Australia – Clemenger BBDO, an Australian creative company, has announced the appointment of Simon Wassef as chief strategy and experience officer to expand the agency’s existing CX capabilities and offering.
In his new senior leadership role, Wassef will lead strategy and customer experience across the Clemenger business, and the remit will include growth, new business, elevation of talent, and new practices.
Wassef is back at Clemenger after having first worked at the company 21 years ago as a junior account planner. He joins the agency after more than two and a half years as national chief strategy officer at whiteGREY. Prior to that, he also served as chief strategy officer at TBWA\Chiat\Day in Los Angeles.
He brings with him a wealth of experience, which includes more than 20 years working in Europe, the US, and Australia: three years at R/GA in London, three years at SID LEE in Amsterdam, plus stints at Droga5, AMV BBDO, AKQA, and Host Sydney.
Furthermore, Wassef has worked across leading international and Australian brands, including IKEA, Qantas, adidas, Absolut, Samsung, HSBC, Red Bull, Electronic Arts, Guinness, Google, Johnnie Walker, Volvo, Panadol, Westfield, Nike, and Beats By Dre.
Aside from his expanded portfolio, Wassef is also multi-awarded, having won the Grand EFFIE, APG UK Gold, Jay Chiat Gold, and David Ogilvy Gold. He serves on the AdCouncil DE&I Committee, judges Creative Strategy for AWARD, and teaches Advanced Strategy for AdSchool.
Dani Bassil, CEO at Clemenger BBDO, shared that she is thrilled to have Wassef on board.
She said, “Simon really is one of the best in the business; if not the best. He’s worked everywhere I’ve ever wanted to work, R/GA London, Sid Lee Amsterdam, and ChiatDay LA. The fact he’s bringing all this experience to Clemenger is a game changer for us. The experience is the brand, and the fact he is so expert in both realms is exactly what we’ve needed in this leadership role. Besides being one of the smartest people I’ve met, he’s funny and kind. And he’s finally coming back to Clems. I’m so excited.”
Of his new appointment, Wassef said,“When Clemenger calls, you have to answer. Let’s go.”
Wassef’s appointment at Clemenger BBDO follows the recent appointments of Anita Zanesco to the newly created role of chief growth officer and two managing partners, Georgie Winton and Anita Deutsch.
Switzerland – CHRONEXT, a luxury watch platform, has enlisted the services of content management system provider Storyblok to help enhance customer experience by developing an iOS mobile app that allows their marketers and developers to construct customised user journeys.
Realising that their content system was purely web-based, CHRONEXT decided to use Storyblok and was able to build their mobile app prototype in just 7 weeks. Since its launch, app session times have tripled from 2 minutes on their website to 5 minutes on their mobile application.
Other aspects that influenced CHRONEXT’s decision to choose StoryBlok included the fact that it is a headless CMS that allows them to provide omni channel user experiences, the ease of use for developers and marketers with comprehensive user management tools, and the ability to serve as a centralised hub for all content.
Speaking on the developments, Emanuel Schleussinger, CTO at CHRONEXT, said, “Storyblok opened possibilities for our marketing team to easily update product pages, create new campaigns and promotions for different markets, and engage with our customers.”
Cameron Crosby, team lead of website & digital innovation at CHRONEXT, also added, “With Storyblok, content teams can simply drag, drop, and update specific component pieces that make up a product detail page in our application within seconds, without having to redeploy the application to the App Store. Changes are reflected on user’s screens instantly without disrupting their purchase session.”
Meanwhile, Dominik Angerer, co-founder and CEO of Storyblok, commented, “CHRONEXT is a great example of a brand that understands the omnichannel benefits and possibilities of a headless CMS and uses that knowledge to build better customer experiences. They now have a centralised content hub that can grow with them as they expand.”
Kuala Lumpur – The shift in customer communication preferences has been found to lean noticeably towards conversational interactions, making more companies expand and invest towards conversational commerce. This was according to the latest data from an InfoBrief provided by global cloud communications platform Infobip, and IT market research and advisory firm IDC.
The InfoBrief by Infobip and IDC suggested that the potential of conversational commerce is now being employed and recognized, with tools such as CPaaS and SaaS enabling businesses to provide a seamless, customer journey that’s visible across multiple touchpoints.
