands – particularly those with a footprint on both sides of the Atlantic and pretty soon we were spending close to half our time in America.

We spoke to some of our clients about potentially opening an office in New York and the response was overwhelming so we did it – and haven’t looked back. We were then fortunate to start working with some Asian businesses, such as Lane Crawford and it became clear that performance branding translated very well into these markets too.

This led to more clients, both local brands and Western organisations wanting to break into Asia and our Hong Kong office was born. We’re so excited to have an office in China and are one of only a handful of independent consultancies in three continents. Whilst obviously we are going to concentrate on bedding in our new office, we are incredibly ambitious and already client demand is suggesting that we might be opening shop elsewhere in Asia very soon… watch this space!

Finally, why should businesses use brand to drive business performance?

It’s a no brainer – brand not only builds appeal with external audiences, driving top-line growth. It also brings focus internally, helping decision-making and engaging workforces, ultimately reducing costs. It’s no surprise that the most successful business in the world – Apple – is powered by an incredible brand.

ABOUT MANFRED ABRAHAM

Manfred started his career at Lambie-Nairn in 1996. From senior positions at The Partners and Wolff Olins, Manfred moved to Interbrand London as head of the consulting team and global hospitality expert. He founded BrandCap because he loves business and he loves the positive impact brand thinking can have on organisations. Over the years, Manfred has worked with businesses all over the world to improve their performance. His experience encompasses a variety of sectors including hospitality, luxury, education, retail, consumer, media, and business-tobusiness branding.

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The Four Ages of Branding Âť By Interbrand

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Learning Site

The history of branding may not be long, but it is rich-and continues to evolve. “Branding ” began as a mark of ownership, trust, and quality, and evolved into a more sophisticated symbol of differentiation and identification in the post–World War II era. As commerce became global and markets became saturated with products and services, the need to differentiate increased, as did the need to help customers identify and choose. Companies adopted

slogans and mascots, built a presence on radio and television, and, by the 1970s and ’80s, manufacturers fully recognized the way in which consumers developed relationships with their brands-and how they could infuse them with a clear proposition, values, and special qualities to broaden their appeal. In the Age of Identity, the purpose of a brand was to serve as a market positioning identifier, setting businesses and individual products apart from the crowd, both visually and verbally. These foundational characteristics of a great brand are still valid today, but the world became more demanding.

In 1988, Interbrand undertook the first Brand Valuation, and the Age of Value was born.

Companies began to view brands as valuable business assets that contribute significantly to financial performance-driving choice, securing loyalty, and affording the owner a premium.

Slowly, the language of “cost” relating to marketing expenditure became the language of “investment.” Alongside this, came an increasing recognition that brands were not built simply through communications, but through a combination of business activities covering products and services, environments, culture, and communication-all of which created the total brand perception held by customers and employees alike. The growing wealth of data led to a more sophisticated approach to brand management, tied to economic value, and ultimately the creation of a growth agenda based upon a robust and 13

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Brands that seek to lead in the Age of You will have to recognize the human in the data...

strategic methodology. No longer an afterthought or a responsibility relegated to the marketing department, brand strategy became not only intertwined with business strategy-it became business strategy brought to life.

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With the recognition of brands as valuable, strategic assets, came a deeper appreciation of the role brands play in delivering satisfying and differentiated experiences to consumers. Benefitting immensely from the rise of digital and mobile technology, category-killing brands like Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple have reset customer expectations and significantly raised the bar for brand experiences. Interactions are seamless, contextually relevant, and increasingly based around creating an ecosystem of integrated products, services, information, and entertainment: both physical and digital. In

this information-saturated age, it’s no longer enough to have big data. These vast data sets must be mined for big insight, big empathy, big intuition, and big dialogue. The frequency of and immense opportunities for communication require higher degrees of internal clarity and commitment to the brand to ensure consistency across organizations and enable speed to market.

Further, the customer-empowered by social media in the Age of Experience-now has more control than ever. In this world of twoway conversations, advocacy, influence, and engagement are the new rules for brand building.

