Tag: Philippines

Manila, Philippines – ZAP, the loyalty and e-commerce platform in the Philippines forF&B businesses, has secured Series A funding from True Digital Group (TDG), the digital arm of True Corporation, Thailand’s integrated telecommunications and digital services provider.

Launched in 2012 as a mobile number-based loyalty and rewards program, ZAP launched its E-Store service in June 2020 in partnership with the world’s largest e-commerce SaaS Platform, Shopify. The E-Store streamlines the order fulfilment process by digitising restaurant operations – such as order taking and inventory, payment, customer management, and delivery, as well as centralising them within a merchant’s own e-commerce website, which ZAP helps build. 

ZAP said that it envisions itself as growing into a one-stop-shop, an end-to-end platform that captures every interaction from the moment a customer steps into a business’ doors – both in the physical and digital sense. 

Dustin Cheng, ZAP Group’s CEO and co-founder, shared that the working relationship with True Digital Group presents new synergies for ZAP in terms of smart retail and analytics.

“Everything we do is for the benefit of our partner merchants, and this fund-raise is no different. Our partner merchants can look forward to an even easier-to-use platform with more robust capabilities in the coming months. These include richer analytics and remarketing and targeting features that will help partners foster better customer relationships and ultimately increase sales,” said Cheng.

Meanwhile, Michael Gryseels, True Digital Group’s executive vice chairman, commented, “We are excited about the synergies between our digital media platform and ZAP’s CRM and e-commerce capabilities, and see great potential in scaling our joint offering across Southeast Asia.”

Dindo Marzan, True Digital Group’s country head of Philippines, said, “To help close the gap in consumer’s digital journey, we see a very hopeful opportunity with ZAP as the local market expert and believe that together, we will be able to deliver an exciting experience for consumers in the Philippines.”

Manila, Philippines – Zyllem, a global logistics technology company offering enterprise SaaS solutions, has announced its further expansion in the Philippines amidst a growing e-commerce market in the country.

Zyllem is a cloud-based software that allows companies to manage and operate their entire logistics distribution network in a more efficient, simplified, and transparent way. It counts pharmaceutical giant Zuellig Pharma, Metro Drug Inc, logistics firm Airspeed, and wholesale grocery distribution company Suy Sing as key clients in the Philippines and is actively looking to acquire more players in the market.

For Lisa Nguyen, chief operations officer and co-founder at Zyllem, the Philippines presents an exciting opportunity for them to help companies digitize and optimize their logistics network, eliminating legacy systems, despite the numerous unique logistical challenges that the country presents.

“Southeast Asia’s digital economy has been spurred on by the rapid pace of digitalisation from consumers and businesses and has witnessed unprecedented acceleration by the pandemic. Zyllem is poised to capitalize on this growth as more businesses are seeing the necessity to provide better and faster services, and look to optimize their logistics network to meet their customer’s orders. As the fastest growing digital economy in the region, the Philippines is an important market for us to achieve that,” Nguyen explained.

Meanwhile, Joanna Pawluczuk, head of sales at Zyllem, commented, “Logistics networks are often fragmented with companies having to manage multiple third party logistics partners and middlemen. Zyllem solves operational pain points with data gathered and fed into a unified dashboard, where customers will be able to take control of their logistic network and streamline their operations.”

She added, “We are able to optimize routes and reduce time spent on planning by 85%, allowing drivers to complete up to 30% more deliveries per day. With more predictable deliveries and real-time tracking, we also enhanced the experience for the end customer and eliminated the need for any customer calls

Since its go-to market in 2017, Zyllem has been working closely with pharmaceutical, logistics, retail and F&B brands to solve their supply chain problems across Asia. Headquartered in Singapore, Zyllem has presence in eight countries in Asia and manages two million monthly delivery orders, with 20% coming from the Philippines. Zyllem is funded by Philippines conglomerate JG Summit Holdings and leading early-stage venture capital firm Wavemaker Partners.

