Asia Pacific – Global digital experience analytics company Contentsquare has announced the appointment of Jean-Christophe Pitié as its new chief marketing and partnerships officer to lead the marketing organisation and partnerships.

In his new role, Pitié will lead the company’s global marketing initiatives, focusing on strengthening the brand and driving customer demand in markets around the world. He will take the helm of the marketing organisation and oversee strategic partnerships.

Pitié will also be responsible for identifying, nurturing, and enhancing strategic alliances with key partners. He is expected to grow Contentsquare’s rich partner ecosystem worldwide.

With a solid track record of leading global companies through their digital growth and transformation journeys, Pitié brings with him an expansive portfolio of scalable and world-class demand generation strategies.

Prior to his new appointment, he spent more than two decades at Microsoft, where he played a key role in Microsoft’s journey to cloud-based solutions. He was involved in the launch of Office 365 for consumers and Microsoft 365 for businesses.

Additionally, Pitié also led Microsoft’s digital stores division at the company’s global headquarters in Seattle. More recently, he served as chief operating officer at Microsoft France, where his duties included executing Microsoft’s go-to market and strategy within the French market.

Jonathan Cherki, CEO and founder of Contentsquare, said, “We couldn’t be more excited to welcome Jean-Christophe to the team. Not only does he have an impressive track record of bringing innovative technology to market, he also embodies our company values and puts his team first with everything he does.”

“Contentsquare is at an exciting stage of its journey, and Jean-Christophe’s deep expertise in tech will be incredibly valuable as we continue to grow. We couldn’t think of a better person to activate our brand vision and partner strategy,” he added.

Speaking on his appointment, Pitié also shared, “Having access to a holistic understanding of customers is critical in today’s business landscape, and Contentsquare is leading the way when it comes to customer experience insights. I’m thrilled to join the company at this exciting moment in time and to help bring its unique insights to more teams.”

Singapore – Baidu’s subscription video on-demand over-the-top (OTT) streaming service, iQIYI, has surpassed the $3b milestone in terms of consumer spending across Apple’s App Store and Google Play, according to the latest estimate reports from data.ai.

According to the data, iQIYI generated a total of $180 million in gross revenue globally during the first half of 2023, securing the sixth spot among the world’s top-grossing OTT entertainment platforms, standing tall among giants like Disney+, which secured the first spot, and Max from Warner Bros. at second.

The data further shows that exclusive content plays have driven adoption. Recorded data identifies August 2021 as a standout month for iQIYI, as the OTT streaming service garnered a combined total of 12.5 million installs across both the iOS and Google Play stores globally.

Top markets for iQIYI are concentrated in the APAC region, and the surge in downloads coincided with iQIYI’s strategic move to cater to a broader viewership base by producing and streaming Southeast Asian shows as exclusive iQIYI originals.

Sydney, Australia – Sisense, the leading AI-driven platform for infusing analytics everywhere, today announced its Future of Data Analytics Report 2022 – Asia Pacific Edition, which highlights data professionals in the APAC region seeing data and analytics as valuable to digital transformation and future-proofing their business, yet finding their organisations’ strategic capabilities are far from reaching their true potential.

Key findings from the report at a glance:

The Promise of Analytics

Data ‘gold’ for boosting product pricing and customer loyalty: Data professionals were asked about the value of analytics and almost half (45%) agree offering personalised, customised data and analytics to customers could allow them to increase the average selling price of their products or services. Meanwhile, 43% of respondents agree that data and analytics would help build loyalty and retain customers.

Data and analytics critical for business transformation: Almost a third (31%) see data and analytics having a critical role in transformation efforts in their organisation.

Deeper value of data still untapped: Data derived from business systems is regarded as the most valuable, yet when it came to rating their organisation’s ability to maximise the value of its data, respondents gave, on average, only a 6 out of 10 rating.

Challenges and Obstacles

  • Data transmission, analysis, and risk management remain top concerns: Almost two-thirds (61%) of respondents say they are concerned about data transmission, followed by effective analysis of data (58%) and inadequate systems in place to manage risk (58%).

  • Budget and executive buy-in top barriers to data delivery: Budget limitations (46%) and securing executive buy-in (28%) are the top two barriers to improving data delivery to customers.

  • Data best practice needs less talk, more action: 50% of respondents see data best practice as important or somewhat important to future-proofing business performance. However, 15% are fearful of change, risk averse, and say change is too risky and would prefer to keep the status quo.

