Tag: Live commerce

Indonesia – AnyMind Group has teamed up with Digital Distribusi Indonesia (DDI), an Indonesia-based e-commerce enabler acquired by AnyMind in 2023, to bring advanced live commerce solutions to PT Wajah Rejuvenasi Perempuan Indonesia (WRP), Rohto Indonesia, and Kobayashi Indonesia.

This partnership allows enterprises to leverage the combined strengths of DDI’s operational expertise and AnyMind Group’s technology, enabling them to capitalise on Indonesia’s booming online shopping market.

Through DDI, each brand gains access to services including live commerce planning, production studios, and human livestream hosts, delivering high-quality live shopping experiences. 

The partnership comes as live commerce rapidly emerges as a preferred strategy in Indonesia, with consumers increasingly turning to live shopping platforms for a more interactive and direct shopping experience.

“Consumers today want more than just online shopping. They seek a direct, interactive, and enjoyable shopping experience. This is why live commerce has become the future of online shopping in Indonesia, and we at DDI are ready to facilitate this by offering the best technology and services to help our partners increase sales,” said Tatum Kembara, managing director of e-commerce enablement at AnyMind Group.

Since integrating with AnyMind in September 2023, DDI has collaborated with leading brands in Indonesia and globally to expand consumer reach via e-commerce marketplaces and live commerce, leveraging combined operational expertise and technology.

AnyMind also recently launched AnyLive, a GenAI-powered platform that enables brands to harness 24/7 live commerce through AI avatars, which complement human hosts by streaming during off-peak hours.

Singapore – AnyMind Group, a BPaaS company for marketing, e-commerce, and digital transformation, has introduced AnyLive, a generative AI-powered live commerce platform that transforms how businesses connect with customers. By leveraging AI-generated virtual live streamers, AnyLive enables businesses to conduct live commerce seamlessly in multiple languages, breaking free from the constraints of time and location.

E-commerce in APAC is thriving, but successfully navigating the region’s diverse languages, cultures, and regulations remains critical for cross-border growth. Social commerce is expected to see double-digit growth in 2024, with 68% of Southeast Asian retailers planning increased investment. While live commerce is gaining momentum on platforms like TikTok, Shopee, and Lazada, challenges such as talent shortages and limited production spaces continue to hinder progress.

AnyMind sought to address these challenges with the launch of AnyLive. The live commerce platform automates and enhances traditional live commerce processes through AI, enabling businesses to capitalise on the growing trend of live commerce while overcoming cross-border expansion obstacles.

AnyLive harnesses generative AI to create virtual live streamers that mirror a brand’s identity. These AI-powered avatars can stream continuously, showcasing products and driving sales in multiple languages, including English, Chinese, Bahasa Indonesia, Thai, Bahasa Malaysia, Vietnamese, and Tagalog, with additional languages in development.

Moreover, AnyLive utilises large-language models to automatically create live-stream scripts based on product information and deliver real-time responses during broadcasts. The platform seamlessly integrates with major e-commerce and social media platforms, including Amazon, Shopee, Lazada, AliExpress, TikTok Shop, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and X, enabling brands to expand their reach by streaming simultaneously across multiple channels.

To enhance business support, AnyMind Group is also assembling expert teams to offer operational assistance, including data-driven analysis of viewership, comments, and sales, helping brands optimise their live streams. Additionally, brands can leverage AnyMind’s influencer marketing platform, AnyTag, which boasts a database of over 790,000 influencers, to collaborate with human live streamers and boost engagement during peak times.

Speaking on the launch, Kosuke Sogo, CEO and co-founder of AnyMind Group, said, “Southeast Asia’s e-commerce market presents a tremendous growth opportunity, not just for local brands but also for companies around the world. With the launch of AnyLive, we aim to offer an innovative approach to social commerce and digital marketing. By leveraging our advanced technology and the expertise of our teams across Southeast Asia, East Asia, India, and the Middle East, we are committed to helping businesses establish a competitive edge in this dynamic market.”

Early adopters of AnyLive, including Evian and SUNA, have seen impressive results. Sino-Pacific Trading (Thailand) Co., Ltd. reduced Evian’s live commerce costs by 90% while boosting monthly streaming hours. Additionally, GenAI streamers outperformed human streamers in GMV. NIL CO., Ltd. improved SUNA’s sales in Thailand and Malaysia, gaining valuable insights into viewer behaviour and planning to combine AI and human streamers for an enhanced strategy.

Singapore – IPG Mediabrands has announced strategic partnership between IPG Mediabrands Commerce and Stickler, a live commerce enablement technology provider, to produce a flexible end-to-end live commerce solution for brands across the Asia-Pacific region.

