Tag: Consumer Insights

London – The ongoing global pandemic has created varied consumer impacts and reactions within the consumer base within the Chinese and Japanese markets, recent statistics from consulting firm Ernst & Young show.

In their latest “EY Future Consumer Index,” the report showed contrasting behaviors on pandemic impact on consumer behavior and everyday life. Chinese consumers showed more optimism that the pandemic fear will fade off, as 46% of the respondents say the fear will only last about one to six months. On the other hand, Japanese consumers were less optimistic, with 66% of the respondents saying that the fear will last for about a year or more.

With a significant increase in consumers shifting to online shopping, Chinese consumers are very likely to show interest in online shopping, with appliances and technology-related items being the top shopping choice.

On the other hand, Japanese consumers’ behavior tends to lean more to a “normalization” perspective, which accounted for the top consumer trend in the country.

Andrew Cosgrove, EY global consumer knowledge leader, notes that such mixed consumer behavior means that the future of shopping means transitioning to online channels.

“This points to the risk of showrooming, with consumers going to stores to touch and feel the product for the experience but then making purchases online where products might be cheaper. Retailers and consumer product companies will need to ensure they have both seamless omnichannel experience and the stock and price point needed to make the sale,” Cosgrove stated.

Hong Kong, China – Consumer travel spending among the Chinese has been on an upward trend during the first half of the year, according to a study by iClick. 

Duty-free products in Hainan province saw RMB 1.07 billion (US$167 million) in sales from July 1 to 15, with daily sales hitting RMB 71 million (US$10.3 million), a 30 percent rise over daily sales in June. iClick said the boost was helped by an increase in the tax free shopping quota in Hainan from RMB 28,000 (US$4,261) to RMB 100,000 (US$14,451) per person each year.

When the coronavirus pandemic took its toll early this year, the situation has dampened the confidence of many Chinese consumers at the onset.  During the pandemic, surveys were conducted to find out how consumers feel about the situation.

In February, 49% of consumers expressed their optimism that the economy will recover in 2-3 months, while another 49% believes that the adverse impact of the pandemic will last 6-12 months or longer. As the signs of economic rebound began to manifest, optimism among the Chinese consumers gradually improved to 53% while pessimism fell to 40%.

Although more people are travelling with daily flights returning to nearly 80% of pre-epidemic volume in China in the month of July, there are still those that are staying on-ground and spending their money on local purchases. 

The 6.18 midyear shopping festival brought in a reported RMB 1 trillion (US$144.5 billion) with Tmall Global direct reporting a GMV growth of 199% year-on-year and JD International enjoying a 110% boost over last year’s sales.

If you’re in the business of social media marketing, whether independently or as a profession where you are one of the people responsible for a company’s online marketing, it is imperative that you dig deep into what your customers are thinking, where they gather to converse online and what they are talking about because knowing such insights will help build up your social media game and in turn, create a competitive following that could drives sales for your brand.

The thing with extracting audience insights online is that they are only made possible and efficient with the presence of sophisticated martech or social tools. The good news is, a lot of free and affordable analytic tools have continuously been on the rise, making it a sin not to utilize and maximize such tools that are just waiting to be used for the best of your brand. Here are a few reasons why you should start finding the tool of your choice and start leveraging:

1. No technical skills required
This is by far the biggest advantage offered by analytical tools available. You do not need to be a data wizard to use social analytics tools. Commercially-marketed social tools are created to garner buy-ins, thus they are made to become user-friendly.

2. Budget friendly – won’t break the bank
Whether you are a brand marketer just launching a campaign or an agency about to go into a pitch, you don’t need to spend a hefty amount to get the best of analytics tech. Most of the introductory packages of marketing tech provide you with the base level of data for a fraction of the cost. The good thing about the variety of subscriber packages, one can opt to upgrade to more sophisticated versions of tools as one further becomes seasoned on the basics of social data.

Social marketing tools

3. Relevant sentiment trendline
The best social tools are built on hyperlocal infrastructures with enhanced machine learning to more precisely capture sentiments. Mass market tools that are not optimized for local sources and context will provide you a higher rate of inaccuracy which compromises the quality of your data, so it is important to find a localized source if accuracy is important to you.

4. Trend tracking made easy
Brands can observe trends, track hashtag movement, and measure performance based on interest of the social chatter, engagements and sentiments. Apart from hashtags, keywords are also trackable to measure the popularity of brands and products. Using social tools, you are able to identify the most active channels related to specific brands, products or topics of interest and craft marketing strategies that resonate.

5. Identify your brand’s advocates, influencers and micro-KOL
Correctly identifying top users based on the channels is a nifty feature in some social listening tools. It is an undeniable fact that influencers will make use of their platforms to share thoughts and opinions. When an influencer mentions your brand, don’t gloss over the fact that they’ve mentioned your brand, instead, take some notes and study them. Collaborating with the right influencers or micro KOLs can greatly boost your brand image and reputation.

