Tag: Customer experience

Tel Aviv, Israel – In-game advertising solution Anzu and Oracle Moat, a measurement and marketing analytics suite that is part of Oracle Advertising and Customer Experience (CX), have announced the launch of its first-to-market viewability measurement for in-game ads. 

This means advertisers working with Anzu have access to third-party viewability verifications and in-view metrics by Oracle Moat when running in-game ads, either direct or programmatically, on mobile and PC.

The in-view ad impressions within in-game take into consideration the percentage of the creative on-screen, the ad size, time in view, and the angle of the ad to ensure a robust and accurate measurement is made. 

Moreover, these metrics are also available globally, no matter where advertisers are running their campaigns from. In addition to in-view metrics, Oracle Moat will also continue to verify impressions delivery and detect invalid traffic (IVT) across Anzu’s in-game banner and video ad formats.

Ben Fenster, chief product officer at Anzu said, “Providing third-party measurement is essential to building effective media strategies, industry confidence, and wider adoption of in-game advertising, helping to establish it as an ad category. We’re excited to be the first to bring Oracle Moat’s viewability measurement for in-game ads to advertisers, and we look forward to helping them establish clear benchmarks when it comes to viewability so they can see how their in-game campaign performance compares to other channels.”

Meanwhile, Mark Kopera, head of product at Oracle Moat added, “As advertisers continue to invest in in-game advertising, it’s crucial that they can measure key viewability metrics, like the percentage of an ad that appeared on-screen, time in-view, and more. By expanding our collaboration with Anzu, we’re able to give advertisers the measurement tools they need to make more informed buying decisions to reach these highly engaged audiences across gaming environments.”

Philippines – PLDT, one of the largest telcos in the country, alongside its wireless subsidiary Smart Communications, have announced its partnership with global customer experience and employee platform Medallia.

Through the CX implementation Medallia will be supported by global media company Kantar in implementing the technology solution across PLDT and Smart. Medallia and Kantar joined the PLDT team for a digital signing ceremony to officially seal the deal. Furthermore, with support from Medallia and Kantar, PLDT and Smart aims to optimise customer experience management across all channels, including digital platforms, mobile phone applications, and contact centres. 

Alfredo S. Panlilio, president and CEO of PLDT and Smart, said, “A large part of our commitment to provide world-class connectivity for all Filipinos is to empower our people and processes with technology that allows them to render the best customer experience.”

He added, “Our engagement with Medallia and Kantar gives us this technology, and empowers us to listen and respond to our customers more effectively, as they are our North Star for all group-wide efforts,.”

Meanwhile, Leslie Stretch, president and CEO of Medallia, commented, “To thrive in the highly competitive world of telecommunications, providers must delight customers and employees by responding to their needs with the same speed, interactivity, and connectivity that they expect from your network.”

“Medallia helps amplify the voice of customers across all touchpoints, enabling PLDT and Smart to listen and act on feedback in a consistent, deliberate, and thoughtful manner. We look forward to working with PLDT and Smart to delight customers with world-class experiences,” Stretch added.

He added, “Medallia continues to expand across the telecommunications industry in APAC and currently works with customers in key markets including Singapore, Japan, and Indonesia, to help optimise their customer experience.”

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Local telco provider U Mobile has tapped marketing and technology solutions provider GrowthOps for its refreshed website and customer experience delivery platform, U.COM.MY. The partnership between the two companies started development for this project eight months ago.

The new and enhanced platform is powered by Adobe Experience Cloud and hosted on Amazon Web Services, enabling the telco to have greater autonomy and agility in managing content, as well as access to deeper and more comprehensive user analytics.

Through the improvements, U.COM.MY now offers an enhanced, trilingual customer experience through personalised content delivery, which enables the telco to achieve their overarching goal to better service their customers on digital channels.

Boon Keong, head of consulting at GrowthOps, said, “Today, marketers are being tasked with how to create an engaging experience with their customers through seamless design and analytics-driven content personalisation. In this instance, we have been able to help U Mobile to take their digital transformation journey [directly] to their customers.”

