Tag: Artificial Intelligence

In today’s dynamic economic climate, brands constantly navigate budget constraints within their digital marketing efforts. The digital advertising landscape is evolving rapidly, driven by trends such as AI optimisation, increased personalisation, and growing mobile usage. In this context, cost-efficiency has emerged as a critical factor that can significantly influence the success of marketing campaigns while ensuring financial sustainability.

The Transformation of Digital Advertising with AI

The digital advertising landscape is undergoing a paradigm shift with the integration of AI. AI has become indispensable for engaging, converting, and reaching consumers effectively. Insider Intelligence predicts that over 50% of digital ads will leverage AI and machine learning by 2024, creating seamless, personalised experiences across devices and formats.

AI enables advertisers to create hyper-personalised messages for each individual, enhancing relevance and engagement. They can continuously experiment with and optimise campaign elements such as captions, images, and calls to action, maximising impact. AI also helps advertisers predict the consumers most likely to react positively to tailored value propositions, enabling more targeted and effective campaigns. Furthermore, AI facilitates the automation and scaling of cross-channel advertising while preserving personalisation, resulting in significant cost savings and increased efficiency.

AI’s Impact on Cost-Efficient Mobile Advertising

AI is transforming the landscape of mobile advertising and making it more cost-efficient. Industry reports from eMarketer reveal that AI has led to a 27% decrease in customer acquisition costs. Furthermore, Epsilon’s research found that AI-driven Personalisation Images influenced 80% of consumers to purchase. By leveraging AI, brands can create more targeted and personalised ads, reducing waste and improving return on investment.

AI-powered mobile advertising allows brands to leverage buying intent signals to diversify their digital advertising strategies. By harnessing these signals, brands can gain insights into consumer behaviour, allowing them to target their advertising efforts more effectively and efficiently. This approach increases the likelihood of conversions and ensures brands get the most value from their advertising spend.

E-commerce businesses could benefit from using AI and machine learning to create personalised product recommendations, dynamic pricing, and targeted ads based on consumer behaviour, preferences, and purchase history. AI can also help e-commerce businesses improve customer service, loyalty, and retention by using chatbots, voice assistants, and sentiment analysis. Xtend’s Whitepaper showcases an Indonesian e-commerce platform.

AI-powered solutions activate dormant buyers and targeted micro-cohorts. An effective pacing strategy was developed. As a result, the platform has gained three times the amount of new buyers monthly, with click-through rate value that is four times higher than the industry average rate.

Personalisation, another key digital advertising landscape trend, influences consumer behaviour and advertiser strategy. AI-powered personalisation enables brands to deliver tailored messages to consumers, increasing engagement and conversion rates. By delivering content that resonates with consumers personally, brands can enhance their relationships with consumers and drive loyalty, all while optimising their advertising spend.

In 2024, advertisers are expected to embrace immersive and cohesive ad formats, creating a holistic advertising experience. The shift towards a more automated, data-centric, and integrated advertising experience is anticipated.

In conclusion, as digital advertising evolves, brands must prioritise cost-efficiency in their AI-powered mobile advertising strategies. By leveraging AI and machine learning, brands can deliver personalised and effective advertising campaigns that engage and convert consumers and ensure financial sustainability in an increasingly competitive market.

This article is written by Murali Dharan, Chief Commercial Officer at Xtend.

The insight is published as part of MARKETECH APAC’s thought leadership series under What’s NEXT 2024. What’s NEXT 2024 is a multi-platform industry initiative which features marketing and industry leaders in APAC sharing their marketing insights and predictions for the upcoming year.

United States – Global technology company IBM has announced that is laying off staff across its marketing and communications teams, as previously reported by CNBC.

According to media reports, the IBM layoffs were made by the company’s chief communications officer Jonathan Adashek in a meeting that only lasted seven minutes amongst those in the marketing and communications teams who will be affected.

The layoffs reflect IBM’s rapid move to replace nearly 8,000 jobs in the company with AI, as well as massively upskilling all of its employees on AI. Its CEO, Arvind Krishna, previously told CNBC that it will be cutting 3,900 positions back in January 2023.