Manila, Philippines – GrowSari, a local B2B platform in the Philippines aimed at serving sari-sari stores or local mom-and-pop stores in the country, has announced that it has signed a definitive agreement with global investment firm KKR where KKR will be investing US$45m to GrowSari to support its national expansion, as well as strengthen its financial service capabilities.

At present, GrowSari is present in 220 municipalities across the regions of Luzon and offers over a hundred types of different services including making bill payments, telco reloads, and wallet top-ups, as well as procurement services for common retail goods and pharmaceutical medicines.

According to Reymund ‘ER’ Rollan, CEO and co-founder of GrowSari, as they are accelerating their presence nationally to more municipalities and cities in the Philippines, the investments will be focused towards expanding in Visayas and Mindanao this 2022. He added that this will bring them a step closer to their mission of creating a positive socio-economic impact to the lives of more MSME owners and the communities they serve.

“In addition, we are doubling down on our capabilities to improve the overall customer experience and look to expand our ability to provide sari-sari stores access to credit and basic financial services, which is a key pain point for MSMEs who have limited access. The industry, operational and financial expertise and network of KKR will be a great complement to the passion, dedication and strong culture of excellence that GrowSari has built over the year,” Rollan said.

Meanwhile, Louis Casey, growth technology lead in Southeast Asia at KKR, added, “GrowSari is aligned with one of our core technology investment themes in Southeast Asia, which is supporting MSMEs with software and financial services. Reymund and the team at GrowSari are excellent operators who have built an impressive flywheel that is powered by a number of proprietary applications. They have also built a very efficient and repeatable go-to-market motion that is underpinning their impressive growth. We look to leverage our global experience, regional connectivity and flexible capital to help GrowSari achieve its ambitious growth objectives.”

Prior to KKR’s investment, GrowSari had raised funding from global financial and strategic investors, including Temasek-affiliated Pavilion Capital, Tencent, the International Finance Corporation, the Gongkowei family-controlled JG Summit, Robinsons Retail Holdings Inc., Wavemaker Partners, Saison Capital, and the Investment & Capital Corporation of the Philippines.

Philippines – Joe Dy, a multi-awarded creative leader with almost two decades of experience in the creatives industry, returns to creative and CRM agency Wunderman Thompson as its new chief creative officer in the Philippines.

Dy had been with Wunderman Thompson, then a part of J. Walter Thompson’s leadership team back from 2012 to 2014, in which he helped the team win a Gold Lion and acquire a foothold in some of their biggest clients today. 

Most recently, Dy has held the same position of chief creative officer at integrated marketing communications firm Mccann Worldgroup Philippines, where he helped guide the agency into becoming one of the most awarded agencies in Asia. Dy has led his team to win Gold Lion at Cannes and the country’s first three Golds at the APAC Effies, along with several other honours. 

In his new role, Dy will be partnering with Wunderman Thompson’s CEO Golda Roldan in steering the business and driving its growth engine from the creative end.

Commenting on his return to the agency, Dy said, “I’ll always be thankful for the trust, opportunities, and growth I received, and I hope to bring some of that experience when I rejoin Wunderman Thompson. Wunderman Thompson has already been doing some really good work in the past couple of years and I’m really excited to see what we can achieve together.” 

Roldan shared that a lot of what the agency has achieved the last few years was built on foundations that he and Dy helped establish under their late mentor and friend, former J. Walter Thompson’s CCO Dave Ferrer. 

“My intention was to bring in a leader from a big agency who can help us as we grow. Someone with a solid creative reputation, who would fit our culture, who has a passion for great work, for awards, for the business and most importantly for the people. And Dy fits all the criteria perfectly,” said Roldan.

Wunderman Thompson said that the move will also see Dy reuniting with former teammates and fellow ‘Creative Guild Hall of Famers’, Wunderman Thompson’s ECD Brandie Tan and Deputy ECD Tin Sanchez, forming a solid creative leadership team.