Meanwhile, Jasmine Lee, chief digital officer at U Mobile, commented that they believe that the refreshed U.COM.MY will equip them with more insights that will enable them to make more data-led decisions resulting in new digital experiences that benefit their customers.

“U Mobile is always looking at new ways to realise unlimited potential, hence, we are delighted to have partnered with GrowthOps to create and launch an enhanced U.COM.MY. Through this initiative, GrowthOps have shown to have the right capabilities to take our platform to the next level,” Lee said.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Data and artificial intelligence company ADA has announced that it is now a WhatsApp Business Solution Provider (BSP) in Asia-Pacific. Through the offering, ADA will empower businesses to connect with their customers in a private and secure environment across its markets in South and Southeast Asia.

WhatsApp Business Platform allows businesses to drive better conversations with their customers in a personalised manner, thus boosting customer engagement and increasing customer satisfaction, leading to better sales conversions.

The new integration comes in line with business recovery making its way across Southeast Asia, as well as retailers bouncing back from COVID-19. ADA notes that WhatsApp chatbots can also give operators in-store support to help guide the customer journey and enhance every bit of the customer experience.

“Over 2 billion people around the world use WhatsApp and it is the most popular messaging application in Southeast Asia. As the number of people using this app will continue to rise with the growth of digital consumers across the region, brands and businesses will need to better connect and communicate with their customers who are turning to chat with businesses on WhatsApp,” the company said in a press statement.

Meanwhile, Srinivas Gattamneni, CEO at ADA, noted that chat commerce is changing the way businesses operate, and customer engagement solutions are the key drivers.

“With this WhatsApp Business Platform, ADA now offers a truly seamless end-to-end business solution across our practices – e-commerce, martech, business insights, and marketing services – for that complete customer experience and journey. The face of chat commerce as we know it will change too, with the integration of our AI and machine learning models, deepening the level of personalisation and quality of conversations,” Gattamneni said.

The new endeavour from ADA reflects the company’s vision for this year in improving the e-commerce experience in the region. During an exclusive interview by MARKETECH APAC with Gattamneni in recognition of ADA’s e-commerce solution as Product of the Year, he said that businesses need to be efficient, agile, and falling in front of new trends to cope with the ever-changing digital landscape of business.

“Be efficient with your resources and invest in what gives you the best return, whether it’s your marketing campaigns, strategic partnerships, or the various e-commerce platforms. Automation is also key to optimising your e-commerce operations in areas including content production, customer service, and fulfilment,” he told MARKETECH APAC.

Toronto, Canada – Customer experience (CX) management and customer insights platform, Alida, has partnered with Blackhawk Network’s digital rewards provider Rybbon, with the aim to enhance its TXM platform to provide clients with the ability to grow engagement through incorporating incentives as part of their Voice of Customer (VoC) and Voice of Employee (VoE) programs.

With the integration of Rybbon’s PointsJoy solution, Alida will be streamlining points-to-rewards programs by allowing clients to preset the number of points to award for a completed survey. This solution includes Rybbon’s AutoRewards feature which enables organizations to set a predetermined points threshold. When respondents meet or exceed this threshold, a reward email will be automatically sent to the respondent, enabling them to redeem their points for a desired digital reward from a curated reward catalogue.

Jignesh Shah, Blackhawk’s head of global integrated incentives, believes that continued survey respondent participation is a necessity to truly understand the voice of the customer.

“By combining their powerful rewards program with Alida’s leading customer experience management platform, Alida clients will be able to boost engagement and retention rates by providing respondents with points that can be accumulated and redeemed for digital rewards,” said Shah.

Meanwhile, Riaz Raihan, Alida’s president of products and engineering, shared that their priority is to help clients improve experiences for their customers and employees, driving loyalty and retention.

“With the new Rybbon integration, rewarding customers for continuous engagement with your organization is now easier than ever. With a myriad of global incentive options, companies can now offer their customers and employees incentive choices that matter most to them,” said Raihan.

To learn more about boosting customer experience engagement in 2022, businesses may register for Rybbon’s upcoming webinar on its website.

