Advertising + Marketing MY - Jul/Aug 2014

JUL/AUG2014

advertising + m

arketing malaysia

JU

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UGUST

2014

HERE’S HOW THE 66-YEAR-OLD BRAND IS PUTTING THE OOMPH BACK INTO ITS IMAGE

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WWW.MARKET ING- INTERACT IVE .COM J U LY / AU G U S T 2 0 1 4 | a d ve r t i s i ng + m a r ke t i ng 1

ED ’ S L E T T E R

ARE YOU A TEAM PLAYER?

Rayana PandeyEditor

EditorialRayana Pandey, [email protected]

Elizabeth Low, Deputy [email protected]

Rezwana Manjur, Senior [email protected]

Editorial – InternationalMatt Eaton, Editor (Hong Kong)[email protected]

Oliver Bayani, Editor (Philippines)[email protected]

Production and DesignShahrom Kamarulzaman, Regional Art [email protected]

Fauzie Rasid, Senior [email protected]

Advertising Sales – SingaporeChe Winstrom, Sales [email protected]

Johnathan Tiang, Senior Account [email protected]

Trina Choy, Account [email protected]

Advertising Sales – InternationalJosi Yan, Sales Director (Hong Kong)[email protected]

EventsYeo Wei Qi, Regional Head of Events [email protected]

MarketingJune Tan, Regional Marketing Executive [email protected]

FinanceEvelyn Wong, Regional Finance [email protected]

ManagementSøren Beaulieu, [email protected]

Tony Kelly, Editorial [email protected]

Justin Randles, Group Managing [email protected]

It is the World Cup season and team spirit is in the air – on and off the field. I see my friends burning the midnight oil glued to the TV sets, while I sip my drink like I would on any other weekend, spending time with non-football lovers at Clark Quay or Club Street or Boat Quay. You get what I mean, right?

But there’s one thing that has fundamentally changed over the years. Unlike the past, where if you wanted to switch off something you were not interested in, you could, but you can’t now. And why? Your Facebook/Instagram/Twitter feeds don’t let you.

So despite being a non-fan I knew who was out of the World Cup, the current tally, who bit who and so on and so forth – a result of the hyper social world we live in. Media consumption by its very nature has become social. And this doesn’t only happen on Facebook and the likes, but also through emails, SMSes, instant messaging and so on.

As Raja Rajamannar, global marketing lead of MasterCard, says: “With technology getting cheaper and miniaturised and devices becoming ubiquitous, social has found a new dimension.”

And this has had a significant impact in the way marketing is done. I had the chance of meeting Rajamannar recently and we spoke about how the developments in the digital/social space have affected marketing. The overarching theme of our conversation was internal collaboration – a prerequisite of running any digital marketing initiative these days.

With marketing becoming more and more digitised, the lines between marketing’s job scope and IT’s are blurring. The organisational silos which have been around for ages and were a result of the need to be systematic, well-segmented and defined are beginning to hurt companies.

A study by Oracle towards the end of 2013, found only 36% of marketing respondents and 26% of IT/technology respondents collaborated with each other “frequently” on projects. Slightly more than half of marketing and IT/technology respondents classify their collaboration as “adequate.” About 16% of IT/technology respondents reported that collaboration with marketing was “non-existent.” Moreover, 41% of marketing and 38% of IT/technology leaders indicated improved collaboration from 2012.

“Collaboration delivers business value,” the report said adding that more than two-thirds of both marketing and technology leaders said they were “more effective” professionally because of increased collaboration. Reported benefits included stronger and more compelling marketing messages, faster speed-to-market, greater product adoption, project cost reductions, and fewer defects in product and services.

Marketing’s relationship with other teams is also changing. It’s no longer the case of each department working on their own. They need to come together or lose out in this hyper-connected world.

Call it unnecessary pressure or unfair advantage, but I personally feel marketing is best placed to drive this collaboration within the organisation. Perhaps taking a leaf out of this World Cup, marketers could reflect whether they truly are team players or not.

Enjoy the edition.

Marketing is published 12 times per year by Lighthouse Independent Media Pte Ltd. Printed in Singapore on CTP process by Sun Rise Printing & Supplies Pte Ltd, 10 Admiralty Street, #06-20 North Link Building, Singapore 757695. Tel: (65) 6383 5290. MICA (P) 180/03/2009. For subscriptions, contact circulations at +65 6423 0329 or email [email protected]. COPYRIGHT & REPRINTS: All material printed in Marketing is protected under the copyright act. All rights reserved. No material may be reproduced in part or in whole without the prior written consent of the publisher and copyright holder. Permission may be requested through the Singapore office. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in Marketing are not necessarily the views of the publisher. Singapore: Lighthouse Independent Media Pte Ltd 100C Pasir Panjang Road, #05-01 See Hoy Chan Hub, Singapore 118519 198755 Tel: +65 6423 0329 Fax: +65 6423 0117 Hong Kong: Lighthouse Independent Media Ltd Unit A, 7/F, Wah Kit Commercial Building 302 Des Voeux Road Central, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong Tel: +852 2861 1882 Fax: +852 2861 1336 To subscribe to Marketing magazine, go to: www.marketing-interactive.com

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it’s timeto make the callMarketers understand mobile’s critical role in influencing customers. Learn more about this crucial art in the second installment of Mobile Marketing Interactive.

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C ONT ENT S

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15 OPINION: IS YOUR BRAND GUILTY OF CONTENT POLLUTION? In a digital age, is your content merely pleasing algorithms instead of people? How the top brands do it.

OPIN IONS DEPARTMENTS

4 NEWS MDA fines MediaCorp for a derogatory word on air; SingTel launches m-commerce service; Scoot appoints Publicis; Media Shop expands, plus more.

21 DIRECT MAIL CASE STUDY Tiger Beer wanted to get buzz around its bold new image. Here’s how it created an exclusive touch for its media launch.

20 AD WATCH/WEB WATCH TBWA\Singapore’s Mohan Prabhakar highlights Turkish Airlines’ Hayal edince campaign, but thinks Tiger Beer’s “Uncage” is stale. Meanwhile, Havas Worldwide’s Carl Griffith thinks marcellacustom.com is well-polished, but Open Trolley is too complicated.

FEATURES

14 FIVE MISTAKES CLIENTS MAKE ON SOCIAL MEDIA Wonder why your social investment is not paying off? Here are the five common mistakes marketers make. Jennifer Chan reports.

18 WIKIPEDIA – AND THE CASE FOR HONESTY Top PR firms have promised to play fair. What does it mean for the industry? Rezwana Manjur reports.

22 PROFILE: AIA’S THOMAS WONG Chief marketing officer Thomas Wong talks to Rezwana Manjur about the brand’s attempt to inch closer to a younger generation.

38 RESEARCH ASIA 2014 A look at the market research industry and where it is headed.

32 SHOPPER MARKETING 2014 All that went on at the second Shopper Marketing Conference this year.

SCAN TO SUBSCRIBE!

21

What does it take for a 66-year-old brand to refresh and target a newer generation? A+M finds out.

38

What you’ll learn in this issue:>> AIA’s attempt to lure youths.

>> How to market effectively on social media.

>> Shopper marketing tips.

>> Trends shaping market research.

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WWW.MARKET ING- INTERACT IVE .COM4 a d ve r t i s i ng + m a r ke t i ng | J U LY / AU G U S T 2 0 1 4

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

Global watchThe Singapore Tourism Board appointed Roth Observatory International as its global agency review consultancy for a three-year period. The contract has an option to extend for another two years and is worth nearly SG$2 million, according to the government’s tender site. Roth Observatory will be responsible for managing the relationships that STB has with its three principal global agencies – JWT, MEC and XM.

MediaCorp finedThe Media Development Authority (MDA) fined MediaCorp SG$6,300 for breaching the free-to-air (FTA) radio programme code. A deejay on MediaCorp’s Class 95 Morning Express programme used a derogatory term to describe a visually impaired woman. The MDA said that as a FTA radio broadcaster, MediaCorp was expected to observe the requirements laid out in the code, which seeks to protect community interests.

Looking for great skinSkincare brand Cetaphil launched a “Skin Confidence Report” to better understand the attitudes of Singaporean women towards good skin and what drives their confidence. The findings show Singapore women are confident. Almost 70% consider themselves beautiful, but 97% of them want to improve their current skin condition. The majority of women in Singapore believe good skin gives them greater self-confidence.

Dashing aheadSingTel partnered with Standard Chartered Bank to launch Dash, its m-commerce and banking service. The service allows customers to access, save or borrow money, make payments and purchase insurance. SingTel Group Digital Life CEO Allen Lew said the app was centred around the lifestyle needs and habits of a mobile internet generation who was used to downloading information and content on the go.

A protection planAs a part of increasing corporate governance measures for the financial sector, the Monetary Authority of Singapore is considering tighter ad rules for structured products. The government body told The Straits Times it was planning to roll out a public consultation on the proposals and guidelines. A key concern is that ads may be promising fast get-rich schemes or a guaranteed stipulated rate of return.

Adding some BiteNew generation data protection firm Acronis appointed Bite its communications agency as the company moves its international headquarters to Singapore. With many organisations recognising their data as an important and untapped profit centre, there is a growing sense of urgency around protecting that data. Recognising this need, Acronis established its international headquarters in Singapore to capitalise on rising demand.

A fresh startSam Cassels, the former CEO of Publicis Singapore, founded a new marketing automation agency called Superdrive. The agency’s services include marketing, sales and service business alignment; funnel and lead management development; marketing automation enablement; training and education; BI and analytics and reporting. “Superdrive was born from my belief we can derive incremental value from insight-based automation over pure marketing automation,” he said on the site.

Joining forcesHakuhodo Consulting and Singapore-based WATATAWA Consulting paired up to establish a strategic alliance to offer marketing strategies and services to clients in Japan and key Asian markets. The alliance is initially focused on collaborative services to Japanese and international companies. WATATAWA works with clients in financial services, telecommunications, agricultural commodities, and the resources and technology sectors in several Asian markets.

Sushidai slips into SingaporeSushi restaurant Sushidai launched a print campaign to announce the opening of its flagship restaurant in Singapore. The campaign will run until November and targets sushi lovers. Creative and media buying were handled by Arcade. “We simply had to tell these stories and put them together with the same love they put into their food,” said Gary Tranter, ECD of Arcade.

Right side of the lawSingTel is spending more than SG$2 million to keeps its marketing in line with the new personal data protection law. The telco anticipates an additional expenditure of up to an annual SG$500,000 to train its staff and for the cost of compliance. It is also launching a new portal which allows customers to pick the channels through which they wish to receive marketing messages.

A swift affairCar maker Toyota launched its first Southeast Asian road safety campaign, banking on pop singer Taylor Swift to drive home the message of the importance of wearing a seat belt. It is the official car sponsor of Taylor Swift’s “The RED tour presented by Cornetto”. According to Toyota, it’s banking on her influence with youths to drive home the message with its young target audience.

A new focusWith the domestic business under tremendous pressure from rapidly declining traditional mail volumes, Singapore Post (SingPost) has turned its focus to e-commerce. SingPost and Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group entered into an investment agreement under which Alibaba Investment will invest SG$312.5 million and have a 10.35% stake in SingPost upon completion of the deal. Currently e-commerce accounts for 26% of total revenue for the postal service.

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Old is goldThe birthplace of white coffee Ipoh, Old Town, was surrounded with seven art murals painted by renowned Lithuanian artist, Ernest Zacharevic. This was part of a partnership between Old Town White Coffee Malaysia and Zacharevic in celebration of the heritage and history that is shared between Ipoh, Old Town and Old Town White Coffee. This was part of its “Art of Old Town” campaign.

Grammar mattersThe National Heritage Board launched its yearly Speak Good English Movement, this time with a series of six witty and humorous videos to debunk the myth that grammar rules are boring and didactic. The movement turns the spotlight on grammar rules, focusing on tenses, subject-verb agreement, prepositions and countable and uncountable nouns. The lighthearted videos feature popular Singaporean comedian Kumar as the “Queen of Grammar”.

A luxurious affairLuxury menswear brand Uomo Group Singapore appointed boutique PR agency R.S.V.P its PR representative overseeing its stable of brands in Singapore, including Uomo Collezioni, JM Icon, Billionaire, Stefano Ricci, Brioni, Zilli and Moreschi. It was appointed in June to handle the group’s PR activities for the local market for a year. The agency is expected to drive the brand forward via public relations, events and digital initiatives.

Game on for StarcomSingapore Sports Council appointed Starcom MediaVest Group’s social media arm, SMG Social, to handle the social media campaign for the 28th Southeast Asian Games. The agency will manage strategy planning, research and insight reports of the 11 Southeast Asia countries. It will also handle content and community management, tracking and monitoring of owned channels and social listening of external conversations, among other measures.

JCAD appoints TribalJewel Changi Airport Devt (JCAD), the property manager of Project Jewel, appointed Tribal Worldwide Singapore as its creative agency to develop its branding and communication strategy. The appointment comes following a pitch. A spokesperson from JCAD confirmed the appointment, adding this was the first of several agency partnerships it intended to formalise in the lead-up to the completion of Project Jewel.

Out of the ClozetteContent marketing agency Brand New Media partnered with shopping portal Clozette to launch a new fashion IPTV channel, Clozette TV. Targeted at fashion-forward women, from September, Clozette TV will be accessible via any internet-connected device such as computers, smartphones, tablets or smart TVs. The channel’s content strategy is focused on connecting viewers with the latest global and local content shared by key influencer peer groups.

Preparing for a crisisBusiness consultancy Omnifluence has launched its social crisis communications programme called The Contingency Plan. With the needs of organisations in mind, the consultancy delivers customisable programmes, which includes in-depth workshops on social crisis communications and realistic simulated scenarios. Specifically, the programme’s methodology, called The Open Grill, allows organisations to be better prepared in handling a variety of potential incidents and issues.

