Tag: Market Report

Singapore – Singapore’s younger generations of consumers are leading the shift to digital payments while more than half of small businesses in the country do not currently provide cash payment options. This is according to the latest report from global small business platform Xero.

The survey findings reveal a growing trend towards digital payments in Singapore, driven by strong government support and initiatives aimed at building a digitally connected society.

Currently, over three-quarters of Singapore consumers (76%) use credit or debit cards for payments. More than half of the population utilises funds transfer service PayNow (55%) or bank transfers (55%). About a fifth are also using e-wallet service GrabPay (22%) and buy now, pay later platforms (21%).

Reflecting changing perspectives, the research showed that 30% of Singapore consumers only carry their mobile phones to pay when shopping, notably higher than the global average of 21%.

Younger generations are leading the way, quickly embracing new digital payment methods. PayNow is the preferred digital payment method for 68% of Gen Z consumers in Singapore, with about a third (29%) also using GrabPay.

Moreover, the findings also highlight that failing to meet consumer payment preferences can directly impact customer retention and revenue. Approximately 18% of Singapore consumers indicated they would visit another business that accepts more payment options if a business didn’t offer at least one of their preferred payment methods.

Despite trends indicating a shift towards a cashless society, physical currency remains a preferred payment method for a significant portion of Singapore’s population. Nearly eight in ten (79%) Singapore consumers use it for transactions, highlighting its prevalence in everyday life. 

However, half (51%) of local small businesses no longer offer it as a payment option, making small businesses in Singapore the least likely among the countries surveyed to accept cash payments, despite having the highest proportion of consumers who opt for this traditional method.

The findings also suggest that nearly nine in ten (87%) small businesses in Singapore say they have benefited from adopting new payment methods in the last 6 to 12 months, with key reported advantages including reduced time to be paid (43%), retaining more business (42%), and increased sales (41%).

Many small businesses in Singapore are optimistic about future or emerging payment methods. These include biometric authentication methods such as fingerprints or facial scanning (36%), bartering marketplaces/apps (33%) and augmented reality (33%). About a third (31%) have expressed excitement about implantable payment chips, a much higher figure than small businesses in countries like Australia (7%) and New Zealand (9%) included in the research.

Koren Wines, managing director for Asia at Xero said, “Singapore is at the forefront of building a robust digital payment landscape, aligning with its broader digital economy and Smart Nation goals. While a supportive regulatory environment and complementary initiatives are driving digital payment development and adoption among Singapore’s small businesses and consumers, targeted support to help small businesses adopt more payment options will also be crucial.”

Meanwhile, Bharathi Ramavarjula, SVP of payments at Xero, commented, “Understanding how different consumers prefer to pay and giving them the flexibility to pay the way they want, will help small businesses get paid faster and grow their revenue. To make it easier to collect payments, Xero is providing small businesses with more ways to get paid.”

Singapore – Around 49% of Asia-Pacific consumers responded saying they will pay an additional 10% to 50% for beauty products with scientific formulations, according to recent statistics from data analytics firm Euromonitor International.

According to the report, consumer demand for science-backed beauty and personal care has gained ground following the pandemic. Dermocosmetics, which brands conceptually centre around the use of unique ingredients, is rapidly gaining space globally.

Moreover, around 30% of respondents among Asia Pacific consumers perceived proven efficacy and medical endorsements as traits of premium beauty products in 2023. In addition, 38% of consumers in Asia-Pacific viewed premium ingredients as more important than premium brands when it comes to skin care products, while only 23% of respondents said brands come first. 

According to the report, this indicates that consumer perception of ‘premium’ spans across the realm of scientifically proven ingredients.

It is also noted that the blurring of category boundaries and increasing future demand for multifunctional products is especially being seen in skin care, sun protection and colour cosmetics. Products offering multiple benefits such as cost-effectiveness and time-saving options in a single item are highly welcomed in the market.