In November 2021, Alida has also partnered with growth company GrowthOps, to deliver elevated CX and insights to organizations in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and Australia.

Tokyo, Japan – Japan-based multinational conglomerate Hitachi has joined the strategic partnership program of experience management company Medallia in Japan. Through the partnership, Medallia will align with Hitachi’s Financial Institutions Business Unit to reinforce support for sales and service delivery efforts.

Said partnership is catered to Hitachi’s clients within domestic financial institutions, ranging from customer experience (CX) advisory service to system adoption.

Denise Miura, who was recently appointed as vice president for Asia-Pacific at Medallia, noted that the CX solution market in Japan is hitting a major tipping point in terms of expansion.

“In such a market environment, there is significant importance to forming a partnership with a first-rate company such as Hitachi. We are looking forward to this partnership,” she stated.

Meanwhile, Shigeru Suzuki, senior director for financial information systems, 2nd Division, at Hitachi, commented, “We feel honored to have this collaboration opportunity with Medallia to provide quality CX service to our customers in Japan. We look forward to providing new value through this excellent experience management program that will contribute to the improvement of customer experience value.”

Medallia’s presence in Japan has been ramped up in recent years, including inclusion of Japan-based tech system integrator Dirbato, as well as a partnership with multinational conglomerate SoftBank.
Irence Wee, APJ head of alliance and ecosystem at Medallia, commented, “We are very happy to announce our partnership with Hitachi in Japan. We look forward to accelerating the adoption of experience management programs by Japanese companies through our closely aligned effort with Hitachi.”

Auckland, New Zealand – AskNicely, the frontline success platform that provides customer experience software to service businesses, has announced that it has raised US$32m in a Series B funding round led by growth investor firm Five Elms Capital, which will be used in empowering frontline teams.

AskNicely, which has a presence in New Zealand, the US, and the Netherlands, has an industry-leading mobile platform that delivers personalized coaching and motivation for frontline workers powered by real-time customer feedback and eliminates the need for layers of middle management.

Through the new funding, AskNicely will be launching the world’s first Frontline Success Platform, which aims to bring better technology to frontline teams. It takes inspiration from people-powered businesses that have invested in technology to coach and motivate millions of frontline workers with no requirement for supervision or layers of traditional management. 

Aaron Ward, the CEO of AskNicely, shared that brands like Uber and Airbnb have proven how customer feedback can be gamified for customer-facing staff to unlock small daily improvements which, over time, drive status and rewards with concepts like ‘Superhost’ or ‘Uber Platinum Pro’. 

“For the first time, any service business can now empower every frontline worker with the same capability in a simple mobile app at a fraction of the cost,” explains Ward.

As part of the funding, Ryan Mandl, Five Elms Capital’s managing director, will also be joining the AskNicely board. 

Mandl commented, “Given that frontline workers make up 80% of the planet’s working population, we see an enormous market opportunity for AskNicely’s Frontline Success Platform, and are excited to partner with Aaron and the AskNicely team to continue to develop innovative products for their fast-growing, global customer base.”

Over the past two years, the pandemic has transformed the consumer, the brand, and the advertiser. The absence of physical interactions created a ripple of massive changes that have either brought sectors down to their knees, or proved to be a boon for others.

If anything, the upcoming year is presenting a better promise for business as social restrictions further ease down and travel reopens. But despite this remains the challenge of unearthing and uncovering who the consumer will be – What will please him and what will fall off his radar? 

MARKETECH APAC, the digital media who itself was born in the mid of the pandemic, aims to take the intimidation off the new year and instead help marketers focus on the potentials for innovation through the thought leadership series, ‘What’s NEXT’.

What’s NEXT is a collection of expert insights by marketing leaders which aims to present predictions and insights on forecasted trends in 2022 and help future-proof brands’ strategies coming into the new year.

“As a watchdog and a dedicated content hub for the industry, we know how fluid trends in this part of the world could be. Metaphorically speaking, we want to hold marketers’ hands and be with them as we step into a new chapter in this global situation, and see how the pandemic – now endemic – will change the way brands and consumers interact with each other,” said Shaina Teope, regional editor of MARKETECH APAC.