“In 4Q earnings earlier this year, IBM disclosed a workforce rebalancing charge that would represent a very low single digit percentage of IBM’s global workforce, and we expect to exit 2024 at roughly the same level of employment as we entered with,” the company stated.

IBM joins a slew of tech companies making significant layoffs this year including Cisco, Amazon, Snap, Okta, PayPal, and Microsoft.

Singapore – AI enterprise customer data platform Amperity has announced two new generative AI capabilities, Explore and Assist, to accompany existing AI-powered capabilities, Stitch and Predict, forming a new comprehensive suite known as ‘AmpAi’.

Through AmpAi, Amperity focuses on fixing data quality and access challenges many brands face with traditional CDPs, promising brands the confidence to make decisions based on a trusted data foundation.

Going into detail on AmpAi’s capabilities, Assist supports marketers, analysts, and data operators with creating marketing workflows more quickly. The first product within Assist is ‘Ai Assistant’, which removes the barriers to creating SQL queries and fixing potential errors within those queries.

On the other hand, Explore is all about enabling business users across the organisation to access and use customer data. ‘AmpGPT’, the first product in Explore, empowers marketers to interact with their data using natural language.

Amongst the new additions, Stitch unifies all data sources to create the highest data quality foundation to make business decisions, whilst Predict helps marketers understand what they need to do to keep the customers they have and make them even more profitable.

The company will introduce more products under Assist and Explore in the coming months to help further democratise customer data and make it accessible to all users in a privacy safe way.

Talking about this, Barry Padgett, CEO at Amperity, said, “We’re on the cusp of a transformative shift in how brands interact with their customer data. For too long, the complexity of data queries and segment creation has been a barrier, consuming valuable time that could be spent on strategic initiatives.”

“With Generative AI, we are empowering all users to be data scientists by democratising data usage and making customer insights accessible across the organisation. We’re not just helping brands save time; we’re empowering every team member to drive value and make informed decisions based on a trusted data foundation,” he added.

Hong Kong – FWD Group Holdings Limited announced today that it has extended its partnership with Microsoft for a four-year period. This partnership intends to provide access to the most recent generative artificial intelligence technologies while still retaining support for FWD’s cloud-first technology strategy. 

By utilising Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service and other enterprise-grade developments, FWD Group aims to enhance its generative AI ambitions. The business expects to gain from Microsoft Azure’s AI models as well as its private networking, security, and monitoring features. 

In a number of areas, including underwriting, claims, channel and agent performance, acquisition, marketing, underwriting, and customer service, FWD Group is actively working to enhance the client experience and streamline its business processes. The business also used Copilot for Microsoft 365 early on, which is an AI assistant that helps staff with daily chores. 

Speaking about the partnership, Ryan Kim, group chief digital officer of FWD Group, said, “Digital innovation has always been core to FWD’s vision of changing the way people feel about insurance. This collaboration marries FWD’s pioneering spirit in Asia in some of the fastest growing insurance markets in the world, with the global scale and skill that Microsoft brings in engineering and AI.” 

He added, “We’re excited to harness more next-generation innovations to develop new industry use cases and standards that we believe will shape the insurance journey of the future.” 

Meanwhile, Bill Borden, corporate vice president of Worldwide Financial Services, Microsoft, stated, “AI is driving transformation across the financial services industry, opening new opportunities for innovation and business growth with agility and at scale. We are thrilled to strengthen our AI partnership with FWD by offering Azure OpenAI Service and Copilot for Microsoft 365 capabilities to enable world-class customer experiences and operations securely and responsibly.” 

“As a pivotal player in the global financial landscape, the Asia Pacific region stands out for its dynamism and adaptability, fostering continuous growth and driving innovation. We are committed to empowering our customers in the region with generative AI capabilities in a responsible way. With Microsoft’s enterprise-grade AI advancements, we are helping the financial services ecosystem accelerate innovation to drive operational efficiency and greater value creation to customers,” Borden added. 

Singapore – Businesses are increasingly integrating customer data platforms with AI and analytics to personalise customer experiences and drive business success, according to a new report from customer engagement platform Twilio.

