Tag: IPG Mediabrands

Sydney, Australia – IPG Mediabrands’ media intelligence and investment division MAGNA has appointed Lucy Formosa Morgan as its new managing director in Australia. The appointment took effect on 26 June, replacing previous managing director Nick Durrant.

Morgan brings more than 20 years’ international and local experience to Magna, previously holding senior management roles both agency and publisher-side, in Australia and the UK. 

Most recently, she was with NOVA Entertainment as commercial operations director. Prior to that, she was with PHD for more than decade where she joined as national managing director and chief investment officer, while also leading several of PHD’s specialist business units, driving growth year-on-year.

Speaking on her appointment, Morgan said, “MAGNA has clear opportunities to continue to evolve its investment product, taking full advantage of the ongoing dramatic shifts in consumer behaviour that we have seen over the past 2 years. I am delighted to join such a highly experienced and passionate team. Together we will continue to challenge how we execute our media with particular emphasis on digital, data and tech capabilities in the market so we can harness our creative thinking to accelerate returns for our clients.”

A passionate advocate for climate change and leading the charge for gender diversity across the Australian media industry, Morgan also mentors a number of senior women executives and is focused on increasing women in executive management roles.

Meanwhile, Mark Coad, CEO at Mediabrands Australia said he was delighted Lucy will be leading Magna’s Australian team as she is an inspiring leader with a track record of creating brilliant work that drives client success; and he was really looking forward to seeing her make an impact in the business.

“Lucy is a well experienced and highly capable executive. We have worked together in several roles over the years – so I know exactly what she will bring and the difference she will make. She is extremely highly regarded across the industry and by our media partners, and will bring all of that to bear as she takes on the leadership of Magna. She will also make a valued contribution to the overall Mediabrands business as she takes a place on our executive leadership team,” Coad said.

He added, “This role is not just about how we lead our Group’s negotiations and investment – but how we work with our media partners to execute the digital, data and tech capabilities in market…how we splice together our ability to build audiences with our media partners ability to deliver them and connect them to the brands we represent.”

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia — The Malaysian arm of insurance company AIA has launched a festive Chinese New Year (CNY) short film that centres on adventure and family and echoes AIA’s slogan of ‘Healthier, Longer, Better Lives’. The campaign was done in collaboration with Reprise Digital, a full-service integrated communications agency, and IPG Mediabrands network.

The film titled ‘Journey to the WoW’ sees a father narrating a bedtime story to his son on the eve of CNY. The tale centres around 3 travellers, each character representing a specific value that is integral to the World of Wealth – Ah Fook represents Plan Well; Ah Lok represents Protect Well, and Ah Sau signifies Live Well. The activity becomes a way for the father and son to bond and share valuable life lessons.

Amir Faiz, group creative director of Reprise, said that the film was inspired through the imagination of what living a ‘Healthier, Longer and Better Life’ means. He added that health in its simplest form is an abundance of anything we find valuable.

“Yes, this could mean money, but we wanted to show that more than anything else, wealth is a way of life. The modern way of life is sometimes misinterpreted as being hedonistic. By showing these ideas of wealth through classic folklore, it links to values most people hold dear to them that allow them to live their best life. We hope these insights from the World of Wealth bring about a ‘wow’ CNY for all Malaysians in the lunar new year ahead,” Faiz said.

World of Wealth, abbreviated WoW, is AIA Malaysia’s latest take on its ongoing communications to inspire and encourage people to live not just healthier and longer but to have a better life as well. The campaign also forms part of the insurer’s new Total Wealth Solution proposition which supports people to plan well, live well and protect well.

Heng Zee Wang, chief marketing officer of AIA Malaysia, commented, “One important message we wanted to bring forth to Malaysians this CNY is that being healthy physically, mentally and financially are all key to attaining true wealth. As the moral of the story goes, when you plan, live and protect well, you will be able to get the most out of life for yourself and your loved ones. The Reprise team have again been able to conceptualise these values of living a ‘Healthier, Longer, Better Life’, in an engaging and culturally relevant way, through the World of Wealth. Wealth at the end of the day is a journey, and we want you to live your WoW life with AIA by your side.”

Sydney, Australia – IPG Mediabrands, the media and marketing solutions group of IPG, has signed an agreement with audience measurement company Amplified Intelligence to help fuel Mediabrands’ IPG IQCPM tool, which allows clients the opportunity to optimize their media selections based on the value of the attention their media is generating rather than just the cost of an ‘eyeball’ or view. Said agreement takes effect immediately.

