Tag: APAC

Sydney, Australia – Mobiquity, a digital transformation enabler that has helped clients digitize their services such as those of Philippine banking institution BPI, has announced that it will be expanding its services across the Asia Pacific region.

The expansion of Mobiquity’s service offering into APAC is supported by its existing client base in banking and financial services. The company has recently received a Global Banking and Finance Award for its work with the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) – creating a digital banking experience for the bank’s online and mobile platforms.

As part of its APAC expansion, it has also appointed former Microsoft and IBM director, Gustavo Quiroga, as vice president of business development financial services at APAC.

Quiroga will be responsible for strengthening Mobiquity’s global footprint, working with customers across Australia, Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines. He has managed and developed technology, business and customer experience projects from his industry experience from IBM and Microsoft.

“I’m delighted to join Mobiquity and support the company’s rapid expansion across the Asia-Pacific region. I joined Mobiquity to develop, design, and implement digital products and services that create meaningful experiences with customers. Giving customers a ‘Wow’ moment is what drives me, and I look forward to using my expertise to develop partnerships where we can achieve this every day,” he said, regarding his appointment.

Meanwhile, Matthew Williamson, vice president of global financial services at Mobiquity, commented that their appointment of Quiroga demonstrates Mobiquity’s commitment to hiring an ‘A-list’ team of talent that have far-reaching industry expertise.

“Over the last 6 months, we’ve hired over 100 people, including the recent high profile appointments of Howard Moore, senior director of digital banking and Ruby Walia, senior advisor for digital banking for North America. The latest addition to the Mobiquity team supports our vision of global growth in Asia-Pacific, as a recognized partner within the banking and finance ecosystem,” he stated.

Marketers have long held the belief that attention is a diminishing commodity, especially among Generation Z. However, attention has not diminished, it has diversified. To manage the onslaught of information they face each day, consumers prioritize content that engages them. For brands, this means working harder than ever to capture the attention of their audience – and this involves rethinking the way they sell and service by using interactive and immersive technologies like augmented reality (AR).

Immersive AR ads have shown to be an impressive user engagement tool, garnering 17-times more engagement compared to static ads, according to a study by Snapchat, which compared shoppable Snap ads to standard Snap ads of the same products. Here in Asia-Pacific (APAC), spending on AR and virtual reality (VR) is expected to grow at a rapid rate of 47.7% and reach US$28.8 billion by 2024. Recent data from Statista also estimated that by 2023, there will be 2.4 billion mobile AR users worldwide, a rise of 2.2 billion from the 200 million seen in 2015. Clearly, there is a demand for this technology.

There is opportunity for marketers to capitalize on. As a digitally native generation, Gen Zs spend a large part of their time on mobile. In APAC, almost a third of Gen Zs spend six hours or longer a day on their phone but at the same time, they are also thoughtful about the ways they engage with the internet. It comes as no surprise that Gen Zs turn to AR to communicate with their close friends, and to explore the world around them. This situation lends itself as an opportunity for brands to engage with them in this manner as well.

Before we delve into how brands can use AR, let us take a step back and look at what makes Gen Zs tick.

Understanding Gen Zs in APAC

With an attention span of mere seconds and a wealth of content available at their fingertips, engaging Gen Zs can be a challenge. As such, it is doubly important for brands to fully understand the unique traits of this demographic so they can tailor their offerings to this audience.

Like their global peers, APAC Gen Zs have a strong appreciation for digital communications and technologies. A Generation survey by Snapchat conducted in December 2020 found that Gen Zs in APAC are not confined to traditional methods of communications, and favor communicating with photos (78%), emoji or emoticons (75%), videos and video messages (59%), among others. They also gravitate towards immersive video and mobile games, including AR experiences.

In addition, Gen Zs are strong supporters of the causes they believe in. The same piece of Snapchat research found that half of the surveyed respondents say they are less likely to buy from a brand that chooses to promote the opposite side on social issues that matter to them. Conversely in APAC, Gen Zs are more likely to shop from brands they support, even if it’s less convenient for them to do so.