Making a markThe Robinson Group of stores appointed Mangham Gaxiola to handle the Marks & Spencer brand. The agency is charged with developing the brand and sales advertising for Singapore. There was a pitch for the account and currently the appointment is ongoing with no time frame slated. The campaign first hit Singapore in June with a print execution and there are also digital executions.

Inspiring healthy eatingNestlé tapped into the online engagement opportunities via Google+ “Hangouts on Air” with a Nestlé Wellness Cook-Along Google+ Hangout on 26 June. The campaign aimed to encourage and inspire Singaporeans to eat well, be active and stay healthy. Rajiv Deraniyagala, managing director of Nestlé Singapore, explained that through the campaign Nestlé Singapore was taking a step forward with this digital initiative.

Building a coffee empireItalian beverage group, Massimo Zanetti Beverage (MZB) fully acquired local coffee brand Boncafé for a total value of US$85 million. As a result, the MZB Group will reinforce its presence in the Southeast Asia markets, with a particular focus on Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and the UAE. With this acquisition, the group plans for further expansion in the Asian market.

Fun in the sunSentosa Development Corporation (SDC) launched its newest marketing campaign called “The State of Fun” for Sentosa, looking to heavily target locals in the first year of the campaign. The main thrust of the campaign is deepening SDC’s emotional connection with guests, and portraying a fun and engaging brand, so as to keep Sentosa top-of-mind among its target audiences.

Exciting timesMadura Fashion & Lifestyle appointed Fitch Singapore to create a world-class retail experience for Van Heusen. Vinay Bhopatkar, brand head of Van Heusen for India, said: “Continuing our significant period of growth and increased retail presence in India, we are working with Fitch to create exciting consumer experiences, and offer the Indian consumers new and innovative ways of engaging with us and with our products.”

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Musical twistIn H&M’s first mobile initiative across Asia, the fashion label teamed up with Ogilvy & Mather Shanghai to create a fashion catalogue with a twist. Instead of a traditional still product catalogue, the team invented a musical product – the Fashion Mixer – that mixes music with fashion. Each of the 43 new apparel, including shirts, dresses, shoes and accessories, corresponds to a unique sound effect.

Planning aheadManulife Singapore launched a campaign to highlight the benefits of a planned retirement. Urging Singaporeans to make a smart choice earlier on in life, the “Happy Retirement” campaign aims to connect with Singaporeans who aspire to live a carefree lifestyle during retirement. It features a couple enjoying their holidays and contrasts this with an image of an unplanned retirement to instil a sense of urgency to plan ahead.

Media Shop expandsLocal media agency The Media Shop is expanding into Oceania with a new office in Sydney after its reappointment as the agency of record for CA Technologies. The expansion follows a period of growth for the agency which opened its first overseas office in Taiwan last July. The Sydney office is led by new hire Tim Stanford (pictured). He reports to regional business director, Jessica Toh.

Uncaging the TigerTiger Beer launched its global campaign starting with the Singapore market. This is the first major work rolling out after its global appointment of Sydney-based creative agency Droga5. Previously, it had appointed Droga5 for its regional creatives, with the local business going to BBDO Singapore. The campaign, called Tiger Uncage, is part of the brand’s new image and will roll out across 25 markets globally.

Scoot appoints PublicisScoot, the long-haul low-cost arm of the Singapore Airlines Group, appointed Publicis as its social media agency. The incumbent for the account was iNEO which was recently dissolved as Publicis Singapore hired the entire team of iNEO to work as full-time employees. The two-year contract will cover duties for all of Scoot’s markets in the region. Australia will be handled separately.

Another big investmentSingTel made another two major investments in the digital space through its mobile ad firm Amobee, acquiring Adconion Direct North America and Adconion Australia, along with Kontera Technologies. Adconion was acquired for US$235 million while Kontera was acquired for about US$150 million. Adconion offers ad solutions across mobile, web and social networks, while Kontera is a digital content intelligence company.

A warning on gamblingThe National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG) in Singapore launched a campaign to curb gambling habits during the World Cup season. NCPG launched its problem gambling awareness campaign during this period to highlight the negative effects problem gambling poses – not only on gamblers, but their loved ones. The campaign runs for about six weeks in cinemas, print, TVC, radio and OOH mediums.

Something for everyoneM1’s new brand campaign created with the help of Y&R Singapore will extend into the online space this week, with three new inter-connected webisodes. M1 launched its newest brand campaign, with the theme ‘M1. For Every One.’ with a 45-second TVC featuring different personalities from all walks of life. The three new inter-connected webisodes further expand on the background of the characters in the TVC.

Another callHPB launched a tender looking to appoint an agency to handle media services for integrated marketing and communication campaigns. While the entire contract period is from 15 July 2014 to 31 March 2016, this comes in two parts. The first will be for a period of eight and half months from the date of appointment. There will then be an option of extension for another year.

A new relationshipBMW Asia appointed an agency for its integrated pitch for Singapore. Ogilvy & Mather Singapore won the business after a multi-stage pitch process that started in February 2014. The decision was driven by an increasing need for BMW Asia and PML to look at their communication in an integrated manner, as well as create new ways of engaging with existing and future customers, said BMW Asia.

Learning from experienceThe Tripartite Committee on Employability of Older Workers launched a campaign to promote the employability of older workers and raise awareness amongst employers on their potential. The campaign runs on TV, cinema, online and OOH medium channels. The TV spot highlights the wealth of experience employers can tap into if they do not let age get in the way of their hiring criteria.

Getting in touch with the inner maleDiscovery Networks Asia Pacific launched DMAX, a new factual entertainment channel targeting young males. Showcasing a wide range of content from cars and combat to extreme antics and enterprise, DMAX is targeted at young men aged between 18 and 45. Its content line up includes motoring, the outdoors and more.

28 AUGUST 2014 THE WESTIN HOTEL, SINGAPORE

SOUTHEAST ASIA’S TOPMEDIA OWNERS ARE TAKING THIS HOMEWHERE WILL YOU BE THAT NIGHT?

The Spark Awards 2014 Gala DinnerThursday, 28 August 2014 | The Westin Hotel, Singapore

Single seat: S$390 | 1/2 Table (5 Seats): S$1,9001 Table (10 Seats): S$3,000

BOOK YOUR TABLES HERE: www.marketing-interactive.com/spark-awards-sg

Contact Che Winstrom(+65 6423 0329 or [email protected]) for questions regarding sponsorship opportunities.

Otherwise, contact Joven Barcenas(+65 6423 0329 or [email protected])for questions regarding table booking.

SUPPORTING PARTNERS ORGANISED BY:

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HOW MUCH DOES THAT COST?

The Marina Bay Sands (MBS) Art Science Museum launched a campaign with the help of media agency Dentsu for its latest exhibition, “Dinosaurs: Dawn to Extinction”. The campaign ran for three months until 14 July this year. MBS showcased the exhibition on wholly wrapped concept buses with

life-like dinosaur 2D images popping out of the buses. Commuters were able to pick up a bus hanger and scan the QR code to interact with the message throughout their journey. The buses were seen running on long-haul routes, in the central business district and Orchard. The cost of the execution was SG$38,500.

LARGER THAN LIFE

Talking up a new dealKakao Corporation, the South Korean company behind Kakao Talk, merged with web portal Daum Communications. The merged company is called Daum Kakao and is valued at about three trillion won. Called as a reverse takeover, the deal will also let unlisted Kakao bypass the lengthy process of going public via Daum and enter the KOSDAQ stock market as soon as October this year.

Major football fansFour major global brands signed on with CNN International to sponsor and commercially support its multi-platform coverage of the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil. The deal spans Asia Pacific, EMEA and Latin America. The brands are Hyundai Motor, Hublot, Nikon and Embratur. As official partner of the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil, Hyundai Motor is sponsoring the weekly CNN Fan Zone segments in World Sport.

A new ventureThe Walt Disney Company (Southeast Asia) launched Disney XD, a new kids channel, in the Philippines via TV operator Cignal TV and cable distributor Accion. Targeted at children 6-14, Disney XD will be a boy-focused, girl-inclusive channel. Disney XD is the third Disney 24-hour channel on Cignal TV and will join Disney Channel and Disney Junior.

Staying ahead of the curveOmnicom Group’s media services division signed a deal worth US$230 million with Twitter. Aside from integrating Omnicom’s automated ad buying unit Accuen with Twitter’s mobile ad exchange, MoPub, the two-year deal will also lock in ad rates and inventory access for Omnicom agencies and will give Omnicom a “first look” at new ad units and opportunities being developed by the micro-blogging site.

An ingenious moveIPG Mediabrands launched an end-to-end online commerce solutions unit, targeting clients in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea. The unit, Ingenuity, offers online marketing strategies, online targeting and acquisition, CRM and sales systems integration, big data and analytical expertise, as well as interface design, content and social capabilities to regional marketers. Ingenuity seeks to work with clients as partners with a substantial portion of the remuneration coming from commercial performance.

A strategic plan The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) appointed five new strategic partners to deliver better advice and greater insight to its members. The five partners are Ebiquity, Decideware, BrainJuicer, TrendSpotters and Effective Brands. The strategic partnerships are not exclusive, but the five companies have become the first port of call as the WFA seeks to support its members in relation to new trends in marketing.

INSEAD appoints VML QaisGraduate business school INSEAD handed VML Qais the global remit for its digital platforms. VML Qais is tasked to handle the entire site restructure, enhancing the user experience, creative concepts and design, development and integration of technology and SEO.

“INSEAD’s objective is not just to update the site, but to provide an online experience that is truly representative of us,” said Axel Tagliavini, director of digital communications at INSEAD.

Heart-stopping dramaadidas’ latest advertising stunt turned a few heads – all for the wrong reasons. The ad shows footballers holding real cow hearts to show their devotion to the game and their home ground. The ad ran with the slogan: “During the World Cup, I will give my heart to the cause.” Animal rights groups have slammed the stunt.

A new wayAfter more than 40 years, Burger King dropped its iconic, “Have It Your Way” slogan for “Be Your Way.” According to a statement by Burger King, the new motto is intended to reflect the fact that “self-expression is most important and it’s our differences that make us individuals instead of robots”. Burger King is first launching the new tag line in the US, then rolling it out worldwide.

An ironic move?McDonald’s Philippines launched a new game app which, ironically, encourages people to leave their beloved mobile devices, reminding them there’s no substitute for offline socialisation. Deceptively simple, the BFF Timeout app is a co-operative game for Android and iOS users that records how long a group of friends can resist checking their gadgets. It was conceptualised by Leo Burnett Manila and developed by Mobext.

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Not just home entertainmentWarner Bros Home Entertainment appointed Vizeum as its media agency. Vizeum is tasked to handle all media strategy, planning and buying duties for the brand in the Australian market. Nick Behr (pictured), managing director at Vizeum Sydney added that the “win is a testament to the Vizeum approach and Warner Bros’ braveness towards innovation.” Vizeum Sydney also recently bagged accounts with Domain and Ella Baché.

AUDIT WATCH

FROM THE WEBSITE INTO THE STRAATOSPHEREUrban lifestyle website Straatosphere has launched its first print edition. The magazine will be published twice a year, and targets those aged 18-34.

Co-founder and editor Kim Hana told Marketing it would reach a majority of male readers, for now.

For advertisers, it targets sportswear brands, entertainment and lifestyle brands.

Brands who have already come on board include Reebok, Bathing Ape, Converse, Carhartt, Asahi, Pan Pacific Orchard, Happy Socks and Limited Edt.

The magazine, like its site, will cover style, fashion and pop culture. It will be distributed at cafés, boutiques and sold through the website.

The site has been running since April 2013.

Hana also said the publication was aiming to have its circulation audited in a year’s time. At present, it has a print run of about 5,000 copies. A launch event also took place on 5 July for the new publication, at the Butter Factory.

“We’re doing this so people know the numbers we have; and auditing will legitimise the magazine. It will give peace of mind to our advertisers,” said Hana, on having the magazine’s circulation audited.

CORRECTION

In the 2014 Agency of the Year edition of Advertising+Marketing Malaysia, we inadvertently misprinted the name of the silver award winner in the Creative category. The winning entity is M&C Saatchi and not Saatchi and Saatchi Arachnid. A+M regrets the error. Please refer to the updated e-version of the magazine here: http://issuu.com/marketing-interactive/docs/ammy_mayjune_aoty14

Living on the edgeTeamHuawei, a WPP group appointed to provide global communications services to Huawei Consumer BG, unveiled a campaign for the launch of the new Huawei Ascend P7 smartphone. The campaign concept, “Excellence with Edge” celebrates people who do things differently, such as innovators, trendsetters and those who challenge the status quo. It also builds on last year’s flagship P6 campaign, “Elegance with Edge”.

Getting an edgeSocial media analytics firm Socialbakers acquired EdgeRank Checker, a provider of social analytics for Facebook’s News Feed. Socialbakers will absorb EdgeRank Checker’s entire client portfolio, made up of more than 700 Fortune 500 companies and major entertainment brands, bolstering Socialbakers’ domestic presence and growing its client base by nearly a third, said the company in a release. The cost of the acquisition was not revealed.

Happy timesMcDonald’s introduced “Happy”, a new animated Happy Meal character that is said to bring fun and excitement to kids meals, while also serving as an ambassador for balanced and wholesome eating. Happy encourages children to enjoy fruit, vegetables, low-fat dairy and wholesome beverages such as water or juice. Happy was first introduced in 2009 to children and families in France.

