Australia – Technology PR and marketing agency AZK Media has launched a pure play video-content business called ‘Customer Catalyst’ as demand for premium video content continues to surge.

With the effectiveness of quality video marketing content no longer subject to any debate, AZK Media has created said standalone business aimed at a wide range of businesses that just want video content.

Research shows 64% of businesses see an increase in website conversions from having a customer testimonial video as part of their marketing mix, and 93% of businesses report winning customers as a direct result of video content.

Azadeh Williams, co-founder and managing director at AZK Media, said, “Video content has always been a big part of what AZK Media offers and will continue to be. But rather than having to sign on for a package of PR services for a set period, businesses that just need fantastic video content can access that easily by partnering with Customer Catalyst.”

Meanwhile, Wayne Williams, co-founder and business director at AZK Media–and also at the helm of the Customer Catalyst team, commented, “We’ve created this video production facility to target a wide range of businesses and industry sectors that might not usually seek a partnership with AZK Media.”

For Wayne, marketers are still only scratching the surface when leveraging video content to generate demand and drive leads.

“The next generation of digitally native business decision-makers are highly visual and video-led. Content that showcases customer testimonials, case studies, and genuine thought leadership discussions is crucial to humanise a brand and provide the social proof businesses increasingly need to attract new prospects,” he stated.

Meanwhile, Azadeh noted that the ‘Customer Catalyst’ forms a natural extension of AZK Media’s capability to drive successful customer advocacy marketing campaigns.

“The businesses that are succeeding are those putting their customer at the heart of everything they do,” she says. “This includes their marketing and PR strategy. If brands and businesses want to drive demand, championing their customers in highly engaging video content forms a crucial component of owned, earned and paid content,” she stated.

Billy Loizou, Amperity’s Area Vice President APAC, said, “We’re very pleased with Amperity’s customer testimonial video, which will be a great asset for us as we look to continue our growth across APAC. It features the key benefits of our platform and exceptional results achieved by one of our APAC customers, one of the leading car dealers in the region. This asset continues to be leveraged across our PR, social media and inbound campaigns.”

The year 2023 has been a challenging year for the media and technology industry as it has seen massive waves of layoffs, leaving many employees in the dark on whether there’s a new opportunity waiting for them. Responding to such challenges, global digital media agency JOLT Digital has launched a new initiative called “Learn With the Expert” with the goal of leveraging the expertise of many laid-off employees to share their insights teach the most pertinent topics in the media industry.

For JOLT Digital, said initiative is part of their commitment to Knowledge Transfer and upskilling the industry.

We recently spoke with Jason Tan, general manager at JOLT Digital, to learn more about the agency’s initiative, and how it aims to create a win-win situation for not just laid-off employees but also industry leaders who could potentially be the future employers for those who are made redundant.

Knowledge transfer as the brand’s ethos

For Tan, the transfer of knowledge has been always part of the brand’s ethos, and that “Learn With the Expert” perfectly reflects such ideology, while noticing a greater opportunity for those who have been made redundant.

“2023 was a challenging year for the media industry and many industry peers who were made redundant reached out to explore job openings at JOLT. We realised that there is suddenly an avalanche of know-how by these talents in the market and every one of these talents have a unique perspective and expertise,” he explained.

Tan also added, “Knowledge transfer is part of our JOLT ethos and ‘Learn With the Expert’ began as a unique opportunity to transfer all the latent knowledge to our clients. After socializing the idea, we decided that if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing bigger and better”

JOLT Digital launched the initiative back in November 2023, as an initiative to share industry expertise amongst marketers and specialists. For Tan, ‘Learn with the Expert’ is a mutually beneficial initiative that has been well received by both their experts and also the client/marketer participants.

“The JOLT team curates the topics of each session and ensures that they address the immediate questions of our clients and the industry. ‘Learn with the Expert’ has covered the areas of privacy concerns, the impact of a cookieless world and most recently the role of organic social for brands. These are areas of immense industry interest and our clients had the opportunity to learn and leave with practical next steps,” he said.

On forging better relationships with brands and agencies

According to Tan, the initiative provides a familiar forum and environment to present in front of our clients and more. The webinars, in which these knowledge sharing initiative are done, are essentially elevator pitches for JOLT Digital’s signed experts and an opportunity to impress potential employers. 

“It’s a confidence booster, a recognition for their expertise, and a platform to stay involved in the rhythm of work,” he said.

Some of the topics being discussed already during these webinars include digital marketing strategy impact, cookieless advertising, navigating privacy online, and organic social.