As digital technology continues to weave its way into every aspect of our lives, and more of who we are is captured on servers and hard drives, the Age of Experience is giving way to a new era-one of ubiquitous computing. When

ecosystems are fully integrated and sensors (on our bodies, in our homes, and in our devices) can talk to each other in new ways, supply chains will reorganize around individuals and ecosystems will become Mecosystems.

Connecting businesses to peopleand people to each other-brands will then serve as enablers of both business and personal value creation.

From the way we manage our personal brands and share pieces of ourselves through various social media platforms to the increasingly personalized world of commercewhich uses purchase histories and location-based services to tailor products, events, services, and offers to whoever we are, wherever we are-our data selves are known, communicating, and growing every day. Brands that seek to lead in the Age of You will have to recognize the human in the data, uncover genuine insights, and create a truly personalized and curated experience-an ecosystem to satisfy the Mecosystem.

ABOUT INTERBRAND

Interbrand, a division of Omnicom, is a brand consultancy, specializing in areas such as brand strategy, brand analytics, brand valuation, corporate design, digital brand management, packaging design, and naming. Interbrand has 24 offices in 17 countries.

Guru Talk

Seizing the ASEAN Opportunity » By Jonathan Bernstein

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is poised to be the world’s 4th largest economy by 2030, after only the United States, China, and the European Union. The number of households which can make discretionary purchases is projected to double to 125 million, effectively creating one of the world’s largest consumer classes across ASEAN’s member states.

Moreover, ASEAN’s digital economy is advancing in leaps, projected to grow to $200 billion.

The number of active digital devices already outnumbers its current population. Mobile and social media penetration in Southeast Asia is above the global average, with ASEAN’s 200 million millennials driving deeper digital engagement.

Backed by high investment interest, large infrastructure spend, and increasing integration, the potential of ASEAN is colossal.

So how can brands take full advantage of what the ASEAN opportunity offers?

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For brands to succeed in ASEAN, creating a central, “always on,” digital brand knowledge repository is an essential step.

1. Tangibility: Focus on the

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experience As brands roll-out across Southeast Asia, they are experienced by multitudes. A theoretical strategic document gives way to multiple, tangible experiences. And yet, brands tend to over-index on perfecting strategy, rather than thinking deeply about practical, commercially viable inmarket touchpoints.

Brands are a tangible expression of a business, and tangibility lends itself to two elements: experiences and commerciality. By anchoring itself in experiences, brands can shift away from the age-old “strategy vs. design” debate, to focus on what really matters to consumers (on the outside). By linking the brand to the commercial aspect of the business, brands can foster commitment and responsibility (on the inside).

Tangibility can be created by beginning with the customer, identifying a brand’s Sustainable Obtainable Market, and understanding needs and drivers.

A brand’s promise must then be translated into rigorous, practical Experience Principles to govern activation, and the experiences themselves must be thoughtfully designed to be locally relevant and commercially viable. Finally, a brand’s CX/UX performance must be trackable and closely linked to business performance indicators.

Traveloka successfully expanded its Southeast Asian presence through an uncompromising commitment to delivering the best possible user experience. Through focus groups and ethnographic observations, the Traveloka team spends a significant amount of time understanding local users’ expectations, behaviours and pain points, thus allowing the brand to localize the experience for its diverse markets. From its innovative Easy Reschedule feature, which allows users to reschedule flights directly from the app to its its PayLater option, Traveloka brings services to market that are both data-driven, yet highly empathetic to the needs of their end users.

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Technology: Make technology central to brand From data analytics to tools like Adobe Sensei, technology is fundamentally altering how brands are made and delivered. Technology empowers brands to make better decisions, and to innovate at speed.

It uncovers data-driven insights, enables consumer proximity, and significantly for the region, lowers traditional go-to-market barriers.

Given the size, scale and speed of ASEAN, leveraging technology to build and manage a brand is essential. This requires marketing teams working hand-in-glove with technologists and data scientists to digitize their brands.