There is also a heightened demand for clinically-positioned beauty presents opportunities for sun care and deodorants. The latest ‘skinified’ formulas have multifunctional benefits, beyond traditional claims.

Suncare is one of the best ‘all-in-one’ products. Suncare products are now incorporating make-up functions such as primer, coverage, and colour correction, while colour cosmetics products are being enhanced with SPF. The markets Indonesia, Singapore, and China have seen a surge in demand for sun care products, with a respective CAGR of 10.5%, 8.9% and 8.8% in the period of 2018 to 2023 respectively. This is driven by growing awareness of the importance of sun protection and skin care amongst consumers.

The report also found a higher number of Asia-Pacific respondents searching for multifunctional attributes in suncare in 2023 than in 2021. 22% of respondents indicated ‘anti-ageing’ as one of the main desired functional features for a suncare product, up by 19% from 2021. A response of ‘wrinkle-preventing’ is also up by 16% from 13% in 2021 – a trend expected to continue in the future.

Another factor that is being highlighted in the report is how e-commerce channels still play an important role, emerging as a significant factor shaping the future of beauty retail in Asia Pacific. In 2023, retail e-commerce accounted for 30% of total beauty and personal care sales in Asia-Pacific. China is the second-largest market in the world for beauty retail e-commerce. Social media platforms in the country such as Douyin and Xiaohongshu are helping new brands drive China’s beauty market.

Lastly, livestreaming presents beauty brands the chance to break through to consumers in lower-tier cities in China and India as well, giving access to thousands of brands with a wider range of prices through online marketplaces. A digital-first environment in markets is expected to encourage beauty brands to leverage e-commerce channels to build their reach into tier-2 cities and beyond, with an affordable cost option.

Yang Hu, insights manager of health and beauty in Asia at Euromonitor International, said, “The future of innovation in beauty products will continue to be ingredient-driven. As the lines between health and beauty become blurred, more health-related ingredients will be researched to unlock their potential in beauty, with science-backed evidence.”

Hu added, “The beauty market in Asia Pacific is now faced with incredible possibilities that lie ahead for the industry – not only with increasing purchase power and changing demographic, but also with the market’s evolution of its growth engine through retail channel revolution, innovative brands and technological breakthroughs. To stay competitive, industry players must remain attentive to future factors such as environmental changes, the dynamic consumers of Gen Z and Gen Alpha, and developments in other wellness sectors.”

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Around 57% of consumers in Malaysia plan to be more cautious with their spending in the next six months–yet still show a greater interest in spending and rewarding themselves. This is according to a joint research by Omnicom Media Group Malaysia (OMG Malaysia) and AI-driven research firm Vase.ai.

According to the report, low and medium-income consumers – categorised by their household income of those less than RM4,000 and those averaging between RM4,000 to RM9,000, respectively – reward themselves through functional spending, e.g eating out, groceries, homecooked food, and food delivery. 

The research also found that this contrasts with the spending habits of high-income consumers–those that earn more than RM9,000–who focus on vacations, entertainment/leisure, and electronics.

It is also worth noting that rising living costs could potentially impact consumer spending and lead brands to wonder about their sales growth in the coming months. According to the research, only 23% of low-income consumers feel confident about their financial well-being in the next six months compared to 44% of high-income consumers.

Moreover, trust and brand confidence were the primary influence of brand stickiness across all three consumer groups, the research found, followed by the brand offering the best value. Meanwhile, low-medium consumers tend to stick with a brand if it is easy to find and use, while high-income consumers gauge based on brand familiarity.

Additionally, social media platforms and e-commerce marketplaces are now present in the entire consumer purchase journey, unlike in the past where they were mainly in the top and bottom of the consumer funnel. Shopee, Shopee Live, TikTok Shop, and TikTok Live are gaining popularity and surpassing Instagram, the research found. Meanwhile, adoption for Facebook Marketplace remains low.