Data from the report suggests that amidst the widespread adoption of AI, businesses are grappling with an exponential increase in data volume, with Twilio Segment processing a record high of 12.1 trillion API calls in 2023.

This increase is indicative of a larger trend towards more sophisticated, data-centric operations, emphasising the essential role of real-time data processing and seamless AI technology integration.

With this in mind, Twilio emphasises that the ability to quickly harness data insights through CDPs that are open and interoperable with data warehouses is a critical competitive edge, enabling businesses to efficiently collect, unify, and activate data across various platforms.

Going into detail, other key findings of the report claim that data integrity is essential for deriving meaningful customer insights and leveraging AI competitively, as the effectiveness of AI hinges on the data it’s trained on. 

Additionally, data warehouses continued to spike in popularity as one of the most popular destination categories for customer data in 2023, as businesses pave the way for deeper analytics and AI-driven insights.

Talking about these findings, Kathryn Murphy, SVP of product and design at Twilio, said, “In 2024, more and more brands will turn to AI to deliver better, more personalised experiences for their customers. Our report showcases the essential role customer data plays in maximising AI’s effectiveness.”

“At Twilio, we’re seeing a significant trend towards leveraging the interconnectedness of AI, data warehouses, and digital communication channels. The ability to interoperate with data warehouses is essential, ensuring that CDPs act as a pivotal technology for brands eager to leverage AI and data to forge even stronger relationships with their customers,” she added. 

Meanwhile, Chris Hecht, SVP, corporate development and product partnerships, at Databricks, commented, “As businesses look to break down data silos and rely on a unified data platform to power their analytics and AI initiatives, the importance of data sharing and data quality has never been more apparent.”

“Our collaboration with Twilio Segment signals our dedication to ensuring that organisations leverage the full potential of their data – no matter where it lives – and can effectively bridge the gap from data to insights using cleaned and verified event profile data”, he added.

Singapore – The Singaporean government has announced a S$1b investment plan on AI in five years, a move that was announced as part of the nation’s Singapore Budget 2024 presented by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Lawrence Wong

“Part of the investment will be used to ensure that Singapore can secure access to the advanced chips that are so crucial to AI development and deployment. We will also work with leading companies in Singapore and around the world to set up their AI Centres of Excellence here. We want these Centres to spur industry collaboration and innovation, and drive greater value creation across the whole economy,” he explained.

In the budget, Wong stressed how Singapore is already recognised as a serious player in AI development. Furthermore, he noted that they aim to go further–to build new peaks of excellence, and crowd in private sector investments.

Following this, MARKETECH APAC sought insights from various marketing industry leaders to learn more about their perspectives on this recent government move, and how the industry can use this to move forward.

Dan Bognar, Vice President & Managing Director, JAPAC, HubSpot

It is encouraging to see Budget 2024 committing more than S$1 billion over the next five years to accelerate Singapore’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) adoption and innovation. We have arrived at a fascinating intersection where technologies like AI have the potential to play a pivotal role in nation-building and in helping to catalyse economic resilience. 

The reality is that AI provides an opportunity to enhance the future-readiness of Singapore’s growing digital economy. With its ability to improve productivity, AI represents a long-term, sustainable solution for firms to deal with ongoing economic challenges such as rising costs and increased complexities as the business grows. This will be especially relevant for SMEs, where technology can empower them with the means to compete with larger industry counterparts.

As the adoption of AI tools grows, organisations will also require targeted guidance to streamline their technology platforms and data sources. As many business leaders can attest to, a fragmented set of technology platforms, often a result of adopting multiple point solutions alongside legacy platforms, leads to disconnected systems that impede data, productivity and workflows. These shortcomings will likely increase overall operating costs, compromise the customer experience, and negatively impact business outcomes.

Continuous learning has become essential in ensuring that Singapore’s workforce remains in step with technological changes. As the digital economy grows, enterprises who are well-equipped to understand AI’s potential, and able to move quickly to lay a robust foundation for its adoption, will stand to reap the most benefits. These programmes will enhance businesses ability to reinvest in their employees as they capitalise on this change.