A technologically-driven brand is the first step towards real-time brand performance tracking, determining where to prioritise resources, and executing targeted initiatives. Organizations with world-class brand management protocols lean on technology platforms to deliver custom-built brand dashboards to monitor and drive brand performance the world over, including in ASEAN, with tailored KPIs and SEO indicators.

From product launches to countryspecific messaging, technology enables companies to use brand as a global business driver. For brands to succeed in ASEAN, creating a central, “always on,” digital brand knowledge repository is an essential step.

Guru Talk

3. Talent: Prioritise and invest in

people The ASEAN Economic Community has led to increased worker mobility and a richer talent pool. But it also means top talent can pick and choose their organisations, and so attracting and retaining the right people will be critical to brands, especially as they scale regionally.

Employees embody a brand, and the more they buy into the brand, the better the chances of them delivering great experiences.

Employer branding must be a priority at organisations, with a focus on daily, actionable behaviours rather than passive values on a page. Marketing and HR must work together to create and measure on-brand actions and activities.

Similarly, there should be a clear focus on the organisation structure to ensure ease of decision-making and clarity of responsibility, critical when a brand has to operate in multiple markets.

One of the Philippines’ largest banks, invested in a comprehensive employer branding programme in 2015 to deliver its core brand promise. From an employee value proposition to an internal engagement campaign, from signature experiences to a set of daily behaviours, it prioritised and invested in its people. An undisputed industry leader, the bank today maintains a strong first or second market share position in nearly every significant product category, and is a favoured place to work within the financial services industry.

At the recent 33rd ASEAN Regional Summit held in Singapore on 13th November, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong stated that “ASEAN is greater than the sum of its parts”.

At the summit, progress was made towards a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, and the creation of an ASEAN Smart Cities Network to connect people and economies seamlessly.

The opportunity in ASEAN is real, and it calls for ambitious leaders to view their brands as critical business drivers. With the right balance of commerciality and creativity, brands operating in the region not only take full advantage of the ASEAN opportunity, but contribute to its reality.

ABOUT JONATHAN BERNSTEIN

Jonathan is the founder of Chapter & Verse, a branding firm that connects businesses to people through design, story and experience.

Sources: • http://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-sector/our-insights/understanding-asean-seven-things-you-need-to-know • https://www.accenture.com/t20150523T033705__w__/us-en/_acnmedia/Accenture/Conversion-Assets/DotCom/Documents/Global/PDF/ Dualpub_9/Accenture-ASEAN-Consumer-Research-CPG.pdf%20/ • https://www.sc.com/BeyondBorders/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/ASEAN_growth-in-the-fast-lane.pdf • https://wearesocial.com/sg/blog/2017/02/digital-southeast-asia-2017 • https://en-gb.facebook.com/business/news/Connecting-over-241-Million-People-in-Southeast-Asia-on-Facebook • http://www.goldmansachs.com/our-thinking/pages/millennials/ • http://www.indexmundi.com/philippines/demographics_profile.html • http://hillasean.com/assets/pdf/Forum_2017_en.pdf • https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/312886 • https://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/what-are-the-opportunities-for-asean • https://blog.globalwebindex.com/marketing/programmatic-ad-buying/ • https://www.facebook.com/business • https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Business-Trends/Chinese-private-sector-looks-south-for-bigger-slice-of-ASEAN-market • https://www.pmo.gov.sg/newsroom/pm-lee-hsien-loong-27th-world-economic-forum-asean-hanoi-vietnam

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Creating a new online

marketplace: Catherine Barr Randall, CEO and Co-Founder of new online marketplace The Upmrkt speaks to The Singapore Marketer about the ins and outs of creating a new online brand from scratch.

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Upmrkt, www.theupmrkt.com, is a new online marketplace for independent and socially conscious brands, across Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand and Bali.

Launched on Nov 1st, it is still early days for the start-up marketplace winning awards and making waves in the region. They have over 50 independent brands from 9 countries, with more brands joining every day.

Branding in ambiguity At a recent event, the Head of Talent for a global brand renowned for its inventions asked us what was the hardest thing about creating Upmrkt? What would we hire for in the future? What does it take to do what we’ve done?