Content with growthAustralian content marketing agency King Content opened the doors to a new office in London, hot on the heels of launching in Singapore and Melbourne. In addition to the original Sydney office, London is King Content’s fourth office. According to press statement, King Content is currently in the process of hiring a content marketing expert to head up the London office.

Advocating big thingsWord of mouth agency Advocacy launched its India operation with Srikanth Sarathy as COO. The agency also set its sights on Singapore next. Sarathy brings with him over 18 years of experience. He has worked in agencies such as Leo Burnett in both India and London and across brands such as Ariel and Tide.

A marvelous partnershipSamsung Electronics partnered Marvel Entertainment globally – integrating both their brands. The partnership also involves a multi-medium creative campaign across film, digital and product and merges the worlds of both brands, offering consumers exclusive content. The partnership will also activate across a wide range of touch-points with exclusive content, custom Marvel-branded Samsung products, event activations and feature film integrations.

Getting to the peakThe Peak Tram launched the micro film “Rendezvous at The Peak” to boost ticket sales to the iconic mode of transport ferrying tourists and Hongkongers to and from The Peak. The film’s main characters are a family of three, a gentleman and his girlfriend, an old couple and a group of college students who just graduated. The video is a silent film only accompanied with music.

Why the black face?A domestic helper insurance ad from Malaysia’s Hong Leong Bank came under fire for running a commercial in Hong Kong depicting a local actor as a Filipina maid with a black face. The ad, aimed at employers of maids, copped flak on social media with groups representing the city’s legions of domestic helpers calling for an apology. The bank has since removed the ad from its website.

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NEW WORK

WWW.MARKET ING- INTERACT IVE .COM1 0 a d ve r t i s i ng + m a r ke t i ng | J U LY / AU G U S T 2 0 1 4

1CampaignA happy retirement is a choice

BriefManulife Singapore launched an integrated campaign to highlight the benefits of a planned retirement. Urging Singaporeans to make a smart choice earlier on in life, the “Happy Retirement” campaign aims to connect with Singaporeans who aspire to live a carefree lifestyle during retirement. It features a couple enjoying their holidays and contrasts this with an image of an unplanned retirement to instil a sense of urgency to plan ahead.

Client Manulife Singapore Creative L&D

Media MEC

2CampaignThe story behind Sushidai

BriefSushi restaurant Sushidai launched a print campaign to announce the opening of its flagship restaurant in Singapore. Sushidai is located at the Marina Mandarin Hotel. The campaign will run until November and targets those who appreciate sushi.

Client Sushidai Singapore

Creative Arcade Singapore Media Arcade Singapore

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WWW.MARKET ING- INTERACT IVE .COM J U LY / AU G U S T 2 0 1 4 | a d ve r t i s i ng + m a r ke t i ng 1 1

4Campaign Tiger Uncage

BriefThe campaign is part of the brand’s new image and will roll out across 25 markets globally. It features Anthony Chen, the Singaporean director of Ilo Ilo; Hong Kong professional calligraphy artist Joey Pang; Thai movie stuntman Charlie Ruedpokanon; and Vietnamese hip hop dancer Viet Max. Ogilvy PR handles PR duties for Tiger Beer.

Client Tiger Beer

Creative Droga5

Media ZenithOptimedia

3CampaignWindow Safety Day

Brief Targeted at senior heartlanders, the campaign was conceptualised to capture their attention. The message was a simple and easy one to understand – to check, clean and change their windows if necessary. To further drive home the message, the key visual is an image of a homeowner giving the OK sign with her three fingers, signifying the process is as easy as 1, 2, 3. The campaign was executed across all major newspapers in four languages, online platforms and heartland touch-points.

Client Building and Construction Authority (BCA)

Creative Addiction Advertising

Media Bioperfect Marketing

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WHAT ADVERTISERS THINK OF MEDIA AUDITING COMPANIESIs auditing merely a hygiene factor or a crucial way of determining the level of media value delivered? What role will auditors play in the future of media buying and planning? WFA in its latest survey posed these questions to marketers.Some key observations are as follows:

• Europe leads in using auditors, followed by the US, Asia, Middle East and Africa. Latin America lags far behind, but that is changing.• A majority of the respondents said auditors would become more important within the next few years.• But the share of digital budgets that auditors are able to measure remains low and appears to be declining in some key regions.

More on the results here:

How crucial is media auditing to advertisers?

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The MEDIA INVESTIGATORSResearch across the WFA membership set out to investigate what advertisers think of the media auditing compamnies responsible for policing media value and interrogating media agencies, and to establish what the future has in store for the detectivex of the media industry.

These results are based on responses from 29 companies, across 15 different industry sectors.

Total global media spend of all respondents represents approximately $35bn.

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5 MISTAKES CLIENTS MAKE ON SOCIAL MEDIAEver wonder why your social investment is not paying off? Here are the five most common mistakes that marketers are making but probably may not notice. Jennifer Chan writes.

Social media is a helpful marketing tool when it is used correctly. Ever wonder why your social investment is not paying off? Jeffrey Hau, sales director of digital marketing agency Prizm, reveals five of the most common mistakes marketers are making, but probably may not notice.

1. Underestimating the complications of social media adsSocial networks such as Facebook allow clients to target their ads according to specific demographics, interests and preferences. Contrary to common assumption, such targeting strategies often require meticulous planning, depending on the client’s objectives, the nature of the promotional campaign, the content of the campaign, and so on. A client is wasting money every time the Facebook ad is shown to a user who isn’t interested in the product or service. “Reach” doesn’t mean everything. Quality engagement is what you want.

2. Focusing too much on the number of fans versus the qualityTo many of our clients or potential clients, numbers matter the most. That’s understandable, but the

quality of the engagement on the page should not be neglected. A quality fan base with followers who are truly interested in your products is a much more powerful marketing resource. The effectiveness of a social campaign is reflected by users’ digital footprint. On Facebook, even the amount of “reach” shown on your posts cannot tell how many online users have seen the posts, but only how many times the posts appeared on users’ front page.

3. Using social media as another press release platformOn social media platforms, what people want is quick information. Press release content is usually a turn off. While adhering to the brand’s guidelines, clients should be aware of the unique culture on each social media platform and modify their promotional messages accordingly. What you truly need is sharable content that ultimately directs users to the store or to purchases. Engaging bloggers, for example, is one way to convince people.

4. Using the same marketing strategy for every social media platform

Clients should be familiar with the unique culture and the characteristics of every social media platform. It’s wrong to assume a single strategy can be universally applied on various social networks. Sina Weibo, for example, cannot tolerate discourteous wordings. We also found that online users on this platform are looking for more authentic content, regardless of the content being traditional and old-fashioned. On the contrast, Facebook users are looking for casual and bite-sized content. This is a highly competitive platform for brands to stand out on so eye-catching content and a light-hearted approach is key.

5. The wrong assumption that every campaign or content launched on Facebook will go viral automaticallyNot every campaign carries the “viral factor” that every client wants. Facebook is not the panacea for every marketing campaign. A lot of factors matter, such as timing, and the attractiveness of the incentives.

Social PR management after launching a campaign is also important, especially to handle negative responses that go viral quickly.

Don’t slip up: Social media is not a press release platform.

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IS YOUR BRAND GUILTY OF CONTENT POLLUTION?In a digital age, is your content merely pleasing algorithms instead of people? Here’s how the top brands do it.

In my former life as a journalist, I was always looking for a good story, and that usually began by identifying the challenges faced by a particular industry. In the business world, it was digital technology and the rise of the bring-your-own-device phenomenon; for Hollywood it was piracy and peer-to-peer sharing, while the music industry was being disrupted by Spotify and, sadly, shows such as American Idol.

For us as marketers, I believe that our greatest challenge today is content pollution.

Content isn’t anything new – it has always been the bedrock of a good communications in some form. And despite the current industry hype, content marketing isn’t new either. The problem we have today actually is the digital media explosion has contaminated brands’ view of content.

The good news is this means, as marcomms professionals, that we’re doing our jobs well. Brands have finally woken up to the need to engage with their consumers via relevant, targeted content marketing.

Unfortunately content is being produced to please algorithms, not people.

It’s all too often neither relevant nor targeted, but aimlessly pushed out, polluting consumers’

lives. It’s like playing the numbers game with a machine gun in the hope of registering a hit, rather than the careful, considered, highly targeted approach of a sniper.

Content pollution is becoming a very real problem for both brands and consumers. There’s just so much stuff out there it is becoming increasingly difficult to find content that is relevant, interesting and entertaining. And this is worrying.

Take native advertising, which is when brands provide online content in the context of the user experience (think advertorials for the digital world). Our industry is going wild for native advertising today, and when done well it can be enormously powerful. It takes all the best bits of editorial content – trust, authenticity, insight, relevance – and carefully weaves the brand message into it.

However, do it badly and it can be the worst kind of content pollution. It can obscure and dilute the user experience, and ultimately damage consumer sentiment towards a brand. This is the reason why at the moment traditional editorial sees engagement rates of about 70%, while native ads only see about 24%.

So how do brands engage increasingly fickle

consumers, for whom the next story is just a swipe away?

One model that is being touted as a future solution is The Guardian’s recent seven-figure deal with Unilever. The leading UK media title recently launched a branded content division, Guardian Labs, which works with brands to tell their stories in a compelling, authentic manner to create “long-term, engaging commercial partnerships”. The twist? Unilever gets no editorial sign-off on any content.

You only have to look at the B2C space to see how brands are finding innovative ways to engage with time-poor consumers with unusual content. Dove’s Real Beauty campaign is one example of an initiative that turned every single ad model on its head to produce one of the most compelling ads in recent years. Elsewhere, IBM has invested heavily into its strategy, with IBMblr just one example of how it produces original content to engage its traditionally cynical IT audience.

The list goes on: BA’s lauded, multi-channel #LookUp campaign; Chipotle’s transmedia Scarecrow spot; and Google’s Think Quarterly online magazine.

Big brands are starting to find new and interesting ways to tell their stories and engage with consumers. But those marketing departments are often operating on multi-million pound budgets and virtually unlimited resources. So what is the answer for the rest of us, particularly those in the B2B space?

In my mind the answer is environmentally friendly content marketing. Content that is objective, relevant, insightful and original. Content that is backed up by an insight and then an idea, and supported by a carefully curated community. Content that is well-researched and targeted, but simultaneously agile enough to be relevant to emerging trends.

There’s no one right type of content, it can take many forms. But if done well and done right, it will be a breath of fresh air in the market for both consumers and brands alike.

The writer is Nick Thorpe, content editor from Bite

Content pollution: Is your content relevant?

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SINGTEL SPENDS BIG ON TECH ACQUISITIONSWhile Amobee has yet to bring a profit, SingTel continues to spend big to grow its digital ad business. Rezwana Manjur reports.

SingTel has made another two major investments in the digital space through its mobile ad firm Amobee – acquiring Adconion Direct North America and Adconion Australia, along with Kontera Technologies. Adconion was acquired for US$235 million, while Kontera was bought for about US$150 million.

Adconion offers ad solutions across mobile, web and social networks, while Kontera is a digital content intelligence company with offices in the US, UK and Israel, allowing users to analyse content across mobile, web and social networks.In 2012, SingTel bought mobile ad company Amobee for a reported US$321 million; last year it bought Gradient X, another mobile ad tech start-up. With these acquisitions, as well as the US$30 million Amobee spent last year, already a quarter of the SG$2 billion set aside two years ago for SingTel’s three-year plan to ramp up digital advertising has been used up, revealed Allen Lew, CEO of Group Digital L!fe and chairman of Amobee.

This investment comes despite Amobee still running at a loss, he added. However, SingTel has planned a three to five year timeline to get the company contributing to its bottom-line revenue.

He said he viewed Amobee’s contribution to SingTel as being more than mere cash and profitability because valuation in the digital space is “different from traditional telcos. So when you look at its contribution to SingTel, there are two parts – profit and valuation”, he said.

“The digital advertising business is about scale and capitalising on the market opportunities with technology as a core differentiator.”

He said these acquisitions would mean big opportunities for SingTel in emerging markets, such as India, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.

“As more people in emerging markets get smartphones and the cost of smartphones

decrease, even Amobee will start to get more share-of-voice from advertisers. Companies want to get into the face of consumers in a personalised way, in a way perhaps the fixed internet and traditional media has not quite been able to,” he said.

Currently, Amobee holds a 10% share of the ad spend in the display advertising market. Mark Strecker, CEO of Amobee, also added that

as more and more global clients look to Asia, the move was needed to strengthen Amobee’s position in the market.

“People have this perception telcos shoot and pray it sticks – we want people to know that at SingTel we look at businesses in a systematic way. Rather than shooting at a large number of targets we shoot at a few major businesses,” Lew said.

Can SingTel make its digital business profitable?

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WIKIPEDIA – AND THE CASE FOR HONESTYShould PR professionals be allowed to edit Wikipedia for clients on the sly? Some think so. Rezwana Manjur reports.

While top PR firms have come out to declare they will abide by Wikipedia’s ruling, and play fair when it comes to editing their clients’ Wikipedia pages, others have raised objections.

Wikipedia is now asking anyone who is paid to edit a page or articles to declare the arrangement.

“We believe that undisclosed paid advocacy editing is a black-hat practice that can threaten the trust of Wikimedia’s volunteers and readers. We have serious concerns about the way that such editing affects the neutrality and reliability of Wikipedia,” said Wikipedia in a blog post.

However, one senior member of a global PR agency told Marketing, on the basis of anonymity, that he was surprised PR agencies were so readily signing the contract.

Because of the open content model Wikipedia has traditionally operated on, inaccuracies have been known to be published. There have been cases where inaccuracies were

seeded by organisations or individuals who have an agenda to harm the reputation of another, he added.

Therefore, there are times when it is necessary for public relations professionals to step in.