Mao Gen Foo, Head of Southeast Asia, Qualtrics

It’s pleasing to see Singapore’s continued commitment to upskilling initiatives, as highlighted in this year’s Budget, along with a significant investment in local AI capabilities and skills.

The newly announced SkillsFuture Level-Up initiative, aimed at supporting mid-career workers in acquiring new skills and competencies, is particularly encouraging. Programmes like this recognise the crucial role this demographic plays in our economy and the need for support in helping our nation’s workers adapt to evolving demands and technological advancements.

The increased focus and investment in AI capabilities, talent, and industry development is also exciting and important for Singapore to strengthen its position as a business and innovation hub. Singapore boasts one of the highest global acceptance rates for AI in the workplace, which supported by the government’s ambitions to set up new AI centres of excellence and investments in upskilling programmes, will empower a new cohort of talent and create high demand for skilled professionals.

Moreover, to ensure Singapore can attract and retain the talent needed in the future, this investment and focus on skills must be complemented by ensuring workers are provided with employee experiences that enable them to do their best work and create high-performing, highly productive teams.

Organisations that embrace this people-centric approach and empower their teams to excel in a period of technological and societal change will be the true standouts, propelling the nation towards a prosperous and competitive future.

Smith Leong, Havas Play Lead at Havas Singapore

Like any other industries, there are 3 things that matter to clients in advertising – Speed, cost, and quality. Based on the trends and what we have observed over the last few months, we can safely say that AI tools have shown us the possibilities of answering all 3 factors when used right. We have already started using some of these tools and they have definitely improved our quality of work at Havas.

We welcome the investment by the government in training as we can foresee the potential increase in productivity and quality of jobs. Talents will be able to do more, and better within a shorter time. That also means the potential increase of profit in relation. The challenge for such transition has always been due to the initiation cost and resources involved for both businesses and individuals.

With the initial investment by the government on AI, we can see the potential of Singapore being at the forefront of things which will help us attract both overseas talents and businesses trusting us with their investment, and that will continue to fuel the industry which higher interest and demand.

Kamal Brar, Senior Vice President, APAC, Confluent

I am glad to see the increasing local investments and upskilling support for Singaporeans and businesses to train and make the best of AI innovations. We live in an incredible time for innovation today where AI is driving significant productivity improvements for businesses in Singapore. While AI can’t replace the intentionality, creativity, or awareness of a human, it can automate the menial day-to-day, allowing employees and companies to focus on the most valuable tasks.

As consumers, we have already tasted the convenience of mobile apps that can process requests immediately, reducing waiting time from days to seconds. With AI, we can also expect businesses to operate closer to the speed of life, that is, in real time. Minister Wong aptly reflected that emerging technologies will change the way expertise is defined and how value is created. One good example is in customer engagements. The ability to access data in real time, supported by AI to analyse previous interactions, individual preferences and behaviours, will help to make the business feel more human. Other possibilities can also include preventing fraud for a fintech app or handling an online retail order and marking out the most efficient delivery route.

Such value of AI is deeply dependent on having clean, trustworthy, up-to-date data. Organisations can tap on real-time streams of accurate data to keep up with AI-driven change. For this, companies in Singapore (small or big) should actively help employees to retrain and upskill in data management with the SkillsFuture Level-Up programme and new grants, especially as we see more AI centres of excellence open up here. 

Eileen Chua, Managing Director of SAP Singapore

The increasing need for employees’ training in AI, reflects on Singapore’s Budget 2024 focus and anticipates an ever-evolving business landscape. With the rising demand for AI expertise in this digital economy, building skills-centric organizations where expertise and know-how take precedence over roles and titles will improve business agility and employee experience. In order to achieve this, companies must have a holistic view of their workforce and ignite potential by providing opportunities for growth and development. 

In line with the Singapore’s National AI Strategy 2.0, SAP has also named SAP Labs Singapore as a global AI hub, with the aim of developing reliable, relevant and responsible business AI applications for customers and partners globally, while fostering innovation through a private, public partnership approach.