6. Heat map
Some tools also have heat maps which helps you to visualize which geographical area gets the most attention from users using channels with location tracking enabled such as Twitter. It highlights the areas and locations to display contents relevant to your searched keywords or hashtags. Heat maps enable brands to expand the market by inferring analysis on audience based on geographic segmentation which helps to identify potential locations for new outlets

7. Knowing which third party pages you can leverage amplifies your marketing
Most social tools can assist in identifying top websites that have been promoted and advertised in relation to the topic of your query. Since audiences already engage with these third party channels, you may collaborate for beneficial growth and advertise to leverage them for more exposure. For this purpose, having the local sources where natives are active will improve your results even more.

This article is brought to you by Wisesight. 

Singapore – Customer feedback management platform provider Medallia has announced that it has launched its latest data center in Singapore, accelerating its investment across the APAC region.

Singapore is a priority market for Medallia, being a global business and connectivity hub, said the company in a press statement. 

“The Singapore data center plays an integral part in ensuring we deliver on the data security and regulatory requirements of businesses who are scaling up customer and employee experience programs. We already have customers using the infrastructure and it will become the default location for many of our Asian customers,” said Medallia APAC Vice President and General Manager Gavin Selkirk. 

As a SaaS cloud platform, Medallia owns and maintains all backend infrastructure, ensuring that reliability, uptime, and operational capabilities match data centers around the world.

The data center will host all Medallia Experience Cloud solutions, including video, digital, speech, conversations, text analytics, and the company’s artificial intelligence product, Athena

As of current, the Singapore branch adds to the company’s ten data centers worldwide, including Toronto, London, Amsterdam, and Sydney. 

Sydney, Australia –  Experience management tech Medallia has announced that it has appointed its newest country manager for ANZ, Heather Paterson, former director of the Asia Pacific and Japan in the New York-headquartered Intralinks. 

Medallia provides a SaaS platform, the Medallia Experience Cloud, which services the market in the understanding and management of experience of customers, employees, and citizens via the capturing of experience signals from in-person daily journeys, digital channels, and IoT interactions. 

As the company continues to invest across the APAC region, Paterson will be tasked to lead the Australia team, where she is also said to spearhead the launch of ground operations in New Zealand, expected over the coming quarters.  

Gavin Selkirk, Medallia’s APAC vice president and general manager believes Paterson’s strong leadership background makes her the best person to lead the country’s growth.

“Heather’s results-driven approach, ability to build and manage teams and [her] strong background in financial services technology – an important and growing sector for us – means she’s ideally suited to run our business across Australia and New Zealand,” said Selkirk.

“Australia was Medallia’s first office in the region, and as it continues to grow, we look forward to building our New Zealand presence which Heather will play an integral role in building,” Selkirk added.

New Delhi, India – India-based data science-driven mobiletech MoMAGIC has entered a strategic partnership with Taiwan-based original design manufacturer (ODM) Qisda Group as it looks to unveil new feature for its AI SaaS platform, TrueInsight. 

Via the platform, MoMAGIC will be offering consumer digital footprint and online monitoring of public opinions for the retail industry. 

As a part of the partnership, TrueInsight will be able to provide advanced algorithms of ‘Intelligent POI (Point of Interest) Mapping & Intelligent Online Listening’, for the retail store chain.

This is said to enable critical capability to see through dynamic consumer footprint traffic and retail competition analysis, allowing businesses to process non-sensitive and anonymous consumer movement data.

Founder and CEO of MoMAGIC Technologies, Arun Gupta believes that the collaboration will help the company’s AI solutions to expand to other verticals.

“The strategic partnership with Qisda Group in Taiwan is a window to expand our AI Solution offerings into retail and other industry verticals,” Gupta said.

“With our advanced data science capability, we also hope to expand our AI solution application out of India. Looking forward to accelerating our offerings in AI business, to other Asian countries in 2021,” added Gupta.

Michael Lee, General Manager of Qisda’s Business Solutions Group agrees, and thinks that a viable expansion is on its way. 

“We are looking forward to the strategic partnership with MoMAGIC, for AI SaaS solution applied in the retail sector and other similar industry. The cooperation can be extended from Taiwan, even to India and other Asian countries in the future,” said Lee.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Adqlo, a Malaysia-based tech company, has released a report analysing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Malaysia’s retail industry.

Titled “Life After Covid-19—How The Retail Industry Is Forever Changed”, the report analysed 8 retail sectors, 8,220 profiles, and 339,930 postings from social media and e-commerce platforms in Malaysia over a span of 105 days from 1 January to 14 April 2020 to see how the industry has been impacted by the pandemic and the government-decreed Movement Control Order (MCO), as well as the digital transformation or lack thereof that has subsequently taken place.