“Information on Wikipedia can be a case of reputation management for corporates and individuals. If factual errors have been published, it may be necessary for PR agencies to step in, craft and suggest appropriate changes,” he said.

Another global agency lead, who also chose to remain anonymous, said both consumers and organisations that chose to use Wikipedia had a moral obligation to preserve and maintain its sanctity.

“If we don’t, then we all stand to corrupt an important factual asset – which is a shame. On the issue of signing a contract, this then becomes like a legal obligation, which in turn, means the industry hasn’t reached a point where

we can self regulate something that is clearly valuable with integrity.”

The dilemma of brand control in the digital spaceHowever, Scott Pettet, vice-president for APAC at Lewis PR, said Wikipedia’s request that PR agencies do not attempt to influence their client’s representation on the site is somewhat reasonable. After all, the site’s intent is to garner unbiased third-party information.

“I’m sure there is a fine line between cleaning up factual inaccuracies and people trying to put their own spin on things. If PR agencies’ edits were restricted to facts only, then I suspect this may not have become the issue it is today,” he said.

He said what was interesting was the move highlighted one of the biggest issues for brands in the digital space today. That is, the loss of control.

He explained there are still marketers out there “who are clinging on to the old control-based marketing paradigm” and these are the same clients asking their PR agencies to edit their Wiki pages. Often enough, these are also the same marketers who are reluctant to embrace social media because of the perceived risks and loss of control.

“Brands that have typically enjoyed the greatest success in social and digital are those that have embraced the loss of control and empowered consumers to influence their identity,” he said.

The statement which first came into discussion in February, asks that the PR agencies involved “seek to better understand the fundamental principles guiding Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects and “act in accordance with Wikipedia’s policies and guidelines, particularly those related to ‘conflict of interest’.”

In total, 11 agencies have signed the contract, including Allison+Partners, Ogilvy & Mather, FleishmanHillard, Burson-Marsteller, Ketchum, MSLGROUP, Porter Novelli, Edelman and Weber Shandwick, among several other companies who have promised to stay objective.

The dilemma of brand control in the digital space: Should PR edit clients’ pages?

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FACING THE MUSICUsers and authorities were alarmed and outraged after Facebook published a study on how it manipulated Newsfeed content for a week. Elizabeth Low reports.

It was creepy enough when Facebook announced how it knew when you were about to get in a relationship – or were breaking up. Then it bought WhatsApp to add to its growing avalanche of data on users.

To quote Aunt May in the movie Spider-Man: “With great power comes great responsibility” – but it looks like researchers may have missed that when they published this study.

In a study conducted across nearly 700,000 users, Facebook, with Cornell and the University of California, tested the extent to which people were affected by the content showing up in their Newsfeeds.

For one week in January 2012, some users saw mainly positive stories, while others were fed depressing posts. The result? Scientists concluded this was “experimental evidence for massive-scale contagion via social networks”, said The Guardian.

Here’s one example of a finding from the study: “We also observed a withdrawal effect: People who were exposed to fewer emotional posts (of either valence) in their Newsfeed were less expressive overall on the following days, addressing the question about how emotional expression affects social engagement online.”

The experiments took place for one week

on 11-18 January, 2012). Participants were randomly selected based on their user ID, said the study.

It has also sparked alarm among authorities.According to the same article by The

Guardian, a senior British MP called for a parliamentary investigation into how Facebook and other social networks manipulated emotional and psychological responses of users by editing information supplied to them.

The article also quoted several tweets by Clay Johnson, the co-founder of a digital agency that built and managed Barack Obama’s online campaign in 2008.

“Could the CIA incite revolution in Sudan by pressuring Facebook to promote discontent? Should that be legal? Could Mark Zuckerberg swing an election by promoting Upworthy [a website aggregating viral content] posts two weeks beforehand? Should that be legal?” Johnson said.

Adam Kramer, the data scientist leading the research, wrote this post to clarify his stand:

“The reason we did this research is because we care about the emotional impact of Facebook and the people that use our product. We felt that it was important to investigate the common worry that seeing friends post positive content

leads to people feeling negative or left out. At the same time, we were concerned that exposure to friends’ negativity might lead people to avoid visiting Facebook. We didn’t clearly state our motivations in the paper.”

“This research was conducted for a single week in 2012 and none of the data used was associated with a specific person’s Facebook account. We do research to improve our services and to make the content people see on Facebook as relevant and engaging as possible. A big part of this is understanding how people respond to different types of content, whether it’s positive or negative in tone, news from friends, or information from pages they follow. We carefully consider what research we do and have a strong internal review process. There is no unnecessary collection of people’s data in connection with these research initiatives and all data is stored securely,” a Facebook spokesperson told Marketing.

Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg also admitted in an interview with NDTV that it had communicated poorly on the controversial psychological experiment, but denied any attempt to control the emotions of users.

“We communicated very badly on the emotions study ... we hope users understand that we care about their privacy ... we want to be transparent and give users control.”

Senior analyst, Forrester, Fatemeh Khatibloo wrote in a blogpost that while Facebook’s study crosses ethical lines, the data use is likely legitimate. “Consumers are understandably outraged by why they perceive as an abuse of their postings. But Facebook’s Data Use Policy explicitly allows the firm to use data for internal research purposes. Still, the potential for users to abandon Facebook is real,” said Khatibloo.

Facebook has novel data to analyze, and in the long term, this could change marketing practices significantly. The kinds of data that Facebook is starting to exploit are highly unique. It could actually combine evergreen affinities with contextually specific emotional states to change how brands buy media and measure performance, added Khatibloo. As for short term implications, however, could see outraged users leaving the site in droves, she concluded.

Facebook’s faux pas: A study that freaked the public out.

NEWS ANA L Y S I S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


HOW TO SELL ON SOCIAL MEDIAThree tips to making the most of social media as a sales tool.

If Glengarry Glen Ross was set in 2014, instead of staging a break-in to steal sales leads, the underhanded tactics of the big screen’s most memorable real estate salesmen would probably have included hacking into a top dog’s LinkedIn account.

Social media has completely changed the sales process, and your ability to accelerate your career in sales. It’s a living, breathing digital Rolodex – connecting you beyond phone numbers and business small talk over cocktails to helping you build relationships, find leads and gain insights into what your customers are really looking for.

According to the Manpower Group, sales positions are the hardest to fill in the Asia Pacific. Having been in sales management positions for more than 20 years, it’s no secret why. Sales, especially B2B sales, are tough – it takes relationships, knowledge and the time and ability to build a referral network.

Socially connected people are now using social media on the job to monitor potential clients and competitors, gather intelligence, network and more – and it’s giving these people a significant edge over the competition.

A recent study found that salespeople using social media on the job outperformed peers not using it by a whopping 73%. They also exceeded their quotas 23% more often than their counterparts who were not using social media.

I know social media can boost sales success because I’ve seen it work within my own company Hootsuite. All of our sales people tap into social networks daily to engage clients.

Here are three tips for making the most of social media as a sales tool:1. Use social media to break the ice: Social

media can be a great resource for gaining unique insights into leads that can help you make a more impactful first contact. Discovering a decision-maker is a vegetarian, for example, gives me a great personal lead-in when making that crucial first contact. Full disclosure: I use our own Hootsuite platform to follow and analyse trends, brands and decision-makers. This kind of investigating has been invaluable in uncovering crucial

information on businesses, enabling me and my sales team to optimally time our outreach.

2. Tap into social networks for warmer referrals: Social media can be a major asset in getting people to be more receptive to you. Let’s face it – gone are the days of big entertainment expense accounts. Today, in the business of the famous ABC (always be closing), it’s even more crucial to “always be connected” – socially. I often seek introductions from common friends or business associates. None of this, of course, is rocket science. A warm referral is known to increase the odds of sales success by 200% to 400%. What’s new and powerful here is leveraging social media to transform a cold referral into a warm one.

3. Catch new opportunities with social media: There is nothing more tragic than a lost opportunity in sales. Our sales reps have found one easy way to avoid them – working with departments (other than just marketing) to gain valuable intelligence. For example, one of our customer support reps recently spotted someone on Twitter complaining about an unsatisfactory sales demo they’d just had with one of our major competitors.

She immediately blasted the message over to a sales manager, using our internal tasking tool. The manager took it from there, looking up the tweeter’s professional information on LinkedIn and then tracking down his contact information. This all ended up becoming a promising new opportunity worth tens of thousands of dollars. Often clients are pleased to hear from us in this way, and to be offered a potential solution to their business problem.

Social media-assisted selling isn’t just happening at my company. More and more salespeople in both large and small businesses are adopting social media. Last year, for example,IBM reported a stunning 400% surge in its sales after implementing its social selling pilot programme.

Tapped into networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook company pages, and Twitter, salespeople can empower themselves with useful information and data that gives them a truly competitive edge. Social media won’t necessarily replace the phone or email, but it’s a new and revolutionary tool that sales departments can add to their arsenal.

The writer is Ken Mandel, managing director for Asia Pacific, Hootsuite.

Social media: A living, digital Rolodex.

NEWS ANA L Y S I S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


EIGHT TRENDS CHANGING MARKETINGWhat does it take to future-proof the CMO function? Here we list the trends that will shape the industry in the years ahead. Apple Lam reports.

1. Real-time data will ruleTo improve the efficiency of advertising, the demand for real-time information and capabilities will go up. We are moving from just recording data to modifying the system in real-time, which means continuous improvement.

2. Marketing will become increasingly contextualised based on user dataUser data is the key to keeping campaigns targeted and relevant to the lives of specific customers.

We are starting to see the use of data in direct marketing tools and information such as: at what time of day users are accessing something and where and who they are.

3. Apps are introducing the idea of marketing as a serviceWhile using apps to market a business isn’t for everyone, it has transformed the way marketers see marketing.

It means using services as a means to market through apps – such as an app to help you on your daily run or an app where you catch

virtual butterflies – they change how you interact with the consumer.

4. Viral advertising is becoming a new way of grabbing attentionHoping to create viral advertising campaigns online has changed the process of content creation for marketers. You are no longer constrained by a 15 or 30-second brief. The key word is viral, which means making sure that people are either laughing or sharing something because it’s stupid.

5. Instant messaging is a new tool for getting closer to the customerWhatsApp, WeChat and Line have reversed the idea of social networking as being open to your friends, family and even the public, such as Facebook feeds.

Now, with instant messaging, brands are communicating directly with the customer on a one-to-one basis.

6. Mobile money is becoming the normAll retailers will eventually go mobile. Coupons,

circular spending and formats are migrating, with offers that are more targeted, personalised and accountable.

7. Digital will reign not just on virtual online platforms, but in retail and in-store environments tooDigital technologies will be increasingly used to advertise and communicate product information in physical retail stores.

For example, what you will see in retail stores in the future is as soon as you lift up a hanger, the LED wall next to the customer will show information and visuals about the product.

8. Brands can be the connective tissue between people and new technologyNew technologies emerging from labs and start-ups can be intimidating to the average consumer. Brands can get these products out of beta and into the hands of consumers. They have the scale, the resources and, in most cases, the trust of their customers. They just require the vision and the investment.

Mobile money, digital everywhere: Here’s what to expect, marketers.

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An iconic beer brand with Droga5 as the agency, and yet, the result was this slickly insipid campaign. Premised on the time-worn

cliché of the rising Asian spirit, the executions did nothing remotely fresh or surprising. Through all the tattoos and edgy posturing, it felt like consumer research transcribed directly into advertising. OK, so the research said being an indie film director or tattoo artist is considered aspirational. OK, so they chose to make a commercial about an indie film director and a tattoo artist. Surely they could have made the subjects seem more like people than like archetypes? And not say things such as, “When you’re brave and determined, you can leave the cages behind”. And fellas, this is beer we’re talking about. Does it have to be so heavy?

HOT: www.marcellacustom.com

Marcella is a local company that’s taken the common tailor shop model and polished the hell out of it. This has happened across all its touch-points, including physical retail, social media and CRM. Its website is no exception to this gleaming facade. Beautifully simple in its aesthetic and its UX, the website is a wonderful manifestation of its entire consumer eco system. Without taking anything away from it at all, it’s like it picked up the how-to-do a great website 101 guide and just did it. As I look at it today, its latest promotional offer sits front and centre, proud and uncluttered. Below that are three boxes: “delivery times” – a simple, but powerful proactive answer to any visitor’s top-of-mind question; a second box which looks to secure your email address and a third that broadcasts its customer reviews.

Never mind that Turkish Airlines created this commercial for the Turkish market. Never mind it was in Turkish. As a film it drew me right in. It’s a warm, simple

story that does everything right. Perfect casting, a stunning location and sensitive direction. I found myself watching this again and again, rewarded each time by those magical expressions from the kids. It’s rather different from the international Kobe/Messi ad it did recently, and in my view, rather better. Beyond speaking of the large number of local destinations covered, it speaks of an airline that has its heart in the right place. And like with the best human stories, it doesn’t need subtitles.

NOT: www.opentrolley.com.sg

Open Trolley is a Singapore-based online bookstore. Landing on the home page, one is immediately bombarded with a large header area that seems to be a mixture of cross-store promotional offers, category promotions and news on upcoming book releases. This makes for a rather complicated splash of colour and information, allowing none of the key messages to really come across. Below this are two additional banners that further muddy the promotional pool. But the biggest problem I have with my experience is the site requiring me to register before I can save anything to my basket or to a list. This is a journey breaker in my book – it’s something I’ve experienced time and time again. Sites like this need to get me invested before the “big ask” of personal details.

