Singapore– Express delivery company J&T Express has been appointed as the delivery partner-of-choice for foodpanda shops, foodpanda’s online marketplace. With its expertise and extensive network, J&T Express will be supporting foodpanda shops’ retailers to provide next-day door-to-door delivery.
In this partnership, over 20 merchants such as Unilever, Philips, ASUS, MAKE UP STORE and TC Acoustics will now have the option to offer next-day delivery fulfilled by J&T Express, with plans to expand this offering to more merchant partners in the coming months.
As part of the launch, foodpanda is offering free deliveries on all J&T Express next-day delivery orders from now till 31 August 2022, terms and conditions apply.
foodpanda shops was first launched in 2019 to provide customers with the convenience of placing orders from a wide variety of product categories including household items, beauty products, electronics and more, and have them delivered on-demand. With over 4,000 merchant partners, customers can now shop from notable brands such as Xiaomi, Guardian, LUSH, and more from the comfort of their own homes.
J&T Express also brings to this strategic collaboration its extensive experience in supporting online marketplaces and e-commerce platforms to provide efficient and seamless logistics solutions. As part of this collaboration, J&T Express has developed an API integration with foodpanda to enable a one-stop ecommerce experience for merchants.
Martin Tan, head of operations at J&T Express, Singapore, said, “We are excited to be onboard with foodpanda through foodpanda shops to drive the one-stop e-commerce experience for both sellers and consumers. This new milestone is in line with our ambition and strategy to expand our customer base by creating tailored e-commerce solutions for our partners, which is also a testament to our growing potential and momentum both in Singapore and globally.”
foodpanda aims to expand its delivery offerings via its shops feature to bring new benefits for both consumers and brands. Consumers can now enjoy a wider variety of products and brands with a frictionless shopping experience, while merchants have access to a new channel to reach new, digital customers, and opportunities to generate new revenues through alternative business models like next-day delivery.
Rizan Rahiman, head of marketplace – Shops, at foodpanda Singapore, commented, “Our partnership with J&T Express allows us to provide even more options for customers to place orders and have them delivered at their preferred timings. With this partnership, participating merchant partners can now offer islandwide delivery in a more efficient manner, resulting in wallet-friendlier delivery fees for our customers. These enhancements will ensure that we are well-placed in being the preferred option for on-demand purchases.”
As part of this partnership and its ongoing growth, J&T Express continues to invest in its operations globally and in the region to ensure it can deliver the highest quality express service. The company recently announced its global expansion to include Brazil. In Singapore, it has equipped its sorting hub with upgraded automation solutions and expanded its strategic warehouse network in both east and west of Singapore, which is supported by a nationwide network of Pick Lockers and J&T Points, the dedicated service points.
Singapore – Asian stem cell skincare specialist, CALECIM® Cosmeceuticals (CALECIM®), a subsidiary of Singapore-based biotech company CellResearch Corporation, has named former Zalora and Skin Inc executive Cooper McGuire as its new chief operating officer (COO). In this role, Cooper will spearhead the company’s shift from being primarily doctor-focused to adopting a direct-to-consumer approach, tapping into the growing global cosmeceuticals market.
Cooper will also lead the company’s online expansion by growing its e-commerce channels, focusing primarily on key growth markets: US, Europe and China. He will also oversee the streamlining and optimising of CALECIM®’s logistics and fulfilment processes. He will report to Gavin Tan, chief executive officer of CALECIM®.
On his appointment, Cooper said, “CALECIM® has all the makings of a market leader in the skincare space: an early loyal customer base, a committed and intelligent team, and most importantly real, clinically validated results in an industry that often relies on marketing more than science. I’m excited to bring my experience scaling early-stage consumer businesses through digital transformation to CALECIM® to see how far we can grow together.”
Cooper previously served as the COO and CFO of Skin Inc, a custom skincare brand, where he led the company’s digital transformation and e-commerce expansion. Prior to Skin Inc, Cooper took the helm at Ensogo Group as COO, a publicly-listed online marketplace with operations in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia where he was responsible for leading the company’s restructuring efforts. Before Ensogo, as co-founder and CFO, Cooper built ZALORA Group into Asia Pacific’s leading group of online fashion destinations with responsibility in core infrastructure including corporate finance, finance and accounting, business intelligence, legal and human resources.