The IPG Mediabrands Commerce and Stickler live commerce solution will be launched and available to brands across 15 Asia-Pacific countries this year.

The bespoke solution which offers ‘Live Commerce as a Service’, allows brands to plug into a suite of software and service components to empower their own existing e-commerce operating framework, in addition to the ability to ‘plug and play’ any part of the live commerce stack with a complete end-to-end solution.

Moreover, the partnership between IPG Mediabrands Commerce and Stickler builds out scalable solutions for brands to establish themselves in live commerce, and create sustainable advantage by owning a greater portion of consumer spend in this emerging channel.

Leigh Terry, CEO at IPG Mediabrands, said, “With live commerce now accounting for 30% of ecommerce in China, and 15% globally, platforms across the region are taking note. Many brands understand that Live Commerce is imperative, and want to address the huge growth opportunity, but don’t feel quite ready to embrace the channel. Our unique approach with Stickler is less about trying to be full service, and more focused on giving brands what they need, whether this be full end-to-end or simply fill-in-the-gaps.”

He added, “We have combined software development and service structure to provide Live Commerce as a Service; this is an exciting evolution in our Commerce practice and an important offering for brands across the region.”

Meanwhile, Fionn Hyndman, founder at Stickler, commented, “IPG Mediabrands Commerce expertise combined with their specialised partner technology allows the scale and flexibility for marketers to optimise Live Commerce, regardless of their current structure. What we are building together is a future model, for the most significant growth channel I’ve seen in the last 10 years. We are solely focused on delivering results within our clients operating framework through Live Commerce. Our aim is to empower and enable them to achieve success.”

Sydney, Australia – International brand management business Access Brand Co. has announced the launch of its live commerce sales platform with an initial focus in the Asia-Pacific region. The platform is designed to raise brand awareness and drive sales of the company’s portfolio of premium health and wellness products.

This is done by providing top-tier independent influencers with unique brand experiences, combined with an introduction to the iconic Australian lifestyle. The portfolio includes cellular health specialist Science, Research, Wellness (SRW), plant-based nutrition brand eimele, iconic cosmetics company Napoleon Perdis and the global leader in ingestible collagen, Vida Glow, among other leading beauty, health and wellness brands.

The platform has first signed in Nicole Chenyn, a leading Chinese Influencer with a combined social reach of over 1.9 million followers across platforms like TikTok, Douyin, Insta, Facebook and WeChat. The influencer’s initial content sees her being immersed in a range of creative brand experiences in Sydney over five days.

For Livia Wang, chief brand officer at Access Brand Co., the launch of the platform is the next step in the diversification of their retail channels, adding that partnering with influencers like Chenyn enables them to raise awareness of their brands and products in a way that is curated specifically for their particular audience of video shoppers.

“We’ve been impressed by the way that Nicole and her team have worked creatively to build engagement for our brands while keeping the style of her content consistent and authentic. Significantly, she sold over $327,466 AUD of our hero products during her latest live commerce event. With live commerce, you can throw away the rule book on social media and brand marketing, because everything pivots towards what works for that one distinct ultra influencer and their community within a real time context. Working with celebrity streamers, it’s the influencer who is in charge, not the brand managers,” she explained.

She added, “Our role is to facilitate a VIP Australian experience and support their interpretation of our brand stories. Each celebrity streamer will have a very different way of approaching our products and brands, so there’s a natural variation in the direction and style of the resulting content. Live commerce is an amazing and powerful new sales platform, and we are integrating it within our sales and marketing strategy.”

Meanwhile, Amelia Hu, celebrity streamers program manager, commented, “Celebrity streamers is like the Top Gun of live commerce, the best of the best. We are actively looking to build our platform and want to work with the top tier of international Influencers and KOLs. Our wish list includes sizable and engaged communities, live sales credentials, good English language skills, creativity and a strong personal alignment with premium wellness as a category. As online retail merges with live streaming to create live commerce, credibility and authenticity is still at the heart of brand success.”

Singapore – Top e-commerce platform in Indonesia, iStyle.id, which offers a wide range of products in Korean beauty, fashion, and lifestyle, has partnered with Singapore-based live commerce and shoppable short video solutions provider BeLive Technology. 

BeLive Technology’s platform for iStyle.id will enable the latter to activate the continuously growing channel of live commerce, allowing its users to buy products through said means which includes shoppable video content and interactive features. Meanwhile, the latest collaboration marks BeLive Technology’s further expansion across Asia as well as the opportunity to advance Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) channels.

The new capabilities by iStyle.id aim to maximise the interaction with customers and deliver an engaging shopping experience. According to BeLive, since the platform launched, iStyle.id has seen an average 250 per cent increase in the company’s month-on-month live sales.