HOT: Turkish Airlines’ Hayal edince

AD WATCHNOT: Tiger Beer’s Uncage campaign

OP I N I O N : A D WAT CH /WEB WAT CH

Mohan PrabhakarCreative directorTBWASingapore

WEB WATCHCarl GriffithHead of digitalHavas Worldwide Singapore

D I R E C T MA I L C A S E S T UDY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


Tiger Beer wanted to get buzz around its bold new image. Here’s how it created an exclusive touch for its media launch.

THE TIGER UNCAGED

Rene de MonchyHead of marketing,APB Singapore

Objective: To helm the global launch of Tiger Beer’s brand repositioning – Uncage.

Idea: A direct mailer with a “swipe to access” mechanism, granting guests access to the “by invite only” launch event.

Results:More than 100 invited guests, including media and influencers from the fields of music, fashion, design and entrepreneurship, attended the global launch of Tiger Beer’s brand repositioning on 21 May 2014, with social conversations continuing online via #Uncage.

THE MAIL

A magnetic appeal: Tiger used this direct mailer to give guests an exclusive feel.

Tiger Beer launched a bold new global campaign to an exclusive guest list of select media and influencers in May. For the 82-year-old brand, “Tiger Uncage” is the biggest transformation in its history, with a 360-degree campaign where every brand touch-point was refreshed, except the world-acclaimed brew. This campaign ran counter to traditional beer advertising themes, encouraging young adults across Asia to “ignite the Tiger inside” and take the leap to follow their passions and dreams. Guests were treated to the international premiere of three short films showcasing real stories of young Asian personalities, including Singapore’s very own Anthony Chen. The films illustrated how they forged their own paths, challenged norms and expectations, and broke free from conformity.

To communicate the special and exclusive event, information on the direct mailers was kept brief with the only hint being, “It’s Time to Uncage”, coupled with key event details. On the reverse side, the invite had a magnetic strip with the instructions, “Swipe Card to Enter”, telling guests that doors would close at a specific time. The mailers were enclosed in envelopes designed to look like cages, again, alluding to the premise of the campaign. All these details piqued guests’ curiosity and intrigue in the lead-up to the event, building excitement and buzz preceding the global launch.

One of the many touch-points for guests was the unconventional registration method

at the event. Instead of having a registration counter at ArtScience Museum’s Rain Oculus, guests accessed the venue by swiping their mailed invitation, which signalled Tiger’s first act of “uncaging” its launch event experience.

Upon entering, guests were identified personally and each received a personalised leather wrist band with a key, allowing them to access their initialled lockers to retrieve curated door gifts. These gifts were unconventional, such as a unique film-going experience, a haircut and men’s grooming experience, complimentary music lessons or paddle yoga classes. Each guest’s gift was specially selected to complement them to ensure their “Uncage” experience extended beyond the event.

Besides the three films featuring the “Uncage Heroes”, there were also three event touch-points: “Who says you can’t play with food?” – presented by Labyrinth’s molecular gastronomy station; “Who says classical music isn’t ground breaking?” – presented by Sa Collective’s modern electronic take on traditional Chinese instrumentals; and “Who says cages are permanent?” – presented by the doodle wall that prompted guests to visualise what their life would look like, uncaged.

From the initial invitation, right to personalised door gifts at the event, Tiger’s “Uncage” campaign challenged conventions of a typical launch experience, marking a brave step forward for the brand as it paves an increasingly resonant direction in Asia and beyond.

P RO F I L E



P RO F I L E


Mid-last year, AIA launched a new brand positioning. The campaign created hype across Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore, running with the tag line: “Real Life Never Stops.”

Created by TBWA\Hong Kong, the campaign saw massive media buys regionally across TV, outdoor billboards, newspaper ads, online promotions and social media activation.

The 66-year-old brand came to a point where it needed to rejuvenate its image. As the company’s first major brand initiative in recent years, “The Real Life Company” was a concentrated push to reinvigorate the brand and connect with a younger generation of consumers.

However, the challenge to engage youths is never an easy one. This was made especially harder for an insurance brand because very few in the Gen Y age group seriously consider life mortality or the need to insure against risks.

In a conversation with Advertising + Marketing, AIA’s chief marketing officer Thomas Wong (pictured), says: “There is the tendency among Gen Y-ers to think that if an unfortunate event strikes, their youth and vigour will enable them to quickly get back on track again.

“Many, therefore, tend to put off financial planning because they feel

they have many more years ahead of them to start thinking about the more serious issues.”

However, statistics tell a different story.According to Wong, nearly 50% of accident casualties involve those

in the 16-35 age group. Meanwhile, the incidence of cancer among adults between the ages of 20 and 39 is equally startling because it accounted for up to 14% for every 100,000 of Malaysia’s population.

“We needed to remind our target group that illness and accidents do not discriminate; they can strike at any age. This means it’s important to have the right protection so it’s easier to get back on your feet again,” Wong says.

But the intention of AIA is not to scare them. Rather than weighing them down with piles of information, Wong and his team decided to make insurance a little more enjoyable. That’s how it decided to lure the youths through music.

Seeing an opportunity knocking on its door with international superstar Taylor Swift’s red tour, AIA jumped on board as the lead sponsor. It urged the public to show what “Real Music Never Stops” meant, keeping in line with its “Real Life Never Stops” brand statement. The public was also urged to share creative videos or photos where winners stood the chance of attending the sold-out concert.

Making it a first for the nation, AIA also decided to bank on the popularity of the Hallyu Korean wave from the year before and brought in Korean superstars who entertained more than 12,000 K-pop fans. This, it said, was the first ever music concert sponsored by a life insurer in the country.

At the group level, AIA entered into a five-year major partnership with the Tottenham Hotspur Football Club in February 2014. The partnership allows the AIA brand to be featured on the shirts of Spurs players in all competitions until the end of the 2018/2019 season.

All in all, this resulted in the insurance company taking top spot for both brand consideration and overall rating in the insurance industry for 2013, according to research by international research company Millward Brown.

“To have reached this top position in the industry one year after integrating our operations in Malaysia is a proud achievement for us. It is certainly a powerful motivator for us to build on our key strengths to keep the brand vibrant and relevant,” Wong says.

However, it doesn’t end there. Wong believes it is simply not enough to attract the young; the brand must walk the talk.

AIA launched a nationwide recruitment drive called “Let’s Get Real” to attract a younger generation into its workforce who would better connect with the youths of the nation. This resulted in 5,800 new recruits with 80% of them from that age group.

While the move is certainly in line with its rejuvenation efforts, attracting the Gen Y-ers into the workforce and keeping them on track and retaining them is an uphill task on its own.

To manage this, AIA put together a programme that gave the youngsters hands-on experience, mentoring and training to ease them into what is typically a challenging first year or two in the business. Furthermore, with the help of a newly refurbished AIA Financial Centre, it hopes to create a vibrant work environment for employees to foster better engagement and teamwork.

“At AIA, we see a role in educating Gen Y-ers much earlier about securing their future through adequate protection, savings and retirement plans. Our brand positioning is centred on the fact that real life never stops changing. Because of that, Malaysians need a life insurer who understands that and supports them through life’s happy moments as well as in bad times,” Wong says.

“This insight helped us create a clear vision of how to correctly position our brand to resonate with consumers.”

“OUR BRAND POSITIONING IS CENTREDON THE FACT THAT REAL LIFE NEVER STOPS CHANGING. BECAUSE OF THAT, MALAYSIANS NEED A LIFE INSURER

WHO UNDERSTANDS THAT AND SUPPORTS THEMTHROUGH LIFE’S HAPPY MOMENTS

AS WELL AS IN BAD TIMES.”

Growth from Knowledge

EXPERTS IN SHOPPER AND RETAIL TRENDS

As thought leaders in our industry, we have a deep understanding of consumer experiences and choices.We identify developing trends all over the world and deliver globally with vital insights into local markets in 100 countries.We help your project changes in shoppers‘ customer journey and in their choice of channels for planning, shopping and buying.We turn research into smart business solutions. And enable you to create winning strategies to enrich consumers’ lives.

www.gfk.com

GfK_Ad_Experts-in-trends.indd 1GfK_Ad_Experts-in-trends.indd 1 14/7/2014 10:20:44 AM14/7/2014 10:20:44 AM


SHOPPER MARKETING 2014

DATE: 25-26 June 2014VENUE: Grand Park City Hall Hotel Singapore

1 Bob Neville, global retail creative director and head of retail, New Balance.

2 Diana Ho, brand manager, Shu uemura – Hong Kong.

3 Yan Tsang, director of client services, eBay Enterprise.

4 (From left): Lawrence Yeow, APAC retail director, GfK; Diana Ho, brand manager, Shu uemura – Hong Kong; and Hywel Evans, regional director, decision science, APAC, AIMIA.

5 (From left): Moderator Elizabeth Low, Marketing magazine; Patrick Steinbrenner, director, on-site marketing, ZALORA; Roger E. Egan III, co-founder and CEO, Redmart; and Bob Neville, global retail creative director and head of retail, New Balance, talking about product differentiation online.

6 Guests at the function.

7 Whee Min Wang, general manager (group retail), leisure division, SUTL Investment.

8 Dan Paris, regional managing director, TBWA\Singapore.

9 Pankaj Batra, chief marketing officer, home service, Pizza Hut – Asia Franchise.

10 Hywel Evans, regional director, decision science, APAC, AIMIA.

11 Anil Srinivas, director – e-commerce, Dell, APJ.

12 (From left): Moderator Elizabeth Low, Marketing magazine; Han Zantingh, managing director, Asia, BrainJuicer; Kensaku Konishi, president and chief executive officer, Canon Singapore; and Terry Sales, regional marketing manager, Electrolux Major Appliances – East Asia.

1 2 3

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11


RESEARCH ASIA INTERACTIVE 2014

DATE: 27 June 2014VENUE: Grand Park City Hall Hotel Singapore

1 Tyrone Almeida, director of insights and planning, Kellogg Company, Asia Pacific and S.S Africa.

2 (From left): Moderator Elizabeth Low, Marketing magazine; Mukesh Kumar, head of marketing, Maggi light meal business, Nestlé India; Philip Steggals, insights director, Kadence International; and Sohyun Song, assistant vice-president, market research, group customer experience, OCBC Bank.

3 Sohyun Song.

4 Mukesh Kumar.

5 Philip Steggals.

6 Anna Rokina, social data consultant – global analytics hub, Lenovo.

7 Michael Chadwick, director, brand strategy, APAC Mondelēz.

8-10 Guests at the conference. 11-12 Interactive sessions.

13 The overall conference.

10

12

11

13

1 32

4 5 6 7

8 9


The igniteThis was a four-minute talk with 15 slides that auto-rotated: on stage, and in front of everyone. The topics ranged from public transport in Indonesia, to e-commerce, to what makes you happy in life – basically anything you wanted to talk about. I was highly impressed with quite a few of the 17-odd presentations we saw and

INSIDE WPP’S STREAM INDONESIA..Rayana Pandey reports on WPP’s annual Stream event. Here’s how it looked like.

It was my first time attending Stream and I have to say, there were quite a few things that caught my attention. Other than the awesome venue and some great discussions on the past, present and future of marketing, what really made Stream an (un)conference were a few components:

The extravaganzaThe marketing industry is quite talented, as I learned, and definitely not shy to display it. From songs to power-point Karaoke (making stories out of 15 slides shown to you in quick succession, on the spot and to be recited “real-time” – no kidding!) to dance and histrionics. You could find all of it there.


hey, a few also got standing ovations from the audience.

The gadgethonGadgets that make you say “wow” was what

this session was all about. From Oculus Rift to drones and much more, the amount of cool gadgets at this conference was eye-opening.

Midnight cooking madness… by the guests, yes. Guests opted to participate in a culinary competition. I was no judge, but if you had asked me, my points would have gone to Dhaniya chicken (chicken cooked with coriander and the judges also agreed), Oreo fritters (yes, there is such a thing and it was heaven) and, of course, the tropical sangria.

Stream Indonesia saw 250 guests in attendance and it wasn’t just a number. The impressive cross-section of guests meant you could be talking to a scientist over breakfast, a techie over lunch, an astronaut over drinks and some students as well. All of this on top of agency professionals and marketers who are always fun to meet.

The three-day event is called (un)conference for a reason. Once you’re at Stream, you’re expected to not do certain things:

Here is the list of don’ts.1. Do not wear anything remotely formal.2. Do not talk about work, always.3. Do not expect 40-minute power point

presentations.4. Do not stop drinking. (Kidding! There was

a free flow of booze throughout the day though.)

5. Do not hog the limelight – there was a strict time limit of 15 minutes for presentations to be made on stage …

… and the list continues. Overall, it was the ultimate “un-conference”. Until next year guys!


WHAT YOU MISSEDAT SHOPPER

MARKETING 2014at this point. For omni-channel to work, retailers needed to map out which touch-points they wanted to excel in, Evans said.

Ho pointed out that a lack of a good database system was currently hampering advancement in omnichannel marketing. “The new-age customer is very promiscuous, so you need to know what makes them loyal to you as a brand,” Yeow added.

Stanley Kee, managing director of SEA for GfK, however, argued that for an omni-channel strategy to work, a brand doesn’t need to try and address all the channels at the same time. Kee also warned against overhyping certain channels, such as mobile for example, quoting figures for mobile use in Singapore as being low for in-store shopping.

Shopper marketing today is a fast evolving space. With new technology constantly emerging, it’s vital for marketers to understand how to convert potential customers into buyers. In the second edition of Shopper Marketing 2014, here are the key issues highlighted by our speakers.

Omni-channel marketing: is it an ideal?The session opened with a panel discussion on omni-channel marketing, and if it was a realistic direction for brands to take. On the panel were Hywel Evans, Aimia’s regional director of decision science for APAC; Lawrence Yeow, GfK’s APAC retail director; and Diana Ho, brand manager of shu uemura Hong Kong. All panellists agreed that for many brands the concept was an ideal

Gold Sponsors



Yan Tsang, director of client services at eBay Enterprise, also made a case for omni-channel marketing. “Omni-channel is not where you want to be. It is where you should be. You have to be where your consumers are 24/7,” she said.

