Tag: Brands

Hong Kong – Deliveroo has launched its latest retail offering, ‘Deliveroo Shopping,’ expanding its on-demand services to include a broader range of shopping categories alongside its established food and grocery deliveries.

Deliveroo Shopping represents a significant milestone in the company’s growth, seamlessly extending its services to meet the diverse needs of consumers across a wider range of occasions.

With this launch, consumers gain access to an expanded selection of retail products across categories such as baby, pet, toys, florists, pharmacy and nutrition, and home and kitchen. These items are available with the same on-demand convenience that customers enjoy when ordering food and groceries on the platform.

Deliveroo has partnered with trusted local and international retail brands, including Watsons, Watsons Baby, LEGO, Qpet, Pet Line, SLOWOOD, EUGENEbaby, Hing Fat Florist, Natures Village, and more. These key partners were carefully selected for their wide range of everyday essentials, offering over 10,000 SKUs at launch to cater to customers’ diverse needs.

Commenting on the partnership, Simmy Chung, general manager of Pet Line, said, “We’re thrilled to partner with Deliveroo Shopping to bring pet owners across Hong Kong quick and convenient access to our premium pet supplies. This collaboration allows us to reach more pet lovers and ensure they can get what they need for their furry friends at a moment’s notice.” 

Samuel Lee, managing director of Watsons Hong Kong, added, “Our partnership with Deliveroo Shopping aligns perfectly with our mission to make health and beauty products more accessible to all at our O+O (offline plus online) platform. We are excited to be the first large-scale health and beauty retail chain to join hands with Deliveroo. By leveraging our extensive physical store network and advanced digital experience, this innovative platform of Deliveroo enables us to offer our customers an additional convenient way to shop for their favourite health and beauty products from Watsons, delivering right to their doorstep.” 

All retail partners and products are integrated into the ‘Shopping’ section of the app, featuring dedicated tools and a user-friendly interface to provide a convenient one-stop shopping experience.

Deliveroo is also introducing a new gifting feature, allowing users to select a gift, mark it as such at checkout, and send a trackable link with an animated greeting card. Ideal for sending flowers, surprise gifts, baby essentials, or even comfort food to a friend in need.

The platform’s machine-learning search and discovery feature enables users to easily browse for gifting occasions, such as birthdays, and instantly receive a curated selection of gift options.

Marco Ng, general manager of Hong Kong and Macau Retail of Kidsland International Holdings Limited (which operates a LEGO Certified Store in Hong Kong), said, “Our partnership with Deliveroo Shopping echoes with our mission to make a positive difference in the lives of children, colleagues, partners, and the world we live in. The ‘gifting function’ on the platform is an ideal way to bring more magical moments to homes across Hong Kong. With our beloved LEGO® Minifigures and sets now just a few taps away, customers can surprise and delight families, making it easier than ever to share the joy of creative play.” 

Jonathan Kan, new verticals director at Deliveroo Hong Kong, shared, “Deliveroo Shopping is a major milestone in our growth journey. It is the result of extensive research that identified a significant demand for convenient on-demand delivery in specific non-food categories. We are excited to elevate our consumer value proposition by offering customers the opportunity to order both food and non-food items from a unified platform. We are confident that Deliveroo Shopping will transform the non-food shopping experience, making last-minute gifts, kitchen essentials, toys for the little ones, and more accessible at the click of a button.” 

Before this launch, Deliveroo introduced Deliveroo Shopping in Singapore, partnering with merchants like LUSH, Xpressflower, and Pet Lovers Centre. The company plans to further expand its selection and partner network, aiming to enrich the on-demand delivery experience and cater to a broader spectrum of consumer needs.

Sydney, Australia – A new study by HypeAuditor, an AI analytics platform for transparent and fraud-free influencer marketing, revealed that minority of the influencers in Australia are not proactively collaborating with brands for partnerships despite the development of influencer marketing in the industry.

HypeAuditor surveyed over 500 content creators on Instagram and TikTok with over 1,000 followers. It was found that one-third of the influencers prefer to not actively participate with brands for partnerships or respond to inquiries in groups or marketplaces. However, 94% of these respondents still prefer to make partnerships with brands.