Chief Executive Officer of CALECIM®, Gavin Tan, commented, “We are thrilled to welcome Cooper on our quest to turn CALECIM® into the market leader in anti-aging stem cell cosmeceuticals. Cooper’s experience perfectly matches our needs at the right time — he has an excellent track record in the digital transformation and aggressive scaling of consumer brands and we are looking forward to his guidance as we continue this exciting journey.”
Sydney, Australia — HypeAuditor, an AI analytics platform for transparent and fraud-free influencer marketing, has announced its integration with Shopify, with the aim to provide an ‘all-in-one analysis’ of sales-focused influencer marketing campaigns for online retailers.
HypeAuditor’s creative solutions will enable e-commerce brands and agencies to streamline the entire influencer marketing workflow, from discovering and contacting relevant creators, to effectively managing the campaigns, and then creating analytical results reports.
By providing online retailers with a range of ‘precise search filters’ that deliver highly relevant results, HypeAuditor ensures that brands and agencies are identifying the best influencers for their campaigns, and allows for contact directly through the platform to ensure a smooth campaign launch.
The integration claims to be completely automated, assigning corresponding click rates, sales, and ROI to specific influencers and campaigns in order to calculate sales performance, saving e-commerce brands valuable time and money by eliminating the manual aspect of running an influencer marketing campaign. In this integration, Shopify merchants will now be able to ‘accurately and efficiently’ measure the success of a campaign and monitor top-performers to enhance marketing strategies and optimise budgets.
Alex Frolov, CEO at HypeAuditor, said, “For marketing managers, analysing sales data from the Shopify platform and cross referencing it with campaign data from an influencer marketing platform can be extremely time consuming and expensive. By integrating HypeAuditor with Shopify, e-commerce brands will no longer be held back by this archaic exercise. A campaign can now be set up in less than five minutes, and the rest of the process is automated, enabling a clear, strategic analysis of an influencer campaign.”
The Director of Marketing (APAC) at Shopify, Robin Marchant, commented, “As customer acquisition costs skyrocket, brands are looking to collaborate with creators to deepen relationships and build awareness, trust and loyalty among their audience. HypeAuditor’s integration helps Shopify merchants find authentic creator opportunities and automate workflow and measurement to optimise campaign spend and strategy, and strengthen business outcomes.”
Hanoi, Vietnam — Southeast Asian data-driven loyalty platform Society Pass Incorporated, also known as SoPa, announced its buyout of Dream Space Trading Company, the operator of Handycart, an online grocery delivery service based in Hanoi, Vietnam. Dream Space will be integrated into SoPa’s F&B delivery vertical with SoPa’s existing merchant software platform HOTTAB.
In addition to the buyout, Handycart Founder and CEO Seo Jun Ho have been named head of the new business unit, managing both Handycart and #HOTTAB in Vietnam.
Handycart, founded recently in 2019, is an online grocery delivery app with its own fleet of delivery vehicles that focuses on the Korean restaurant market and F&B sector in Hanoi. Vietnam has embraced the ‘Korean Wave’; a recent survey by market research firm Q&Me found that 58 per cent of Vietnamese favour Korean cuisine.
Ngo Thi Cham, country general manager of SoPa Vietnam, commented on the strategic step, saying that they are excited to welcome Handycart to the larger SoPa ecosystem which will enable it to harness integrated marketing and technology proposition while also strengthening its collective senior management resources.
“We endeavour to combine the robust technology and operational efficiency of a speciality e-commerce brand like Handycart with our brand-building experience. SoPa has witnessed, with our runaway success of Leflair, in Vietnam, that this move will lead to immediate returns in terms of cost optimization and increased revenue generation. We are determined to increase merchant coverage to 500 restaurants in Hanoi by the end of 2022 and look to expand to HCMC in 3Q 2022,” Cham said.
