Tag: APAC

Singapore — Twilio, the customer engagement platform that drives real-time, personalised experiences for brands, has announced that Nicholas Kontopoulos has joined the company as vice president of marketing for Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ).

Kontopoulos was most recently at Adobe, where he led marketing go-to-customer efforts for the Asia Pacific region as regional head of growth marketing of Adobe DX. A veteran technology evangelist with decades of experience, Kontopoulos has also held senior roles at Magneto, SAP and Capita, overseeing various business functions across different markets.

Based in Singapore, Kontopoulos will oversee the marketing strategy to support business growth in the APJ region and cement Twilio’s position as a leader in cloud communications. He will report to Tricia Miller, VP of international marketing for Twilio, and work closely with Lee Hawksley, SVP and GM for Twilio APJ, to meet Twilio’s pipeline generation and business revenue goals for the region.

On the new vice president, Hawksley shared, “Kontopoulos is an exceptionally creative marketer with a proven track record. He brings with him not only valuable cross-industry knowledge but an unmatched passion for customer experience. I am excited about what he brings to the table and know he will be an invaluable addition to our team in the region.”

Meanwhile, Kontopoulos said that he is thrilled to join Twilio’s high performing marketing team to drive the future of customer engagement together during this period of rapid growth.

Kontopoulos adds, “I have always been a firm believer of customer experience as a core business ideology, and I look forward to empowering more businesses in the region with innovative ways to connect and interact with their customers.’’

Singapore – Kinesso, the connected intelligence company under IPG, has appointed Matt Ware, the current managing director for APAC at Matterkind, to be its new CEO for APAC. With this appointment, Ware will still retain his leadership responsibilities at Matterkind.

In his new role as CEO for APAC, Ware will be streamlining support for Kinesso’s largest IPG partner, Mediabrands, and capitalising on growth opportunities as the company continues to evolve its business both inside and outside the IPG network.

Commenting on his appointment, Ware said that the new structure ensures clients have a single, simplified engagement experience with Kinesso and Matterkind, companies that work closely together as part of the data, technology, and media activation backbone for IPG.”

“I’m excited to bring to life our ability to design and deliver integrated solutions across the breadth of our offerings for clients across APAC,” he added.

Aside from Ware, there are three new regional CEOs, who will also retain their Matterkind leadership responsibilities, namely, Andy Butters, CEO for EMEA, Jorge Chavez, CEO for LATAM, and Sean Muzzy, CEO for North America.

Ware and the newly appointed regional CEOs will serve as a single point of contact for Kinesso and Matterkind services and solutions. Clients will benefit from the end-to-end solution sets and additional innovations Kinesso and Matterkind develop as they work more cross-functionally and globally.

Arun Kumar, the chief data and technology officer at IPG and the global CEO at Kinesso, believes that putting regional CEOs in place supports the kind of horizontal integration that will spark additional innovation at Kinesso.

“Innovation happens everywhere. Matt, Andy, Jorge, and Sean will give us a unified, global focus on the challenges we need to solve for our clients – including better connections between their martech and adtech – and will surely be a catalyst for further growth for Kinesso and our clients,” said Kumar.

Meanwhile, Erica Schmidt, Matterkind’s global CEO, commented, “I couldn’t be more thrilled for Matt, Andy, Jorge and Sean. They already have a track record of success leading Matterkind’s business in these regions, and I know they will continue to deliver excellence in their new roles.”

Singapore – As part of foodpanda’s efforts in supporting the fight against global hunger, the delivery platform has launched its new meal donation initiative in Asia. With a new micro-donation feature built into the foodpanda app, customers can now easily donate to those in need by selecting the ‘Donate’ button after checking out orders.

The feature will go live in Malaysia and Singapore this week, ahead of World Hunger Day on 28 May 2022. Beneficiaries of foodpanda’s meal donation initiative will vary by market. In Malaysia, foodpanda and ShareTheMeal have been working closely together to make it easy for customers to give back to their communities. ShareTheMeal is a United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) initiative and app through which people are encouraged to make meal donations to help feed hungry families around the world. 

The donation function integrated into the foodpanda app allows for a seamless donation process for customers. All donations via the foodpanda app will be channelled to WFP’s food assistance projects and emergency programmes across SEA. Malaysians now have the option to donate between RM2.50 to RM17.50 to feed a child for up to seven days.

Meanwhile, in Singapore, foodpanda will collaborate with The Food Bank Singapore (FBSG). Customers in Singapore can choose to donate one, two, or three meals – at a rate of SG$2 per meal – that will go towards funding meals for FBSG beneficiaries. 

