Macau Archives - MARKETECH APAC

Hong Kong – AS Watson Group has announced the appointment of Freda Ng as the managing director of PARKnSHOP for Hong Kong and Macau, succeeding Norman Yum who has made the decision to retire and will be appointed as business advisor.

Ng joined AS Watson Group (ASW) in 2010 in a business planning role, and joined PARKnSHOP as chief operating officer in 2023. Prior to her appointment in PARKnSHOP, she was the chief digital officer of Watsons International and the chief customer and digital officer of Watsons Hong Kong.

Looking ahead, as the managing director of PARKnSHOP, Ng will continue to build upon the strong business foundation and deliver a seamless shopping experience to the customers in the supermarket’s portfolio of nearly 260 O+O stores.

Dominic Lai, group managing director of AS Watson Group, commented, “Freda has been a valuable member of AS Watson for 14 years, excelling in various roles in business planning, customer experience, digital innovation and development. We’re very confident that Freda will lead PARKnSHOP in continuing the journey of transformation and take the business to new heights.”

He added, “I would like to express heartfelt gratitude to Norman for his dedicated service in PARKnSHOP. During his tenure, PARKnSHOP successfully launched its online business and built the O+O (Offline plus Online) platform model, expanding its customer reach and adapting to the evolving digital landscape. We would like to extend our appreciation to Norman for his unwavering dedication and outstanding leadership and wish him a fulfilling retirement.”

Hong Kong – Multinational insurance company Manulife in Hong Kong has announced new members of its leadership team namely Thaddeus Yu as chief strategy officer and Alice Li as chief communications officer. Together, the executives will report directly to Patrick Graham, chief executive officer of Manulife Hong Kong and Macau.

Yu succeeds Carrie Tong, who was recently appointed as chief operations officer for Hong Kong and Macau.

In his new role, Yu is responsible for setting the overall strategic priorities of the Hong Kong and Macau business, ensuring prudent choices, and executing plans aligned with the company’s priorities. He is also in charge of assessing necessary and effective changes to the company’s business model to ensure the company stays on course in achieving its strategic objectives.

With over 15 years of experience in various local and regional positions at Cigna, AIA, and Bank of Montreal Insurance, Yu joined Manulife’s Asia strategy team in 2021. During his time in his previous position, he led strategy development, spearheaded critical business initiatives, and provided guidance on strategic projects while also managing the Asia CEO office.

Meanwhile, Li’s responsibilities include leading strategy development for external and internal communication goals, building corporate reputation and a culture of pride, and promoting the company’s global Impact Agenda, aligned with Manulife’s global communications team and strategy.

With more than two decades of experience in corporate and marketing communications, Li is a seasoned professional who joined Manulife in 2020. Since then, she has made significant strides in the company’s communication strategy and impact. Prior to Manulife, her career spanned diverse industries, including energy, telecommunications, IT, and insurance, as she held senior positions with global brands such as Shell, SmarTone-Vodafone, Microsoft, and AXA.

Speaking on the new appointments, Graham said, “With their extensive knowledge of our company’s strategic priorities and their functional expertise, I am confident that the talented new members of our senior management team will be pivotal in driving us towards achieving our ambitions in Hong Kong, Macau and the broader GBA markets as we embark on the next phase of our growth agenda. Their appointments also highlight our ongoing commitment to harnessing top talent through an active leadership development pipeline.”

Singapore – As travel restrictions come to an end, Singapore-based creative design agency Sniper Digital was recently engaged by a Macau destination company to craft a campaign that would help bring back the excitement of Hong Kong residents to visit Macau again and experience its iconic landmarks and rich culture.

The campaign titled ‘Ola Hong Kong, Macau Awaits You’ showcases the unique cultural offerings and attractions in Macau whilst emphasizing its close relationship and shared history with Hong Kong.

Moreover, the campaign materials, associated with eye-catching vibrant colours, bold typography, and illustrations, featured Macau’s iconic landmarks such as Our Lady of Carmel Church and Taipa Village’s traditional shophouses, as well as the gastronomy, art, culture and lifestyle experiences.

https://youtu.be/hVINRDzWwCg

To further entice the tourist, this campaign comes with promos including incentives and rewards, such as instant dining, shopping and lifestyle privileges and chances to enter a lucky draw to win a free night of luxury accommodation for their next visit.

According to the agency, the campaign was embraced by both Hong Kong residents and wider travel industry. Majority of audiences shared their enthusiastic responses, with most commenting on the campaign’s effective and modern approach that helped to differentiate Macau from other nearby travel destinations.

Sniper Digital is a newly opened creative design agency in Singapore that specialises in branding, graphic design, print media and digital marketing.