In terms of essentials, groceries and eating out are the top two essential items consumers spent on, followed by toiletries, homecooked foods, and household cleaning products. Spending has increased on essentials in the past six months, the research said. This category of items has become a priority for consumers due to their affordability, promotions, and discounts.

For semi-essential categories, consumers mainly spent on clothing and skincare items, followed by healthcare, entertainment/leisure, and cosmetics. Spending in this category has remained stable, with reductions in cosmetics and toys. Purchases in this segment are driven by their value for money, durability, and high-quality.

Lastly, electronics and vacations were the most common expenditures in the non-essential category and overall, the spends focused on premium quality and items that reflect personal taste. That said, 24% of consumers surveyed have not spent on non-essentials in the past six months. Spends on luxury accessories, fitness equipment, automobiles, and designer clothing have also reduced, marking a shift towards prioritising necessities over discretionary items.

Kiron Kesav, chief strategy officer at OMG Malaysia, said, “While there have been various reports regarding the economic uncertainties, rising prices and consumer confidence in Malaysia, we wanted to understand the finer nuances of the consumer sentiments and deduce what to expect in the immediate future. Leaning on the AI-driven insights gathered in the research, we unravelled a sense of how Malaysians from various walks of lives mitigate the financial uncertainties while also finding avenues to reward themselves. It also sheds light on the pockets of opportunity that the brands could capitalise on while they themselves navigate these times of uncertainties.”

Meanwhile, Julie Ng, CEO and co-Founder at Vase.ai, commented, “Amidst the economic uncertainties this year, our joint report provides vital insights into consumer spending trends. It highlights the need for brands to adapt their marketing strategies to meet changing consumer behaviours influenced by economic challenges. The report stresses the significance of crafting relevant, well-positioned, and innovative brand messages to engage a more spend-conscious audience. We hope that this can help inspire brands with practical strategies to succeed in a fluctuating market.”

Australia – With consumer spending and marketing budgets shrinking, privacy rules tightening, and AI unleashing a new wave of disruption, CMOs and digital professionals are ill-prepared, a new report from Amperity and Arktic Fox reveals.

Marketers feel unprepared for looming Privacy Act reforms. Even more worryingly, they believe those in leadership positions are similarly unready – only 38% of those surveyed believe their executive group understands the importance of adapting to privacy changes and sees it as a key strategic priority to address.

They also worry they are falling behind their peers in martech utilisation, partly because they lack appropriately skilled staff. On top of all that, many are now fundamentally questioning their martech investment strategy and moving towards combining ‘best of breed’ solutions, rather than relying on a single vendor. 

Marketers’ aspirations

Australian marketers’ focus remains business growth – 77% of respondents said it was a key strategic priority. Growth is tied to customer acquisition, which came in second (48%) on the list of priorities.

So far, so unsurprising. But subsequent priorities reveal marketers hope to fatten the bottom line by leveraging technology. The third most common priority (42%) was “Building our customer data strategy and better utilising our first-party data”, and the equal fourth (36%) was “Digital Transformation”.

The study also revealed marketers and digital leaders remain focused on achieving goals (over the next 12-18 months) that are only feasible with martech tools. Personalisation was classified as “important” or “very important” by 72% of respondents, who were also strongly committed to CX management (87%), online sales and lead generation (77%) and martech utilisation (76%). To put it bluntly, without sophisticated technology and skilled staff, most marketers and digital leaders won’t be able to implement their planned marketing and digital strategy over the next 12-18 months.

“Australian marketers want to take advantage of the available tools,” notes Billy Loizou, Asia Pacific area vice president at Amperity. “The problem – as they are usually the first to point out – is Australian marketers are struggling to execute. That’s hardly a new situation, but when you add in factors such as the rise of Gen AI, imminent reforms to the Privacy Act, flat marketing budgets and Google deprecating third-party cookies, it’s not surprising so many CMOs are nervous.”