Opportunities and Next Steps

  • Skills, training, and data literacy remain top priorities: To improve organisational data strategies, 40% of respondents agree it’s important for employees to become data literate and adopt business intelligence tools as part of their daily workflows.

  • Businesses want better AI and predictive tools: Around two-thirds (60%) of businesses want better AI and predictive tools, more accurate data, and real-time analytics.

Rohan Persaud, director of channels and alliances for APAC at Sisense, says organisations across the APAC region have far too much at stake to not be truly data-driven, and it’s imperative they proactively improve existing AI and predictive tools to reap the benefits of more accurate, real-time analytics.

“Given the immense challenges caused by rapid market shifts, economic fluctuations, and advancements in technology; data professionals must transition to analytics solutions designed and available for everyone, including their customers,” he says.

“If leveraged properly, data has the ability to unlock immense value and new opportunities that weren’t previously apparent. Yet this report shows while organisations have more data than ever before, they don’t have a clear understanding of how to turn it into actionable insights. In fact, many companies are just sitting on these goldmines, fearing to make a change,” added Persaud.

“They’re missing out on a massive opportunity to use their data to help reduce churn, drive adoption, and boost their bottom line. It’s clear that data and analytics are more than a ‘nice to have’ – they’re a ‘must have’ and should be at the heart of all business decision-making,” he concluded.

The Sisense Future of Data Analytics Report 2022 – Asia Pacific Edition surveyed 1,047 data professionals in March 2022. Respondents were drawn from a diverse range of industries across a wide geographic cross-section of the APAC region.

Study Methodology

Findings are based on an online survey conducted by Sisense among 1,047 data professionals across the APAC region (Australia 52%, New Zealand 11%, Hong Kong 11%, Singapore 7%, China 7%, Japan 4%, Indonesia 4%, India 2%, other 2%). All respondents (referred to as “APAC data professionals”, “data professionals” and “respondents” throughout the report) work at a company with at least 20 employees, have the title of middle manager or higher in either an information technology, marketing/advertising, sales, regulatory affairs, research and development, or production department and have at least some influence in decisions made for embedding analytics solutions into the delivery of their product or service.

The survey was conducted in March 2022.

Access the report here.

Sydney, Australia – Organisations have been found to be underinvesting in training and development of data and analytics amongst their employees, as a new research by Arktic Fox and Michael Page Australia unveils that 40% of Australian leaders admit to skill gap in data and analytics endeavours.

The research also unveiled that 57% of those who see brand development and brand purpose in their top 3 priorities do not have full ownership over leading the CX agenda. Meanwhile, 55% of marketing leaders don’t feel they and their teams have a strong understanding and knowledge of Australian privacy principles.

In addition, the research also said that 88% of leaders don’t have a clear path forward to deal with the depreciation of third party cookies. Despite that, 34% of leaders agree that data literacy is strong within their marketing department.

Teresa Sperti, founder and director of Arktic Fox says organisations need to rethink their training and development investment and strategy. She added that the study shows that teams are investing at levels that aren’t adequate based on the current operating environment.

“A good learning and development program isn’t just about training, it is about leveraging an array of learning modes and providing learning opportunities for team members to bolster their skills and experience, across both soft and technical skill areas,” she said.

Sperti added, “Investment at the appropriate level is important if you are looking to re-skill and re-tool your team in line with the changing market. Whilst on-the-job learning has always been seen as the best approach, the cost of not complementing this with other forms of learning and development can be significant. As a result, businesses forgo revenue and value due to team members not being equipped with the skills to deliver on key outcomes.”

Meanwhile, Laura Houlston, director at Michael Page Australia says that the ability to influence stakeholders is vital to driving growth within organisations.

“Driving CX, transformation and growth all require marketers to influence up and across the organisation. As marketers’ remits expand and we are expected to play a bigger leadership role, the ability to manage up and across the organisation and influence becomes critical – but leaders are telling us that it is these soft skills where the biggest skill gaps exist,” she said.

New York, USA – About 92% of product decision makers have agreed that utilizing data and analytics is critical to the success of one’s business, the latest data from AI-driven analytics platform Sisense and market research and analytics company The Harris Poll shows.