Steven Calvin Victory, CEO of iStyle.id, commented, “iStyle.id’s journey with BeLive Technology in the past year has had a good impact on the company’s growth as [an] e-commerce in Korean beauty, fashion, and lifestyle. In the future, iStyle.id will add more than 500 various products and we hope that with [BeLive Technology,] we can improve our strategic campaign to provide the best live shopping for our consumers.”

Meanwhile, Kenneth Tan, CEO and Co-founder of BeLive Technology, believes that the partnership with iStyle.id will trailblaze live shopping adoption in Indonesia, which is one of Southeast Asia’s leading Direct-to-Consumers economies. 

“iStyle.id has been very innovative and transformed itself to be a market leader in the field of live commerce and shoppable short videos. We are happy to be able to support them in their digital transformation journey,” Tan said.

iStyle.id’s live commerce and short-video features are available on both its web and mobile apps. 

Philippines – Gushcloud International, a global technology-driven digital talent and media company, has launched its new live commerce unit GC LIVE, which operates premium live commerce shows distributing global brands into SEA. This launch comes after Gushcloud’s move to further establish itself as a global business.

GC LIVE operates premium Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) production with top influencers. Open Broadcaster Software is an open-source streaming software for mixing and producing live video content. Powered by this technology, GC LIVE aims to provide and create high-definition live streaming shows all over Southeast Asia. 

To lead the live commerce division, Gushcloud has appointed Mary Shynne Santos, former head of Kumu Live, to be its new regional head of GC LIVE.

Santos believes that live commerce is the future and the GC LIVE team is ready to take on more global brands and content and localise it into the region. 

“GC LIVE produced ‘Reel K-Hauls with Jessica Lee’, the first-ever cross-border show for Lazada PH and I’d say we started off with a bang! I believe that teamwork is the key to every successful project and the team definitely showed that. The show ran for 3 months and we hit our targets and all items were sold out,” said Santos.

Meanwhile, Felice Olondriz, Gushcloud’s head of talents for the Philippines, said, “The launch of GC Live would definitely open doors for our talents and GCPH. Our team is excited to roll out live commerce executions that utilise our roster talents. This is not just a new revenue stream that we’re excited to have, but more importantly, an avenue for talent growth and multifaceted upskilling.”

Jamie Paraso, Gushcloud’s country director for the Philippines, noted, “The roll-out of GC Live is only the beginning and will open opportunities for the whole ecosystem that we look to grow and thrive, especially here in the Philippines. I look forward to the future shows that our Live Team, led by Shynne, will be able to produce.”

Philippines – Amid the rise in adoption of live commerce both from brands and consumers, the Philippines ’ first livestream shopping network, Shoppertainment Live, opens seven diverse and fully functional studio sets which it calls ‘Livestyle’ studios to bolster its virtual activation.

The ‘Livestyle’ studios will be catering to different categories of fashion and beauty, with kitchen studios for cooking and home appliances, lifestyle studios for talk shows and homecare, as well as technology studios for mobile and gadgets, and music studios and recreation studios for entertainment.

Shoppertainment
The kitchen ‘Livestyle’ studio

Shopepertainment CEO Hiyasmin Neri-Soyao, who was a former host of local shopping channel O Shopping, shared that the types of the studios were based on the product categories they have identified to be on the rise and in demand. 

Shoppertainment is a tech-enabled network for e-commerce and social media, enabling advertising agencies, companies, and e-commerce platforms Lazada and Shopee to properly sell their products in an online broadcast setup. These are produced at the said studios inside their Quezon City headquarters, with in-house presenters from their talent pool.

“With more studios, we expect more action for the market. The team’s confidence stems from handling the smallest local businesses to the biggest global brands as part of our roster of clients. Shoppertainment Live’s strength is making products sellable, handling diverse products such as cosmetics, clothing, electronics, and everything in between,” Neri-Soyao said.

The live e-commerce network has also launched a new incubation program for livestream presenters through its Shoppertainment Academy. The Academy is a company initiative that aims to educate and equip Shoppertainment Live presenters with skills to be sale-centric, entertaining, and engaging to the market.

Grooming the next generation of marketers, which it uniquely calls ‘influensales’, is within the network’s goal to make its Livestyle activation effective in the virtual realm.

Neri-Soyao said, “Not all presenters can produce the same numbers for every lifestyle. That is why Shoppertainment Live brought together a diverse group of presenters whom we trained to do Influensales™ as opposed to simply producing buzz and engagement for the brand. This follows the company’s philosophy wherein we believe that content is king but they like it better when the cash register rings.” 

Along with new developments, the company has also revealed that it eyes to spread its roots nationally and to also expand internationally. The company aims to install regional offices in three years’ time to open up the opportunity for regional speakers to sell in their own language. 