Mediabrands’ proprietary tool allows clients to move away from evaluating media on the price of impacts and focus on the value of the attention that the channel is bringing. Meanwhile, Amplified Intelligence’s attentionTRACE, an attention measurement platform, measures media impact across YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tiktok, TV and the open web in an expanding list of markets globally, including Australia.

This is Amplified Intelligence’s first API agreement with an Australian media agency offering deep cross-platform attention data directly into their tooling. 

Mark Coad, CEO at Mediabrands, said, “We are thrilled to be the first Australian media agency to partner with Amplified Intelligence on an API as we seek more ways to build on our market leading approach to finding and defining value for our clients. It’s what we are about and how we continue to generate success for our partners and clients.”

Meanwhile, Nick Durrant, managing director of MAGNA, commented that this agreement is viewed as an important step in their movement away from the trading of impacts towards trading outcomes for our clients. He added that at their agency, they believe that value can be measured in many different ways, and that they have, therefore, created a suite of tools and value metrics to enable clients to focus on what is really valuable to their business.

“Now we can offer more. If a client values attention we will use new tools, powered by Amplified Intelligence, to value media based on this metric. We are also developing sustainability metrics to allow us to optimise plans based on their environmental impact. These tools allow us to optimize our clients’ media investment to the areas they truly find valuable,” Durrant said.

He added, “Attention is a precise and successful way to measure human interaction with media which makes it a powerful predictor of brand choice and a powerful tool for reducing waste. This enables us to optimise far more accurately to the outcomes our clients are trying to achieve.”

Karen Nelson Field, CEO and founder, Amplified Intelligence, stated, “With attention metrics Mediabrands will be able to demonstrate to their clients what we have known for a long time – the amount of attention a platform or format generates is consistently linked to various business uplifts.”

She added, “Attention measurement is vital to the future of planning and trading, and we are changing how the advertising industry thinks about the effectiveness of their media investments. The attention economy is here and we are excited to be working with Mediabrands at the forefront.”

Shanghai, China – Interpublic Group’s media and marketing solutions division IPG Mediabrands has recently appointed Kestrel Lee as the head of Mediabrands Content Studio (MBCS) in China, effective immediately.

Lee, who has over 20 years of industry experience, is a well-known creative expert across all facets of integrated digital marketing including e-commerce and social media. He will be responsible for setting a creative vision and building an innovative, content-forward culture for clients across all platforms and formats in China.

He first entered the industry as an English-Chinese copywriter at advertising agencies including Saatchi & Saatchi, BBH, and Y&R; and then built his industry credentials working across digital-led integrated agencies such as Arc Worldwide/Leo Burnett, FCBi, TBWA/Tequila, Sapient, and ZENO/Edelman.

He will be reporting to Chris Chen, CEO of Mediabrands China.

“I am thrilled to have Kestrel join us to champion our content proposition as part of our global MediabrandsContent Studio capabilities. With his award-winning track record, creative passion, and in-depth understanding of how content is consumed in China, I truly believe Kestrel will accelerate our business growth through content,” Chen stated.

MBCS was first launched in 2020 by Brendan Gaul, global chief content officer at Mediabrands, and aims to grow the content capabilities within Mediabrands agencies: UM, Initiative, Reprise, Rapport, MAGNA, and Orion; around the world.

Singapore – The shift in shopping behavior among Asia-Pacific (APAC) consumers has been fixed in three factors: preference to online shopping, frequency of promotions, as well as convenience, new research from Reprise shows.

According to their report, regular ‘a few times a month’ online shoppers are now outpacing their offline counterparts by 42% vs 31%. Those who shop online ‘once every few months’ leapfrog offline shoppers by 66%. 

Meanwhile, promotions and sales are the best way to engage SEA markets, as 61% wait to shop online during the big sales days, vs the 39% ‘anytime’ shoppers. 

Lastly, convenience is the e-commerce ‘trump card’, with the reasonings of being ‘time-saving’ and ‘finding best prices’ are perceived as the two biggest advantages by 76% and 65% of online shoppers. 

“We have seen unprecedented growth in e-commerce in the last 12 months. Many markets in APAC have leapfrogged as much as 5 times, already meeting projections for 2025. This e-commerce acceleration is partly led by platforms that have fast-forwarded their interface roadmaps and advanced their technology. This, along with audience targeting via in-platform ads have played a significant role,” said Ritika Gupta, e-commerce director at Reprise APAC.