The report offers unique insights into the Malaysian market, highlighting the impact of the MCO on consumer behaviours and habits; effects on different segments of the retail industry and how the industry players have reacted; as well as changes in the social influencers landscape.

Ginz Ooi, Founder and CEO of Adqlo, said,

“When the Covid-19 pandemic hit Malaysia, many businesses are heavily affected, especially those in the retail and SMEs segment. Businesses are turning to digital in an attempt to stay afloat but have no clue how to navigate the digital landscape.”

“This is where Adqlo steps in to help these businesses using data and social media.”, he added.

As consumers spend more time online in the wake of the MCO, brands have the opportunity to gain greater reach through a sound digital strategy covering multiple digital touchpoints.

“We hope this report will be able to help businesses make informed decisions in their journey of digital transformation and get ahead of the curve,” said Ginz Ooi, Founder and CEO, Adqlo.

Adqlo’s Life After Covid-19—How The Retail Industry Is Forever Changed report is now available to download for free.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – The Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO) was announced on May 1st effective on Monday, May 4th. As Netizens raised concerns over the potential increase in infections, businesses are rushing to put safety measures in place and prepare for reopening over the short notice. Several states have taken a stance to either opt out entirely or revise the CMCO for tighter control. The 7th edition of this study covers chatter about the CMCO, reactions and stances taken by individual states, compulsory screening for all foreign workers, highlights on four selected industries, and top trending topics among Netizens during this period.

With an estimated loss of RM 2.4 billion per day of MCO, the government announced the CMCO effective May 4th to reopen most businesses. The rushed announcement was made on Friday, May 1st with only three days for businesses and workers to prepare. The movement restrictions have also been eased with conditions, allowing two people in a car, travel distance more than 10km, allowing stranded Malaysians to return to their home or workplaces, and limited sports activities. The reopening of businesses also highlighted another concern over the finances of affected citizens.

The gap between the public’s spending capacity becomes apparent when we look into social chatter, typically industries that are considered as non-essential or a luxury. This edition’s study covers the Telco, Local Fashion, Gold Jewellery, and Beer industries, angled to derive insights from trends of chatter among consumers when it comes to non-essentials and luxuries. Providing insights into the proportion of Netizens who are financially comfortable during the MCO, and indirectly indicate the proportion of those who are not.

While communications are a necessity, multiple telco packages were offered in line with Stay Home campaigns during the lockdown, providing greater access and bandwidth to users but what of users who now will spend more time at work and dread the additional expense. On the other hand, the local fashion and gold jewelry guys who were pretty stagnant during lockdown have seen increasing interest as the festive season draws near. With hope for the MCO to conclude before Hari Raya, a considerable portion of Netizens including non-Muslims are preparing to celebrate the festive season in the new norm.

Wisesight’s Founder and Regional Director of APAC, Shakthi DC said, “Engagement data in relation to these industries can be used to assess the economic impact on target markets. After almost two months in lockdown, Netizens appear to have had a shift in priorities, where self-reflection has increased individuals’ needs towards personal well-being across the dimensions of physical, emotional, and financial health and security. This is indicated through the uptake of essential supplies while comfort and luxury were compromised during lockdown.

Depending on how quickly a vaccine is identified, when the economy picks up and People as individuals begin feeling secure again, it’s likely that the Luxury segment and Brands offering high-value assets will suffer as People make cutbacks due to the effects of Covid19 and are shaping up to be the ​last segments to recover​.”

She added, “The reopening of the economy will unquestionably bring back some volume in traffic and transactions, albeit with changes in consumer buying behaviours. Businesses that have adapted and remained in touch with their audiences throughout the lockdown will find it easier to engage with their customers post-MCO. Purely because brand loyalty and affinity was actively maintained throughout the lockdown, and the results will show in the target audience’s response. Also considering the heightened fear of infection, organisations that create environments and processes with reduced physical contact, increased hygiene and safety measures will continue to gain public support as we embrace the new norm.”

Wisesight’s study details the events from 29th April – 5th May analysing the ​reactions and impact of these changes in comparison to findings from the previous weeks​. The latest study includes:

  1. Netizens reactions to the CMCO
  2. Stances taken by individual states regarding the CMCO
  3. Top Malaysian’s concerns over the past seven weeks
  4. Current trending topics Malaysians shared online
  5. Selected Industries’ performance during the MCO (Telco, Local Fashion, Gold Jewellery, and Beer)
  6. Best practice recommendations for Brands content strategy
  7. Case Study – Communications and strategies adopted by highlighted industries to retain market share during the MCO
  8. Other stories of key interest among Malaysians during the period analysed

To get access to the report, please click here .