The series which ran from December 2021 to February 2022 gathered marketing leaders coming from different domains to present ideas on how to stay ahead of the marketing game this 2022. 

Check out the full line-up of insights by marketing leaders under the series:

What’s NEXT: The top personalization strategy for the increasingly nuanced consumer

  • In the recent webinar by MARKETECH APAC on the future of digital marketing in the Philippines, AirAsia PH’s Head of Marketing Allenie Caccam; Anvey Factora, the head of marketing communications, e-commerce, and retail at Canon Philippines; and Mark De Joya, chief operating officer of Max’s Restaurant – all agreed on one personalization strategy that would remain constant in relevance no matter what the changes the new year will bring to the market and the consumer.

What’s NEXT: Why marketers need DXP more than ever in 2022

  • It’s now no question that any platform or tech that help push brands’ digitization further is worth being the centerpiece of brands’ marketing strategies. Don Lee, the managing director of CMS provider Magnolia for APAC dug a little deeper on how DXP, specifically a composable DXP, can best help brands not just adapt to the changes in the consumer today, but how such type of platform can 

What’s NEXT: Moving beyond static ads by leveraging programmatic creative management platforms

  • Travis Teo, executive director of adtech adzymic, shared the different possible hindrances that are keeping brands from providing optimum digital creatives – and deep dived on the root cause of all of them.

What’s NEXT: Predictions for customer experience in 2022

  • In this read, Shellie Vornhagen the CXO at CX platform Emplifi, enumerates the ways CX is going to transform itself as newer trends firm up in the market in 2022, such as social commerce, conversational chatbots, and most especially, metaverse. 

What’s NEXT: How can platform businesses supercharge their loyalty programs in 2022

  • In the pilot article under the series, we roped in Loyalty & Growth Leader Henry Christian to talk about how on-demand businesses, which has surged in need among consumers during the pandemic, can leverage their present demand to deliver highly-retaining and -converting loyalty programs.

What’s NEXT: Guide to help you master the art of content marketing in 2022

  • Who better to share insights on forming the best content marketing strategy coming into 2022 than a marketing leader from leading Asian news publication South China Morning Post. Its Regional Sales Director for APAC Darryl Choo shared how brands can refresh their content marketing strategies, imparting helpful insights on how to successfully work from internal process to delivery.

What’s NEXT: How mobile is redefining shopping experiences

  • We have become mobile-first even before the pandemic struck, but with stronger demand for fast and on-demand shopping experiences by the consumer, the mobile platform is now opening up more greenfield opportunities for brands to explore and innovate. Check out the thought leadership piece by Karam Malhotra, global VP at SHAREit Group. 

What’s NEXT: What the future looks for marketers beyond the cookie

  • When Google earlier announced that it will be phasing out cookies by 2022, the advertising community was brought to a standstill, suddenly overcome by the urgency to re-calibrate ad targeting strategies Then the community had some kind of dejavu when this was further delayed to 2023, providing a breather but at the same time asking of brands and advertisers to do better in their preparations. Let this insight on cookies by Cheetah Digital’s Billy Loizou, further add to your cognizance on dealing with a cookieless digital environment as there is no such thing as overpreparation.

What’s NEXT: Why brands must focus more on customer retention than acquisition this 2022

  • David Harling, the managing director of MoneySmart, touches base on the state of growth marketing now that we are about to navigate a digital world without cookies. His top piece of advice – brands may want to lessen dependence on acquisition as this will start to cost more in the efforts to scale.

What’s NEXT: How businesses and brands can thrive in metaverse

  • Metaverse is now taking the digital world by storm, and marketers are at a great position to leverage this platform to turbocharge brand engagement – but how does one start? Cheelip Ong, Lion & Lion’s regional chief creative officer, shared how metaverse can be the implementation ground for other emerging trends in marketing such as NFTs and gamification

What’s NEXT: Unpacking opportunities in digital finance for 2022

  • Of course with the surge in digital activity this pandemic tags along the supercharged growth of digital finance. Superapps in SEA is leading the way with financial services, becoming the anchor by which consumers can have a brand as top-of-mind across all services. UM APAC’s Elizabeth Shie and Abygayle Brani share the ways fintech marketers can leverage its growth this 2022.