“We go way back, and the chance to collaborate with them again was a major factor in my decision. I’m thrilled to be teaming up with two strong, well-renowned and well-travelled creative leaders who share my drive and passion for great work,” said Dy.

Philippines – As part of Exploretale Technologies’ commitment to making the 2022 National Elections have well-informed voters, the software company based in Antipolo, Philippines has developed an app called Standpoint PH, an unbiased social media platform that allows users to have respectful political discussions. 

According to Exploretale Technologies, while there are social media platforms and news outlets they can depend on to get vital information about the candidates, it cannot be denied that these platforms may be corrupted with biased information and political propaganda. 

With this in mind, it has decided to launch the new app to let voters, non-voters, and politicians altogether exchange insights and knowledge to help voters choose who they deem to be the best candidate to run the country.

Standpoint has three main features, including verification process, which ensures accountability and verified accounts, the politician page, which enables users to tag politician pages so that related posts about that politician are in one place, and the discussion page, which allows the exchange of information and ideas about the candidates, their platforms, and the election process.

John Eris Villanueva, Exploretale Technologies’ founder and product lead, said, “We intend this platform to be a catalyst for change. We want the voters to get to know our politicians better and understand the importance of electing candidates who have the best interests of the Filipino people at heart.” 

The new app was released in early January 2022 and is available on the App Store for iOS and Google Play for Android.

Manila, Philippines – BillEase, a local buy-now-pay-later platform, has recently closed its US$11m series B funding, targeted at growing its consumer base, enhancing and developing new products for the platform, and attracting top talent for the company.

Said funding was led by BurdaPrincipal Investments. Other investors in the round include Centauri, 33 Capital from Singapore, and Tamaz Georgadze, CEO and co-founder of Raisin DS.

Launched in 2017, BillEase provides merchants with installment solutions to boost their conversion rate and average order values by enabling customized installment payment products at checkout. For consumers, BillEase serves as an alternative to credit/debit cards and e-wallets when shopping online.

Speaking about the investment round, Ritche Weekun, co-founder and chief financial officer at First Digital Finance Corporation (FDFC) which operates BillEase, said that their latest round of funding will help them grow at an unprecedented pace, allowing them to further increase financial inclusion in the country.

“The Philippines is expected to be the fastest growing e-commerce market in the ASEAN region over the next 5 years. The country is fast becoming a red hot destination for venture investments as large funds start looking beyond Indonesia and this, in turn, is driving the rapid development of the ecosystem. The events over the last two years have increased the pressure on the fintech space, in particular, to evolve and we’re seeing growing demand for financial products,” Weekun said.

Meanwhile, Georg Steiger, co-founder and CEO at First Digital Finance Corporation (FDFC), commented, “BNPL services often rely on card payments, in the Philippines less than 5% of the adult population owns a credit card and cash on delivery remains the primary mode of payment. To address this problem and expand the target market, we developed our proprietary credit, fraud, and payment stack. While this requires more upfront investment, we are actually solving a more fundamental problem for customers and allows us to create long-term relationships.”

Manila, Philippines – Despite the ongoing pandemic, sports is still making a mainstream comeback, and now more than ever, being amplified across social media platforms such as Twitter. In the Philippines, sports still dominates the online discussions among Filipinos with basketball echoing its popularity on Twitter.

According to the latest statistics released by the platform, discussions about basketball in the Philippines generated over 6.2 million tweets, a jump of 6.90% versus 2020. In particular, most of the basketball-related Tweets were due to the excitement brought by the NBA All-Star and NBA Playoffs in 2021. The hashtag #nbaallstar was also often used, while Lebron James (@kingjames) and Stephen Curry (@stephencurry30) were some of the top players Filipinos Tweeted about in 2021.

Meanwhile, online discussion about the Tokyo 2020 Olympics also prevailed among Filipinos’ sport discussion, with weightlifting athlete Hidilyn Diaz being the first ever Filipino athlete to win gold in the Olympics, and Filipino skater Margielyn Didal who captured people’s hearts with her cheerful nature on and off the skating rink.