Sanchit Mendiratta, Managing Director, Merkle, CXM Group, dentsu Singapore

Over the past six decades, Singapore has consistently positioned itself at the forefront of global innovation and economic growth. From capitalising on its strategic geographic location to foster trade to diversifying its economy from manufacturing to cutting-edge fintech, Singapore’s journey is a testament to foresight, adaptability, and relentless pursuit of excellence.

In the last 14 months alone, the world has witnessed unparalleled advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI), signalling a pivot that promises to redefine our way of life, work, and interaction with technology. This era of rapid technological evolution underscores the power of individual creativity and potential to generate significant impact. In light of emerging narratives about the possibility of ‘one-person unicorns’, it is clear that the ability to drive change is increasingly democratised, residing not only within VC-funded start-ups, big tech, or established multinational corporations but also within the reach of every individual connected to the internet.

The Singapore government recognizes the transformative potential of AI and is committed to ensuring its benefits are accessible to all. By empowering Singaporeans with SkillsFuture credits and monthly training allowances, alongside initiatives designed to encourage companies to adopt AI, the government is fostering a dual approach to innovation. This strategy ensures a comprehensive understanding and application of AI across all levels of society and the workforce, from the ground up by the people and from the top down by companies.

We are on the cusp of a new era where AI is not just a tool for operational efficiency but a catalyst for societal advancement and the empowerment of every individual. The government’s efforts to evangelize AI capabilities reflect our dedication to preparing Singaporeans for the future, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to navigate and shape the emerging new world order.

Thus, the future Singapore envisions is not merely a forecast, but a reality Singaporeans will actively create.

Rebecca Nadilo, Managing Director – Iris Singapore

There’s still so much to learn about the applications of AI – and most importantly – there’s much to teach about it. Singapore’s investment in tech, training and infrastructure means we’re in the best position to beta test its application and understand where, how and who is best to use it.

Tin Sanchez, Executive Creative Director – Iris Singapore

Change is scary – and AI marks a change in the way we do and make things. The budget can allow mastery of AI and overcoming our unease around it. My hope is that it boosts human creativity even more.

Singapore – Global media measurement and optimization platform Integral Ad Science (IAS), has announced that its AI-driven ‘Total Media Quality (TMQ)’ brand safety and suitability measurement product is now generally available across Facebook, Instagram, and Reels. 

Through this partnership, IAS’s new post-bid brand safety and suitability measurement expansion with Meta gives advertisers increased transparency into whether their campaigns are appearing next to safe and suitable content.

Going into detail, IAS brand safety and suitability measurement product expansion to Meta gives advertisers the ability to measure adjacent posts to an advertiser’s campaign using IAS’s multimedia technology to provide unique insight into video content, providing advertisers with third-party validation with trusted and transparent industry metrics, and providing third-party validation for advertisers to understand and optimise their Meta inventory filters.

Additionally, advertisers can now leverage IAS Signal, its unified reporting platform that delivers the data and insights advertisers need to easily manage their digital campaigns.

Talking about this expansion, Lisa Utzschneider, CEO of IAS, said, “IAS is steadfast in delivering solutions to help marketers measure and optimise performance in dynamic, user-generated social environments like Facebook and Instagram. This expansion allows brands to identify higher-quality media and scale across these platforms, signifying another important milestone in helping brands enhance brand equity across the entire digital ecosystem.”

Meanwhile, Samantha Stetson, vice president of client council and industry trades at Meta, said, “IAS’s release of Brand Safety and Suitability Measurement across Facebook and Instagram is a meaningful step forward in our continued work to provide transparency and trust across our advertising ecosystem. Responsible marketing is a top priority at Meta – and we are pleased with our continued partnership to bring this important solution to our advertisers.”

Singapore – In line with Safer Internet Day, Bumble has announced the launch of its newest feature, ‘Deception DetectorTM,’ as part of the company’s continued commitment to building friendly, secure, and genuine interactions throughout the last decade. ‘Deception DetectorTM’ uses artificial intelligence (AI) to detect and minimise spam, fraud, and phoney profiles, proactively addressing these issues before members become aware of them. 