As a start-up team working overtime, it was the first time any of us had sat back to reflect on the idea that maybe there was some “special sauce” to doing what we are doing. We relayed to her tale after anecdote after war story as she listened patiently, and eventually she replied, “so, the ability to work with ambiguity then?”

Yes. Working With Ambiguity.

WPP announced last month that they were merging JWT with Wunderman. JWT, the world’s

oldest advertising firm, is now no more. This year Interbrand closed its offices in Singapore, Paris and Toronto.

In this brave new world for brand and communications, it’s hard to find any experts anymore. No one really knows how something ‘should’ be done and everything is about working in Beta - our marketing platforms, Facebook, Instagram, Google Adwords, Google Pixel, Google Merchant, Google Shopping, Mailchimp, Hootsuite; our product platforms, our SaaS, our payment gateways, our range of third party API plug-ins – they are all iterating, all the time. And hopefully iterating whilst still being in sync with each other…

It’s an overwhelming time to be working with brands, let alone building an online one.

Where did it all start?

Upmrkt was created to fill a gap in the shopping landscape and create an online destination for people to buy and sell ‘better stuff’ in South East Asia.

As with any good brand, the idea for Upmrkt started over a beer, and a problem with seemingly no end in sight. Our group, who were later to become the Upmrkt

team, felt increasingly uninspired with browsing the same old chain shops in brick-and-mortar malls.

Equally, we were uninspired by the low-quality online marketplaces currently serving South East Asia its cheap blenders and fake nail extensions.

Unlike other regions of the world, online shopping in South East Asia had not caught-up to fill the gap that the demise of real-world retail was leaving behind.

At the same time, South East Asia is increasingly ripe with hidden creative entrepreneurs building beautiful things and brilliant brands.

From Thailand to Hong Kong to Bali – design-led makers are creating world-class brand and products.

They’re just a bit hard to find.

Shoppers and sellers of quality lifestyle goods across the region are struggling trying to find each other right now.

Creating a platform for exchange, Upmrkt works like an Etsy, Amazon or Taobao for independent brands, helping design-led entrepreneurs reach shoppers across our region. In the words of one of our Sellers, “so, it’s an atas Taobao?”. Well, that’s a pretty good way of summing it up.

Industry Chat

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Upmrkt’s sellers are most often talented individuals who set out on a different path in life.

They choose to follow their passions, and they see their businesses as their own ‘babies’.

The “seller customer” and embracing complex brand relationships Our journey doesn’t end there.

The Upmrkt brand has two types of customers, shoppers, and sellers.

As the team refined the Upmrkt concept, it was important for us to consider how the Upmrkt brand served ‘sellers’ as customers of the marketplace, as well as ‘shoppers’, and to manage the needs of our sellers.

You can’t have a marketplace with no sellers.

What do sellers need? What is Upmrkt’s proposition and user experience for sellers?

Responding to this, a point of view was added to the Upmrkt’s brand purpose, which is to stand up for independent brands, and to support the idea of buying from local and independent businesses.

Upmrkt’s sellers are most often talented individuals who set out on a different path in life. They choose to follow their passions, and they see their businesses as their own ‘babies’. Their aspirations include wanting to build their own successful brands. This is at odds, however, with how traditional online marketplaces are built. Other marketplace experiences are usually designed around the marketplace brand, and downplay or whitelabel their sellers’ brands, typically suppressing the brands that sellers aspire to create and grow.

Unlike traditional online marketplaces, Upmrkt works to embrace and elevate our sellers’ brands alongside our own brand.

This includes and has necessitated reinventing the ‘rules’ of how an online marketplace should work. At Upmrkt we redesigned out marketplace taxonomy (our menu navigation and product

categorisation system) to put seller’s brands front and centre of our shopping navigation and experience. Instead of navigating through functional categories, such as “Blenders”, “Toys” and “Women’s Clothing”, visitors to Upmrkt will navigate through brands, such as “The Alaska Guys”, “BlkSheep Empire” and “Maketh The Man”, creating a more brand-centric and mall-like online browsing experience.