According to the data, around 86% say that offering data and analytics to their customers plays a critical role in not only the satisfaction of those customers but also in terms of building and retaining loyal customers. In addition, around 96% say that an increase in average selling prices would be possible with personalised and customised analytics, with 46% noting they could charge about 10% to 19% more for their products and services because of the analytics they provide.

Other insights in relation to analytics’ impact on business success include around 97% think their customers are interested in analytics provided in the context of the task the user is completing, and 97% note that customers want analytics more personalised to the specific end user.

Looking to the future, 81% of product decision makers say that if they could provide their customers with personalised data and analytics, it should be provided by embedding those into communication software or platforms, custom-built apps or off-the-shelf business or SaaS applications.

While the aforementioned numbers speak about the optimism respondents see about analytics, around 83% of decision makers think their customers currently are making decisions without proper data and analytics at least sometimes. However, product decision makers cite barriers in being able to deliver such offerings. 

In addition, 41% of decision-makers cite legal and compliance requirements as an issue. 38% say their customers have difficulty accessing information. And this access may in large part be due to the fact that 92% of decision makers deliver data and analytics to customers via non-embedded methods such as email and dashboards, requiring them to disrupt their workflows to go elsewhere for critical information.

Ashley Kramer, chief product and marketing officer at Sisense, said that the results showed what they expected to hear from customers about analytics for 2022.

“Firstly, we expect organizations will redefine what it means to build a ‘culture of analytics’ by bringing insights to workers in a more digestible way, such as embedding them into regular processes so no new skills are required. Secondly, most data-driven organizations will combat tool fatigue by bringing data to workers where they are, directly within their workflows,” Kramer said.

She added, “And lastly, we see automation turning descriptive analytics, that demonstrate what already happened, and predictive analytics, profiling what will happen, into prescriptive guidance, focusing on what the best course of action to take is to make smart, proactive decisions.”

Singapore – Consumer data and analytics startup Milieu has recently raised US$5m in funding, which will be used in bolstering product innovation and accelerate the development of new SaaS-oriented consumer insight offerings.

The funding was led by MassMutual Ventures (MMV) Southeast Asia, with participation from OSK Ventures International Berhad, Genesis Alternative Ventures, as well as several private investors.

The company had previously raised funding in 2019, and has since then expanded their commercial operations to cover six markets, including Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. 

Funds raised from this current round will be allocated to expand Milieu’s reach beyond Southeast Asia.

Milieu has recently launched several new products, including an automated brand tracking solution, as well as a programmatic activation offering known as ‘Milieu Activate’, which enables advertisers to target mobile ads more effectively.

Gerald Ang, founder and CEO at Milieu, said, “As consumer preferences and behaviours evolve rapidly, we see a tremendous opportunity to revolutionize market research to better meet the needs of business leaders today. These funds will help us develop more exciting, innovative products and fuel our expansion. We have demonstrated sustained growth and this is a testament to the resilience in our business model.”

Statistics-wise, Milieu has been growing their mobile app user base from 500,000 users to more than two million in 2020, as well as increasing their customer base by 300% from 45 enterprise customers at the start of 2020 to 180 in October 2021.

“COVID-19 has accelerated the rise of the digital economy and we will continue on with our mission to use technology to empower organizations to connect with consumers at a deeper level. In time, we hope to inspire change globally by sparking meaningful conversations between brands and their customers around the world everyday,” Ang concluded.

Sydney, Australia – DoubleVerify, the software platform dedicated for digital measurement and analytics, has announced a slew of appointments for its Australian market namely Sophia Warren as client strategy director, David Shen as business director, Susie Mather and Stuart Kruger as sales directors, and Neil Anderson as sales solutions specialist.

The team expansion adds commercial expertise to support customer growth in the region — helping global brands maximize their digital investments and drive real business outcomes. 

Warren will continue to build deep relationships with partners in order to better understand their performance criteria — ensuring the application of DV solutions complements their investments and helps deliver better outcomes for brands. 

“I’m excited to work more closely with our brand and agency partners to drive media quality and performance across the market. It’s an incredibly exciting time to be a part of the DV team as we continue to work with our customers and partners, helping to build a better industry,” Warren said regarding her appointment.

Meanwhile, Shen will be helping programmatic buyers derive maximum performance from campaign investments. He has over a decade of digital and ad-tech experience across agencies and vendors, working on prominent global and local brands such as Samsung, Nestle, Amazon, Coca-Cola, J&J, and NBNCo.