Within the first two months of using this technology, Bumble saw a 45% decrease in member reports concerning spam, fraud, and phoney accounts.

According to Bumble’s research, participants worldwide cited the possibility of fraud and phoney accounts as their top concerns when it comes to online dating. Moreover, almost half of the female respondents (46%) expressed concern about the reliability of the online connections they had made on dating apps. These worries and anxieties can keep people away from making deep connections that could greatly improve their lives. 

Bumble Inc.’s Deception DetectorTM introduces a quick and reliable machine-learning approach that is used to assess the authenticity of profiles and connections on all of its platforms. In testing, Deception DetectorTM blocked 95% of the accounts that Bumble Inc. classified as frauds or spam. This AI-powered automated technology works in tandem with committed human support, demonstrating the dedication to creating a safe and empowering community. 

Speaking about the launch, Lidiane Jones, CEO at Bumble Inc., said, “In recent years, the online landscape has evolved significantly and we see a growing concern about authenticity. Bumble Inc. was founded with the aim to build equitable relationships and empower women to make the first move, and Deception DetectorTM is our latest innovation as part of our ongoing commitment to our community to help ensure that connections made on our apps are genuine.” 

She added, “With a dedicated focus on women’s experience online, we recognize that in the AI era, trust is more paramount than ever. We are being thoughtful about how to best use new models to reduce the anxiety of making connections and support our community, with AI standing as a main area of focus.” 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been around for a long time. But for the past few months, it has accelerated and taken the marketing industry by storm, giving marketers unprecedented opportunity while opening more doors on how to distil its power to full capacity. Although iterations of the use of AI are now being witnessed, there are still some questions surrounding the technology. 

In the world of marketing, MARKETECH APAC wanted to uncover how brands can use AI for success, and in doing so, what challenges they can prepare for, as well as what opportunities can be gained through AI innovation.. For that, we turn to Konrad Feldman, CEO & co-founder of Quantcast–the adtech that specialises in AI-driven real-time advertising, audience insights, and measurement.

In the latest Expert Up Close interview, we sat down with Feldman to learn his expert insights on the emergence of AI and how marketers can use it as a powerful tool to deliver excellence in their marketing initiatives. 

Firstly, according to Feldman, the innovation of AI has moved past itself, it is not just ‘one thing’ but an umbrella of approaches. What makes it a true mark of growth in this digital age is the fact that it can interact with what has been democratised for everyone; information on the open internet.

Right off the bat, productivity is the biggest benefit of AI, and for marketers, this means being able to have more room to do the jobs they were meant to do, better..

“There’s going to be all sorts of companies launched and tools that sit on top of these [large language] models that will help us with productivity and that will help us get through our work quicker, freeing up marketers to be more creative and more and more innovative. I think everyone should be testing these things to get a feel for themselves,” he said. 

Konrad also added that the more we can set these tools to understand the data patterns to be able to predict the right audiences and to autonomously optimise campaigns, it frees people up to do things that people are still much better at doing.

“One of the more intricate use cases of AI for marketers is being able to narrow down which audience segments are best to reach for an advertising campaign”, stated Feldman. 

“So one of the key benefits [of AI] is helping [to] decide which set of consumers would be best to reach for an advertising campaign. In any market, there’s a large potential [audience], but the reality is, very few marketers want to reach the entire audience.”

Many advertisers have an increasing amount of information on their customers. Feldman gave the example of an airline that has a route to San Francisco and is promoting tickets for that destination could have many hypotheses by which someone could become a customer. But even with a large number of people, it would only be able to identify a subset of those motivations. 

And this is where programmatic advertising enters the picture and leverages machine learning, which can more systematically assess the characteristics of customers that may be interested in a brand’s offer. 

Ultimately, Feldman said there are different types of AI for different types of problems, but just like any other technology, one should start not with the goal of simply using technology. 

“You should start with the goal of solving a specific problem,” he said. 

Overall, machine learning and AI algorithms work as an optimisation process where they are trying to minimise some errors and maximise some value, so one must be able to provide the incentive for the way the algorithm learns. 