With Handycart leveraging on SoPa’s integrated technology platform to drive operational efficiencies and business performance, the platform will focus on increasing on-demand grocery shopping services to more consumers in the country, while empowering speciality F&B restaurants to transform business models and further increase reach in online markets.
Seo Jun Ho, CEO of Handycart, said, “Handycart was established in 2019 with a mission of connecting Korean patrons seeking a taste of home through its established network of authentic Korean restaurants right here in Vietnam. Providing businesses with speedy access to authentic Korean products has helped us gather a loyal user base of over 3000 with more than 26,000 orders in 2021 alone. SoPa will now be able to accelerate Handycart’s growth given our well-established positioning as a go-to online grocery delivery service. Partnership with Society Pass will enable us to unlock growth opportunities within the industry and I am glad that Handycart can now avail itself of SoPa’s synergistic ecosystem.”
Vietnam has been one of the fastest-growing economies within SEA over the past two decades. The country’s e-commerce is growing tremendously, valued at 13.2b USD; it is expected to grow steadily from 2021 until 2025.
Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) was first introduced over 15 years ago in Europe, as a payment platform that allows shoppers to split their purchases into interest-free monthly deferred payments, usually by scanning an in-store QR code or upon checkout at a partner retailer’s website.
In recent years, BNPL has gained immense popularity amongst merchants and consumers in Asia, with its market share expected to more than double by 2024, according to the Global Payments Report 2021 by FIS-Worldpay. While BNPL is seen as a rising global movement, it is important to note that the use case and macro landscape across the regions vary significantly.
Unlike established markets such as the United States, Australia and Europe, Asia is highly fragmented (eg. credit profile, religion, language, culture) with a large unbanked and underbanked population, especially in emerging markets such as Indonesia and Vietnam. For example, in Southeast Asia (SEA), only 27% of the overall 670 million population has bank accounts. This sizable gap in traditional banking penetration has resulted in at least 438 million unbanked or underbanked consumers, with limited access to basic financial services and subsequently, a thin credit profile. Consequently, retailers should partner with BNPL brands with robust risk assessment and credit profiling technology to minimise transaction rejects and fraud cases.
SEA is also leading the charge in digital consumption, having added 60 million new digital consumers to the internet economy since the pandemic started. The massive digitisation that the region witnessed in 2020, triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, saw SEA lead as a mobile-first consumer economy.
Retailers partner BNPL providers to tap on the young and emerging digital consumers – shoppers who are mobile-first and digitally savvy and may be experiencing major life events such as getting their first job or house, getting married, and having their first child. It is estimated that by 2030, 75% of consumers in ASEAN will be under the age of 30.
Physical shopping in SEA remains a social activity for many, and shoppers still prefer to see and touch products before making the commitment to purchase. This is different from other developed markets in Europe or the US where e-commerce is widely adopted because of good public infrastructure (e.g. cheap broadband, good last-mile delivery to every home).
For the shoppers in SEA, they value omnichannel retail shopper experience, one that allows them to shop and purchase seamlessly across online and offline channels. What this means for retailers and BNPL players in this region is that the physical store experience is critical when it comes to increasing in-store conversion, basket size, and the overall brand and shopping experience.
Merchants who have adopted BNPL in their business have seen benefits including improved sales, traffic, and conversions. With BNPL, merchants can also unlock a new segment of shoppers and understand their shopping behaviours.
BNPL V2.0
As BNPL matures in Asia, it will evolve from its current basic model of interest-free monthly payments to further enable merchants. We’ve seen examples of new products and services launched, for example, co-branded cards, savings accounts, investment products, and personal finance management.
Traditional banks and even digibanks are also developing and launching their own BNPL offerings. Potential evolution pathways of BNPL and features include:
1. Greater industry adoption
With wider customer adoption and demand for payment choice and flexibility, other retail categories beyond fashion, lifestyle, and beauty categories are experimenting with BNPL. Travel and hospitality, food and beverage, and luxury and premium retail are some examples.