Moreover, the study also revealed that 46% of influencers had seen an increase in brand partnerships this year compared to 2022 whilst 39% noticed an increase in the amount paid by brands for sponsored posts.

Alexander Frolov, co-founder and CEO at HypeAuditor, said that content creators are confident that there are collaboration opportunities and it’s a matter of exerting efforts to find meaningful opportunities.

“Influencers, especially those who are new to the space or have a smaller reach, wanting collaborations and partnerships will need to take control and leverage the right tools to find the right partners that resonate with their content,” Frolov added.

Moreover, HypeAuditor has announced its new platform HypeAuditor for Influencers to bring both influencers and brands that seek for collaborations. The platform will give access to HypeAuditor’s solutions including Media Kit to easily generate custom media kits for influencers directly to brands, account analytics and market analysis, and updates from the most notable followers.

Mumbai, India – The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) and intellectual property (IP) boutique K&S Partners, have joined hands to release a whitepaper titled ‘Misleading Advertisements and Trademarks – A Registration Conundrum’, which identifies the practice and instances of brands making misleading claims and representations through the use of trademarks.

Brands and advertisers often cite trademark registrations as a defence, these words or phrases mislead consumers. With this paper, ASCI and K&S Partners argue that such a defence is not valid, as making misleading representations violates the ASCI code, the Consumer Protection Act, and the Trade Marks Act itself. 

Moreover, the paper calls for greater scrutiny and restraint in permitting descriptive trademarks to brands, and to ensure that such trademarks are not a false representation of the product.

“At ASCI we see cases where the advertiser uses a trademark registration to defend their direct or implied claims, asserting that a trademark registration means that the claim is good in law. This is not true, and we would ask brands to be cautious in using untrue, exaggerated or misleading phrases to describe their products, whether trademarks or not,” said Manisha Kapoor, CEO and secretary general at ASCI.

Meanwhile, Prashant Gupta, partner at K&S Partners, shared that the issue concerning false, unsubstantiated, and dishonest advertisements, under the guise of descriptive or laudatory trademarks, is grave. 

“Protecting consumers from deception is one of the principal tenets of the ASCI Code, the Trade Marks Act, and the Consumer Protection Act. The Trademark Office needs to raise the threshold for descriptive or laudatory trademarks, failing which, protecting consumers’ rights from fraudulent marks and making informed choices would be severely compromised,” said Gupta.

USA – Advertising company Taboola, has revealed the results of an independent Multichannel Brand Impact study from Kantar, a data, insights, and consulting company. According to Kantar, video advertising in native environments outperforms social media for improving brand favourability and consideration, native video ads boost brand awareness by 26% as part of larger media mixes.

With more than half of marketers saying video is their most lucrative type of advertising, eMarketer forecasts that digital ad spending in the US will reach $270 billion by 2023.

The Kantar Multichannel Brand Impact study measured the effectiveness of video advertising within native environments against other environments, as it relates to helping reach brand impact goals. The study found that compared to social or video platforms, native video ads on the open web have a greater influence on brand consideration and favorability. When exposed to a native video ad, 59 percent of study participants showed brand favorability, as opposed to 50 percent on social platforms and 51 percent on video platforms.

It is also noted in the study that when incorporating native video ads on the open web into a marketing mix, brand recognition increased by 26%. Participants who saw native video advertising displayed a 33 percent top-of-mind awareness compared to just 14 percent of the control group. When native video ads were combined with social platform video ads, top-of-mind awareness rose to 49%.

Adam Singolda, CEO and founder of Taboola, said video ads continue to prove valuable to brands, especially as TV dollars are moving to digital.

“With industry estimates indicating that video advertising in the U.S. will reach nearly $50B this year, brands have a lot of opportunities to influence customers, as long as they’re choosing the right platforms and mix of platforms to relay their messages,” Singolda said.

Singolda added, “What the Kantar study and our client work spotlight is that native video ads on Taboola High Impact Placements (HIP) are an essential part of a successful media mix. We provide the editorial environments that people trust, on a massive scale, so brands can amplify their efforts with Taboola.”

Thailand – Global brand experience agency, VMLY&R and super-app social commerce platform LINE SHOPPING have enlisted top-tier Thai superstars and influencers to endorse small businesses that adopt LINE’s innovative shopping platform to promote their products and services.