There has been a notable uptick in discussion as well in the realm of esports, when Blacklist International, the esports team under Tier One, emerged as champions in the M3 World Grand Finals last December 2021. Other esports discussions include #GenshinImpact being the most-tweeted about hashtag in gaming, while interactive games such as Valorant and Mobile Legends were on the rise as well in 2021.

For Maurizio Barbieri, head of sports and gaming partnerships for SEA and Greater China at Twitter, Twitter and sports will always have a special and tight relationship, adding that as events faced postponements and cancellations last year, sport fans on Twitter kept the passion and fervour alive by cheering, encouraging, and celebrating the wins together wherever they were.

“As competitions resumed this year, the built-up anticipation resulted in a global frenzy that transcended borders, with Twitter connecting the like-minded community to give them front row seats to all the action and a valuable avenue to participate in the excitement,” Barbieri said.

Philippines – Aimazing, the retail data platform for mall management, has partnered Philippines’ IT consulting and O2O marketing company, M2Cash, aimed at enabling malls and retailers in the Philippines to digitalize shopper campaigns and create seamless engaging shopping experiences in physical retail stores.

The partnership will provide malls and large retail chains an enhanced user experience for consumer campaigns, as well as streamline their back-end operations and provide clear visibility of campaign performance and ROI. It will also allow them to leverage automation technologies and run a multitude of promotional campaigns concurrently, delivering a new user experience while significantly lowering costs and raising efficiency.

According to Aimazing, retailers are looking for ways to future-proof their systems with the rapidly changing retail landscape as they used to face fragmented POS and manual systems for vouchers, draws, and validation combined with high vulnerability to human error and fraud. 

With Aimazing, the retail automation will simplify the manual processes and allow physical retail to operate with real-time intelligence, as well as run campaigns such as live shopping events. It also creates seamless customer experiences, such as instant earn-and-burn for mall loyalty points and instant carpark redemption. In addition, the simple plug-and-play solution allows Philippines malls and retailers to easily track their offline transaction data and run their own promotional campaigns.

Jun Ting, Aimazing’s CEO, shared that as the retail experience continues to evolve, automation at scale has been proven in powering sales with a high gross merchandise value and bringing about proven cost savings.

“Our partnership with M2Cash marks another major milestone for Aimazing as we continue to push the arc in providing solutions for retailers, brands and shoppers through a highly personalised shopping experience in the Philippines,” said Ting.

Meanwhile, Chris Fong, M2Cash’s CEO Chris Fong, said, “We want to offer a compelling omnichannel experience – this joint partnership with Aimazing will take shopper engagement to the next level and build a strong digital ecosystem where both retailers and consumers can maximize their engagement.”

In December 2021, Aimazing has also partnered with local upper-scale mall destination in Manila, Power Plant Mall, to launch a digital raffle campaign that offers customers opportunities to earn rewards in real-time for their purchases at stores across the entire mall.

Manila, Philippines – Toll Group, an Australian transportation and logistics company, has announced its opening of its first office in the Philippines to effectively support Philippine-based businesses in their supply chain needs, empowering them with a suite of in-class supply chain solutions and access to regional growth opportunities. 

As part of that new endeavor, Toll Group has appointed Benjamin Bathan as its country manager in the Philippines. In his new role, he will be responsible for driving go-to-market efforts and building the local team’s capabilities for future growth in-country. He brings in close to 20 years of supply chain experience, having held positions in sales and operations functions in the shipping and freight forwarding industries.

Toll Group has long maintained a presence in the Philippines since 2007, working mainly through local partners. This pivot towards a direct presence in-country provides Toll Group with more autonomy and control over operations and service quality, streamlining goods transition and coordination in line with industry best practices.