Pankaj Batra, chief marketing officer of home service at Pizza Hut – Asia Franchise, spoke on e-commerce, eCRM and social – the three strategic pillars for digital engagement.

“It’s 40% to 60% cheaper to service a customer online; average spend is higher; frequency of buys are 35% higher,” he said.

Standing out in the digital realmIn the following panel discussion, Bob Neville, global retail creative director and head of retail at New Balance; Roger Egan, co-founder and CEO of RedMart; and Patrick Steinbrenner, director for on-site marketing for Zalora, discussed the challenges of building a brand online. Egan said the key thing to note when building an online brand was to establish trust, also warning against over cluttering a site. Three things that were pointed out as being key to building a brand online were price, selection and experience.

New Balance’s Neville spoke about the strategy in placing its brand in the digital space. It is important brands invest in technology, given the pervasiveness of the digital space. He spoke about New Balance’s Warrior brand – which offers lacrosse and ice hockey equipment and gear – and how it had created an app where users could virtually try on the equipment on their mobile. However, he gave a caveat to brands in the digital space: “While digital technology is abundant, don’t lose sight of who you are as a brand.”

Shu Uemura’s Ho picked apart the brand’s success on social media to offer three tips: Choose the right celebrity for your market; use an emotional hook and play up the surprise factor. Ho talked about how having Charlene Choi as a brand ambassador worked for the brand.

Maximising promotionsFinally, Hans Zantingh, managing director of Asia at BrainJuicer, gave marketers tips on how to maximise their promotions with the help of behavioural economics. Everything is emotional, said Zantingh, suggesting people in general think less than they think they do. A human decision is based on three aspects: Social, environment and personal, he added, suggesting marketers can phrase promotions in a certain way. Make it easy for consumers to make decisions, he said, citing an example of where a taxi app gave consumers the choice of tipping at 20%, 25% and 30%, average tips jumped to 22% of the total fare. (Previously, tipping was 10% before this was introduced.) “Framing allows people to have a set of guidelines to follow. Hence, framing can help set purchase patterns,” Zantingh said.

Insight and audience profilingDr Lim Woo Lip, vice-president of SmartHub, StarHub’s analytics platform, spoke about using data in shopper marketing, speaking about how it was able to use the network’s mobile meta-data to target mobile users where they are, offering what the brand calls mall analytics.

AIMIA’s Evans argued the point of why demographics are no longer as important in audience profiling, instead, the path to purchase is more important. “How a consumer shops is more important than who they are.

“Many sources of data can help drive understanding, then action, but in an evolving noisy and more complicated shopper marketing space, generalist assumptions are no longer good enough.”

Creativity in shopper marketingBoth Dan Paris, regional managing director of TBWA\ Group and Mahesh Neelakantan chief operating officer at Advocacy, spoke about using creativity in shopper marketing to achieve the most effective results. For example,

Paris showed an ad by M.J. Bale, which had collaborated with Heritage Bank and Visa to create a “power suit”, in which men could pay through a contactless payment chip sewn into their sleeves.

Neelakantan showed a marketing move Advocacy created for Cadbury Malaysia, in which users could send in messages and have them imprinted on its chocolate bars. The messages could only be seen when the bars were opened.

E-commerce and attribution analysisAnil Srinivas, director of e-commerce at Dell, spoke on effective attribution analysis, advising marketers to spend more time defining the problem than solving it. “Ninety-five per cent of your time should be spent on defining the problem and 5% on the solution. Not the other way around,” he said, suggesting marketers can start with free analytics tools such as Google Analytics, then use an attribution model that tracks the customer journey and measures the outcomes.

Physical retailBrainJuicer’s Zantingh, Kensaku Konishi, president and chief executive officer of Canon Singapore, and Terry Sales, regional marketing manager of Electrolux Major Appliances – East Asia, discussed the importance of having a high-street storefront. Both Canon and Electrolux work through distributor models and both found it necessary to allow consumers to enter a store to experience the products, citing the importance of a physical store.

Finally, Whee Min Wang, general manager of group retail, leisure division, at SUTL Investment, said the online shopping and digital wave made in-store visual merchandising a challenge.

“When selling a product in a multi-brand retail space, relationships matter. Make retailers see your product’s value,” she said.



Retail space is often the silent interaction between the brand and shoppers’ minds. It is a vital step in converting shoppers into buyers, especially when the retailer is faced with online competition, Whee Min Wang, general manager of group retail for SUTL Group told marketers at Shopper Marketing 2014. Today, increasing rentals often mean retailers need to generate even higher yield per square foot to maintain profit margins, she said. This puts pressure on retailers to make the most out of their retail space.Despite the cold war between online marketers and retailers, their strategy in luring consumers remains somewhat similar. In both cases, the marketer needs to remember he or she is telling a story to the customer. Wang shares the three vital stages to setting up a retail store:

Stage 1: Captivate your shopperThis is where window displays matter. The display should be positioned in such a way it

is able to cut through the clutter and make the customer stop and look. “Window displays are the first touch-point for most shoppers. Use this to point out the difference in your products. Remind shoppers about what your brand is doing,” Wang said.

Meanwhile, in an earlier panel, Han Zantingh, managing director of Asia at BrainJuicer, also stated a similar point.

Window shopping allows marketers to create a visual idea for their consumers. “Showing a product in use makes consumers imagine what it might be like for them to try it on or use it. This is part of behavioural economics,” Zantingh said.

Stage 2: Engage and lure in your consumersAfter you give your target consumer a glimpse of the story in the window, they will naturally enter to find out more about the brand’s story.

“The presentation of your store needs to be related to the story you promised the shopper at the window. Have some props or peripheral items to evoke emotions or even nostalgia,” Wang said. All these should finally result in

piquing the customer’s interest strongly enough to proceed to the next stage.

Meanwhile, placement of products in the store is also vital. At times, placing products related to each other closely can boost sales. While there are no absolute rules on placement, where to place the product, Wang suggests asking these questions:

What are shoppers looking for? Just a product or an identity? What do shoppers associate the brand with?What does the retailer want shoppers to remember the brand for? Specific products or a certain experience?

Stage 3: Create the connectWhen you have engaged with your consumer, you can finally connect with them. This is where having trained and valued staff comes in. Your staff need to be able to give ready information to the consumers. Human interaction is still a key value in the retail experience and is the fundamental difference between shopping online and off. “The in-store staff should be able to magnify the brand story and filling in the gaps.” she said.

HAVING TROUBLE SETTING UP YOUR RETAIL STORE?Do you place your star product upfront or at the back? Should you place more emphasis on the lesser known products or the ones that traditionally sell well? Whee Min Wang of SUTL and Hans Zantingh of Brainjuicer give marketers tips.


Earlier this year, Japanese cosmetics brand Shu Uemura rolled out a digital campaign to associate the artistic flow of the brand with local star Charlene Choi. The campaign saw immense success both online and on the retail front for the brand. Diana Ho, brand manager for Shu Uemura – Hong Kong, shared the three key steps for the video’s success during the two-day Shopper Marketing 2014 conference held in Singapore.

Step 1: BrandingBranding is vital when you wish to create a unique artistic approach and proposition for a brand. Ultimately you want to tell consumers a story. For Shu Uemura, the focus for this campaign was to emphasise the professionalism of its products and, more importantly, to come across as an artistic brand, said Ho.

Step 2: Have a big ideaDespite being taken over by L’Oréal, Shu Uemura is still very much known as a Japanese brand. To come across as an artistic brand and remain true to its Asian heritage, the art form of calligraphy

was chosen as the brand’s inspiration for the campaign.

While the idea was bold, ultimately what the brand needed was for the campaign to go viral. Precise execution was thus necessary.Here’s what the brand did next:• Pick the right celebrity: It comes as no

surprise that celebrities make for great brand buzz and help in gaining public awareness of a campaign. However, picking the right celebrity matters. Asian singing sensation Choi was picked for this campaign because, much like the brand, she was also celebrating her 30th birthday. Shu Uemura saw this as the perfect opportunity to pair the two up. “We needed to pick a celebrity who would be relevant to the brand and whose passion would be in line with the brand. Choi at this stage in her career felt as though she is happy and satisfied and growing. All these qualities were in line with our brand,” Ho said.

• Emotions matter: An emotional hook either makes or breaks a campaign. You

either love it or hate it. But either way, it creates conversation. For a campaign to go viral, people need to feel in touch and connected to the brand. Shu Uemura – through the campaign – talked about Choi’s journey as an artist to try and reel in the consumers. “The public is always interested in a celebrity’s personal story and we built up the campaign using this story which resonated well with the consumers,” Ho said.

• Play up the surprise: Any campaign which aims to go viral needs to catch the audience off guard. “We chose an artist who drew a big picture of Choi. After the entire painting, which was 10x10 metres, only one eighth of the eye liner was used. This shocked and surprised the public,” Ho said.

Step 3: Product and merchandising No doubt, like any brand and marketer, the goal of the entire Shu Uemura campaign was to sell the product, said Ho. To sell a product, demonstrating its unique selling point through the campaign is a must.

For this make-up range, a body painting of Choi was done in detail to depict the versatility in the range of thickness the eyeliner can provide. Also the fact that only an eighth of the product was used, despite such a big piece of art work being created, added to the product’s wow factor.

Meanwhile, merchandising was also key. The retail stores ensured the online campaign translated offline. The beauty advisers in-store personally used the liners to show their creativity and more than 56 looks were showcased.

“Having the right channel is vital. It’s about having synergy and seamless brand expression for the consumer. While WhatsApp and online platforms like Yahoo and Google might have more mobile penetration, Facebook and Instagram were more in line with the campaign as it was so heavily focused on imagery. It made more sense to be on Facebook and Instagram and later translate that to offline,” Ho said.

Results:According to Ho, the campaign created a lot of PR buzz. It resulted in almost nine times ROI and HK$11 million in PR coverage. The video also shot up to the second-most viewed campaign on YouTube, despite launching in mid-February. Meanwhile, it saw an overall 200% growth in the eyeliner range and a 30% increase in sales for overall eye make-up.

Shopper Marketing 2014 is a two-day event held on 25 and 26 June in Singapore at the Grand Park City Hall

THREE STEPS TO A VIRAL SUCCESSShu Uemura’s brand manager Diana Ho unveils the thinking behind the brand’s viral success. Rezwana Manjur reports.

Celebrity power: Hong Kong star Charlene Choi helped Shu Uemura achieve viral success.


Juggling the need to clear inventory while watching the bottom line can make discounting a tricky proposition. In the US, this phenomenon has reached the point where a number of large retailers will increase retail prices above what they intend to eventually sell their products for so as to create a buffer for sales events such as Black Friday.

We spoke to Wing Chan, commercial director of Samsonite Singapore, to find out how the premium luggage brand manages its pricing and discounting strategies in Singapore.

Marketing: How price-sensitive is the Samsonite customer?

Chan: Our customers, especially business and leisure travellers, are looking for a premium brand and do not mind paying the best value for it. They’re conscious about style and quality, and they need merchandise that’s reliable and fully executes on what it promises.

Marketing: What is Samsonite’s take when it comes to product discounting?

Chan: Our core products are not discounted at all. Samsonite participates in price discounts during sale periods for the benefit of acquiring new customers who may be price-sensitive or for existing clientele who want another Samsonite to add to their collection.

We participate in the Great Singapore Sale (GSS). However, our core merchandise does not go on sale during this period. In addition to the regular end-of-season sales where past season merchandise is cleared at a special discount – mainly during the GSS – Samsonite also brings in a special holiday assortment to supplement this.

During the sale season, about 30% of our store merchandise are sale items. In addition, we also do a tactical programme known as a trade-in, where we allow customers to bring any old luggage in any condition to our stores and

buy hard-case luggage at a special discounted price. This happens yearly and the luggage that is being offered will revert to its original retail price after the trade-in campaign.

Marketing: What do you do to ensure price consistency across all your stores?

Chan: Our stores, department stores and retailers all share the same pricing policy across Singapore. Any discounts made or offered are controlled by Samsonite. Discounts are offered on selected ranges and this could be for the following three reasons: (1) a discount may be given on a past season colour that we are phasing out; (2) a discount may be given on products that we are clearing to make way for a newer range; or (3) a discount is given during a tactical promotion where we reward customers with a gift with their purchase or a purchase at a special price following a regular purchase.

Marketing: When are the most effective periods to offer discounts?

Chan: Given the competitiveness of the market, Samsonite offers promotional prices during the GSS and year-end sales where customers may be looking for value-for-money products for gifting purposes or to prepare for their travels in the following year.

GETTING THE PRICE RIGHTPremium luggage brand Samsonite chooses not to discount its core products, despite participating in several sales promotions. Here’s how it strategises.


We spoke to Stanley Kee, managing director of Southeast Asia at GfK, to find out what omni-channel marketing really means for retail marketers.

Marketing: Explain omni-channel marketing to us in a nutshell.

Kee: Omni-channel has grown to be a broad topic, but slimmed down to a very basic level, it simply means that a retailer engages with its customers over all possible sales, communication and marketing channels as a single distinct entity. Whereas the initial multi-channel boom was very much a case of bringing websites to physical retailers, those websites often develop to become separate and distinct entities with

separate departments being made responsible. Omni-channel became the buzzword for those retailers who tried to integrate the different platforms and in time began to encompass more elements of mobile commerce and social media commerce opportunities.

Marketing: How many retailers actually employ effective omni-channel marketing strategies?