Marketers’ reality

Marketers want to – and increasingly need to – leverage technology effectively. Nonetheless, many fear they are falling behind. This was particularly apparent when leaders were asked about their organisation’s data maturity:

  • Only 29% of respondents agreed with the statement, “We are very effective at activating data to deliver great customer experiences.”
  • Only 22% of respondents agreed with the statement, “Our data is well managed and maintained, providing us with high-quality data.”
  • Only 19% of respondents agreed with the statement, “We have developed a unified view of the customer.”

Teresa Sperti, director of Arktic Fox, is worried but unsurprised by these findings.

“When we undertake digital training sessions or partner with clients on strategy, it’s not uncommon for us to have to explain to an organisation’s staff, including its senior staff, where the organisation’s data resides and help them connect the dots around their martech ecosystem. 

“Brands have been trying to develop a unified view of the customer for at least two decades. Yet in 2024, less than one in five of those surveyed could say their organisation had developed a unified view of the customer that could underpin a data-driven marketing approach. This is why there is a growing gap between the haves and the have-nots in spaces like personalisation, experience delivery and more. Brands that have built strong internal capabilities and robust foundations in data and tech are thriving whilst others are finding it difficult to shift gears.”

Sperti also warns that a casual approach to managing data and, in particular, privacy might result in more than suboptimal marketing outcomes. “Businesses could soon be suffering even more dire financial and reputational consequences for failing to appropriately safeguard their customers’ privacy,” she says. “A privacy or spam breach impacts reputation and trust, which is linked to brand performance and preference. So, I’m amazed there isn’t much more focus on improving compliance and ethics by marketers and digital leaders.”

Is it the machines or the humans?

There’s a consensus that Australian marketers and digital professionals aren’t making the most of martech solutions, but there’s debate about why that’s the case.

Those who question the tools point out marketers in many countries have failed to adopt martech solutions with the enthusiasm that was expected. Many CMOs appear to believe they overspent on technology and that investment has failed to meet their expectations and deliver the desired outcomes.

That’s partly due to the shortage of Australians with martech skills. But Loizou points out that the much-publicised skill gap doesn’t explain everything.

“To grossly oversimplify, the approach in the past was to buy the equivalent of a turnkey, off-the-shelf, full-stack solution from a big-name tech company. Given that 80% of respondents in the 2024 study reported their utilisation of martech was ‘average’, ‘low’ or ‘very low’, that doesn’t seem to have worked out well. The understandable but ill-advised reaction is to devote fewer resources to martech and martech staff training. That’s happening to some extent, with only 12% of respondents reporting they plan to significantly increase their martech budget over the next 12 months. But the noteworthy development is the declining popularity of single-vendor solutions. When asked about their plans for current and future martech investments, 14% said they were leaning towards a single vendor, 29% claimed they were open-minded, and a whopping 57% stated they were leaning towards ‘best-of-breed’ solutions.” 

The digital transformation landscape

Both Sperti and Loizou remain concerned about what they see as an overly relaxed approach to digital transformation. Noting that almost all organisations now talk the digital transformation talk, Sperti wonders how serious they are about walking the walk. “Only about one in five respondents said their organisation had been transforming for a “long time”, with long time defined as three or more years,” she says. “And about one in two respondents reported their organisation was just starting, or had only recently started, their digital transformation journey.

The study also found that only 53% of leaders believe their executive group are aligned on digital transformation priorities. 

“When brands aren’t aligned around digital transformation priorities, teams are set up to compete for resources and funding. That drives siloed thinking and that means it takes twice as long to deliver on ambitions. However, when executives lean into challenging discussions and make strategic choices, it enables the organisation to focus on the digital strategies that will deliver the most impact for the business and customers alike.” Sperti says

“With martech, the two big investment priorities for marketers remain CRMs (43%) and marketing automation (41%),” Loizou adds. “It’s good that CDPs [Consumer Data Platforms] are now the number three priority (35%), but I suspect many marketers still don’t fully comprehend how central CDPs are. The elevator pitch is that they allow marketers to improve the quality of their data, therefore an accelerator to fuel smart growth, retention, and foster a data-first corporate culture.”