On the other hand, Mather is in charge of serving the needs of brands and agencies in ANZ, and helping them maximize media quality and effectiveness. She has over 20 years of broadcast and digital experience, including stints at ViacomCBS (UK), Matterkind and Seven West Media (SWM).

Kruger’s responsibility scopes responsibility for partnering with media agencies, trading desks and clients to educate them on how to best utilize DV’s programmatic offerings to drive media performance. He spent nearly seven years with Unruly in both London and Sydney, ending up in an ANZ Group Sales Director role.

Lastly, Anderson will be the key technical resource to the team. He works with clients to manage discussions, testing and the troubleshooting of DoubleVerify’s solutions. With over fifteen years experience in the ad tech landscape across the ANZ region, Anderson has worked at Google/DoubleClick, neo@Ogilvy, Lotame and the first demand-side platform in Australia, Brandscreen. 

According to Imran Masood, country manager for ANZ at DoubleVerify, the new hires to their team bring valuable experience from the agency, publisher, broadcast and programmatic fields.

“In the past two years, we have secured major wins in the telecom, financial services, FMCG and retail industries, and have forged relationships with global holding companies and local independent agencies. I am delighted to welcome David, Susie, Stuart, and Neil to our team as we advance our mission to make the online advertising ecosystem stronger, safer and more secure — for advertisers and publishers alike,” Masood stated.

He added, “Growth has been underpinned by our focus on delivering a single, definitive standard and currency for media quality across all media channels — including priority investment areas, like CTV. Our team is focused on supporting and advising our clients on the best use of quality metrics to maximize brand outcomes.”

Melbourne, Australia – Brandvas, a cloud-based marketing technology platform, has announced its official launch in Australia, marking it as well with partnerships with market research firm Roy Morgan and the Australia Post.

The partnerships entails Brandvas utilizing Roy Morgan consumer data and Australia Post parcel insights data embedded in a brand strategy system to ensure strategies target the right markets.

The Brandvas tool kit allows agencies and marketers to increase capabilities, supercharge productivity and streamline projects, launching with seven modules: ‘Creative Brief’, ‘Media Brief’, ‘Script Template’, ‘Creative Competitive Overview’, ‘Competitor Mapping’, ‘Research Data’, including customer personas and their primary module ‘Brand Strategy’.

For Brandvas founder Jodie Catalfamo, who has worked in the advertising industry for more than 22 years, Brandvas not only assists with the process of developing brand strategy, but is backed with access to deep consumer data insights and a suite of tools to streamline the way agencies and marketers work.

“When I worked at BADJAR Oglivy, research played a huge role in understanding a brand’s competitive context with data-driven insights, strategy and creativity. Working with brands, research was not always utilized, which often led to projects being led by assumptions and educated guesses. The team and I built Brandvas to democratize brand planning for agencies and marketers no matter what their size to increase capability and productivity and provide a crucial competitive edge,” Catalfamo said.

She added, “It was really important for the team and I to have reputable data partners for Brandvas to give agencies the opportunity of accessing robust and insightful data. Providing our agency and marketing clients the ability to validate or dismiss any assumptions. The data not only provides category insights which can direct the brand strategy, it also assists in marketing and creative recommendation.”

The Brandvas platform is project-based and built to dovetail so once a brand strategy workshop has been completed, the creative and media briefs are already pre-populated, making the management of projects and creative teams simpler, more efficient and effective.

“We are delighted to be partnering with Brandvas to enable small creative and marketing businesses to develop strategies based on trusted and accurate research data. Given the challenging times we are all in, this will ensure that any decisions are based on the most up-to-date market intelligence,” said John Ellenberger, head of partnerships at Roy Morgan.

Meanwhile, Ben Franzi, general manager for e-commerce platforms and marketplaces at Australia Post, commented, “The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a seismic shift in consumer behavior, and it is more important than ever that businesses of all sizes are able to easily access up-to-date industry data. We look forward to continuing to work with the Brandvas team to expand the range of Australia Post insights available through their platform in the months ahead.”

Catalfamo adds that although they provide the methodology and smart tools along the way, Brandvas is white-labeled and completely customizable, so if an agency has proprietary questions, tools or processes they can easily include these and make it their own. 

“While we know even the smartest software can never replace creative genius, Brandvas amplifies talent and makes the best planners, facilitators and strategists elevate whilst streamlining the leg work,” she concluded.