Kee: There are still many retailers without mobile-enabled sites, let alone a clear e-commerce strategy. There is a lack of understanding as to how to integrate all the aspects of omni-channel retail. Such aspects are often handled by a marketing team, which is one step removed from the commercial retail function and, hence,

integration is not clearly defined. Often, there is a challenge in justifying the cost – what is the return likely to be? People tend not to look at the opportunity cost of not carrying out an integrated strategy.

Marketing: Which retailers employ the best omni-channel retail strategies?

Kee: One good example is in the luxury goods sector. Burberry manages to integrate the digital experience in the physical store by equipping sales representatives with tablet computers, which tie into customers’ loyalty programme systems and social media feeds to enable them to make tailored suggestions to the customer with a view of their existing wardrobe.

Some of the huge players like Tesco have integrated click-and-collect capabilities even in grocery, so you order online, drive to the store and someone brings it straight to the car, thus avoiding the issue of being home when your orders are delivered.

Marketing: Where are Singaporean retailers in terms of the adoption of mobile commerce?

Kee: The potential of mobile commerce as a whole in Singapore can probably be evaluated by looking inside the MRT during peak hours. However, when it comes to payment and the last steps prior to making that final purchase, there is going to be a swing towards the more trusted PC-based payment. This trend is not unique to Singapore only – it’s something we see globally in our research, especially where payment details are involved.

Marketing: What are the growth prospects for physical retail?

Kee: There will always be a large proportion of people who enjoy the physical experience of shopping, and the online process has been unable to replicate that feeling. The physical environment can be used to demonstrate the product far more clearly than online can – the challenge is how to stop the customer enjoying the in-store experience and then making the purchase from another retailer online. The step to activating purchase at fixture is one of the main issues for physical retailers. The benefit that physical retailers have is they are able to upsell far more easily than online players can. This is the big advantage and very difficult for online players to replicate. As consumer products become more connected, and to some extent more costly, there will be a requirement for people to be served and not just sold to.

WHAT OMNI-CHANNEL MEANS FOR RETAILERS


RESEARCH ASIA INTERACTIVE 2014: A ROUND UPWith the market research function facing a sea of change, we thought it necessary to hold Research Asia Interactive for the second time.

Here’s what was discussed.The session opened with Tyrone Almeida

(pictured below), director of insights and planning for Kellogg Company, Asia Pacific and S.S Africa, speaking about the future of market research. He advised marketers and researchers to deal with data influx by breaking down data as much as possible for meaningful insights. He also advised marketers to keep 10% to 20% of the research budget for experimenting with new research methodologies.

The conference then moved into interactive sessions, where hosts facilitated a series of

discussions on selected topics such as the challenges and opportunities of real-time research, visual storytelling, research ROI and leveraging mobile and social media for research.

Next was a panel (pictured right, next page) on whether traditional research methods were still relevant. On the panel were Philip Steggals, insights director for Kadence International; Sohyun Song, assistant vice-president for market research, group customer experience, OCBC Bank; and Mukesh Kumar, head of marketing for the Maggi light meal business, Nestlé India. The three discussed their current research strategies; the challenges in the client-agency relationship and the challenges of integrating all data sources.

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Anna Rokina, (pictured, bottom left) a social data consultant for Lenovo’s global analytics hub, spoke next on social media listening, talking about the challenges of mining social data for meaningful use, such as product or service development. She also addressed the concern that such an operation needed to be a heavy investment – her team for social media data mining is a lean three-person team.

Mukesh Kumar (pictured, bottom center), of Nestlé India, was up once again, speaking on competitive intelligence versus market research and how marketers still need to lead their consumers instead of relying too much on research to lead their decision-making.

In the final session, Michael Chadwick (pictured, bottom right) , director of brand strategy for Mondelēz APAC, spoke on how research needs to stop being a dampener for creatives, and be fuel instead for better work.

Research Asia Interactive 2014 was a one-day conference held by Marketing magazine on 27 June, at Grand Park Hotel in Singapore.



While marketers are quick to sit down with their communications agencies to build campaign strategies and communication material, the same courtesy is not always extended to research organisations.

This was an issue highlighted during a panel discussion at Research Asia Interactive 2014.

Philip Steggals, insights director at Kadence International, said while there were some clients who saw market research agencies as trusted partners to build the brand up together from day one, it was rare.

“One of the barriers that market research agencies are facing today is that marketers are still not bringing their research agency on board for the co-creation of the brief. What can we do to break that?” he asked.

Mukesh Kumar, head of marketing for the Maggi India light meal business at Nestlé India, said a partnership was a critical factor when it comes to building good research for the future.

“Those on the client-marketer side are quick to admit they work closely with communication partners to build up communication strategies,” he said. “This co-creation strategy should be

extended to the research partners during the process of creating a brief. It should not just be a client posing a question to an agency, which is what is still typically happening in market research.”

He said consumers today had evolved because of the influx of technology and information. Hence, it is even more crucial for marketers and research agency partners to sit together to define the right set of questions. It is no longer feasible for the marketer to simply hand out a set of questions to their research agency to get the data done.

“The only way to get the right answer is if you ask the right set of questions. Only then can marketers comprehensively decide the way they should conduct the research – be it traditional or not,” Kumar said.

However, this is not always the easiest to execute.

Overcoming barriersSohyun Song, assistant VP of market research for group customer experience at OCBC, said for sectors such as banking, there were a lot of restrictions put in place when it comes to

gathering consumer data and, hence, a lot of research needs to be done in-house.

“Currently we employ our research partners to conduct the field work, but most of the thoughts and studies are designed in-house because of data protection issues,” Song said.

“While we can enlist help from agencies to conduct research, we cannot simply share the data at hand.”

Hence, the organisation has to rely on an in-house market research team that conducts surveys, and data analysts who work on this data.However, she admitted, this does not always result in the best practice because they might end up behind the curve without the guidance of a market research expert.

Meanwhile, another hurdle in building a closer relationship between research agencies and marketers lies in the rise of digital players such as Facebook, Twitter and Google.

With each of these digital platforms offering their own set of analytical data on consumer consumption and media habits, how should a marketer’s budget be split? Is there a way for research agencies to marry these platforms for a comprehensive analysis?

“I don’t think anyone has been yet to crack that,” Steggals said.

While the jury is still out on the matter, what he does recommend is that research agencies should be constantly evolving and challenging their research team to find new methodologies – regardless of information coming from social media or traditional research means.

BREAKING THE RESEARCH CLIENT-AGENCY BARRIERWhile marketers are often quick to sit with their communication agencies to build strategies, the same courtesy is seldom extended to research organisations. Rezwana Manjur reports.


With newer methods of market research emerging, what do marketers need to know in order to get best possible outcome from their research budgets? Kellogg’s Tyrone Almeida reveals.

To make sound business decisions, accurate and up-to-date insights about your customers, markets and competitors are essential, but to achieve this marketers must be fully aware of the tools and techniques and the changes in the market research (MR) space.

Marketing caught up with Tyrone Almeida, director of insights and planning for Asia Pacific and S.S. Africa at Kellogg Company, to find out how it has taken advantage of the new wave of market research to better understand its customers.

Marketing: How has the use of market research at Kellogg’s evolved over the years?

Almeida: There have been a number of aspects that have changed over the past few years in terms of how we use market research. The first big change has been in using MR to be more forward-looking versus just seeking to explain the past or have a gauge of the immediate future (like gauging a proposed product’s market potential).

This means that the same MR we did in the past is now redone in a way that we are able to understand shifts in the market dynamics and their underlying micro and macro causal trends. An understanding of these underlying trends then helps us build possible scenarios for the future and in a way predict what kinds of ideas or product streams are likely to be more successful than others in the future. This is far more efficient, and I would dare say accurate, than the old process of brainstorming based on today’s market conditions.

The second big change has been in terms of the places where MR insights are applied. Traditionally, it has been in marketing and product development. Now it is playing an increasingly prominent role, even in areas like supply chain – right from ingredient-sourcing options that best resonate with consumers to location of warehouses and depots that best balances sales coverage with cost of coverage. PR and corporate communications is another area that MR is increasingly influencing. In a nutshell, the application of MR is going wider and deeper.

The third big change has been our shift to reuse and re-mine existing data rather than just generate new data.

Each new piece of data or information is actually just one part of a large jigsaw puzzle (or the market) with the added complication this jigsaw puzzle is an evolving one. So the best way to understand the jigsaw is to always look at any new piece in the context of all the pieces you have so far and not in isolation.

What this means is that all new pieces of data are examined in terms of how they fit in with past data – what is consistent, what is different and what that means to our overall understanding of the evolving marketplace. To do this, we’ve had to shift some of the focus to re-analysing past data through different lenses versus just generating new data. This has also been helped by the fact that new analytical approaches applied to old data sets often yield new insights.

Marketing: What are your views on traditional marketing research versus emerging marketing research?

Almeida: Well this is a topic where any answer is going to sound very clichéd. So let me get a few patently obvious observations out of the way first. MR, or for that matter any field, has

to continuously evolve with the environment to stay relevant. Like many other industries, in MR, the forces driving change have largely been technological, social and economic.

We have newer ways of generating, collecting and analysing data. We have a better understanding of the science of consumer behaviour and that’s driving new research methodologies.

As markets have gotten more sophisticated with newer trade channels, modes of buying, newer communication/interactive forms and so on, there are more avenues to apply MR work. So on the whole, MR has rightly had to evolve.

The real issue is the very poor amalgamation of traditional and emerging market research.

I specifically refer to the emerging/recently emerged practice areas such as social listening, behavioural economics, neurosciences and others which have not been fully integrated or made fully compatible with work from traditional MR – the case in point being the still long drawn-out process of trying to create new unified media measurement metrics that merge traditional media GRPs with those for new-age digital media.

This is because, unlike many other industries, the emerging approaches have come from agencies/vendors not traditionally into MR (social media research, neurosciences and others). This has created two distinct sets of players in the industry – those pushing the traditional approaches and those advocating the new ones – while what is really required is for both to be compatible. Perhaps a bit of multi-company collaboration or otherwise merger and acquisition activity in this space might be in the interest to the entire MR industry.

Marketing: What are some of the current research tools employed by Kellogg’s?

Almeida:1. Demand space-driven segmentation which

looks at the five Ws (what, when, where, with whom, why/why not). Segments created in this way often tend to be far more insightful than just clustering consumers or their needs.

2. Mix-modelling for both understanding category and brand dynamics as well optimising our spends/efforts.

3. Element-wise drivers’ analysis which looks at the different components that go into a product/proposition and quantifies their end impact on consumer appeal so one can optimise for the product experience and the cost.

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While market research is integral to the success of any marketer’s strategy, it doesn’t always paint the full picture.

“Sometimes the consumer doesn’t know what he (or she) wants. And if he doesn’t know what he wants, market research cannot give you the answer. Hence, in some cases product launches and campaigns should be executed completely by a marketer’s instinct. Marketers still need to lead consumers,” said Mukesh Kumar, (pictured) head of marketing for the Maggi India light meal business for Nestlé India, at Marketing magazine’s recent Research Asia Interactive conference.

Kumar explains this is because traditionally, market research is a tool to understand consumers in their present situation and past experiences. It does not look forward. Kumar says today the best market research can only be done when paired with competitive analysis.

Let me begin by stating the obvious. Research right now is in a state of change – exciting change – driven predominantly by technology. And for those of us who use it to help build brands and drive businesses, that’s a great thing.

However, change tends to create a certain kind of conversation. New methodologies set the agenda. We’ve been presented with a shiny new box of toys, and there’s a temptation to spend all our time being dazzled by it.

That means that equally important conversations about why and how we use this new stuff may not be happening. And in many ways, these conversations are the essential ones – because if we lose sight of why we are researching, we might never figure out the best ways to use all the new techniques coming down the line.

While market research is the science of marketing, competitive analysis is the art which studies the business environment.

“Today both are extremely important, the thing is to hit the sweet spot. We need to map the competitor environment and keep an eye on

Research as a brand-building tool is at such a crossroad. What kind of relationship should research and creativity have? Currently, research and creativity seem to have two kinds of relationships in the world of marketing, and these are polar opposites. You could look at creativity as a car. In the first relationship, some use research as fuel. In the other, others use it as a braking system.

The former is surely the more preferable. No doubt creativity needs fuel, and the creative act can’t happen in isolation. Developments in both consumer understanding and also technological advances mean these inputs can be more meaningful. We now have more fuel and, crucially, we have better fuel.

Breakthroughs in understanding about how consumers make decisions have given us a clearer view on how to structure and interpret research. We know that us consumers are,

our competitor landscape. With e-commerce making a play, the competitive landscape has completely changed.”

Kumar also added that with rapid technological shifts, competitive analysis today is a task for everyone in the organisation. Companies can no longer afford to limit the task to designated research teams. Those on the ground need to be just as equipped to understand the market and the competitive landscape.

Ultimately, this leads to the need for better talent in the organisation and the need to build talent with deep industry knowledge.

“Market research and analysis needs to be done with the right context in mind. Your employee needs to be able to read and interpret the data and convey this to the teams to build the right tools needed for the evolution of the research methodologies. The key to success is constant evolution.”

fundamentally, irrational beings and if we tell you that we are planning to purchase something, frankly you can’t trust us an inch. Behavioural economics has made great strides in showing us that apparently rational decisions are anything but. This may seem like a hindrance rather than a help. But technology is here to help. Analysing physiological and even neurological responses helps us understand what consumers are thinking and feeling, not just what they are saying.

More powerfully, we can simply observe how consumers behave in real-time. That means we can set our goals and objectives more clearly. Best of all, it means we can be more agile: we can experiment and learn.