“Be really clear about the problem that you want to solve and how you’ll measure success. I think that’s an important framing – having a clear understanding of what success looks like.” 

Another important thing — the willingness to experiment. 

“Be willing to experiment, recognise that not everything you try with new technologies is always going to work straight off.”

He elaborated by saying that if something doesn’t work and you can understand why, that’s how you learn in advance.

He then concluded, “So getting a model where you’re able to experiment and learn quickly is powerful. And that’s the last thing I’d say – experiment. These new products that are available based on [breakthroughs] and the availability of data is such that we’re seeing some really interesting, emergent properties from these models. And they’re available, and they’re accessible. And anyone can go and use them. Just try them out!”

Watch the full interview with Feldman here. 

Manila, Philippines – The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in marketing strategies has become a defining characteristic of the modern business landscape. AI is transforming how brands interact with consumers, enabling relevant and personalised marketing campaigns, data-driven decision-making, and enhanced customer experiences. And yet, as beneficial as it seems, many are just only starting to explore AI adoption in their strategies. The question is: are marketers in the Southeast Asia region, particularly in the Philippines, ready for these new technologies?

In light of this, MARKETECH APAC invited top Philippine marketing leaders for a roundtable event to share their insights on AI in marketing, and how they’re implementing AI across their marketing strategies. What resulted was a lively and positive outlook on how marketers in the country can move forward as an industry that embraces AI technologies as part of its DNA.

Marketing leaders who attended the event include:

  • Blessie Cruz, AVP/group head – marketing at 2GO Group Inc.
  • Benjamin Quiroga-Rivera, managing director, APAC at Emma Sleep
  • Greg Anonas, international wine and food marketing director at Emperador Distillers, Inc.
  • Erik Kristofer Riola, marketing director at Firefly Electric & Lighting Corporation
  • AR Polinar, marketing deputy director at Flash Express Philippines
  • Rochelle Vandenberghe, chief marketing and digital business officer at FWD Insurance 
  • Brian Augustine Reyes, digital marketing lead (performance marketing lead) at Lalamove
  • Kat Costas, SEA e-commerce marketing lead & country marketing head at Levi’s
  • Andrew Guevarra, head of brand marketing and communications at Malayan Insurance
  • Pocholo Garcia, head of digital & e-commerce at Malayan Insurance
  • Albet Roble-Buddahim, chief marketing officer at PRIMER Group of Companies
  • Munmun Nath, chief marketing officer at UnionDigital Bank

Opening with a keynote address by Konrad Feldman, co-founder and CEO of Quantcast; AI-powered technologies have empowered marketers to gain invaluable customer insights, personalise experiences, and optimise campaigns for unprecedented success. Drawing attention to AI’s ability to analyse vast amounts of data in real time, Feldman also underscored its transformative impact on customer segmentation, targeting, and predictive modelling. Moreover, his presentation delivered a compelling case for embracing AI in marketing as an indispensable tool for unlocking untapped potential, driving growth, and shaping the future of customer engagement and brand success.

“AI is math, not magic. Technology when combined with human ingenuity and creativity really can be magic. AI machine learning can improve everyday advertising experiences for billions of consumers, they can help marketers get better return of investment, they can help content producers capture good revenue for producing original content,” he said.

Feldman also added, “The complexity of everyday tasks has grown with the market and many folks still follow the same processes for planning activations in the past, albeit with nicer tools, but more and more time is spent using these tools, and… lots and lots of levers and dials to check on and constantly adjust, and the technology has made the marketer the computer.”

On the benefits and challenges of using AI to for marketing

The attending Philippine marketing leaders also shared their insights on the status quo of AI in marketing and how brands could better use and benefit from it.

Malayan Insurance’s Pocholo Garcia, shared that they use AI to empower their customer experience (CX) strategies.

“[AI] is primarily for CX, at least on my end, and that’s not just in terms of getting people to convert, because that’s just step one. We want the whole experience of choosing us [as their insurance provider] to be smooth for everyone, not just for clients but also for the people on the inside,” he said.