Thailand’s e-commerce space tends to be dominated by large businesses. Despite there being some 5 million online sellers, almost 85% of market share goes to big players. With over 50-million users, LINE’s in-app social commerce platform LINE SHOPPING champions small businesses by offering insightful marketing tools to help them win in this highly competitive market that favours big players.

In partnership with VMLY&R Thailand, LINE SHOPPING’s exciting ‘Free Superstar Endorsers’ initiative arms small businesses with big superstars, free of charge. Achieving never-done-before endorsement, LINE SHOPPING brings together internet darlings including ‘Ticha’ Kanticha, ‘Pearwah’ Nichapat, ‘Chin’ Chinawut, ‘Pai’ Sitang, and Nae’ Anothai. Small businesses can utilise these superstars to promote any of their products across all promotional channels without any brand-endorser fee.

Since the launch at the end of May, sign-up to LINE SHOPPING from new sellers has already more than doubled the initiative’s expectations, with two months still to go.

‘Free Superstar Endorsers’ is an open endorsement platform where LINE SHOPPING sellers can choose the most suitable endorsers for their brands, and then generate royalty-free marketing collateral to create exposure for their products, giving them the competitive edge to fight shoulder to shoulder with big players. The businesses will also gain access to agency experts’ guidance for any marketing material creation for their shops.

Lertad Supadhiloke, director of e-commerce at LINE Company Thailand, shared, “Over 40% of small businesses in Thailand do not survive the first quarter and even more close within the first year. LINE SHOPPING, as the leading social commerce platform in Thailand, has always recognized small businesses as the driving force for the ecosystem since day one, and our vision is to empower small businesses to be strong enough to succeed. 

“Working with VMLY&R we wanted to communicate with a creative and insightful initiative that highlights how SMEs have a common pain point of lacking marketing tools and budget to fight in a sea dominated by big fish and thus begin to bring our “LIBERTY TO WIN” vision to life by first unlocking limitations and bringing freedom of entrepreneurship to small businesses through our platform,” Supadhiloke added.

Meanwhile, Anuwat Nitipanont, chief creative officer at VMLY&R Thailand, commented, “Thailand is a market heavily driven by costly big presenters, a situation in which small or newly established shops lack any leverage. And our research shows that a superstar is one of the most powerful tools to help increase sales and brand awareness. 

Nitipanont adds, “To have a star presenter hold a product for small businesses would cost them a huge investment they cannot afford. Therefore almost 100% of small businesses don’t integrate brand endorsers into their marketing plans. This led to our mission to create a more equal opportunity playing field in e-commerce that would allow small businesses to thrive.”

Singapore – About 80% of consumers in Singapore and Hong Kong want brands to connect with them personally, and 70% say that brands have deepened their relationship in the past year through positive online experiences, according to a survey by digital experience management software Sitecore.

The survey showed that seven out of 10 consumers have deeper relationships with brands, while the key to securing better experiences for consumers was to deliver quality customer service support and interactions, good customer experience when making a big-ticket item, positive initial interaction with a new brand, and through providing a relevant, helpful experience. The elements that trumped price were the high quality of products with 66%, reliability with 55%, and transparency and believability with 46%.

The same survey also found that consumers still greatly value the excitement of the in-store shopping experiences, with 36% saying they want to buy everything online, and 53% saying they ‘live for the experience’ and love to shop in person. Meanwhile, consumers place top priority on the ability to shop on mobile devices where apps or websites work well with 54%, and sites that remember their shopping preferences with 42%.

Joey Lim, Sitecore’s president for APJ, noted that consumers expect outstanding digital commerce experiences and they also expect online platforms and apps to work seamlessly, and their desire to shop in-store is very strong, however, the shift to digital is putting more pressure on brands to deliver quality customer service online. 

Lim also shared the survey showed that one in three consumers believe brands that show empathy and understanding will build stronger relationships with customers.

“Brands can pursue actions that build a stronger relationship with customers, such as illustrating empathy and understanding what they need at the moment. They can do this by providing insightful recommendations and deploying imagery and language that makes them feel represented by the brand,” she added. 