What’s NEXT: Why brands must adopt a multi-platform strategy for social advertising

  • According to Stewart Hunter, the director of Smartly.io for customer success in APAC, each social media platform has grown to serve a different role in the funnel, posing a challenge to the brand message and format in various platforms. Hunter shares why brands must start adopting a multi-platform strategy for their social advertising and where to begin in their efforts.

What’s NEXT: Top tips for CRO this 2022

  • Whether you’re an online retailer, a startup with a valuable B2B product, or an entrepreneur selling your expertise, CRO could be the key to a bigger profit margin in 2022. Charlotte Ward, the director of Agnes media, shares her top three pieces of advice in achieving greater conversions.

What’s NEXT: Shoppable Content: The convergence of content and commerce

  • In narrowing the gap between commerce and consumer, big brands are moving from a publisher model into an e-commerce one. Sven Lung, CEO of Green Park Content, takes a look at some of the best case studies of previously launched shoppable content initiatives and shares how brands can successfully deliver said efforts on their own.

What’s NEXT: What to expect in influencer marketing in 2022

  • What’s the next phase of influencer marketing? We’ve seen the power of influencers in brands’ marketing in the past period, and now, we need to prepare for what’s to come next in this area. Ace Gapuz, CEO of Blogapalooza, shares what she believes the 5 forces that will drive influencer marketing forward – including the phenomenon that will start streating content creators as individual media companies.

What’s NEXT: How brands can connect with Asia’s next generation of culture shapers

  • How has the pandemic changed the youth? In this insight, Lesley John, the MD of Virtue for APAC, shares the consumption and lifestyle changes that have occured among Gen Zs and Millennials in the past two years, and shares how brands can get under the skin of this cohort moving forward in the pandemic.

What’s NEXT: How BNPL can be a merchant enabler for retailers in Asia

  • BNPL services have increased in adoption in the past year with the pandemic seeing a surge of consumers jumping into digital consumption. Moving forward in 2022, Jeremy Wong, head of strategic partnerships at Atome, shares the ways BNPL is expected to evolve, and what retailers can do to leverage its power in enabling sales among merchants.

What’s NEXT: 2022 will see the evolution of corporate purpose

  • As consumers become more conscious about their impact to society, they have grown to demand more accountability from the brands they consume. Mel Panabi, business director of Red Havas Philippines, shares on what has become of this new resolve and how brands must act in accordance to this new value-laden consumer behavior.

What’s NEXT: Welcome the age of reimagination

  • Virtual events are here to stay, and it’s time we step up these online interactions beyond standard online meetings and gatherings into something more powerful. According to Cathy Song Novelli, SVP for marketing and communications at Hubilo, it’s about creating a supportive ecosystem to enable innovation among event marketers.

What’s NEXT: How the ride-hailing industry shifted gears to meet market demand

  • Ride-hailing services is no longer a luxury and the pandemic has further pushed for its value with the recurring limitations on social interaction. Ryde’s CEO Terence Zou and PR Lead Katrina Adrianne takes a look at this transformation over the past two years and shares what we can expect from the industry as we move forward in 2022.

What’s NEXT: The state of dine-in, food aggregators moving forward in 2022

  • When food aggregators cushioned the downward growth of dine-in during Covid, it has gradually stepped up from being an afterthought to becoming F&B players’ top business model. KFC Malaysia’s CMO May Ling Chan reviews the current opportunities and challenges as brands further strengthen their strategies on food aggregators.

What’s NEXT: The future of CTV measurement and transparency

  • Connected TV (CTV) and over-the-top (OTT) has overtaken the linear TV experience over the past two years. Laura Quigley, SVP for APAC at IAS, talks about what has been these changes in media consumption and the opportunities that lie for advertisers and publishers in programmatic technology.

If you are a marketing leader and would like to share your insights and predictions under the series, email us at [email protected]. 