For interested users, The ‘Donate a Meal/ Share the Meal’ tab will be displayed on the order tracking page, and upon clicking it, they will be shown the donation options available. Once a user selects their donation, they will be directed to the payment page, and when the donation is confirmed, the user will be returned to the order tracking page.

foodpanda said that this meal donation initiative is an extension of the global partnership launched by parent company Delivery Hero SE with the WFP in September 2020, with the goal for Delivery Hero to donate 10 million meals globally by the end of 2022. 

Jakob Sebastian Angele, foodpanda’s CEO, said, “Food and groceries are at the core of our business, so we need to make food accessible to as many people as possible. By integrating meal donations onto our platform, we are encouraging our riders, merchants and customers to give back to society through using everyday technologies.” 

Elsewhere in Asia, foodpanda is also an active participant in programmes that address hunger and tackle food insecurity and wastage. In Singapore, foodpanda partners with OLIO to redistribute surplus food from pandamarts, while in Bangladesh, foodpanda partners with the Bidyanodo Foundation, donating unsold fresh produce from pandamarts and food from cancelled orders to vulnerable communities. Moreover, in Hong Kong, foodpanda has introduced a ‘Less Rice/Noodles’ option to decrease food waste.

As we enter the post-pandemic period, we are now dealing with an entirely new consumer – desires, needs, and motivations that have transformed to adapt to the new phase of the ‘new normal’.

Last April 20, MARKETECH APAC, in partnership with Braze, gathered marketing leaders from brands Astro Malaysia, BigPay, bolttech, Hmlet, Philippines AirAsia, ShopBack, Zeemart, and Zenius. to discover how brands are implementing their customer acquisition and retention strategies in this period of unprecedented changes as well as how they are building a culture of experimentation and optimisation in each of their organisations.

Watch the highlights from the roundtable that roped in marketing leaders from brands Astro Malaysia, BigPay, bolttech, Hmlet, Philippines AirAsia, ShopBack, Zeemart, and Zenius.

Hybrid experiences to deliver high customer engagement 

When during the height of the pandemic, consumers and businesses were thrust to interact entirely in a virtual manner, the less restricted post-pandemic meant that brands now must take into consideration the dynamics of the engagement brought by the physical experience and integrating that with the uncovered powers of the virtual space.

Allenie Caccam, head of marketing of Philippines AirAsia, shared that in order to bring cohesiveness to your customer engagement, it doesn’t stop with what is done in the brand’s app or website, but almost always culminates with an on-ground activation or face-to-face interaction “to personify the brand as a lifestyle.”

“We do drive cross channel customer engagement by identifying the critical points of engagement and addressing it through hyper-personalisation and experiential marketing,” said Caccam. 

Priyanka Nadkarni, marketing lead of insurtech bolttech, echoes this and says that it is important to follow your consumers offline, as in their case, the discovery process for insurance products doesn’t stop within digital bounds. 

“We need to remember that we’re not only digital anymore…for us, it’s really about where [do these] insurance and protection products really make real sense for the customer, and it’s not always online,” said Nadkarni.

Meanwhile, fintech BigPay also agrees with the same marketing direction. Jia Nina, country marketing lead of the brand, said that they don’t rely on the app alone, and remarked that marketing also goes beyond the app.

Raymond Muliadi, head of product at edtech Zenius, shared, “Offline will always be there. And we will not be able to dismiss online or offline. So we want to make sure that we build an ecosystem where the learning is complementing online and offline.”

Tapping into the fundamentals to effectively retain customers

During the roundtable, industry leaders were in unison about how it is to effectively retain customers in this period and that is to bank on the powers of the fundamentals – knowing your consumers inside out, and activating marketing that genuinely aligns what they want and value.

BigPay’s Jia Nina also shared her insights on this and said, “We really listen to customers… effective marketing is always a conversation, it’s not just you talking to people.”

Meanwhile, Astro’s Norsiah Juriani Johari, its VP for product marketing, believes that to keep customers coming back to your product, you have to be able to deliver authentic value exchange. 

She says that we now live in a world of transparency and that customers “can see right through you” and will know when a brand isn’t upfront about what it promised to deliver.

“Listening to the customers and really holding true to our core values at these challenging times has really helped us a great deal as a business and as a brand,” she said. 

Personalisation also came out as a top strategy among marketers for customer retention. 