Moreover, the report revealed that loyalty changes frequently, as less than 25% of consumers are very loyal to their favourite brand store but consumer technology, banking services, and consumer goods deliver the strongest brand loyalty. It also found that consumers say that they have confidence in their favourite brand because it meets their expectations, gains trust, and guarantees satisfaction.

Meanwhile, discounts, loyalty programmes, and clear communications are highly valued when brands have to change prices, and more than 90% agree that brands need to prove that they treat their customers and their employees fairly. The survey also showed that while more consumers under the age of 44 are digital converts, most consumers love to shop in person for most of their purchases, and 40% say they chose to shop at brands with values that align with their own, as well as a third of consumers say that they have chosen to shop at brands with ‘real life’ vs. ‘perfect life’ experiences.

Singapore – Global digital ad verification company Integral Ad Science (IAS) has expanded its partnership with short-video sharing platform TikTok to add new services, which will allow IAS to measure viewability, invalid traffic (IVT), and app-level brand safety, allowing brands and agencies globally to effectively monitor the quality of their media buys on TikTok’s platform.

Through this, IAS will now be providing advertisers with trusted, third-party measurement powered by the Open Measurement Software Development Kit (OM SDK), giving marketers ultimate transparency and confidence around campaign performance. Governed by the IAB with IAS being a founding member, the OM SDK is designed to facilitate transparent third-party viewability and verification measurement for ads served to mobile apps and open web environments. 

Moreover, the offering will be providing granular reporting with 24/7 access to the IAS Signal UI, allowing advertisers to take action and stay informed on campaigns. By partnering with IAS, marketers will now have access to an increasingly comprehensive set of solutions to manage their advertising campaigns on TikTok.

Lisa Utzschneider, IAS’ CEO, commented that they are excited to offer marketers an increasingly comprehensive set of IAS Media Quality Solutions to manage their advertising campaigns on TikTok.

“It is more important than ever for marketers to engage with users on social platforms and ensure that their ads appear next to brand safe & suitable content on a global scale. We are thrilled to deliver a holistic solution on TikTok and provide new levels of transparency and precision for these campaigns,” said Utzschneider.

Meanwhile, Melissa Yang, TikTok’s head of ecosystem partnerships, shared that they are thrilled to build on their partnership with IAS and introduce new solutions that give brands the confidence to scale their businesses and audiences on TikTok.

“Through this expansion, brands and advertisers around the world will have access to IAS viewability measurement to monitor the quality of their campaigns on our platform. We’re excited to see how this will usher in new levels of transparency and success for our clients,” said Yang.

Mumbai, India – Pass Pass Pulse, one of the leading candy brands in India, has launched its annual World Compliment Day campaign. World Compliment Day is an annual brand property in which Pulse lauds select brands that are the ‘pulse’ of their category for their outstanding contributions.

With the campaign conceptualised and created by FoxyMoron, Pulse complimented this year confectionary brands like Colgate, Amul, Maruti, Domino’s, Sleepwell, amongst others, using quirky copy and smart design. The campaign recognizes the efforts of these brands intending to engage in targeted brand banter on social media.

Pulse’s creative with Colgate on Instagram

Arvind Kumar, general manager for marketing of Dharampal Satyapal Foods Ltd., said, “Pulse’s World Compliment Day campaigns have gained a lot of traction over the last 3 years. Brand banter as a concept has become popular over the years and Pulse is proudly one of the early adopters and trendsetters in this space. We are confident that Pulse’s brand voice is going to lead to great engagement and banter across multiple brand communities, which will help us in our endeavour to associate Pulse with positivity and engagement.” 

Pulse’s creative with Maggi on Instagram

Prachi Bali, national head client partnerships and business head of North FoxyMoron, commented, “This year we’ve focused on paying compliments to brands that have made profound contributions in their respective categories. This is the kind of positive consumer sentiment Pulse has always stood for and we want people to continue to associate Pulse with.” 

The issue of sustainability as seen from the lens of corporate purpose has been growing through the last few years. More and more stakeholders are realizing that corporations and brands need to go beyond just brand promise but, more so, should reflect their own values and their missions. For 2022, we predict that this is further going to evolve.

One of the predictions in Red Havas Global’s 2022 Red Sky Predictions is the evolution of corporate purpose as it evolves from changing stakeholder expectations in the last year or so. For 2022, experts predict that corporate purpose must now be delivered with clear and measurable action.