2. Open-loop payment services
Open-loop is a payment method that can be used anywhere that brand of cards or e-wallets is accepted. As BNPL gains momentum globally, BNPL players are introducing co-branded credit cards and e-wallets with payment providers to create an open-loop system that is not restricted to signed merchants. This will greatly accelerate BNPL acceptance across retailers who for example, already accept payments for example, via Visa or Mastercard. BNPL brands also partner with payment service providers, web builders, e-commerce enablers to provide integration support for merchants and accelerate the wider acceptance and integration of BNPL solutions.
3. Social commerce
SEA is expected to lead the biggest market for social commerce, especially given how a large chunk of its population is entering its prime of technology adoption. Social commerce (78%) has become the second most preferred shopping channel in the region, second only to e-commerce platforms (91%).
In 2020, clothes, apparel, and accessories continue to lead social shopping (71%), followed by health and beauty (59%), and electronics and appliances (53%). A large majority of Gen Z and millennials are leveraging social platforms not just to connect and explore, but also to shop and inspire. Increasingly, BNPL players are developing social commerce features to create highly targeted and personalised content recommendations to help promote organic engagements with merchants.
4. Customised merchant services
One of the key strengths for BNPL players is a strong understanding of user demographics and shopping behaviour. Moving forward, BNPL players can invest in co-marketing and merchant-enabler features such as social CRM, loyalty programme, co-marketing, and concierge-like membership services, and this would be crucial in connecting with a community of young, aspirational, and digitally-savvy consumers.
5. Broader financial services
Finally, BNPL players can also introduce offerings with longer tenures especially for high-value items like electronics and smartphones, and money management services such as savings accounts and investment options. As the BNPL industry continues to thrive in the coming years, the evolution of BNPL will further enable and empower merchants and create a strong and holistic ecosystem that drives engagement and value through every facet of the consumer’s purchase journey.
This article is written by Jeremy Wong, head of strategic partnerships at BNPL platform Atome.
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.
Malaysia – Rich in culture with an open and diverse community, Malaysian consumers exhibit a unique set of values and behaviour. To conquer today’s Malaysian consumer in an increasingly competitive market, brands and companies must step up to learn every nook and cranny of what makes this market tick.
The pandemic had been the most significant shift in the market in the past two years. In finding new ways of engagement and gratification, consumers had to adapt, form new behaviours, and consequently, give birth to new trends and patterns.
According to the latest e-conomy report by Google, Temasek, and Bain & Company, there have been three million new digital consumers in Malaysia since the start of Covid. This signals that Malaysians are now recognizing a whole new need and, therefore, will expend their attention and energy on an entirely new space – digital – and more specifically, e-commerce.
Recognizing this, affiliate marketing Commission Factory and MARKETECH APAC have teamed up topresent the Malaysia Market Insight 2022, which delivers to be the extensive one-stop report that brands and industry players can refer to in order to get ahead of the game and win today’s Malaysian consumer – to do the right thing, be at the right place, and at the right time.
“The e-commerce market in Malaysia is large and one of the fastest growing digital economies in SEA. Businesses aiming for successful expansion into the Malaysian market should prepare themselves with cultural and economic insights to help learn about the market and localise themselves. Our report is a great tool for businesses to better understand how to unlock the market’s potential, from both retailer and affiliate partner point of view,” said Amanda Calkins, publisher development team lead at Commission Factory.
The Malaysia Market Insight 2022 combines and makes sense of leading local and regional statistics and insights to deliver a deep dive into Malaysian consumer behaviour and helps companies reach this diverse market in the most authentic and effective way possible.
This report is specially designed for e-commerce retailers that want a snapshot of the Malaysian market. It is also suitable for brands wanting to venture inside the Malaysian market and those currently operating in the market itself; moreover, the report looks at the Malaysia affiliate and partnership landscape.
The report is divided into two main parts: ‘Malaysian Values’ and ‘Shopping Habits’. ‘Malaysian Values’ guides not just local but also international brands to be culturally aligned with the market, while ‘Shopping Habits’ looks at the main themes of Malaysians’ consumption preferences.