The problem is, if we don’t remember why we are doing all this, the sheer quantity of new methods, the voluminous flow of new data available, may trip us up. Worse still, it may become a replacement for creativity: when brands merely follow or mirror consumers rather than leading culture and establishing their own identity. We’ve never had more tools at our fingertips to do these things. The alliance between research and creativity can be more powerful than ever.

MARKETERS, DON’T FOLLOW YOUR CONSUMERS BLINDLYIt’s time to lead the consumer instead, which is something your research can’t tell you how to do. Rezwana Manjur reports.

FUELLING CREATIVITY WITH RESEARCHResearch is in a state of change - driven predominantly by technology. But brands need to stay focused on how it can drive creativity. Mondelez’ Michael Chadwick writes.


While most marketers understand the importance of market research, if not done well, research may end up only yielding shallow insights which don’t help in decision-making.

It is understandable smaller companies often tend to avoid top quality research because of financial constraints. But it’s not only the smaller brands who are guilty of wasteful research. In fact, the larger brands are more prone to undertaking research just for the sake of it, thereby wasting loads of money without getting decisive inputs. Here are some signs that your brand is doing the same:

1. You know the attributes, but not your brand’s DNAThrough traditional research you can get attributes, but it cannot bring out a brand’s real DNA. Every brand has a distinct image and a differentiated profile in the minds of consumers, but traditional research fails to reveal them.

Research offers a brand insight about the different attributes it has, for example, innovation, quality, reliability, etc. However, if the research is shallow, all a brand will get is these attributes without getting a real picture of the brand. Also, trying to track brand attributes can be tricky.

If a respondent already has a good impression of a brand, there could be a “halo” effect when he or she answers questions about brand attributes. For example, if a consumer already perceives Volkswagen as a better brand than a Hyundai, it will show higher scores on most brand attributes.

2. Your brief to your communication agency is complicated and full of generic wordsA briefing to the communication agency is often long and loaded with data and graphs, but without clear cut indicators for the creative guys. A creative agency might receive words describing the product or service which actually do not help the team – for example, “spacious car” or “tasty potato chips”, which would be what typical research findings may offer. Get better insights – get your target audience to explain what they mean. To the middle-aged car buyer, for example, a “spacious” car might be one which allows enough space for kids to feel comfortable, while a younger buyer might take it to mean a “spacious” car which could fit a surf board. And the creative agency might actually have a whole different take on it as well.

3. You can’t explain to your grandma why consumers buy your brandSome of the deepest things in life are actually very simple. If you can’t explain why consumers prefer your brand over competitors to your grandma, you have not understood the fundamentals of your brand’s DNA. So avoid explanations such as, “Our brand is seen as more tasty than D, but not as tasty as C, while consumers find it more crunchy than A, but less crunchy than B. And our flavour is not as good as A, B or D”.

You should be able to simplify it to the level for any layman to understand. Here’s an example:

Consumers buy car Brand A because they find it ‘sporty’ and ‘attractively designed’ while a major challenge the brand faces, is in its perceived ‘quality’ due to some of its accessories having a ‘plastic look and feel’ – simple, to the point and yet a clear representation of consumer perceptions.

4. You are aware of the broad concepts, but not the words to communicate themOften the key insights are revealed by the research, but because they came from traditional closed-ended questions, it is impossible to find semantic associations with those words. If I want to communicate my brand of potato chips as being “convenient” what are the words I need to use? Research using open-ended questions might be able to reveal that the most used words for “convenient” are “practical” and “handy”, but not “always available” and “not heavy”.

To cite another example, unprompted responses allow us to understand subtle differences between semantic words used for one brand compared with another, even if the broad concept is the same. Mercedes and Peugeot are both perceived as brands with “attractive design”, but for the former, consumers use words such as “elegant” and “classy” while for the latter, they use words such as “designer” and “stylish”.

5. Your research springs no surprisesLastly, brand marketers often end up with a report on their table which, despite being detailed and exhaustive, fails to provide anything new and is hardly inspiring. The main reason for this is the researcher inadvertently ends up asking predictable questions, thereby generating predictable responses. After going through this

huge pile of data, you realise you probably knew more about your brand and category than what this brand equity study has provided.

Clearly, you are restricting your respondents to what you already know and not allowing them to open themselves up to what is in their minds. So for the attributes you wish to find about, stay limited to the ones that you have pre-decided upon. This kind of research will always end up with expected results and bring in what is commonly known as “confirmation bias”.

Many marketers make the mistake of doing quantitative research when they should be doing qualitative research, or vice-versa. The ideal situation lies in the proper blend of both, which is what Relevance Tags ® methodology offers. The qualitative aspect keeps room for surprises and allows fresh insights to emerge, while the quantitative aspect makes it numerical and statistically representative.

The bottom-line:Too many marketers are using market research without being able to extract the best out of it due to their lack of openness to newer approaches. Traditional quantitative research cannot reveal deeper insights into consumer perceptions due to their close ended approach.

Most of these grey areas can now be eliminated, through the intelligent usage of open-ended questions, which adds an element of qualitative inputs to the robustness of quantitative research. This is precisely what Tags ® methodology aims to achieve, by bringing the best of both worlds together.

In the coming days, marketers will have access to more data than they can handle. While it will allow them to understand the “where, when and who?” better than ever before, if they cannot complement that data with the “why?”, the overall insights will continue to lack depth and remain incomplete.

5 SIGNS YOUR MARKET RESEARCH LACKS DEPTHHow to ensure your research isn’t wasteful. Relevance’s Amitabha Das writes.

S EN I O R A P PO I N TMENT S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


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

DIGITAL MARKETING TECHNOLOGY LEAD

ABOUT AMBITION

• Leading Global FMCG Business• Newly Created Regional Role• $180,000 SGD to $240,000 SGD Basic Salary

Our client is one of the most prominent FMCG companies in the world and it is currently looking for a Digital Marketing Technology Lead to support the Asia Pacific business across all categories and product lines.

Reporting into the Digital Director, you will take sole responsibility for developing the complete strategy for marketing technology capabilities such as mobile, search, social, trading desk analytics, CRM and eCommerce. This role will support all brands across the business ensuring optimum performance and commercial results. To achieve this, the marketing technologist will need to be an advisory bridge to the in-country marketing teams, digital marketing teams, and technology teams.

To qualify, individuals must possess:• 12 to 15 years’ experience in digital• strong experience in building marketing technology strategies• experience within digital agencies and technology partners • web design and UX methodologies/ front end creative development tools • web development experience in technical management role is preferred

Contact Matthew Gardner on (65) 6854 5633 or email [email protected] quoting reference number MXG27631.

SENIOR CLIENT DIRECTOR • Global Advertising Agency • Responsible for International Brand Campaigns • Creative Client Facing Role

Our client is a global leading branding consultancy that is looking to recruit a high calibre Senior Client Director to support the team in Singapore.

Reporting to the Managing Director the successful candidate will be responsible for developing and maintaining regional relationships with a core set of clients for the agency. You will also be managing and conceptualising brand development and campaigns across the region to meet the client’s objectives.

To qualify, individuals must possess:• minimum 10 years’ in an agency environment • a track record in driving highly successful Brand Campaigns for international clients• a background working within a Brand / Design consultancy • demonstrable skills in client acquisition and retention• first class communication and presentation skills • a highly creative mind and influencing skills

Contact Richel Hidalgo on (65) 6854 5606 or email [email protected] quoting reference number RTH27647.

Data provided is for recruitment purposes only Business Licence Number: 200611680D. Licence Number: 10C5117.





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First job? Account executive at Leo Burnett Singapore.

First job in advertising/marketing? Same as the above.

Best job? My current job, of course! There are lots of challenges and opportunities that are associated with my role, which I greatly enjoy.

Perks of your current job? It’s great to work with the brands I’m passionate about, while having the freedom to be creative and innovative. On top of that, I have the pleasure of working with a bunch of awesome happy folks.

Worst job? I won’t name names, but the ad agency has since closed its doors. Enough said!

Marketing professionals you admire? There are many, but top of mind is Sheryl Sandberg. As a woman, she is an inspiration in balancing corporate success with family life. Best career advice you’ve been given? To succeed, do the right thing, stand up for what you believe in and say it straight.

Why a career in marketing?I believe it’s the perfect balance of art and science. Building brands is a passion that has kept me in the industry for 15 years.

If you weren’t in marketing, what would you be? Marketing is the only career I’ve ever wanted, so I guess the next best thing would be a stay-at-home mum.

How do you wind down?Though seemingly simple, cooking, baking and spending time with my family really allows me to wind down – especially with my husband and daughter.

promoted to chief creative officer of Singapore and global creative director of SK-II. This comes on the back of the agency’s recent appointment of Nigel Tribe as head of strategy of Singapore and global planning director for SK-II as well as new business wins, including MBT, Skyscanner and Diageo Smirnoff.

Iris Worldwide Singapore appointed Ed Cheong its new creative director, reporting to Grant

Hunter, regional creative director, and Craig Mapleston, managing director of iris Worldwide Singapore. He joins iris from DDB where he was creative director. He starts in July. “Ed’s blend of storytelling, human insight and curiosity will be a perfect fit and accompaniment to the creative folks here on China Street,” Hunter said.

Maxus Singapore’s managing director Lena Goh left the agency at the beginning of June after just a

year to head marketing for the Infocomm Development Authority. Her role at Maxus was replaced by Desh Balakrishnan, who was the executive director at Havas Media for more than five years. Balakrishnan reports to Ajit Varghese, Maxus’ CEO of APAC and Jon Thurlow, CEO of GroupM Singapore.

Adobe appointed Paul Robson president of the company’s Asia Pacific operations, replacing Craig

Tegel. He is leaving the company after 17 years. Robson reports to Matt Thompson, executive vice-president of worldwide

field operations. He is based in Adobe’s Sydney headquarters, but will travel frequently to oversee its operations in Australasia, Southeast Asia, Korea, India and Greater China.

Omnicom Media Group appointed Pankaj Nayak director of business development, replacing Laura

Gordon who is leaving the agency. Nayak has been with Omnicom Media Group’s sister agency OMD for the past four years as regional business director. In his new role, he will provide strategic leadership to support new business development initiatives for Omnicom Media Group’s agencies and specialist business units.

OOH media firm JCDecaux Singapore appointed Evlyn Yang its deputy managing director.

She was formerly the assistant general manager at SMRT Media, SMRT Investments. Before that she was general manager of Verita. She also worked at JCDecaux Singapore from 1996 to 2011 as general manager, leading the sales team. Meanwhile, head of sales, Sabrina Tan, leaves the company after a 12-year tenure.

Havas Worldwide SEA promoted Victor Joseph ‘VJ’ Yamat to the role of managing director of healthcare operations for SEA to strengthen the agency’s growing health portfolio and business across the region. Previously the healthcare director of SEA, he was responsible in launching and nurturing Havas Life, the agency’s specialised healthcare practice. Under his leadership, Havas’ health and wellness business in the region saw significant growth.

Amobee appointed president and COO Mark Strecker as its new CEO after Trevor Healy stepped down from the role. Strecker was last responsible for Amobee’s worldwide sales and operations, including management of its product and engineering teams, client management and service and support across all markets. Healy will stay on for the next few months in an advisory role to ensure a smooth transition.

Social media agency We Are Social bolstered its senior management team in Asia, appointing Don

Anderson as managing director in Singapore. Joining Anderson is Tuck Wai Yue and Julien Carsenti, who join as business director and group account director respectively. Simon Kemp, formerly managing director of We Are Social in Singapore, moved into the role of regional managing partner for Asia.

Dentsu Möbius appointed Michael Lisboa as creative director. He reports to the agency’s general manager

Margery Lynn and works closely with existing creative director, Fredrik Englund. Lisboa was recently the creative director at Gate26 for nearly two years. With more than 20 years of international experience, he has led user experience, integrated digital strategy and experiential design for brands such as Pepsi and Microsoft.

Leo Burnett appointed Clarence Chiew executive creative director of Singapore.

Meanwhile, Tim Green was

C A R E E R S

JOB SHUFFLECAREER PATH

Yvette Lim-PagnouxIntegrated marketing communications directorThe Coca-Cola Company

L A S T WORD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


data, charge the battery, fill in some details, but most of all, remember to wear it.

My experience in Shanghai is clear evidence of how the concept of connectivity can change situations like the one I was in.

Passports are huge diplomatic paper trails. The chip that is embedded into the document itself is useless. It’s not

connected to me, apart from my holding it in my hands. I can’t track it and I can’t monitor my travel behaviour, aside from the

stamps on the pages.I doubt personal items such as passports will remain static for long.

The world is evolving, personal items such as a toothbrush will detect oral health, a Fitbit will track your fitness and heart rate, and Google Glasses will monitor brainwaves.

For me, I think I’m about ready to embrace the possibilities of how a digitally connected world can help.

CAN A CONNECTED WORLD SAVE US ALL?After losing my passport in Shanghai, I have a new found appreciation for the world of connectivity, writes Matt Eaton.

Bring on that “connected world” already.

I recently had one of my worst days in years. I wrote this editor’s note from Shanghai after I’d lost my passport and had to stay for 48 hours while I got a temporary one.

While it’s not the most ideal situation to sit down and write an editor’s letter, it seems the circumstances allowed for it.

I was there for the GSMA Mobile Asia Expo and spent two days hearing how connected devices and personal data will change the world as we know it.

It’s a concept I’ve been at pains to accept for some time.Take the Fitbit, for example. I’ve been using it on and off for the past

month and to be honest, I’ve struggled to maintain it. I haven’t appreciated the bigger idea about how my data can help. I’m a heavy Foursquare user, I also tweet a lot and use Facebook

regularly, so my paranoia about being tracked is not at issue.Using Fitbit requires some effort, not much, but you have to sync

Documents

Advertising + Marketing MY - Jul/Aug 2014