The increasing popularity of customer-centric business strategies among brands in the Asia Pacific region reflects consumers’ present attitudes and expectations. 70% of organisations in the region plan to increase communication platform spending in 2023–2024, despite the fact that only a few countries use CPaaS on average at 50%–59%, in order to offer distinctive customer experiences to the region’s expanding social media users, who are primarily young, active, and conscious of the power of their own influence.
All nations intend to spend money on CPaaS and SaaS solutions in the near future, but their reasons are claimed to be very different. Businesses in Indonesia and Singapore strive to improve customer experiences and develop new revenue streams, while those in China, Thailand, and the Philippines are driven to expand their domestic and global markets as well as improve and mobilise their business operations. This is probably owing to the latter countries’ booming retail and e-commerce sectors and overall greater adoption rate of CPaaS solutions, which is around 60% and above.
Nikhil Batra, research director of telecommunication for IDC Asia/Pacific, said that CPaaS solutions are increasingly recognized as crucial catalysts for enabling conversational commerce experiences.
“In fact, 27% of businesses in Asia Pacific are actively partnering with CPaaS platform providers to deliver contextualised customer interactions that not only boost profitability but also foster emotionally fulfilling engagements. This trend highlights the increasing importance of leveraging these technologies to meet customer demands and achieve business success,” he added.
Meanwhile, Velid Begovic, vice president of revenue at Infobip, commented, “Businesses position themselves to forge ahead, leveraging AI technology to create connections and unlock new growth opportunities, whilst organisations need an actionable, customer-centric strategy and the ability to invest in the right tools to grow the business and keep customers happy. By aligning their strategies with conversational commerce, businesses can proactively meet customer expectations, enhance engagement, and establish long-lasting relationships.”
Manila, Philippines – Security Bank Corporation, a universal bank in the Philippines, has signed a contract with real-time payment software company ACI Worldwide in order to improve on the bank’s real-time payment hub.
ACI will be providing their cloud-native ‘Enterprise Payments Platform’ solution for Security Bank to be able to unify its payments platform and facilitate the interactions between payment services and gateways for high and low-value payments such as InstaPay, Philippine Domestic Dollar Transfer Service System or PDDTS, PESONet, Swift, and PhilPaSSplus on ISO2022 standards.
This modernised payment hub allows Security Bank to roll out products and services to customers faster and add new payment types seamlessly and cost-effectively to its core infrastructure.
Leslie Choo, senior vice president and managing director of ACI Worldwide-APAC, says,”Security Bank is at the forefront of driving customer centricity and redefining the digital real-time payments landscape in the country, and ACI is proud to support the Bank with cutting-edge payment hub technologies in leading this transformation.”
He added, “Our robust solutions go from powering country-wide real-time payment ecosystems to interconnecting cross-border real-time payment networks and enabling the integration of different types of payments, such as the convergence of high-value and low-value payments into a single, unified, intelligent, cloud-native payment hub. “
Meanwhile, Stephen John Bell, senior vice president and channels network group head at Security Bank, said “Digital real-time payments are becoming ubiquitous, with today’s customers looking for a hyper-connected, frictionless customer experience. ACI’s modern, scalable, and cloud-native architecture will power real-time payments to meet the dynamic demands of our customers in the digital era. This initiative and our investment in innovative payment technology are testament to our unwavering commitment to customer-centricity.”
Lastly, John Cary L. Ong, external vice president and transaction banking, group head at Security Bank, also supports the enhancing transition into real time payment in the Philippines, saying,”A modernised real-time payment solution offers financial resiliency and agility for businesses in the Philippines through enhanced cash flow management and improved business liquidity. For Filipino consumers, they can look forward to a fast and seamless customer experience through secure digital channels. As Security Bank celebrates 72 years of enriching lives and empowering businesses, the partnership with ACI signifies our commitment to deliver a BetterBanking eXperience.”
Singapore – Last 27 April, we saw marketing leaders from the APAC region gathered in one virtual space to discuss how the customer experience has evolved to put a premium on instantaneous and real-time engagement. To kick off MessageBird andMARKETECH APAC’s webinar series, Connecting the CX Dots in 2023, the said first leg of the industry event put the spotlight on conversational marketing.
Messaging apps have transcended their purpose of being a platform for personal connections by evolving to being a significant part of how businesses communicate with their customers. With a multitude of messaging platforms now available, the asynchronous nature of brand-customer communications has put to the table a new set of demands, opportunities, as well as challenges that marketing teams are called to answer to.