Internationally, the network is also working on its Southeast Asia and global expansion plans, citing the potential of Filipino livestream presenters because of their strong communication skills and infectious enthusiasm. 

Manila, Philippines – The popularity of ‘Hallyu’, or the Korean Wave, has deeply taken Filipino fans by storm today, and with this, influencer marketing agency, Gushcloud, has recently partnered with e-commerce platform Lazada in the Philippines, to launch a new LazLive show titled, ‘Reel K-Hauls’.

Jessica Lee, which is a talent of Gushcloud, will be hosting the series. She is a content creator that has over 600,000 subscribers on YouTube and 73,000 followers on Instagram.

Reel K-Hauls aims to ride on the hallyu wave, showcasing popular Korean brand products and the beauty of Seoul, South Korea. With weekly themes highlighting Korean beauty and Korean cuisine, the LazLive series seeks to be the gateway for Filipinos to shop and see the city from the comforts of their homes. The show is set to run for 12 weeks, every Friday from 5:30 pm to 6:30 pm PHT on LazLive.

Shynne Santos, the regional operations head of live commerce at Gushcloud, noted that as people are now embracing the new platform of selling, which promotes live streaming here in the Philippines, the agency is helping to connect with the needs of the people who are working and staying at home and the brands.

“With more than 14,000 views and it being the pilot episode of Gushcloud’s Live commerce Project, it is safe to say that this weekly LazLive, featuring our very own Jessica Lee, will be a hit to the Filipinos,” said Santos.

Meanwhile, Andrew Lim, Gushcloud’s country director for Korea, commented, “We are truly excited to be pushing the cross-border envelope from Korea to the Philippines by partnering with the Lazada Philippines team. We hold strong conviction in live commerce as a cross-border sales and marketing tool, and will continue to invest in this emerging business.”

Jamie Paraso, Gushcloud’s country director for the Philippines, said that over the years, they have seen how Filipinos have ridden the Hallyu wave, making this a very strategic partnership with Lazada. 

“Leveraging on our globality as a firm, we are now able to bring viewers from the Philippines to Seoul virtually through Reel K-Hauls with Jessica Lee. Alongside this strategic approach is Gushcloud’s promise to enrich our talents’ versatility in the digital space,” said Paraso.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Dentsu Malaysia and live video commerce enabler Nuffnang Live Commerce has forged a new partnership that will integrate the two firms’ capabilities to drive marketing solutions for brands on live commerce.

Nuffnang Live Commerce is a subsidiary under Netccentric Limited, an investment holding company for media platforms. As part of dentsu’s ‘Total Commerce’ solutions for brands, the partnership brings onboard live video commerce service offering which will enable advertisers to strengthen their e-commerce strategy and drive traffic to their brands’ social pages, create better engagements with brand influencers, and drive on-the-spot sales.

Live commerce is the latest innovation in online commerce today, which aims to bring newer experiences for consumers. E-commerce platforms and brands have caught on the trend of livestream e-commerce which had started in China, and Asia’s Shopee and Lazada now have it well-placed in their marketplaces. Said consumer trend promises further branded content, live influencer engagement, and also real-time conversion.

Dentsu Malaysia said that its Total Commerce ambition is to integrate all the strategic and operational capabilities and ecosystem enablers of what makes a robust and holistic commerce solution, whether through proprietary online stores, marketplaces, social channels, or physical stores in Malaysia, to bring to life the best online shopping experiences for customers.

Jing Wen Foo, who was just recently appointed as dentsu malaysia’s e-commerce director, said, “With the rise of livestreaming as a new conversion channel for commerce and consistent growth in share of sale of social commerce, there is a strong use case for us to strengthen dentsu’s Total Commerce capability around live commerce to empower brands to leverage this trend beyond the packaged offers available in [the] market to accelerate their e-commerce growth.”

Meanwhile, Ganesh Kumar Bangah, executive chairman of Netccentric Limited, described live commerce as the ‘secret sauce’ for brands to succeed online.

“The formula for online success is for brands and businesses to sell products on these platforms through live commerce, a trend that has and continues to accelerate due to the pandemic. Live commerce is a proven effective way to sell and it’s for everybody and not just the big brands,” said Bangah.

Dheeraj Raina, CEO of Media for dentsu malaysia, adds, “E-commerce platforms are a dominant media touchpoint and immensely mainstream now. But consumers are constantly driving a change in the way they shop on e-commerce platforms and for us to be able to anticipate that change and help brands win on it, is a critical part of our commitment to the growth of our clients’ business. With this addition of Live Commerce partnership powered by our proprietary Total commerce products, we should be able to unlock the ease of adoption of this new channel and bring brands closer to consumers in a humanized form.”

This integration is already being rolled out across clients from FMCG, health and beauty, and consumer electronics categories.