Some of the top values that Malaysians hold dear are ‘Face’, the value of appropriateness; the importance of group considerations – collectivism over individualism; and also the strength of ‘social hierarchy’ where age, education, as well as the assets one possesses determine how one treats another.
On ‘Shopping habits’, the report tackles how Malaysians are weighing their options online vs offline and how cross-border e-commerce is growing massively in importance to the market. The report also discusses seasonality as a constant vital feature of Malaysian shoppers’ journey, with the country inherently having a multitude of holidays in a year.
MARKETECH APAC’s Editor Shaina Teope comments, “With the fast changes this pandemic, consumers’ needs and demands have become more nuanced, begging for a more granular approach from brands. This is where the importance of targeted and overarching reports like the Malaysian Market Insight comes into play. The report takes a 360-degree view of the Malaysian consumer, looking at the values and culture shaping him, and how this affects the way he lives out his consumption patterns.”
As far as internet real estate goes, digital marketing has become a much more precise science. It’s no longer an open house where anyone can come in and salespeople can only hope that the right people would notice the high ceilings or marble countertop and be convinced enough to take the deal. These days, marketers bring the content right in front of their audience in an experience as personal as any, the digital analogy of leading the consumer right toward the cash register. Shoppability isn’t just a new catchphrase. In the world of content, it is the new normal.
The Consumer Conversion
In narrowing the gap between commerce and consumer, big brands are moving from a publisher model into an e-commerce one. Consider the biggest merchants in the world. They all become media at one stage. They have journalists in-house that produce numerous articles and videos, becoming brand publishers in the process.
Net-a-Porter, for example, has become more of a magazine online than a retailer. Amazon is now a media company that produces content all around the world. L’Oréal has invested tens of millions of euros to build platforms like hair.com and skincare.com. Those websites attract a lot of traffic which enable L’Oréal to gain traction and build up visibility among their users with free organic visits.
On the other hand, those who are already in publishing, like Allure or Refinery29, are looking at newer ways to gain revenue from their audience beyond the unpredictability of paid advertising. Through the years, they have come up with more than 10,000 product reviews from different brands around the world. They aggregate those product reviews to develop search-based content, SEO traffic, and organic visitors for free from Google and eventually convert them to shoppers. So, when the audience discovers a product via Allure.com, they’re redirected immediately towards e-commerce websites like Walmart or Clinique. Allure then earns some commission based on the traffic and conversations that they’ve generated to the brand.
The need to drive those organic visitors into shoppers has led to a convergence between content and commerce. In the last six months, there has been a massive transformation of online platforms into e-commerce websites. It’s become a formula to drive value, engagement, and sales.
Becoming Shoppable
In the foreseeable future, more and more companies will be adopting this strategy into their brand.com websites, turning them into shoppable platforms. They will take their existing content management systems, embed seek-out, needs-based content for users, and add products within those pages. The result is a richer, dynamic, personal experience that engages the audience – and conveniences them – while giving significant commercial benefits to brands.
How it works is that you take an audience-attracting piece of content, like an article. The article contextually features advertising based on a keyword on the page by displaying smart product placements based on an algorithm that is carefully chosen by the merchant or brand. Then and there, the audience can ‘add to cart’ without going through the hoops of multiple redirections or manually inputting a separate site.
Allure and L’Oréal are only a few of the brands that are now relying on this formula. With shoppable content, the consumer is captive right at the moment of influence. For example, IKEA’s revolutionary augmented reality app, which lets users see how its products would look in their space, allows customers to buy that particular piece right then and there.
The aforementioned luxury retailer Net-a-Porter takes things further by turning even the analogue into a shoppable channel. The Edit is its weekly digital magazine that expectedly leads the audience to product pages upon clicking on editorial layouts. However, Porter is an actual, tangible print magazine. When readers scan over the images with the Net-a-Porter app, they can immediately purchase the featured products.
Taobao has attracted millions of shoppers via live stream shopping. YouTube has installed a direct-response ad format with browsable product thumbnails underneath the video. Pinterest has turned its top-performing organic Pins into shoppable ads. TikTok has launched an integrated shopping feature, virtual teleshopping, and even dance contests that link to in-app purchasing.