Loizou doesn’t claim CDPs are a magic bullet. But he does insist that, unlike more popular solutions, they can address some of the pressing issues marketers now face. 

“Just spending more on a marketing automation platform won’t solve messy customer data problems,” he says. “It’s CDPs that do that, as well as provide an enterprise-unified view, which then solves many of the other business-wide challenges organisations face. We live by the mantra better data = better results!”

Sydney, Australia – Shoppers in Australia and New Zealand are reported to spend less and be more selective in prioritising essentials during their online purchases, a report by BigCommerce, an open SaaS e-commerce platform.

According to the report, 30% of respondents also indicate they plan to decrease their BNPL spend, with 68% doing so to save money for essentials. Furthermore, 79% of shoppers would be likely or very likely to leave a website and purchase elsewhere if a website is too slow.

In addition, credit card as a proportion of last payments made has risen to 39% in 2022, up from 26% in 2020 and 2021. Debit cards have also become more popular as a payment method, increasing from 17% in 2020, to 21% in 2021 and now at 23% in 2022. The majority of purchases made after receiving a marketing prompt came from email (42.1% of respondents), while respondents who made a purchase after receiving an abandoned cart email have also doubled to 32% in 2022.

Shannon Ingrey, vice president and general manager, APAC at BigCommerce, said, “The beginning of the pandemic pushed shoppers online, and now they’re getting more selective with their spending to prioritise saving more. We’re at a point where retailers and merchants need to take an introspective look at their key services to address shopper pain points like website speed and fast delivery time.”

Meanwhile, 40% of respondents indicated they have chosen one retailer over another because of a loyalty program offering, with 69% saying they have used a loyalty program to claim a reward in the last three months. For 77% of respondents, free shipping is the number one preferred perk when it comes to these loyalty programs.

“It’s critical for retailers to ensure they have the right technology and infrastructure in place to prioritise fast, seamless experiences for shoppers. Understanding what consumers think and how they behave on a day-to-day basis will be key to the strategic decision-making of every merchant in 2022,” Ingrey concluded.

Sydney, Australia – Despite privacy becoming a crucial part of the business in the marketing and advertising industry, new data from programmatic advertising partner Blis shows that 50% of media planners in Australia are still not seeing privacy-first solutions as a key priority during 2022.

This is despite 33% of the respondent media planners citing privacy-first solutions as one of their biggest challenges this year. According to the data, media planners are still skeptical, or even confused, about how to tackle this challenge.

In terms of media planners’ views about current privacy-first solutions in the market, just one in three media planners feels they have good privacy-first solutions in place to reach their audiences. 

For specifics, 36% of media agencies are considering a mixture of contextual targeting, unique identifier (UID) 2.0 and FloC. In-house planners seem to be more skeptical, with 36% of them still saying they wouldn’t consider any of the current solutions as ideal to overcome privacy concerns.

The data also noted that CTV gained planners’ attention during the pandemic and will continue to do so in 2022, with 52% of media agency planners expecting to spend more than 50% of their overall digital media campaigns on CTV. Similarly, in-house media planners expect to spend 33% of their budget on CTV, a much lower but still significant part of their budgets.

In addition, media planners are also preparing to increase in-app advertising budgets as in-app spending is expected to account for 44% of total media spending by 2026. 

For Aaron McKee, CTO at Blis, the new data shows his research highlights on some key areas that media planners, and the industry as a whole, need to be aware of and plan for, if they’re not already.

“Many media planners are already missing half their web audience and 80% of their most valuable in-app audience and challenges around reach, relevance and measurement will only get worse with the Chrome third-party cookie changes coming shortly. This is the year to try new approaches to reaching wide audiences in a way that demonstrably performs,” McKee said.

He added, “The approaches that stand the test of time will be rooted in privacy and respect for personal data. Finding trusted privacy-first partners will help make their lives much easier – and their campaigns more effective – in the long run.”