There is no better time than now to leverage AR

By 2025, Gen Z will make up a quarter of the APAC region’s population. As this generation of digital natives rapidly warms to the concept of AR, it will become an increasingly important tool in the marketing mix of advertisers.

Consider AR as you would with any tool in your marketing arsenal. The two marketing fundamentals – objective and audience – still stand. Brands will first need to define their objectives and the results they hope to achieve from the campaign, then understand their audience like the Gen Zs. By defining these parameters at the onset, brands will be able to use AR where appropriate to elevate their current offerings to the audience.

There are many great examples of creative AR-powered offerings. One example worth noting is the work done by Singaporean creative technology studio, MeshMinds. They held the city-state’s first AR-powered exhibition Sustainable Singapore, where the AR artwork of 20 local artists used the AR app Artivive to weave in additional storytelling elements to lend more magnetism to their artwork.

Brands in APAC can also take a leaf out of their global peers’ books. Understanding Gen Zs’ need for engaging content, luxury brand Gucci launched its first-ever global AR shoe “try-on” campaign on Snapchat in 2020, where users can virtually try on Gucci shoes on the app. After seeing how they looked wearing the brand’s latest sneakers, users were able to purchase the shoes directly from the Lens.

A one-up from existing technology, AR brings to the table an optimized digital experience that can set brands apart. Advertisers need to view the AR as a permanent addition to their media plan and instead of a mere novelty.

AR will have a profound impact on the future of marketing

Gen Zs are a formidable force that is poised to take over the current active generations. Coupled with their growing spending power and influence, Gen Zs are set to reshape the future advertising landscape in APAC. 

As such, brands need to develop a better understanding of the devices that Gen Z consumers use; where and how they consume content; and the role they wish to have in the direction their content goes. This ensures the impact and relevance of a brand’s marketing piece and goes a long way in building brand love and brand loyalty.

AR is one of the many up-and-coming technologies that brands need to get on to gain a competitive edge. It is exciting to consider how we are only at the beginning of what is possible.

This article was written by Kathryn Carter, head of APAC at Snap Inc.

Singapore – GrowthOps, an APAC-based growth and technology consultancy, has announced a partnership with growth management platform Insider to boost e-commerce multi-channel personalized offering for clients seeking to improve their return of investment (ROI).

The partnership will enable GrowthOps’ multidisciplinary teams to leverage Insider’s AI-powered growth management platform, giving e-commerce clients a deep and holistic understanding of their online audiences, across different channels and platforms.

This, in turn, allows clients to be able to anticipate audience behavior and deliver personalized online experiences for their customers, addressing their needs more fully, while reducing the cost of customer acquisition, activation and retention.

For David Isaac, Chief Growth Officer at GrowthOps, the needs of top-quartile CMO and CPOs have become increasingly complex, with their roles expanding to include growth and technology. He added that competitive businesses need a sustainable solution that de-risks innovation for product-led growth.

“Together, we will enable our C-suite clients to deliver compelling customer experiences by integrating customer behavior and engagement data from product, marketing, and technology platforms, such as Insider. GrowthOps is built from the ground-up to support APAC businesses to lead in their category with new digital platforms, across more channels,” Isaac said.

Meanwhile, Patrick Steinbrenner, Managing Director for APAC at Insider, commented, “GrowthOps’ expertise as a growth consultancy enables clients to scale with enterprise-grade execution and support. Combined with Insider’s AI-powered platform capabilities, they will take their targeted marketing to the next level, enhanced with precision and personalization.”

The unique combination delivers relevant, memorable, and loyalty-inducing customer experiences, enabling CMOs and C-suite professionals to meet ever-changing customer demands. GrowthOps maintains multidisciplinary teams in-house to deliver the scale, synergy, and agility clients need to perform at the top of their industries.

Singapore – Golin, a public relations agency under the umbrella of the Interpublic Group (IPG) has appointed Shouvik Prasanna Mukherjee as the new chief creative officer for the agency in its APAC operations, where he will be responsible in leading Golin’s data-driven, earned-first creative ideas to inspire and create change for clients across the region. 