What now?

Upmrkt is really still in product development, there are lots of questions to work through as the team, brand and marketplace grows, and with new sellers from around the world coming onboard every day. The one thing we can be sure of is that our brand will continue to iterate and change as the marketplace comes into its own.

ABOUT THE WRITER

Catherine Barr Randall is CEO and Co-Founder of Upmrkt: Independent and socially conscious shops online. Singapore. Thailand, Hong Kong, Bali.

She is a brand and innovation specialist with over 17 years experience and previous head of FutureBrand South East Asia.

19

The World Marketing Summit was held in Singapore for the first time on 12 December 2018. Marketing Institute of Singapore was honoured to be presented the opportunity to organise this international summit where valuable insights from international speakers and panelist were key takeaways. We sincerely hope that all attendees were inspired and challenged by all insights and data presented.

Opening Speech - Roger Wang, President of MIS/MISTC Dato’ Seri Dr Derek Goh, Founder of Serial System Ltd and Chairman of Senate, MIS

Roger Wang and Guest-of-honor, Dr Toh Soon Huat, Chairman of Sian Chay Medical Institution MOU signing between MIS and Singapore Teochew Poit Ip Huay Kuan

Speaker - Mr Howie HS Lau

Speaker - Dr Fahim Kibria

Speaker - Prof Luiz Moutinho

Speaker - Dr Tan Khee Giap

Chief Industry Development Officer, Industry Development Group Infocomm Media Development Authority

CMO and Executive Director World Marketing Summit Group

First Chair BioMarketing and Futures Research Professor of Marketing, University of Suffolk, England

Co-Director, Asia Competitiveness Institute

Speaker - Mr Julien Condamines

Speaker - Mr Piyachart Isarabhakdee

Entrepreneur in Residence, French Embassy Founder & MD, Co-Creation Lab Steering Committee – French Tech Singapore

Chief Executive Officer, BRANDi and Companies

Marketing Institute of Singapore Team

Business Leader Discussion: Secrets to Regional Business Success

Speaker - Mr Ross Wakeham Market Lead, Singapore and Malaysia SMB, Facebook

Speaker - Prof Dr Marc Oliver Opresnik Professor of Marketing and Management Member of the Board of Directors at SGMI Management Institute St. Gallen

Congratulations to all of our Kotler Awardees!

Excellence in Philanthropic Leadership

Excellence in Entrepreneurial Ventures

Excellence in Marketing Education

Excellence in Commercial Law

Dr Toh Soon Huat

Dato’ Seri Dr Derek Goh

Dr Tan Khee Giap

Mr Raymond Lye

Sian Chay Medical Institution

Serial System Ltd

Asia Competitiveness Institute

Union Law

Excellence in Marketing Strategy

Excellence in Reputation Branding

Excellence in Marketing Innovation

Excellence in Realty Transformation

Mr Howie HS Lau

Mr Vincent Ng

Mr Roger Wang

ERA Real Estate

(Personal Capacity)

Wufang Singapore

Essential Werkz

Executive Certificate in Business & Public Event Management Build your career in the exciting world of events!

The Executive Certificate in Business & Public Event Management is a 4-day course designed to provide a foundation of key skills and knowledge associated with the creation and delivery as of the following

Corporate Events Product Launches Conferences / Meetings Functions

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Public Events

Parties

Festival Planners Street Parades Fairs Sporting Events

Wedding Planners Sport Event Managers

Fundraising Events

Charity Event Organisers

In this 4-days of practical training delivered by industry experts, you will cover the event management life cycle from concept development through to planning, implementation, shutdown and evaluation.

Dr. Rob Harris | 5th - 8th March 2019 | 9am-5pm Dr Rob Harris has an international reputation as an event management educator, having developed and delivered programs through to Masters level all around the world. He is a co-author of the texts Festival and Special Event Management, Event Management and the Regional Event Management Handbook.

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www.mis.org.sg/seminars