Edward Tan, the associate director for growth marketing at co-living space provider Hmlet, says that personalised engagement is what is able to draw customers back to the product. 

“One thing we learned when it comes to customer retention, for locals especially, is to shift from purely selling them the co-living experience to the need for consistent and personalised engagement,” said Tan. 

When driving that cross channel customer engagement, he says, “The most important factor to us when it comes to cross-channel engagement is definitely reaching the right customers via the right channel at the right time with the right messages.”

Shopping and rewards platform ShopBack, which is currently an adopter of Braze’s consumer engagement platform, also shared to employ the same strategy, which is leveraging the best channel for customer needs and then finding the right timing and triggers for your communications. 

Its Head of CRM Scott Tan said, “For us, it’s creating a meaningful cross-channel engagement. It’s really about setting up your platform to make sure that you can (1) anticipate user needs, (2) [have] the right channel, and (3) find appropriate triggers and timing.”

Building a culture of experimentation and testing

Now that consumers have increasingly become more nuanced and that the staying power of trends is going away at lightning speed, these have put down greater importance on brands’ practices in experimentation and testing. 

For Zeemart, an F&B procurement platform, and a pre-series A startup, it’s about encouraging a positive attitude toward ‘failing forward’.

“I think the advantage of being a startup is that you’re always building, learning and iterating,” said Tan.

“Develop this attitude of failing forward, because no one really knows the answers…facilitating feedback, gathering results and going out and fixing it, and testing it again,” he added.

Meanwhile, bolttech’s Priyanka Nadkarni summed it up briefly on the topic, “To be a pioneer, own it, link together and think outside in.”

As we move towards the post-pandemic period, virtual and digital are here to stay–but only better. Consumer experiences are set to become even more ingenious and innovative now that the period has enabled us to once again bring back physical engagement and interaction.

Among the insights the industry leaders shared, non-negotiable principles of marketing stood out, agreeing that no matter what the changes, marketing will always be and should remain experimental. We don’t get to the bottom of the ‘AHA’ moment if we stick to what has already been successful or what is deemed to be the best at present, as the future ahead will only become unpredictable and challenging for marketers but also groundbreaking with the emergence of unimaginable digital interactivity. 

Watch the highlights from the roundtable that roped in marketing leaders from brands AirAsia Philippines, Astro Malaysia, BigPay, bolttech, Hmlet, ShopBack, Zeemart, and Zenius.

Take a look at Braze’s latest marketing report, ‘2022 Global Customer Engagement Review’ which shares the top three trends that are shaping customer engagement in 2022 as well as opportunities companies can seize for growth by industry and region. The report is free to download here.

Singapore – Singapore based integrated communications agency APRW Pte Ltd announced its partnership with India-headquartered PRHUB, a leading integrated communications agency, to launch a specialised communications practice targeted at start-ups looking to expand within and beyond the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. 

The new practice is established under US-headquartered IPREX. It will be led by Anu Gupta, director of APRW and Xavier Prabhu, regional president for APAC, IPREX and founder and managing director of PRHUB. This practice will serve burgeoning communications needs of start-ups looking to grow within and beyond APAC region by tapping upon deep communications expertise of IPREX partners. 

The APAC start-up ecosystem has seen unprecedented growth in the past few years. According to market intelligence firm Preqin, start-ups in APAC have secured US$152 billion in venture capital deals within the first nine months of 2021, matching the previous record of US$152 billion set in 2018. As per Statista research there were close to 200 unicorns in APAC with only the United States possessing a greater number of unicorns. The vibrancy and diversity of APAC’s start-up ecosystem indicates a strong potential for start-ups to expand regionally and beyond through targeted communication campaigns and strategies.

Commenting on the new practice, Julie Exner, IPREX global president, said, “Spread across India, China, Indonesia and Singapore among other countries in the region, there is absolutely no doubt that the start-up ecosystem in the APAC is one of the most dynamic and thriving ecosystems globally.” 

Exner commended that APRW and PRHUB are highly established partners with deep understanding of the ecosystem. “With their expertise and support from other partners in key markets, I am confident that the new practice will be a success and bring start-ups to greater heights,” added Exner.

Anu Gupta, APRW’s director, said, “I am thrilled to be launching this practice with PRHUB under IPREX. As a highly diversified & fragmented region, APAC presents an exciting multitude of opportunities and challenges. APRW has since expanded into Indonesia, which has emerged as a vital market for expanding start-ups, in 2020, as part of our commitment to better serve that market.” 