Merlvin Tan, the team lead for APAC sales at MessageBird, opened the webinar with a presentation on ‘Conversational Commerce – Increasing Customer Engagement & Improving Marketing Campaign Results’.
Tan laid out the present state of user engagement and highlighted the three key priorities that are a common denominator amongst brands: Generating new business; Driving more conversions; and Building long-lasting relationships.
Even more so, Tan walked us through the different stages of the conversational journey and how brands can initiate the best strategies for each one. From ‘Awareness’, ‘Consideration’, and ‘Purchase’ to ‘Retention’, Tan shared the ways brands can activate a two-way conversation that is personalised and relevant at each stage.
Meanwhile, the panel discussion was graced by Jia Nina, the country marketing head for Malaysia at BigPay; David Harling, the managing director of MoneySmart Group; ‘Preety’ Maneerat Rattiwarakorn, the partner manager for business messaging at Meta for APAC, and Raenald Renz De Jesus, ShopBack’s head of marketing for the Philippines.
Moderated by Tan himself, we learned how conversational marketing strategies are iterated in brands of different industries.
Representing fintech companies BigPay and MoneySmart Group, e-commerce platform ShopBack, as well as one leader from Meta, attendees are given a picture of the non-negotiable factors in setting up an effective conversational marketing strategy as well as how these change and are refined when taking into consideration the unique pain points of consumers in different industries.
90+ attendees benefited from our panellists sharing their own challenges when establishing and maintaining a two-way delivery of communication across channels. Ultimately, the panel touched on how AI and the emergence of ChatGPT4 can be operationalised to help in realising a conversation that is personalised and conversion-oriented.
The webinar on conversational marketing is the inaugural event under the three-part webinar series, Connecting the CX Dots in 2023, hosted in partnership with MessageBird.
If you missed going to the event, fret not, you can register HERE to obtain your on-demand access.
Meanwhile, on 25 May 2023, join us on the series’ second leg which will discuss the topic of omnichannel journey mapping. Register to secure your spot HERE.
Singapore – Toku, a cloud communications provider that operates in APAC, will be acquiring the Southeast Asia operations of Activeo, a customer experience (CX) consulting firm with an HQ in France.
Activeo Singapore currently has an established business footprint in the city-state and supports more than 150 customers with their digital transformation projects, including 19 government agencies and 65 per cent of national healthcare institutions.
Founder and CEO of Toku, Thomas Laboulle, said, “In today’s macroeconomic climate, global technology companies based mostly in the US or Europe have adopted a cautious outlook, scaling down investments in APAC to prioritise markets closer to their homes.”
He continued, “But the region’s digital economy continues to grow, and there is a tremendous opportunity for APAC-first companies like Toku to fill this gap and boldly advance and accelerate our regional growth as others retreat.”
For the past 12 months, Activeo Singapore has been working with Toku as an independent partner to deliver successful CX transformation projects to many customers in Singapore. Toku commented that the acquisition is a natural next step for both parties to realise the full synergies of their partnership.
As a technology provider, Toku builds digital solutions to power the backbone of modern customer experience. Toku said that Activeo Singapore complements its offerings with strategic consulting expertise and large-scale enterprise project delivery.
To maintain its excellence and quality in architecting solutions globally, Activeo Singapore will continue operating as an autonomous business unit under the Toku banner. Jonathan Mondon, managing director of Activeo Singapore, will assume a new role as head of consulting at Toku. Armed with more than fifteen years of multinational leadership experience, Mondon has led Activeo Singapore’s regional business for close to a decade, spearheading its Contact Centre and Customer Experience focus.
Commenting on the acquisition, Mondon said, “Activeo Singapore will continue to be tech-agnostic and deliver the best fit-for-purpose solutions that solves our customers’ pain points. In addition, Activeo Singapore customers will be able to add Toku’s proprietary technology and connectivity solutions to their arsenal, further supercharging their CX strategies.”
These solutions include Toku’s embeddable products, which enable businesses to embed communication channels within their app or platform using programmable APIs or SDKs, as well as Toku’s carrier-grade connectivity to provide their regional customers with better coverage and call quality.
According to Toku, as a critical pillar of its regional expansion strategy, the acquisition will see it set up more local offices across the Asia Pacific such as a physical presence in Malaysia. Moreover to this, the company will be further enhancing its channel programme to empower more partners to deliver ‘customer success stories’.