The progression of social media as a shoppable content venue is as organic as they come. It has a built-in audience that depends on social media channels for entertainment, inspiration, and now a procurement of those first two. Yet, these are only the tip of the iceberg when coming up with shoppable solutions for content.
A More Meaningful Experience
When a company makes more engaging content and realises its commercial potential, it does not only benefit the brand but the consumer as well. Using performance-driven data offers consumers a more personalised and authentic journey. These numbers instigate a better understanding of people and their behaviours and inspire content that is much more relatable.
Content marketing answers people’s questions at the right place and at the right time. Shoppable content takes that a step further – presenting benefits for everyone in the journey. It is as measurable as it is personal. It’s not just the next big thing. It’s here, now.
This article is written by Sven Lung, CEO & founder of performance-driven content agency Green Park Content.
The article is published as part of MARKETECH APAC’s thought leadership series What’s NEXT.This features marketing leaders sharing their marketing insights and predictions for the upcoming year. The series aims to equip marketers with actionable insights to future-ready their marketing strategies.
If you are a marketing leader and have insights that you’d like to share with regards to the upcoming trends and practices in marketing, please reach out to [email protected] for an opportunity to have your thought-leadership published on the platform.
Singapore – Carousell Media Group, the advertising arm of Carousell Group, which holds recommerce platforms or marketplaces for pre-loved items such as Carousell, Mudah.my, ChoTot, OneKyat and Ox Street, has launched a first-of-its-kind recommerce programmatic buying platform.
Called ‘Connect’, the tech is launched via the group’s advertising arm Carousell Media. The platform will deploy DSP ad technology and will be powered by the buying, selling, and search data signals generated from Carousell Media Group’s wide monthly user count across Greater Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.
JJ Eastwood, managing director of Carousell Media Group, shared that the Connect platform was launched to allow brands to reach buyers and sellers both on and off Carousell’s marketplaces since “inspiration, discovery, and purchase can happen anywhere.”
“We have witnessed unprecedented growth in recommerce over the last 12 months, that’s being propelled by consumer demand for sustainability as well as e-commerce, and it’s quickly becoming an important component of the consumer-brand relationship,” said Eastwood.
The group said the Connect platform will give advertisers a viable alternative to the closed environments like Google and Facebook, by providing them with full-funnel marketing solutions and enabling them to engage with Carousell Media Group’s audiences on every ad format, such as video, display, audio, and Connected TV. Furthermore, Carousell Media Group says that the integration of first-party and third-party data sets is what sets the Connect offering apart from others.
The platform was initially offered to selected advertisers, with Decathlon being a prominent one. The parent group said that as part of 2022’s rollout under Connect, its ad arm will be launching new ad products, such as Carousell Search Ads which will enable advertisers to fully leverage real-time keyword searches.
As a parent company to classifieds platforms, Carousell Group has been shaping its capabilities to help entities in its advertising efforts. In November 2021, it launched for the second time its ‘Free Ads for Charities’ initiative, an advertising support program for non-profit organizations (NPOs) in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and the Philippines.
Singapore – To usher in the brand new year, Shopee, the leading e-commerce giant in Southeast Asia, has once again held its Shopee Brands Summit for 2022 to look back at the past year’s performance and most importantly unveil its line-up of new initiatives and plans to deliver better business to brands and also greater experience for customers for the new year.
A trademark program in the summit is its yearly Shopee Brands Awards to celebrate brands’ milestones and achievements on the platform and recognize those that have exemplified outstanding marketing and commercial performance for the full previous year.
Just like in last year, recognitions were categorized according to each specific product area such as FMCG, beauty, electronics, and fashion & lifestyle. However, the difference is, last year’s awards were focused on who’s delivering the fastest growth, whereas 2022’s recognitions were made to identify brands that have had the best mega campaigns in 2021.
Amorepacific, which inked a partnership with Shopee in early 2021 to boost its regional reach, makes a comeback to be named with the Best Consumer Engagement. In 2021, it was named as the Fastest Growing Beauty Brand.