Meanwhile, Lalamove’s Brian Augustine Reyes explained how AI has been integral in improving efficiency, productivity, and data-driven decision-making for brands and marketers alike.

“As someone who handles the day-to-day performance optimisation, AI can really give you more time to do the strategic thinking part instead of just… identifying the right audience [and] thinking up creatives. AI also gives the advantage of creative optimisation, developing what kind of communication is effective for your audience to improve your metrics,” Reyes said.

Meanwhile, PRIMER Group’s Albet Buddahim explained how the versatility of AI can be beneficial on the e-commerce side of things, and further reach untapped databases.

“AI can help us on the e-commerce side. We’re sitting on a 1.7 million email database but the match on Facebook and Google are low. Maybe [AI] can help us find where the rest of these 1.7 million are going in a way where I can drive them to our offers,” he said.

Lastly, Flash Express’s AR Polinar expressed how AI is beneficial in terms of planning, saying, “We use AI for planning and forecasting. It’s really useful for us [in] making sure that our operations are really ready [based on] the data we’re receiving from our partners and customers.”

It is also worth noting that many marketing leaders are also acquainted with more mainstream AI tools, including the generative AI tool ChatGPT.

For Emma Sleep’s Benjamin Quiroga-Rivera, AI tools such as ChatGPT are easy to understand and accessible to use by all, including marketers.

“What we’ve seen particularly with this consumer product, ChatGPT, is just how accessible and easy it is to visualise and sort of ideate creatives, which we found quite fun to play around with,” he said.

Despite the benefits AI has brought to marketers, there are still concerns on whether there are people who are actually capable of using such technology.

This was according to Levi’s Kat Costas, saying, “For us, it’s [about] automation and personalisation… [AI] helps us with the media, in terms of identifying the right segments [and] the right assets that will be served through each of the segments. The big challenge for us is, do we even have the people who can use the technology.”

The negative implications of AI

Despite all of the benefits AI brings to the marketing scene, industry leaders still have levels of uncertainty when it comes to using such AI tools.

Flash Express’s AR Polinar noted that the downside of using AI has been around losing qualitative data upon maximising AI tools.

“One disadvantage would be focusing more on quantity vs quality because of AI. We might not verify the data we receive or not take action immediately. The challenge is to always verify the [data or the] actions of our consumers on the ground,” he said.

For Emperador Distiller’s Greg Anonas, AI still has limited capabilities in exploring unknown marketing territories.

“When it comes to AI–we think it’s a boon to everyone, but it does have some things that it can’t handle. For example, strategic thought and entrepreneurial thinking. What we’re concerned about is, as we move further into AI, we get into things that people have not done before,” he said.

Meanwhile, Erik Riola from Firefly Electric commented that while there are certain negative perspectives on AI technologies, marketers are still open to exploring such tools.

“People tend to focus on the negatives rather than where [AI] could benefit… It is in the understanding, which I feel as a marketer, that we could better use and employ these technologies. But I say that it is a conscious level of optimism because it is still very fresh, at least from the consumers’ perspective,” Riola said.

He added, “All of a sudden now a lot of people are talking about ChatGPT, and as a marketer, you don’t want to be a dinosaur in your industry…you want to learn that technology. And that’s what we are trying to employ today.”

The industry leaders recognised the transformative power of AI in enabling personalised experiences, data-driven decision-making, and improving customer engagement. And expressed the undeniable benefits and potentials of implementing AI in various marketing strategies.

They also highlighted the positive impacts of AI in efficiency, productivity, and creative optimisation–as it becomes more and more accessible for marketers. While acknowledging these, they also raised the concern of limitations such as investments or time, loss of qualitative data, and marching into unmarked territory.

As AI continues to evolve, the future of marketing holds exciting prospects and could redefine how consumers interact with products and services, taking engagement to unprecedented heights. 

However, it’s important to note that while AI offers immense potential, Human creativity, emotional intelligence, and ethical considerations still play crucial roles in designing campaigns that truly connect with audiences on a meaningful level. In this journey, collaboration will be key – between marketers and AI systems, amongst industry peers, and with consumers to ensure that the right balance is struck.