Sydney, Australia – The Australian Cancer Research Foundation (ACRF) has appointed creative and technology agency CX Lavender to upgrade its digital marketing endeavors, enabling the not-for-profit organization to put more of its resources into cancer research.

Through the account tender, CX Lavender will manage ACRF’s digital and website activity, and are looking to transform the organization’s digital strategy for the foundation with a focus on improving the donor experience.

In addition, by reworking the digital strategy and approach, ACRF will be able to evaluate all of its digital customer touch-points and optimize communication and engagement with existing and potential donors. CX Lavender will provide digital campaign management, UX and UI design and website development services.

The agency, which was first founded in 1984, provides cancer researchers with the technology, equipment and infrastructure they need to find new and improved ways to prevent, detect and treat cancer. According to ACRF, they wanted to raise the maximum amount of funds by optimizing their digital activity enabling more funding to be directed to pioneering cancer research programs.

Carly du Toit, head of marketing, communications and digital at ACRF, said, “We aim to deliver best in sector digital fundraising. Our partnership with CX Lavender will allow us to put more resources into brilliant research, enabling the foundation to give brilliant minds across Australia what they need to accelerate research outcomes.”

Meanwhile, Clint Bauer, senior partner and head of technology at CX Lavender, commented, “The ACRF has supported and funded vital important cancer research for more than 37 years and we are proud to provide our data, creative and technology expertise to an organization that is committed to a vision of one day reaching a world without cancer.”

Singapore – Dentsu International’s customer experience management (CXM) company Merkle is expanding its APAC presence with the launch of its services in Taiwan. Merkle’s 30 years of global experience in data, digital transformation, and worldwide talent connections will now be adopted by the new team.

Carrie Tsai, who is iProspect Taiwan’s CEO, has been appointed by dentsu Taiwan to also become Merkle Taiwan’s CEO. Joining Tsai to head the new team is Boice Lin, former SVP of Global partnerships/Global business development at Appier, who has been appointed as general manager of Merkle Taiwan.

The agency said that the new Taiwan team will work closely with martech, adtech, cloud, and tech providers to integrate commerce design consultancy. The CXM transformation offerings that will be provided by Merkle Taiwan include data transformation as in focusing on data science and data engineering, including cloud service consulting, data management consulting, and data analysis, which will also include personalization, commerce consulting, CRM, and loyalty program consulting. Most of all, Merkle will be helping brands in CXM Transformation such as customer experience transformation strategy, planning, and technology consultancy.

Remarking on today’s market, Jennifer Tang, CEO of dentsu Taiwan, said that brands have entered into a new era in which everything is all about data and that to meet the evolving market and technology demand, such as the cookieless future, brands need to consider connecting with customers through consumer experience, finding more value from data, and extending business applications.

“With Merkle joining dentsu Taiwan, we are able to immediately respond to the market and clients’ demands, and also further consolidate our industry leadership in creative, media and CXM, making dentsu the only marcom group in Taiwan that truly provides idea-led, data-driven, and tech-enabled end-to-end solutions,” said Tang. 

Meanwhile, President of Merkle Asia Pacific Zhengda “Z” Shen, added, “Asia Pacific is a key global growth driver for Merkle, and we’re very enthused with the rapid growth and maturity of digital commerce, data management and customer experience in Taiwan. Putting together this superstar team has been years in the making. We’re excited to now launch in market and work with the most innovative marketers and technologists.”

New CEO Tsai further stated that Merkle is a well-known global brand for its delivery and proofing capability.

“We have built a team of global talents who hold entrepreneur experience. It is the winning strategy to bring the brand’s vision to life through customer experience transformation. Our vision for Merkle Taiwan will be to focus on data transformation, digital transformation and CXM transformation, and it will integrate with dentsu’s other offerings and change the value chain,” said Tsai.

Meanwhile, new GM Lin highlighted that launching Merkle Taiwan indicates dentsu’s dedication to enabling end-to-end marcom solutions, “Only considering both data application and commerce insights can help brands rebuild their model post COVID-19. It is crucial for our clients to take action and work closely with a full-service consultancy. We are confident to be the best transformation partner.”

Last August, dentsu APAC has also launched Merkle in Indonesia.