Hong Kong – Global insurance company Manulife has appointed Patrick Graham as its new chief executive officer for Hong Kong and Macau. In his new role, Graham will become a member of Manulife’s Asia Division Executive Committee and Global Leadership Team, and will report directly to Damien Green, president and CEO of Manulife Asia.

Graham will assume his new role on January 1, 2023, subject to regulatory approval. An insurance leader with a track record of delivering results at scale, both regionally and in multiple geographies across Asia, he will bring to Manulife Hong Kong and Macau more than 25 years of leadership experience in the insurance and financial services industry.

He joins Manulife from healthcare and insurance company Cigna, where he covered eight markets including Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea and Singapore in various senior leadership positions over the last decade with his most recent role as CEO, Asia Pacific.

Prior to joining Cigna, Graham spent 14 years at GE Capital, which was then the financial services arm of General Electric. For the past three years, he has also been director and treasurer of the US ASEAN Business Council.

Speaking on the appointment role, Green said, “As the longest continuously operating life insurer in the city, Hong Kong has always been Manulife’s most important market in Asia with huge contributions to the Group over the past 125 years. The appointment of Graham really highlights our commitment to Hong Kong and our ambitions in this region.”

He added, “With his outstanding leadership calibre and track record of delivering excellent results, Graham will lead our Manulife Hong Kong and Macau team to take our business to new heights and serve the health, protection, retirement and financial needs of the one in every three Hongkongers who are our customers. I am excited that he is joining our winning team.”

Following the new appointment, Pankaj Banerjee, who since late May has held dual roles as interim CEO for Manulife International Limited and chief distribution officer for Manulife Asia, will revert full time as chief distribution officer at Manulife Asia in January 2023.

“Thanks to Pankaj’s stewardship of Manulife Hong Kong and Macau’s business which demonstrated further resilience in the past few months. His contribution to growing our business from strength to strength is immense. I look forward to having him back to his regional role to drive the expansion of our multi distribution channels across Asia,” Green commented.

Hong Kong – Insurance company Manulife in Hong Kong has elevated HyounJoo Choe, former regional head of customer experience and design at Manulife Asia, to be its new chief customer officer for Hong Kong and Macau.

As a member of the senior management team, Choe will now be leading all customer experience and strategic marketing functions including marketing, customer relationship management, advanced analytics, insights, and corporate communications. She will also play a pivotal role in driving Manulife Hong Kong’s branding and corporate social responsibility efforts.

In her previous role at Manulife Asia, Choe oversaw the CX transformation agenda, driving strong customer engagement and delivering strong results in the relationship and transactional CX scores. She also succeeded in leveraging human-centred design principles to drive CX excellence across various digital platforms.

Choe has more than 25 years of professional experience in the financial industry. Prior to joining Manulife, she was the head of digital at MetLife Korea, where she was instrumental in driving digital transformation and developing enterprise digital strategies. Before that, she also held various leadership roles at AIA Korea, including as head of strategy, head of direct marketing, and head of operations and technology.

Pankaj Banerjee, the interim CEO for Manulife Hong Kong and Macau, commented that they are thrilled with the appointment of Choe as their chief customer officer, as she has played a leading role in driving forward their customer experience agenda in Asia since joining Manulife in 2021.

“An outstanding and highly experienced leader in the industry, HyounJoo brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to our franchise expansion in Hong Kong and Macau. Her proven track record and leadership credentials will add tremendous value to our winning team as we continue our journey to help make customers’ lives better and decisions easier,” said Banerjee.

Manulife Hong Kong said that the appointment of Choe highlights its ongoing commitment to promoting talent who can leverage customer-centric and market-leading strategies to benefit the people of Hong Kong and Macau.

Just recently, Manulife Hong Kong launched a multichannel marketing campaign to highlight how to increase the chances of survival against critical illness. This aims to promote Manulife’s two new critical illness plans, namely ManuPrimo Care and ManuPrimo Care.

Hong Kong – Insurance provider FWD Insurance has announced their foray into launching their first-ever NFT collection. They were announced during the 2022 Step Change leadership conference, which brought together the company’s management to explore leadership qualities and inspire innovative thinking.

By firstly engaging internal teams on this NFT initiative, FWD aims to further enhance customer experiences with a diverse suite of engagement activities extended to the metaverse so that people can pursue their passions and live life to the fullest at anywhere, anytime.

The NFT collection is now available on the popular NFT marketplace OpenSea, although they are not for sale.