Despite pandemic restrictions, consumers’ desire to look and feel good weren’t dampened; as the top 3 most shopped categories online in APAC over the last six months were; clothing and apparel (67%), health and beauty (47%), and consumer electronics (40%). 

However, the shipping fee is the biggest ‘turn-off’ for shoppers. The top 3 perceived barriers to online shopping are ‘shipping fee’ (57%), ‘shipping time’ (55%), and the inability to ‘touch and feel’ products before purchasing (48%). Hence, good reviews go a long way, as the top 3 shopper motivators when purchasing online are ‘good reviews’, ‘promotion/sale,’ and ‘good star ratings’ as voted by 60%, 54% and 50% of online shoppers respectively. 

In terms of advertising relation to e-commerce, online ads are the key driver to engage new buyers. 1 in 2 online shoppers look to online ads for discovering new brands and products when purchasing online. In addition, social media is king, as it is now the top point of research for 42% of APAC shoppers.

“As e-commerce continues to blur the lines between international borders, it’s now more imperative than ever for brands to tailor their marketing strategy to the locality of the region and markets that it serves. It is time to re-think e-commerce as a one-stop-shop, an e-business and a data haven. And perhaps time to re-evaluate the function and value of brick and mortar retail as an experiential step in the e-commerce path to purchase,” the report stated.

The e-commerce economy in Southeast Asia: growth and challenges

Starting off with Indonesia, with being a promising e-commerce market in APAC with a very cluttered landscape encompassing several local and global players; marketplaces are the main online shopping destination for Indonesians. 73% of online shoppers prefer marketplaces to brands’ websites for making online purchases. Despite having tremendous competition, certain marketplaces have stood out as the preferred shopping destinations for Indonesians. Currently, the international marketplace, Shopee, shows the most success in terms of product discovery as 86% of online shoppers engage with a new brand on that platform, followed by 71% on Tokopedia.

Meanwhile, shoppers in Thailand began spending more time on social media platforms, making the country the only market in SEA where 62% of online shoppers prefer to research brands and products on social media. Millennials seek the convenience of returns when shopping online. However, across generations it is the cheaper prices found online that drive shoppers in Thailand to participate in e-commerce.

In Malaysia, product information is emphasized by 46% of online shoppers for making a purchase decision. Optimizing product content on marketplaces has become critical for brands to stand out in the cluttered environment. In addition, Every 1 in 2 Malaysians do their product research online using social media platforms and almost 40% of the online shoppers also refer to online search portals for the same. Shopee deems to be a clear winner in terms of marketplace platform of choice, 92% of online shoppers have used Shopee to discover new brands in last 12 months.

Coming to the Singaporean market, Singaporeans not only shop locally but are avid international shoppers, making convenience the primary purchase trigger for 73% of online shoppers. They are also very price-oriented with 63% of Singaporean shoppers choosing to buy online to access better promotions and discounts. 

The report notes as well that one peculiarity among Singapore shoppers is that 52% access brand websites to gather more information before making a purchase decision. This is almost 50% higher than other markets in SEA. With new restrictions coming in every few weeks, it is understandable that the best performing categories are groceries, restaurant and food delivery services in addition to work from home-focused products including monitors, webcams, and even home office furniture.

In terms of the Vietnamese market, 41% of shoppers in Vietnam shop online a few times a week, compared to 36% who buy online a few times a month. Vietnamese online shoppers spend a large amount of time on the internet, when it comes to researching about new brands or products, 65% shoppers rely on social media and 45% refer to brand websites.

Lastly, the Philippines is one market that has not kept up with the e-commerce growth momentum compared to neighboring countries in SEA. Poor internet connectivity, largely unbanked population and its unique geography all lead to a slower e-commerce growth. Filipinos are less brand loyal and highly price sensitive. Two out of three Philippine shoppers will try new brands they find online, and 57% online shoppers also wait for products to go on promotion or discount before hitting the payment button. 

“The growth we’ve seen from e-commerce in the last 12 months is not unexpected, the impact of COVID has merely accelerated an already apparent trend. This acceleration provides a strong opportunity for brands to engage with consumers in a different way – consumers have proven that they are more open to engage with new brands and products in an e-commerce environment, and brands who recognize this and adjust their digital strategy accordingly – will reap the rewards,” said Pippa Berlocher, president at Reprise APAC.