As communications practitioners, we know the primary key to effective communication is authenticity. For 2022, actions designed to drive and emphasize corporate purpose should show that they can effect change. This stems from the growing realization among stakeholders that many companies and brands are riding on the ‘Sustainability’ bandwagon because it’s considered current and a trend. They create activities and product content to highlight their efforts but for most, it is superficial. It has no real connection to the vision and mission of the company or the purpose of the brand. There’s a term they use for this – greenwashing. This is when a company or brand spends time and effort to market themselves as environmentally friendly or have embraced sustainability – but it’s only just for show, only devised to follow trends.

Sustainability efforts and the commitment to provide meaningful actions and messages should not be skin deep. It should reside from a place of sincere authenticity. Only then can these actions become powerful enough to build and strengthen corporate purpose.

According to Havas Group’s 2021 Meaningful Brand study, there was a marked shift in how people view brands. About 71 per cent of people surveyed showed that they have little faith that brands will deliver on their promise and that only 34 per cent are transparent about their commitments. This clearly shows that audiences are now more cynical when it comes to how they view brands, companies, and businesses.

But despite this cynicism, brand expectation has markedly grown. An amazing piece of data is that 73 per cent of the respondents believe brands must act as soon as possible for the good of society and the planet. More significantly than this, though is that 64 per cent of people have now taken their own concrete steps to more affirmative action – they have signified that they will only buy from companies that have shown that they are not just out for profit but have a sincere desire to effect change and have taken concrete steps towards it.

In other words, consumers of today will take their business to companies and brands that are aligned to their own beliefs and those that are doing something to change the world for the better. It will be interesting to add that these consumers have even signified that they are willing to pay more just to support these brands.

This article is written by Mel Panabi, the business director of Red Havas in the Philippines.

The article is published as part of MARKETECH APAC’s thought leadership series What’s NEXT. This features marketing leaders sharing their marketing insights and predictions for the upcoming year. The series aims to equip marketers with actionable insights to future-ready their marketing strategies.

If you are a marketing leader and have insights that you’d like to share with regards to the upcoming trends and practices in marketing, please reach out to [email protected] for an opportunity to have your thought-leadership published on the platform.

Singapore – Short video platform TikTok and media marketing solutions IPG Mediabrands have announced a new partnership to aid brands in connecting with culture through exclusive creator programs.

The partnership will initially co-create a series of custom programs for IPG Mediabrands’ clients, helping them build an authentic presence on TikTok by tapping into the platform’s community of creators. 

In addition, the two companies will form a bespoke Creator Collective, bringing together a select group of forward-thinking and diverse creators who will provide hands-on guidance to IPG Mediabrands’ clients ensuring that their content is culturally connected, inclusive, and resonates with the TikTok community. 

‘Creator Camps,’ a quarterly session where creators will provide IPG Mediabrands clients strategic counsel and feedback on their upcoming campaigns, will be the first program of the series. 

“As the most improved platform from a media responsibility perspective based on our latest Media Responsibility Index, TikTok has earned this partnership through backing its words with action and integrity,” said Daryl Lee, global CEO at IPG Mediabrands.

TikTok and IPG Mediabrands have also committed to identifying new ways to foster diversity, equity, and inclusion on and off the platform. The two companies will collaborate to develop innovative, creative strategies to benefit nonprofit organizations and elevate underrepresented communities on the platform; and TikTok was a recent participant in the Equity Upfront, hosted by IPG Mediabrands’ MAGNA, the centralized company resource that develops intelligence, investment and innovation strategies for agency teams and clients.

Dani Benowitz, president of MAGNA commented, “As audience reach declines in traditional formats, it is critical that client budgets fund new ways to connect with audiences. This partnership will deliver incredible value to our clients and, as importantly, will help all of us learn the power of creating content communities at scale.”

For Blake Chandlee, president of global business solutions at TikTok, the partnership speaks for the company’s vision for brands that have the unique ability to become creators and storytellers by listening to the community and adopting an always-on approach to their content.

“We’re delighted to partner with IPG Mediabrands and help their clients tap into trends, create a steady stream of content that resonates with our community, and embrace the creativity and culture that makes TikTok such an incredible platform,” Chandlee stated.