Paul Tse, chief marketing and digital officer of FWD Hong Kong and Macau, said, “FWD is a fast-growing, innovative and dynamic insurer. Leveraging digital technology and our teams’ commitment to pursuing creativity to stay ahead of the curve, we continue to enhance the customer experience and drive our goals.”

He added, “The virtual world is set to transform our lives in many ways, and we hope to discover new opportunities in the virtual space as we see this as a new and additional way to engage and interact with our customers. With a suite of fun and exciting online and offline initiatives in the pipeline, we’re committed to realise our brand promise to ‘celebrate living’ with the community in the metaverse.”

Hong Kong – Hong Kong-based beauty and personal care chain SaSa has announced in its latest financial results for the year 2020/2021 that it is expecting to close 15 to 20 stores throughout the year.

SaSa is only one of the many businesses that have shut down operations as a strategic move over pandemic-induced economic downturn. According to the company, the markets of the Hong Kong and Macau SARs dealt a severe blow to the group’s sales performance with the pandemic bringing tourism to a standstill.

Since the beginning of February 2020, the cumulative number of Mainland Chinese visitors in the Hong Kong SAR up to now has plunged to almost zero year on year, and due to social distancing initiatives imposed by the Hong Kong SAR government, local consumer sentiment has also been dampened.

SaSa’s brick-and-mortar stores are established in Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR, and Malaysia.

Overall, the group’s retail sales in the markets of the Hong Kong and Macau SARs dropped by 58.1% year on year, while its same-store sales decreased by 54.4% during the financial year. Meanwhile, in Malaysia, turnover decreased by 34.9% in the financial year.

Due to the movement control orders in Malaysia, the group’s stores were temporarily closed for nearly 100 days in total. As of 31 March 2021, the total number of SaSa’s retail stores in Hong Kong and Macau SARs was reduced from the peak of 118 two years ago to 100. Among closed stores in Hong Kong SAR, 80% were located in tourist districts.

With this, the company has expressed plans to leverage its online sales and deliver an enhanced customer experience by combining online with offline.

Compared to offline sales, the beauty retail chain’s online business had been looking up, rising by 45.4% to HK$501.3m accounting for 16.5% of the total turnover from the group’s continuing operations, up from 6% in the previous financial year.

The company shared that the group’s long-term vision is to grow businesses beyond brick-and-mortar operations. By growing the share of sales from online platforms, it trusts that it can help reduce its reliance on physical stores.

“Through persistently adjusting and rationalizing the store network, the group could improve its overall cost structure and lower the breakeven point for the traditional retail business, thus reinforcing its competitiveness and profitability in the long term,” the group said.

The group will work to further realize the complementary effects of combining the advantages of online business and physical stores to improve both customer experience and the group’s profitability.

It plans to execute the integration of online and offline operations. The group said that it will be improving inventory and logistic arrangements to provide a seamless O2O customer experience. For SaSa, the O2O business offers a more favorable gross margin and basket size owing to the element of personal service when compared to pure online sales channels. All these mean a more attractive profit margin for the O2O business, an area that the group wishes to develop to its fullest potential.

Dr Simon Kwok, SBS, JP, the chairman and CEO of the Group, said that online business has become the new focus of the retail industry, and that they are dedicated to expediting development in the new retail landscape by investing more resources in their online business, unceasingly strengthening the brand and adjusting their product portfolio.

“The Group will also proactively propel businesses beyond our core markets in Hong Kong and Macau SARs and promote the online business, thus diversifying and expanding our revenue portfolio and customer base and creating value for our stakeholders in the long term.”

Singapore – Pan-Asian retailer Dairy Farm Group is leveraging its digital transformation strategies by adding API platform Mulesoft, CRM company Salesforce and data software company Tableau to its digital strategy platform.

An initial step undertaken by the retailer is launching its digital rewards club called “yuu”, wherein partner brands and coalition partners are integrated into the yuu platform to allow customers access and redeem points all within a platform.

“With MuleSoft, we are able to connect different systems from multiple brands using an API-led approach to roll out new services in a reduced timeframe. With an omnichannel customer experience across all our brands, we can better manage each customer’s journey and their preferred communication channels with Salesforce Marketing Cloud,” Crystal Chan, IT director for Dairy Farm Group said.

Aside from the digital rewards launch, Daily Farm Group’s current digital transformation strategies focus on the aspect of improving project delivery speed. The retailer will utilize API technology to further improve point of sale (PoS) and e-commerce systems that will create synergy between its online and offline channels. Furthermore, the APIs can be also used to provide new customer experience strategies such as providing curated content, news, and promotions.

The yuu rewards club rolls out to key markets Hong Kong and Macau, where the retailer holds about over 10 household brands in more than 2,000 stores.