Singapore – Sales festivals, such as 11.11 and 12.12, create opportunities for consumers to make advanced holiday gift purchases, and retailers should note to make these moments count, and capture the attention of their shoppers in advance of year-end seasonal shopping moments.

Out of all these sales festivals, which remains the most popular among Southeast Asian consumers? The latest data from adtech Criteo finds out, spanning across recorded data from 280 e-commerce players from nine markets in SEA

According to the report, 11.11 emerged as SEA’s most popular sales festival, with sales made during this period in 2020 increasing by 554%

Meanwhile, Criteo’s report cited 12.12 as the largest shopping festival for SEA in 2020, with online retail sales and traffic increasing by 305% and 127% respectively. 

Market-wise, observed trends found that 12.12 emerged as the most significant shopping festival for Indonesia, while 11.11 remained the largest sales festival for Singapore and Vietnam.

“While there has been tremendous growth in Double Day sales over the last two years, we are seeing that the growth in e-commerce sales (when compared with their respective baseline year) have been slowing down as more in the region get accustomed to remote work, life, and play,” said Taranjeet Singh, managing director for Southeast Asia and India at Criteo.

He added, “While retail sales continue to grow, we see that the rate of growth is narrowing. It is thus more important than ever for brands to understand consumer habits across online and offline platforms, and relook campaign strategies so that they can stand out from competitors and gain greater market share.”

As the present 11.11 sales this 2021 is nearing, top e-commerce platforms in SEA are currently launching big campaigns to gain further momentum. Lazada Singapore has partnered with real estate company Propnex for a S$1m-worth condominium for their 11.11 giveaway, meanwhile, Shopee has partnered again with CapitaLand for continuing the omnichannel drive which had gamification as a key aspect.

Singapore – Despite 57% of internet users in Malaysia experiencing a personal data breach or knowing someone who had, 93% of the respondents admit to practicing poor online habits, including sharing, recycling and using guessable passwords. The findings are part of Google’s latest digital responsibility study conducted across APAC.

The study found that 80% of respondents in Malaysia use the same passwords for multiple sites, with 45% of the respondents admitting to recycling passwords for up to 10 unique sites. Among these password recyclers, 40% say they do so in fear of forgetting new passwords, while 41% say it is simply convenient to use the same ones.

“We know from past research that people who have had their data exposed by a breach are 10 times more likely to be hijacked. When we share, recycle and use guessable passwords we put our personal information, including payment data, at exponential risk,” said Chuah Jia Wen, industry head of CPG and retail at Google Malaysia.

Furthermore, 51% of local respondents confessed to using guessable passwords, spanning the most easily crackable combinations from significant dates and significant others to pet names and even postal codes. Worse still, 25% of the respondents admit to saving their passwords in the ‘Notes’ app of their mobile phones, most of which are not encrypted by default.

In regards to security in online transactions, 60% of the respondents admit to making purchases on pages without the secure symbol on the page’s hyperlink. Notable too is that 70% of respondents who save financial information online also share passwords with friends and family, putting themselves at greater risk of a personal data breach with passwords used across multiple devices.

Despite these online security lapses, 64% of respondents say that they are likely to adopt two-factor authentication (2FA), even if it is not mandatory. Meanwhile, 80% of respondents also say that in the face of a potential data breach, they will choose to change their password immediately. Interestingly, 33% of those who would not change their passwords immediately are believed to be acting out of caution, citing that the breach notification could well be a scam on its own.

“It is clear from our findings that internet users in Malaysia desire to get better at managing their digital health. The challenge, however, lies in the gap between knowledge and action, and key to plugging this gap is access to tools that can adequately equip people with both security and convenience,” Chuah stated.

She added, “That’s why we focus on providing easy to use tools to help people take charge of their online safety, and we strongly encourage everyone to take full advantage of them especially in this year-end season, where the need to safeguard against holiday hacking is more crucial than ever before.”