In addition, local businesses stand to gain access to Toll Group’s extensive global freight forwarding network, allowing them to tap new business opportunities that lie beyond the Philippines, such as regional manufacturing value chains. 

For Bathan, the launch of a local office enables Toll Group to fill in the service gap of offering businesses in the Philippines access to their extensive global network and Asia-centric expertise to strengthen their growth prospects amid the uncertainty arising from the pandemic.

“A key objective of our direct expansion into the Philippines was to enhance access to global opportunities for local businesses. Many freight forwarders in the Philippines operate through a partner-based model and do not personally own a global or regional supply chain network, creating challenges in visibility and quality control,” he said.

Meanwhile, Rajeev Sood, senior vice president for ASEAN and Indian Subcontinent at Toll Global Forwarding, commented that a direct presence in the Philippines reaffirms Toll Group’s commitment to helping businesses across Asia navigate supply chain challenges and contributes to the continued expansion of their regional network and presence.

“The arrival of COVID-19 has made diversification of supply networks imperative for businesses not just in the Philippines but across the world. Today, uncertainties and supply chain bottlenecks have made a multimodal approach to transport and the ability to access multiple suppliers and markets critical for business continuity and resilience,” Sood stated.

Manila, Philippines – Following the success of the #SmileStrong campaign launched in 2020, Colgate in the Philippines has launched its latest ad under the campaign, which is a call to action for viewers to have the courage to take action, regardless of life’s challenges.

The previous local campaign featured various personas, namely teacher and motivational speaker and born with down syndrome Brina Maxino, local actress Candy Pangilinan who is mother to a son who has ADHD, and Arizza Nocum, peace advocate and entrepreneur who co-founded KRIS, a non-profit organization promoting peace through education. Said campaign saw the personas share people’s judgments of their capabilities and capped it off with a positive “I smile.”

In this latest ad, Colgate features Marlon Fuentes, a Grab taxi driver who has Tourette syndrome. In it, Fuentes describes that due to his condition, including uncontrollable body movements and twitches, he is easily being judged by many passengers. However, he goes on to say that he can’t just simply shrug off the negative impressions from other people, as he chose to accept who he is.

The campaign’s inspirational tone exudes the campaign’s goal of staying positive, with Fuentes stating that just like how he takes care of his own family, he too can assure his passengers that he will drive them safely to their destination.

“Moving ahead into 2022, the Colgate team are continuing their ambition to deliver real impact on society and elevate equity across borders. In the Philippines the team looked for new personalities to lift the spirits of the nation battered by the ongoing pandemic. The sense of ‘pangiti-ngiti lang’ (just smiling through it) was prevalent, and the team wanted to find true optimists whose spirit would rise above this,” the company said in a press statement.

The campaign was made by Red Fuse, WPP’s integrated global team dedicated to serving Colgate-Palmolive.

Speaking about the creative process of the campaign, Dino Ocampo, executive creative director at Red Fuse said that it was a pleasure to highlight the heroism and inner strength of a driver with Tourette’s syndrome, and show how he manages to overcome not only his condition, but the prejudices of those around him. 

He added that Fuentes’ captivating optimism has managed to transform and elevate all of them at the team who were fortunate enough to work with him.

“With the pandemic reaching a critical point in the Philippines throughout the last year, overall community morale was at an all-time low. Trying to push a message of optimism in a time and place where people could barely find a reason to smile, was a challenge,” Ocampo stated.

He added, “Meeting Maron was like a breath of fresh air. He inspired us all. Our talented director Direk Joel Limchoc, was energized by his outlook and really set the tone to build his story in a way that was meaningful to us all and which also aligned to Colgate’s stance on ‘Optimism in Action’.”

Colgate’s #SmileStrong campaign is an ongoing brand campaign which aims to focus on equity advertising by highlighting select people as their ‘muses’ to best represent their vision of creating ‘a future for everyone to smile about’. The campaign itself has been rolled out in the past few years in the region, including in Thailand and Malaysia.