“By combining forces, we will unlock bigger opportunities and better meet the needs of our customers in Singapore and Asia Pacific,” added Thomas. “This is a win-win acquisition that will strengthen our position as a leading CX solutions provider and enable us to deliver greater scale and efficiency to our customers across the region.”
Chicago, USA – Global digital experience tech Sitecore has unveiled a range of new and fully composable offerings and updates that aim to help brands deepen customer engagement and elevate customer experiences across all channels.
The new solutions include Sitecore Search, an innovative AI-powered search and discovery function that provides marketers with a unified delivery system; Content Hub One, an agile, headless CMS that seamlessly combines content modelling, authoring and consumption into a single interface; and Sitecore Connect, a technology stack optimizer that allows brands to seamlessly connect Sitecore products to their existing infrastructure. All three were announced at the Sitecore Symposium 2022.
Steve Tzikakis, CEO of Sitecore, said, “Symposium is an important event for Sitecore. It’s, of course, a time to gather, reflect and celebrate with our partners and customers; but it’s also [a] time to energize our efforts and put an intense focus on what’s next. As our digital world continues expanding, consumer behaviors continuously evolve, which challenges marketers to meet new expectations and demands. Our goal is to help brands navigate continued instability by ensuring the experiences they deliver to customers are positive, engaging and effective.”
In addition to unveiling the three new products, Sitecore has also announced further enhancements to Sitecore Experience Manager (XM) Cloud, the cloud-native, modern CMS that empowers brands to create, manage, and deliver content faster than ever. With the upcoming release, brands can expect XM Cloud updates and innovations such as new editing interfaces, native personalization, and testing capabilities.
Over the last year, Sitecore has made a number of acquisitions, where in April, it officially announced its revamped tech solutions activated by the said company buy-outs. Sitecore has since fully integrated core products from acquired Boxever, Four51, Moosend, and Reflektion into its Digital Experience Platform (DXP).
The Philippines –MARKETECH APAC‘s What’s NEXT returns this year with a stronger push to bring the industry together through a variety of knowledge-sharing activities. MARKETECH APAC will continue to feature thought-leadership articles written by renowned marketing leaders to cover various marketing areas, as it did last year.
With MARKETECH APAC‘s ongoing push to create relevant video content, we will gather the best in the industry this year and sit down with them to discuss how marketers can prepare for the upcoming year of marketing opportunities and challenges.
On November 3, 2022, What’s NEXT 2023 will kick off with a regional webinar, What’s NEXT: Events in Asia Pacific, in collaboration with event tech platform, Hubilo. On November 8, in partnership with influencer marketing platform Vamp, another regional webinar, What’s Next: Influencer Marketing in APAC, will be held.
True to its mission of creating a well-connected marketing community in Asia Pacific, What’s NEXT 2023 concludes with a two-day hybrid conference, What’s NEXT 2023: Marketing in Asia Pacific, on February 21-22, with at least 120 physical attendees in Manila and 1,500 virtual attendees from various markets in Asia Pacific.
The conference will spark offline and online discussions about digital, e-commerce, customer engagement, CX, esports, research, B2B, metaverse, and other relevant topics that will help marketers future-proof marketing strategies.
MARKETECH APAC’s What’s NEXT 2023 will be a go-to platform for checking out the marketing industry’s new trends, opportunities, and challenges to be explored in the region through this holistic approach.
Keep an eye on our website and social media pages for updates on the hybrid conference.
Please contact Joven Barceñas at [email protected] if you are interested in becoming a partner.
Singapore – Emplifi, a unified customer experience platform, has announced that it is extending free access to its Social Marketing Cloud for all non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that are providing any kind of aid to Ukraine.
The initiative is intended to enable humanitarian organizations to better communicate with their audience and make it faster and easier to collaborate, plan, create and publish critical social media content.
Mark Zablan, ceo of Emplifi, shared, “In times of crisis, effective communication focused on timely responses and accurate information is key, but that’s often easier said than done.”
“It’s our hope that we can help teams, who are working around the clock to provide vital and timely information with the tools they need to better collaborate, plan, and reach those directly impacted as the events unfold,” Zablan added.