Gupta expressed that through IPREX, APRW is now able to build an expertise-led practice and offer strategic consultancy across key growth markets including China, Japan & Australia. “We hope to propel more start-ups to achieve greater success within and beyond APAC with this timely initiative,” added Gupta. 

In his comments, Xavier Prabhu, IPREX regional president for APAC and founder & managing director at PRHUB, said, “Many start-ups are looking to scale beyond their home markets and leverage the many opportunities that APAC has to offer. As they grow, they will require communication agencies who can provide holistic regional communications strategies to boost their visibility and strengthen their reputations.”

The specialised communications practice will provide a full suite of communications services for start-ups by leveraging IPREX’s global network of communication partners and tapping upon the expertise of Anu and Xavier. As communications veterans, both bring deep industry expertise coupled with strong understanding of APAC and the start-up ecosystem. They have also worked closely with several regional start-ups located in India and Singapore.

Singapore – Lenovo APAC has reappointed social media agency SocialGrooves.com to handle social media strategy and reporting for the brand. This marks the third consecutive year that SocialGrooves.com was appointed for the account.

With the reappointment, Socialgrooves.com will continue providing support for all 12 of the APAC markets; respectively Australia & New Zealand, India, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea in terms of social media strategy, creative content and analytics. The support includes fully utilising Sprinklr’s custom reporting function to continue tracking important data points beyond engagement in order to deliver business-driven value from AP to local markets and vice-versa.

Christopher Tock, CEO of SocialGrooves.com, said that the team is proud to have helped increase consumer engagement & increase knowledge sharing between the markets.

 “The effort to pivot from what we’ve done so far, to what we’ve managed to achieve for the past two years to adapt to the fast-paced expectations from Lenovo APAC was certainly not easy, but we managed to exceed their expectations,” Tock said.

Last month, Lenovo hired dentsu and Merkle B2B to manage the strategy, planning and buying for Lenovo with a focus on data convergence.

Australia – As travel plans were disrupted due to the pandemic, many hospitality companies have been making efforts in reigniting people’s love for travel. With this in mind, Accor has launched a Pacific-wide ‘ALL – Accor Live Limitless’ marketing campaign to promote ALL.com as the all-encompassing digital destination for the best travel experiences, with incredible loyalty benefits.

The brand campaign leads with some of Accor’s preeminent brands such as Sofitel, Pullman, Novotel, and Mercure, as well as Mantra, and ibis, connecting them to ALL.com. It highlights the many benefits of the ALL – Accor Live Limitless loyalty programme, such as room upgrades and limitless experiences.

The ALL.com brand campaign is now available until 30 September 2022, and will come to life through various campaign elements, including paid media, promotional spots on Australia’s #1 breakfast show – Sunrise, a national competition airing across New Zealand on TVNZ 1, digital advertising, and social media, as well as video content. It also includes partner advertising, such as LED signage and video advertising on Accor Stadium screens, plus Accor brands on LED signage at AFL and NRL matches across the region.

Moreover, the campaign has also owned channels, including email marketing, app, and website display advertising, social media campaigns, and assets for digital screens at Accor properties and hotel social media channels and websites. A tactical promotion of Accor’s flexible rates across the Pacific is also included in the campaign, with rates starting from AU$119 per night in Australia at ibis Melbourne Central, and NZ$99 per night in New Zealand at BreakFree on Cashel Christchurch. There is also a loyalty offer giving members of ALL, who will book before 30 June 2022, 2X Reward points for stays until 30 September 2022.

Sarah Derry, Accor Pacific’s CEO, shared that increasingly, their guests are seeking more personalised experiences and this brand-led campaign showcases the richness and quality of choice across the Accor network, promoting ALL.com as the gateway to discovering more destinations and incredible experiences.

”Guests have access to multiple unique experiences through ALL.com, from our collection of boutique MGallery hotels, experiencing Swiss indulgence with Chocolate Hour at Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts, through to relaxing in Mantra’s spacious family apartments,” said Derry.

Singapore – Strategic communications consultancy RICE has announced new technology retainer wins with enterprise automation software company UiPath and voice AI start-up AI Rudder. 

With the UiPath mandate, RICE will be driving the company’s leadership position in the enterprise automation industry. It will also be providing strategic counsel on UiPath’s regional brand communications, driving media campaigns and relations, as well as managing thought leadership content development.