Mukherjee brings over 16 years of experience across advertising and public relations disciplines to this role and is a sought-after thought leader. He regularly speaks at industry conferences, engages in mentorship programmes and delivers guest lectures at multiple universities in Singapore. Mukherjee has been a member of the jury for industry awards including the Cannes Lions, Spikes Asia and the SABRE Awards.

In his new role, Mukherjee’s first point of business will be to shape and grow a global creative team across the agency’s markets in Asia Pacific to deliver ideas that earn attention, build businesses and deliver exceptional client results. 

In addition, He will oversee the firm’s conceptual creators, graphic designers and content production teams for the region, and he will take an active role in building the data analytics capabilities in Singapore where he previously held the role of executive creative director since 2015.

Speaking about his appointment, he said, “Earning attention requires brave creativity that is culturally relevant and fuelled by insights and analytics. It delivers business results, as well as inspires awe, breaks stereotypes, and basically blows the mind. I’m excited to expand this incredible team so we can service more clients across the region with bold ideas.”

He will be reporting to Darren Burns, president for Asia Pacific at Golin. In addition to his chief creative officer role, Mukherjee will continue to lead the data, analytics and content team in Singapore.

“Shouvik has been an integral part of the Golin team for over a decade, leading multiple award-winning campaigns. He will bring unparalleled energy and passion to drive growth by focussing on regional collaboration and earned-first creative ideas,” Burns stated.

Mukherjee has conceptualized and executed award-winning campaigns for Golin clients including Guinness, Heineken, McDonald’s, Magnum, Nespresso, Panasonic, Porsche and Twitter.

Manila, Philippines – In response to the growing need among businesses in the Asia Pacific region to learn new skills for their marketing endeavor, MARKETECH APAC, the dedicated news platform for the marketing and advertising scene in Asia Pacific, has announced that it will be launching its new slew of digital courses catered to empower businesses through marketing skills.

Named as ‘Elevate’, MARKETECH APAC offers a series of marketing workshops to provide the marketing industry with addressing the ongoing need to upskill new and cross-skilling marketing talents and to help them to be successful in their roles. 

In addition, MARKETECH APAC is planning to offer virtual training programs to ensure safety while learning and to get participants in the region to have an opportunity to learn together from other markets. There will also be an option to do on-site training depending on the current COVID-19 situation in the city.

Topics for the virtual training sessions digital marketing, content marketing, public relations, and e-commerce. MARKETECH APAC will also produce specific training courses for SMEs and the startup community.

Joven Barceñas, publisher at MARKETECH APAC, spoke about the training launch, “We are excited to launch MARKETECH Elevate. This is our way to stay true to our mission – Making marketing for all. This time, we will work with marketing experts to identify the current training needs of marketers across Asia Pacific and deliver quality training programs in the region.”

MARKETECH APAC’s launch of ‘Elevate’ comes after the news site just recently celebrated its one year since its establishment, and continues to enrich its stance as an Asia Pacific-centric marketing publication by extending help to aspiring and junior marketers in bringing out the best in them in the industry.

Furthermore, MARKETECH APAC believes that through the selection of topics for training offering, all of them are ample to empower aspiring marketers and businesses to step up their presence, whether locally or regionally.

Interested trainers who would like to be part of this initiative are encouraged to send an email to [email protected]. Please attach your CV and share your training portfolios, or suggested training topics.

Singapore – Unilever and foodpanda have partnered to now provide 24/7 on-demand ice cream deliveries through its cloud grocery network pandamart and foodpanda shops. 

Through the partnership, Unilever will be leveraging foodpanda’s quick-commerce tech infrastructure and extensive logistics network to reach a wider customer base in the region, delivering more than 20 varieties of Ben & Jerry, Magnum, and Wall’s ice cream products across Asia including Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, as well as Pakistan, and the Philippines. 

Furthermore, foodpanda and Unilever will collaborate on new product launches, bundle deals, and promotional campaigns for customers. They will also be working on optimizing digital advertising and customer engagement on the platform, which includes strategic placements of digital banners on the platform, the creative use of in-app notifications, and campaigns on social media to grow and deepen engagement with digitally savvy customers in Asia. 