Other brands that returned to Shopee’s Brands Awards were L’Oréal, Samsung, Adidas, Xiaomi, and Procter & Gamble, and Reckitt. This year, Shopee also introduced new awards, moving beyond just recognizing the merchants but also awarding the top third-party e-commerce enablers in the platform.
Here is the full list for 2022:
Award Title
Winner
Best Customer Engagement
Amorepacific
Best Product Launch
Samsung
Best Brand Launch: Premium
Shiseido Prestige
Best Performing Mega Campaign: FMCG
Abbott
Best Performing Mega Campaign: Beauty
L’Oréal CPD
Best Performing Mega Campaign: Electronics
Xiaomi
Best Performing Mega Campaign: Fashion & Lifestyle
Adidas
Best in Integrated Marketing
Procter & Gamble
Best in Always-on Marketing
Reckitt
Best Performing Enabler – Most Premium Certifications
Jet Commerce
Best Performing Enabler – Most Certifications
Intrepid
During the Brands Summit, Shopee revealed some of the new initiatives it has for brands this 2022 which include strengthening its premium platform, Shopee Premium, for luxury brands via launching four new Shopee Premium regional campaigns this year. Shopee also shared, among others, that it will be launching a new sampling channel to help brands in the FMCG, Beauty and Toys, Kids, and Babies categories attract new shoppers.
Malaysia – Media investment agency GroupM has held its third annual ad marketing conference in Malaysia, SourceCode, which brought in key leaders and brand decision-makers from top-value brands such as Unilever, Fonterra, Coca-Cola, and Oppo to discuss current trends and phenomena that are currently shaping the future of marketing.
Held virtually in November 2021, SourceCode was joined by key leaders from GroupM’s agencies such as Mindshare, MediaCom, and Xaxis as well as representatives from Unruly, Metamorfosa, and DoubleVerify for a series of roundtables where key main three themes of discussion emerged – the future of e-commerce, the role of talent in building a diverse workplace, and the stronger call for leadership responsibility in the fast-evolving market ecosystem.
During the event, the fresh concept of ‘E-joy’ was discussed, which refers to the wonderful feeling derived from the perks of e-commerce – its convenience, versatility, and the bouquet of brands and offerings such as online-only promotions and attractive bundles.
“The number of hours spent in a week by a highly engaged audience looking to discover and purchase, means e-commerce is all set to win, especially with the advent of online marketplaces,” said Tejas Kirodiwal, head of growth at Zalora, at SourceCode.
Moving forward, leaders agree that the future of e-commerce is ‘entertainment commerce’.
Another topic in focus at SourceCode is the issue of ‘The Great Resignation’ and how technology can help cultivate teams of the future that are inclusive and diversified.
“We need to see talents as our invested business partners. Therefore, they have to be managed using technology, the same way we manage our marketing investments,” said Rashi Kalucha, regional HR lead business partner for APAC at GroupM.
In the event, an open call was made to HR practitioners to better leverage technology to “track, measure, learn from and create solutions” that will boost employee retention and enhance their overall welfare.
Lastly, participants agreed at the conference that marketers need to assume leadership responsibility in resolving pertinent issues related to sustainability, brand safety, data privacy, as well as ensuring greater transparency across the value chain.
Senior representatives from Malaysia Airlines, Astro Radio, Rocketfuel Entertainment, GroupM, and Volvo Cars reached the consensus that as important as the crafted message is, marketers also need to carefully consider the consequence and impact on the receiver.
‘Responsibility’ was brought up frequently when it came to marketing in a multidimensional world that involved virtual reality, non-fungible tokens, cryptocurrency and decentralized finance that places the power back into the hands of the end-users, the creators, and the consumers.
Vishal Jacob, chief digital officer at Wavemaker India, commented, “Publishers and platforms are now more focused than ever in creating unique hybrid online experiences for consumers that focus on activating first-party data. Delivering high-engagement value exchanges has never been more critical [when navigating in a] metaverse. Brands [need to] figure out what works and what doesn’t in the virtual world – it is an open invitation to experiment – for brands to be brave.”
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