Social Marketing Cloud of Emplifi includes a central hub that NGOs can use to manage all of their social media operations. It also has sophisticated community management tools to help them inform and update their online communities as well as efficiently process incoming queries. With social media’s reach and scale, it has become a crucial tool for keeping people informed and updated during a crisis.
NGOs are encouraged to contact Emplifi directly at [email protected]to begin their use of the Emplifi Social Marketing Cloud. The service is effective until September 2022 for the Emplifi Smart package with 5 Pages, for qualified NGOs and regions.
Retail has been challenged on every front over the last year and a half, and as a result, there have been significant changes to customer experience (CX); from livestream shopping and social commerce to supply chain disruptions. All of which has pivoted towards digital transformation.
While customers have adapted to new digital models, it’s important to note that offline shopping isn’t going anywhere. The future of retail will embrace both online and offline shopping, creating a hybrid experience that will provide the customer with even more value. According to Statista, more than 57% of Asia Pacific (APAC) consumers will shop in physical stores post-COVID restrictions. Foot traffic will still be just as desirable as it is now but overall CX will take center stage.
Meet the metaverse
In late 2021, Facebook changed its name to Meta to reflect its growing focus on the metaverse. But what exactly is the metaverse? It is a shared, persistent, 3D virtual space where people can meet and interact. Augmented Reality (AR) and VR technologies are essential parts of the metaverse. These advances in digital imaging, display, and output devices are what make the metaverse possible. Bloomberg Intelligence forecasts that the market size for the metaverse could reach up to $800b by 2024. How will it impact retail in the next year?
Online shopping and deliveries quickly became the new standard throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, a trend that will be accelerated by the metaverse. With AR and VR experiences, consumers will be able to explore brands and products from the comfort of their own homes. Consumers will no longer need to frequent physical stores to try new products before purchasing.
The metaverse will also enable more interactive-in store experiences. For instance, in Malaysia and Singapore, property developer CapitaLand Investment launched ‘A Jolly Molly Christmas’ festive campaign in its malls, introducing shoppers to the AR world allowing them to interact with Singapore’s virtual influencer, Rae, in the physical world. Real-world stores are now becoming the gateway to the metaverse and will be the next evolution of omnichannel experience.
Surge in social commerce
In 2022, social commerce will continue to bring fun back into the digital shopping experience. Social commerce sales in the region are expected to surpass US$4t by 2024, expanding 25% year-on-year.
According to the Forrester Analytics Consumer Technographics Benchmark Survey, 2021, 85% of APAC consumers are using social media to discover, 83% to research, and ultimately, 76% are buying products. The number is projected to grow as features such as livestream shopping draw more engagement than other types of posts.
B2C social commerce investments are paying off: B2C companies in APAC have generated 10% of revenue from social media as cited in Forrester Global Marketing Survey, 2021 (B2C). Not only that, 55% of marketers increased their social media marketing budget in 2021.
Moving forward, brands investing in social commerce must provide more personalized customer interactions and care, such as virtual agents who can instantly answer questions, share the latest offers, or recommend additional products with the consumer. We’ll see more brands providing a connection throughout the customer social journey. They will begin employing one-to-one video shopping, implementing conversational commerce, and launching virtual video boutiques. Above all, brands must provide excellent care on social channels, using the right technology combined with the human touch.
Conversational chatbots
Advanced conversational technology will be key to providing such experiences at scale. Chatbots will play a key role in the next year, as more and more brands deploy advanced chatbots in their social shops that can handle sophisticated queries — and escalate to human agents when needed.
Most brands are employing bots that can provide routine answers to basic questions. While they don’t respond to more complex customer queries, this will change as more companies add AI-powered bots with advanced contextual and consultative abilities. In the next 12 to 24 months, Forrester reports that the vast majority of B2C brands plan to implement or are interested in developing advanced social bots that can provide a higher level of assistance.
Such advances in automation will enable more effective and satisfying care throughout the customer journey — before, during, and after the purchase. In many cases, social bots will respond to queries that used to require a human agent. More and more, shoppers on social channels will be able to access personalized answers, recommendations, and resolutions to their problems, whenever they need help.
Looking forward
Over the next year, brands will take what they learned during the pandemic and leverage technology-driven solutions that help build deeper connections and relationships with their customers. By creating immersive, personalized, and hybrid experiences, and always keeping CX at the heart of everything, retailers can excel in 2022.
This article is written by Shellie Vornhagen, CXO at CX platform Emplifi.
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.
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