Unilever’s Chief Delivery Officer Sapan Sharma said, “Our partnership with foodpanda helps us serve consumers by delivering smiles to their doorsteps in less than 25 minutes! In times like these, our partnership helps us spread happiness to customers all around Asia.”

Meanwhile, Abhishek Sahay, the senior director of new business at foodpanda, commented that they are thrilled about this opportunity to be chosen by Unilever as a delivery partner. 

“As customers increasingly turn to foodpanda for their daily needs, we continue to invest in our technology and q-commerce network to grow our daily offerings with both big and small retail partners,” said Sahay. 

From mid-June 2021, in order to show their appreciation to riders, foodpanda and Unilever will also be distributing over 20,000 ice-cream products to riders in Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, as a free ice cream treat.

Singapore – Media company Verizon Media has launched its Next-Gen Audiences and Next-Gen Buying, the first two tools from its newly introduced Next-Gen Solutions suite – the first-to-market offering for advertisers and publishers independent of cookies or mobile app IDs for audience creation, buying, or measurement.

The two new tools will be using content and other real-time data signals like weather, location, and device types to power machine-learning algorithms that allow advertisers to connect with their most relevant audiences without the need for cookies, mobile app IDs, browser storage, or creating user-level profiles.

Over the past few years, internet companies have implemented tighter privacy-data protection policies to secure users’ personal data on the web. However, the majority of businesses still rely on third-party data for customer insights.

With the new tools, Verizon Media aims to build an identity-less era that delivers relevant ad experiences while strengthening consumer trust. Next-Gen Audiences is for creating audiences from machine-learning models built on Verizon Media’s extensive first-party data signals. Enriched by contextual and real-time signals, Next-Gen Audiences leverage existing demo, interest, look-alike, and predictive audience signals in an aggregated, privacy-centric manner to provide ad campaign accuracy and performance for brands, agencies, and publishers for identity-less impressions.

Meanwhile, Next-Gen Buying will be leveraging Next-Gen Audiences, maintaining healthy end-user marketing experiences for identity-less impressions while optimizing advertiser campaigns. By using machine learning-based frequency to limit over-exposures, Next-Gen Buying natively integrates into the Verizon Media DSP to intelligently bid between addressable and identity-less supply for seamless buying and delivery. 

“As legislation and consumer privacy preferences shift, and the ad ecosystem moves away from third-party cookies, advertisers, and publishers need new solutions that can reach consumers in relevant and meaningful ways. There is an expanding opportunity, given the massive digitization wave sweeping across Southeast Asia that netted 40 million new internet users in 2020 alone,” said Verizon Media in a press statement.

Rico Chan, the head of APAC sales at Verizon Media, shared that advertisers find themselves lacking ready access to privacy-centric identifiers that effectively reach the SEA region’s swelling digital population. 

“The roll-out of Next-Gen Audiences and Next-Gen Buying will allow advertisers who are identity-constrained to reach an addressable audience. The new tools will help advertisers achieve targeted scale, delivering relevant consumer experiences and enable better publisher monetization in the absence of IDs,” said Chan.

The new tools are now available in APAC, North America, and selected LATAM markets.

In addition, Verizon Media has announced that it will be launching Next-Gen Measurement in Q4 2021. This tool will allow advertisers to maintain omnichannel insights and measurements. By combining Verizon Media’s measurement methodology, based on first-party aggregated data, with third-party solutions provided by browsers and operating systems, it will provide a comprehensive, reliable, and privacy-preserving foundation for measurement.

Singapore – Matterkind, the activation intelligence company within global marketing solutions provider firm Interpublic Group (IPG), has expanded its APAC regional leadership team with three key senior hires.

The new hires are Lani Jamieson, the new head of client – a newly created regional leadership position, Micaela Soyza, the new head of Matterkind in Malaysia, and Marrah Africa, the new director of addressable strategy in Singapore.

Jamieson has previously worked as the head of Matterkind in Singapore and Malaysia. In her new role, she will be managing a portfolio of key client accounts. Jamieson will also be collaborating with stakeholders across Matterkind, Mediabrands, and client brands, to deliver best-in-class use of data and technology, creative, and addressable activation.