Singapore – Despite many consumers now reducing their budget for shopping and fearing shopping in-store due to pandemic concerns, about 93% of Southeast Asian consumers say that they will shop more across digital commerce sites this festive season, new insights from marketing technology company InMobi shows.

According to the report, about 39% of respondents have said that this is the first time that they will be trying out online shopping.

A positive sentiment is evident across online shoppers in the region, saying they want to learn about a product (39%) and explore product categories (71%), as well as making a purchase (69%). Some 24% of respondents declared that they would spend more on online shopping for the holiday season, while 47% planned to reduce their budget for in-person shopping.

“Despite a tough 2021, Southeast Asians are still gearing up for the year-end holiday shopping season, which has traditionally been the most active period for e-commerce sales in the region. More shoppers than ever are going online and spending more money online, most using their mobile phones to explore, discover and purchase. The time is right for brands and marketers to leverage mobile-first marketing to attract the interest of the connected festive shopper this year,” said Rishi Bedi, vice president and general manager for Southeast Asia, Japan and Korea at InMobi.

However, nearly 64% of consumers are still ‘undecided’ or are ‘completely unplanned’ on their online shopping experience, giving brands the opportunity to capture this market.

The report also noted that there are three key buyer personas that are emerging across Southeast Asian consumers for the holiday season, namely bargain hunters (64% of respondents), category explorers (26% of respondents) and brand lovers (10% of respondents).

In terms of spending, some 51% of Indonesians planned to spend over IDR 500,000 for their online shopping, while one in five Singaporeans will spend more than S$1000, with the average Filipino family shelling out ₱7627 for the festive season. 

Meanwhile, clothing and accessories, groceries, gadgets, and home appliances emerged as the most in-demand product categories across Indonesia, Singapore, and the Philippines.

“Since 2020, the consumer shift towards mobile shopping has meant a surge in the adoption of InMobi’s shoppable media and online to online/offline commerce solutions by brands for maximizing ROI. These solutions, along with our unique deterministic audience targeting on programmatic, will play an even more significant role for brands in this online festive season,” Bedi concluded.

Singapore – Despite diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) being prominent across media and marketing, about 40% of ad agencies based in the Southeast Asia region admit to never checking client specification on DE&I before creating creative work for them, insights from independent global marketing consultancy R3 note.

According to the consultancy’s latest report spanning 300 video advertisements broadcast in the region, there are lapses in regards to gender representation in these advertisements. About 33% of the sample ads have shown negative stereotypes on body image, 38% have portrayed negative stereotypes of gender characteristics, and 44% have portrayed negative stereotypes of gender roles.

For Shufen Goh, co-founder and principal at R3, there should be a greater need for more people from diverse backgrounds in control of storytelling and production or we risk telling stories that are one-dimensional, adding that with 60% of agencies reported not having a formal process to ensure that diversity is addressed in client advertising is already considered a ‘red flag’.

“Marketers can play a positive role and encourage greater change in the narratives being developed by requiring diversity among creative directors and producers and demanding more inclusive organizational design,” Goh stated.

Despite the negative connotations, there are still brands who have persisted in creating campaigns that respect gender representation.

Based on the review, Kotex, Avon, Colgate, Apple, and Nike were five brands with the best gender representation in advertising in Southeast Asia. All brands scored positively in areas of avoiding objectification, positive body image portrayals, and positive portrayal of gender roles and characteristics. The best performing advertising addressed female empowerment, body positivity, ethnic and economic diversity, and sexual orientation.

In addition, female empowerment has been the focus of diversity initiatives across agencies in the region, though most activities reported were limited to educational and culture building exercises.

“If we look at progress through a regional lens, change is being made. There is greater representation across gender and ethnicity in the workforce, and more equality in agency leadership positions. Now it’s time for marketers and agencies to come together and shift the topic of diversity from one of corporate culture and optional participation to tangible process and policy,” Goh concluded.