Toni Iafrate, UiPath’s vice president and chief communications officer, shared that as digital transformation continues to accelerate and deepen across enterprises and industries, they believe that APAC shows great promise to unlock automation-led innovation and growth opportunities.

“We are excited to partner with the RICE team in Singapore to amplify our story in the region and help more companies recognise the power of automation,” said Iafrate.

Meanwhile, for the AI Rudder mandate, RICE has been appointed as its new communications consultancy of record, laying the groundwork for its regional communications. The remit includes media relations, thought leadership development, and content development. RICE will also be boosting AI Rudder’s presence in SEA and Australia.

Henrik Petersen, AI Rudder’s vice president and head of global marketing, noted that as voice AI technology continues to evolve and mature, it is poised to make the leap from experimentation to widespread real-world adoption, with potential for use cases spanning industries.

“We look forward to working with RICE to help amplify AI Rudder’s vision of establishing a new foundation for business communication powered by advanced voice AI,” said Peterson.

The RICE teams servicing both accounts are based in Singapore but will provide regional support and oversight of various markets in the region.

Singapore – Consumer bank DBS has expanded its partnership with global small business platform Xero to simplify the loan application process and increase access to working capital for SMEs in Singapore and Hong Kong.

The expanded partnership will see both companies availing Xero customers of the option to share their transactional records from Xero’s platform with DBS, and by doing so, customers will be able to present a more holistic picture of their cash flow which in turn enables the bank to offer SMEs hyper-personalised credit terms and working capital limits tailored to their needs.

DBS and Xero began their partnership in 2017 with a bank feed integration to give SMEs greater visibility and control over their finances with automatic bank updates. Xero is also a key partner of the bank’s DBS Start Digital Package, which is designed to help SMEs kickstart their digital transformation journey.

Joyce Tee, DBS’ group head of SME banking, noted that their regular engagement with SMEs has consistently shown that cash flow needs continue to be top of mind for their clients, even as business owners seek new growth opportunities.

“We will continue to integrate our touchpoints seamlessly into the customer journey, so as to offer our SMEs more intelligent and intuitive lending solutions. DBS has been sharpening our digital lending capabilities by leveraging ecosystem partnerships and advanced data analytics to roll out solutions that are hyper-personalised to each business’ needs. DBS is pleased to take our long-standing partnership with Xero to the next level as we double down on our commitment to helping SMEs accelerate their growth,” said Tee.

Meanwhile, Joseph Lyons, Xero’s managing director for Australia and Asia, shared that digital tools and solutions have been a significant driver in empowering SMEs to become more resilient and competitive, but working capital is the lifeblood of small businesses everywhere.

“With DBS – our first banking partner in Singapore to offer API integrated bank feeds – we are excited to extend new offerings to our shared customers through SME financing. We look forward to continuing our work to further support SMEs with their financing needs, particularly in ensuring small businesses have the support they need to thrive,” said Lyons.

Singapore – Reprise, IPG Mediabrands’ performance marketing agency, has announced the appointment of Neha Tejuja to the newly created role of head of performance strategy for Reprise Asia-Pacific. Tejuja will be based in the agency’s regional headquarters in Singapore.

Tejuja holds an extensive understanding of strategic leadership and expertise in the industry with over a decade and a half of experience driving vision for clients’ businesses within creative teams across local, regional and global markets. Tejuja joins Reprise from her prior role as senior strategy director and e-commerce lead for Wunderman Thompson Singapore where she was responsible for delivering end-to-end strategies.

Other than Wunderman, Tejuja also held strategic roles in Grey Group in Singapore and Publicis Groupe in India. In her new role as the APAC head of performance strategy for Reprise, Tejuja will be responsible for establishing best-in-class performance strategy across the region, collaborating closely with the regional strategic leadership at integrated partner agencies UM and Initiative on driving growth, business performance and vision implementation for the growing Asia Pacific region.

Tejuja commented, “I was drawn to Reprise for its excellent performance marketing credentials and high-quality strategic process. I’m passionate about making that offering come to life for our diverse set of clients and elevate the strategic success that our teams are achieving across APAC.”

Pippa Berlocher, president of Reprise APAC, to whom Tejuja will be reporting, commented that Tejuja is a passionate leader with a proven track record of helping some of the largest global client brands reach their utmost potential across the APAC region.

Berlocher added, “In addition to this, she invests just as much care into helping her team around her reach theirs. Tejuja’s energy, creativity and expert experience make her a valuable addition to our growing regional executive team as we expand upon our established Performance Marketing proposition and reputation in the Asia-Pacific region.”