Singapore – Global data and measurement-driven media agency Essence has announced the launch of its newest consulting service called Essence Data Health Check, targeted to aid brands in getting value from collected audience data, which in turn can optimize business impact and consumer brand experience.

Said service was developed at the Singapore-based innovation, research and development hub Essence Global Ventures.

According to the agency, said service was built to be a strategic and tactical aid for marketers to accelerate their digital marketing transformation and business growth. In addition to helping brands navigate the seismic shifts in data, identity and privacy due to the confluence of changes in user sentiment, regulations and technology, the offering enables marketers to maximize value from their audience data and optimize consumer brand experience. 

Furthermore, the features of the product are informed by years of providing data services for brands across APAC, including those from the technology, retail, travel, luxury and financial services sectors.

As part of its consultancy offerings, Essence Data Health Check provides a meticulous review of marketers’ technology stack, data collection setup, audience management approach and data deployment practice, along with actionable recommendations to increase the effectiveness of data-driven paid and owned marketing activities. 

In terms of data review, this process is done with respect towards current and future shifts in legislation and technology pertaining to consumers’ online identity and privacy. Designed for both in-house marketing teams and external agency service models, the offering also recommends measurable implementation roadmaps to track progress and capture value.

For Vincent Niou, vice president for data strategy for APAC at Essence, their excitement with the launch of the Essence Data Health Check stems from the fact that data has never been more integral to more aspects of marketers’ businesses, but the space has never been more confusing and uncertain.

Meanwhile, Shane Dewar, vice president for advertising operations for APAC at Essence, commented, “With consumer sentiment, public policy and the advertising industry as a whole moving towards an ecosystem that puts privacy at the forefront of how it operates, brands and advertisers will be challenged to ensure that the people, processes and tools they have are capable of navigating the new privacy-first world. Essence Data Health Check is designed to help marketers evaluate what they are doing well in, provide a roadmap to improve their data strategy, and ultimately, enable brands to achieve their goals.”

The introduction of Essence Data Health Check follows the earlier launch of Essence Media Health Check, a consulting service developed to help marketers achieve effective business outcomes from their digital media campaigns by delivering measurable performance improvements over current baselines. 

“We are now at the dawn of a new era of marketing – one that is defined by consumers’ expectations around their data and privacy, and an industry looking to bring more personalized experiences to their consumers. Essence Data Health Check will underpin the foundations for this privacy-first world, where the ethical compass on consumers’ data is paramount. Through Essence Global Ventures, it is our ambition to continually innovate solutions that will ensure marketers globally can lead with new strategic advantages, today and in the future,” said Kunal Guha, executive vice president at Essence.

California, USA – Global customer data company Tealium has recently announced new features in its customer data platform (CDP), Tealium Features, which allows customers to connect to custom destinations, transform data, automate workflows, and launch new use cases faster with simple code.

Specifically, Tealium Features can aid customers through building or customizing integrations to connect to custom destinations and transforming real-time streaming data prior to activation to ensure that it is in its most usable format across the tech stack. In addition, it also aids in automating workflows to minimize repetitive, time-consuming tasks and increase high-scale efficiency and quickly connect customers to external datasets to leverage critical data that lives outside of a business’ CDP.

“We pioneered this type of customization capability in the market when we introduced extensions in Tealium iQ Tag Management and Tealium Functions brings the same customization flexibility to our server-side products,” said Mike Anderson, CTO and founder at Tealium.

Tealium iQ Tag Management pertains to one of the systems of Tealium, which aids customers to take in charge of their marketing technology implementations, which in turn eases the deployment of new vendor tags and makes edits to existing ones.

“Most of the customer experience is digital but the ecosystem of data and technologies powering these experiences are rarely based on a single platform. To keep the entire journey connected, businesses need more flexibility and options from their customer data platform (CDP) to quickly build custom ‘just for me’ integrations, automations and transformations for their unique application stack and use cases,” the company said in a press statement.

Today, Tealium Functions is generally available for Tealium’s other services such as EventStream API Hub and AudienceStream CDP customers enabling them to create custom functions for data destinations and integrations. Later this year, Transformations in Tealium Functions will be available to further expand customization capabilities and allow customers to create functions at the point of data collection to transform, modify, or validate events before processing.

“With Tealium Functions, our vision is to eventually enable customers to create a customization layer that can be used at any point of the data lifecycle so they can truly identify and address their most complex business needs,” Anderson concluded.