Meanwhile, Soyza has previously worked as the director of addressable strategy at Matterkind Malaysia. In her new role, she will be leveraging her technical knowledge and strategic leadership skills to continue evolving APAC’s market proposition.

Furthermore, Africa, who was the former global learning solutions lead at Matterkind APAC, will be strengthening and differentiating the agency’s addressable strategy in the market in her new role. She will be leveraging her extensive product knowledge with her prior digital investment management experience.

The organizational announcement comes from newly instated Matterkind APAC’s Managing Director Matt Ware, who joined the company in January of this year. Through the new appointments, Matterkind aims to demonstrate its continued growth strategy to support increased addressable activation opportunities across the region.

Commenting on the new appointments, Ware said that Jamieson, Soyza, and Africa are critical to continue developing Matterkind’s differentiated people-first ethical solutions across APAC markets, as they continue to grow their addressable activation opportunities.

“I am delighted but not surprised to find the talent we needed from within our own network, and to be in a position to provide the opportunities for career growth and development in line with our growing addressable activation opportunities in this region,” said Ware.

New Zealand – As expected, digital advertising, in the middle of the pandemic, is forecast to comprise the larger fraction of ad spend by New Zealand advertisers in 2021 with 59% to comprise their overall media budget, according to a new global report by global media investment and intelligence company MAGNA. 

Although New Zealand, being primarily an island, has been successful in containing Covid-19, advertisers are still inclined to put their dollars into digital channels, which can be mainly attributed to how the media practices have evolved to leverage the appeal and impact of digital formats, whether lifestyles are hindered by the virus or not. 

The projected growth in digital follows 2020’s 3.3% growth rate. According to the report, most of the digital growth will come from spending on mobile devices, which will see specifically an 18% increase and to represent 67% of total revenues within digital advertising. 

Overall, the advertising economy in New Zealand is seen to increase by 7.6% in 2021 to reach NZD 2.8b ($1.8b).

Still in line with changing preferences of audiences, the report said that linear advertising revenues will see an uptick of 2.9% to represent 41% of total budgets, an actual down from taking 49% of budgets as recently seen in 2019. 

Meanwhile, in terms of specific mediums, television spending is forecast to grow by 5.6%, to represent one-fourth of total budgets. The report said that this will bring total spending levels back to 92% of their 2019 levels. On the other hand, radio and OOH are seen to fare slightly worse with a 2% growth to reach 86% of 2019 spending levels, and a 5% growth to reach 68% of 2019 spending levels, respectively. 

Globally, as the economy recovers faster than expected with a GDP of 6%, marketing activity, and advertising spending are likewise projected to demonstrate the same upward growth. With the added driver of rescheduled international sports events, the report forecasts global all-media advertising spending to grow by $78b, a 14% increase, to ultimately register an estimated $657b in 2021, a new all-time high, said MAGNA. 

Meanwhile, in the Asia Pacific, while the rollout of COVID vaccines has not been as aggressive as many Western markets, there were still fewer cases and deaths as well as fewer shutdowns vs. those markets in the west. This has not stopped consumers in the region from changing their behavior in the same ways as in heavily COVID-impacted markets, which meant more indulgence to stream, more adoption of e-commerce, and more integration of digital platforms into their daily lives. As a result, economic recovery and organic digital growth will power APAC’s total advertising spending to a 12.8% increase in 2021, following 2020’s 3.3% growth. This will see total advertising budgets in APAC reach $203b, significantly ahead of 2019’s $186b total.

According to Gurpreet Singh, managing director at MAGNA APAC, digital will continue to be the biggest growth driver across most markets fueling a faster recovery. Singh also said that since linear media was the most affected last year, its recovery back to pre-covid levels is going to remain a big challenge across the majority of APAC markets for the next few years.

“2021 will see higher than usual growth in ad spend bouncing off of the reduced spend we saw in most of the APAC markets last year. This will largely result in regaining lost ground, however, some markets will take more than a single year for their ad spend to recover from the impact left by covid,” Singh said.

APAC remains the second largest global advertising region, behind North America but $59b ahead of EMEA.