Through this webinar, Tan aims to give these affected experts a platform to reach thousands of potential employers and tremendous social visibility.

“We have recently seen an Expert who found his new job at a publisher and we hope we contributed a little to this. When our clients are interested in talking to our experts, we are happy to facilitate these conversations. On top of bringing experts in front of our clients, we help them minimise the hiatus in their CVs by bringing JOLT in the picture through the work they have done with Learn with the Expert,” he said.

As of this writing, Tan notes that they are booked with experts up until May this year, and have recently expanded their offering to the United Kingdom.

When asked about how this initiative will aim to forge better relationships between brands and agencies, he believes that amidst the complexities of the digital media landscape, there is and should always be a room for knowledge sharing.

“The digital media industry is increasingly complex and platform knowledge is extremely specialised. JOLT strongly believes that all digital media agencies should transfer their knowledge to their clients,” he said.

He added, “We have seen in the past that agency operations has become too much of a black box and clients have to make decisions sometimes without knowing enough the implications. At JOLT, our mission statement is to gamechange the industry. ‘Learn with the Expert’ is a testament to how we transfer knowledge and power to our clients and how we believe stronger brand-agency relationships are forged with trust and transparency.”

Singapore – Global media company IPG Mediabrands has announced the launch of ‘Unified Retail Media Solution’, a dedicated business unit that will enable brands to intelligently manage their investment performance seamlessly across all retail media network.

Through the new business unit, IPG Mediabrands aims to bring transparency and trust to the space — powered by a unique tech platform focusing on unified audience, measurement, optimisation and intelligence. 

The solution also empowers brands with a holistic view of their performance, automated cross-retailer activation and optimization, maximizing sales and profitability.

‘Unified Retail Media Solution’ is led by Glen Conybeare, executive lead and global president for Reprise Commerce and Retail Media at IPG Mediabrands, and has been beta tested by IPG Mediabrands clients in the CPG, gaming and over-the-counter (OTC) sectors, and already has hundreds of bespoke audiences built out with a roadmap to hit over 10,000 by year-end.

“Retail Media Networks offer a huge opportunity for marketers. However, each network operates as a closed-loop system which makes it really difficult to drive ROI effectively. With dozens of retail channels as part of many clients’ investment strategies, it has been difficult to compare their relative performance. With our Unified Retail Media Platform, we have standardized a key part of the process,” he said.

Meanwhile, Eileen Kiernan, global CEO at IPG Mediabrands, commented, “Brands activating in retail media face the challenge of navigating through multiple closed garden networks, each with their own data approach, metrics and ROI methods. This complexity is amplified for brands that also sell their products through these retailers.”

She added, “Therefore, it is crucial for brands seeking to maximize their investment to leverage data and insight across networks with an ability to make intelligent decisions in real time about what’s working and not.”

Singapore – Global advertising company Ogilvy has announced the launch of its ‘AI Accountability Act’ initiative, which calls for advertising and PR agencies and social media platforms to mandate disclosure around the use of AI-generated Influencers. Moreover, this would require brands to clearly disclose and publicly declare the use of any AI-generated influencer content.

Some of the factors Ogilvy has asked in its initiatives include the implementation of a new watermark on AI-generated content, providing clear visual identification and maintaining accountability in disclosing when used as part of influencer campaigns.

As part of Ogilvy’s ‘inclusive influence’ commitment, this global call to action addresses the rising use of artificial/virtual Influencers by brands and is intended to maintain Influencer authenticity and consumer transparency when used across social media. 

Moreover, Ogilvy wants to drive policy change and enable social media platforms to empower marketers to disclose their collaborations with AI-generated content; similar to the ‘paid partnership’ tag currently being used across the industry today. The call to action extends to brands and agencies alike, encouraging the industry to commit to full transparency when using AI influencers.

Julianna Richter, global CEO of Ogilvy PR, said, “The ability of AI to create and learn at speed has already transformed the way we produce personalized content online. But AI must be centred around empathy and transparency. That’s where you create honest interactions with consumers and can drive real impact at the intersection of new digital capabilities.”

Meanwhile, Rahul Titus, global head of influence at Ogilvy, commented, “The AI market is valued at $4.6 billion and projected to grow by 26% by 2025, in large part because of the growing increase using AI in Influence. As leaders in this industry, we have the responsibility to be ethical and transparent as we populate this new frontier.”

He added, “The technological advances using AI are exciting for the Influencer marketing landscape but runs the risk of compromising authenticity if we don’t declare the difference between what’s real and what’s not.”