Tag: #MARKETECHExpert

For the third episode of #MARKETECHMONDAYS, MARKETECH APAC and Blogapalooza conversed with Jasrita Dhir, one of the most coveted women marketing leaders in the healthcare sector in India. 

#MARKETINGMONDAYS is an interview webisode every second and fourth Mondays of each month, where we showcase inspirational marketing leaders to impart their journey as well as their insights into the field, and their advice for budding marketers in the oftentimes challenge-filled, but undeniably dynamic world of marketing.

Jasrita’s marketing journey stretches a long two-decade integration into the craft. She has worked with companies such as Procter & Gamble, Oberoi Hotels and Resorts and NDTV before having focused entirely on brand and marketing for healthcare services. 

She was the woman behind some of the successful marketing strategies of healthcare services at Max Healthcare, and later on at Fortis Healthcare.

Having walked the path to eventually becoming a highly-regarded marketing leader, she admits that at the end of it all, the thing that matters the most isn’t the glamour and luster of brand ownership; but goes back to the simple reason of why you chose to become a marketer, that is, the ability to impact and make better the lives of consumers. 

First ever dip into marketing

Ever since Jasrita stepped into the professional world, her career journey has always trailed the direction of marketing, particularly in healthcare brands. Her first job in the field was as a marketing communications manager at Max Healthcare, one of India’s biggest healthcare service providers. Five years prior to such post, she was immersed in direct marketing or sales for Procter & Gamble, where eventually the calling to endeavor in more creative work is what pulled her to fully take a shift. 

Chance did not take it easy on her, debuting as a marketing woman. For her first project: a campaign to launch the flagship facility of the company in the upmarket residential colony of South Delhi, Saket. 

Truly an intimidating assignment for a freshie, the weight of variables involved proves it to be far from sweet and easy. Four newly hired department heads at the time, each with a different institutes to be launched. 

“I had to work on the entire stack of marketing communications of the flagship facility of Max Healthcare that they were launching. It was their biggest facility which is in Saket in South Delhi. There were four very senior doctors who were hired; their institute collaterals had to be made, each one of their institutes had to be launched, and then the overall hospital had to be launched,” said Dhir.

“From the pre-launch buzz, to the launch day, followed by the post-launch sustenance phase, and all of that, that was my big, first campaign; a trial by fire.”


Her first ever campaign may have had her grappling, but such was what ultimately grounded her fundamentals into the work of a marketer; launching her into a career that would later on, expand over a decade, where she now finds herself as the AVP for brand and marketing at Fortis Healthcare. 

The intricacies of healthcare marketing

Marketing in healthcare separates itself from other types of marketing. When one’s mind touches on marketing, it is easy to immediately think of it in terms of a tangible product that is being promoted. But in healthcare, one of those products is a doctor – a highly skilled individual.

Having been into this subfield of marketing for almost 2 decades, Jasrita knows all too well of the technicality of being tasked to own a brand of healthcare nature, and says that there isn’t any other way to thrive but to “roll up one’s sleeves.” 

“When you get into healthcare, you have got to understand that healthcare is a technical field. If you are not a doctor yourself, you have to get your hands dirty. You have to understand your product, your product is the doctor, your product is a highly-skilled individual, whose time is at a premium. So you have to put in the effort that goes into understanding your product and educating yourself,”


And by getting your hands dirty, she means shadowing the doctors, even if that requires you to be in an operating room yourself.


“You get to learn while being with the doctors in their OPDs, be at the operating theatre [and] see how a surgery is done, and then talk about it, then market it.”


Cause-based Marketing: Campaigns that don’t merely plug a product 

Jasrita mainly describes herself as passionate, and for her, to do something is to do it with passion, and with heart. With her identity as a marketer, cause-based marketing had become her personal advocacy. For her, the field is not just an avenue to promote a product but to impact lives – the lives of the consumers. 

When asked about the most memorable campaigns under her watch, the notable ones that came about weren’t those that have product plugging as the main aim, but projects that have advocated behavioral change, and those that as a result, have actually helped save lives.

Around 2015, Fortis Healthcare launched the #MoreToGive campaign, with an objective to encourage more Indians to donate their organs. The nationwide campaign was based off data from WHO that in India, the organ donation rate fares far from well with only 0.5 donors per million (at the start of the campaign).

The campaign adopted influential and famous ambassadors from different fields – war veterans, movie stars and sports personalities – to encourage civilians to pledge their organs. And after 3 years the needle has been pushed from 0.5 to 0.96 donors per million, and people who were actually waiting for a crucial organ donation were able to receive one.

Another campaign that Jasrita is quite proud of is the twitter campaign called, “Unmute yourself;” targeted to encourage people dealing with depression and mental illnesses to open up and jumpstart a healing process.


She says there is nothing more “Immensely gratifying” when you as a marketer are able to do something to make the world a more livable place. One of the groups of people predisposed to such campaign were students who are susceptible to suicidal tendencies during exams time. 


Advocacy-focused marketing as Jasrita lives by, meant staying true to the sincere and genuine purpose of helping people and spreading awareness on issues that truly matter. For the “Unmute yourself” campaign, personalities who had experienced real-life struggles with mental health such as sports personalities as well as film, and movie stars were tapped to lead the forefront of the advocacy, bringing the message that anyone can be impacted by mental health issues.

Jasrita’s Marketing Heroes

Having lived and breathed healthcare as a marketing strategist for many years, Jasrita’s most inspirational mentors were mostly doctors. One is former regional director of Fortis Healthcare and now founder of healthcare concierge service medECUBE, Dr. Dilpreet Brar. 

Jasrita’s relationship with Brar has been first forged during her days at Max Healthcare where the two have worked together. After some time, Brar would transfer to Fortis where Jasrita would later follow, adding in sum almost 12 years of a working relationship for the two. 


What she admires most about Brar is what may come off as a paradox, but one that couldn’t be more true to her approach to work, and that is, the esteemed doctor’s “fiery brand of leadership coupled with empathy”.

“She is this person who has empathy for the team, for the patient, and for the consumer. Part of what she brings to the table is her no-nonsense, no-holds-barred, “what you see is what you get” brand of leadership,” Jasrita said. 

Jasrita also speaks of Brar’s one-for-all, all-for-one principle. 

“As [she] moves along [her] career, [she takes her] entire team along with [her]. And as a woman leader, when you reach up there, you also [have to lend your hand] to the ones who are coming up there and helping them. That is something that I love about her.”

What makes Brar a sought-after mentor for Jasrita is that she hurdles one other thing: the never-ending disparity of gender in leadership roles.

“There are just so few women leaders. When we enter the corporate board room, there are hardly any women there to look up to, and then you see a woman like this,” she said.

Another person that Jasrita has been greatly inspired by is Fortis Healthcare’s ex-CEO Bhavdeep Singh. And she tries to take after the man for the simplest reasons, but one that is still lacking in most leaders: leading by example.

“He was the most hardworking person on the team, whichever team that he was in, he is my most hardworking CEO ever.”

“[He leads by the principle wherein] ‘I’m not going to ask you to do something that I won’t do. I’m only asking you to do what I’m doing.”

As a proponent of women empowerment and leadership, another of Singh’s characters that strikes her as commendable is how as a male leader himself, Singh could genuinely advocate women to have more seats at the table.

“And he was a great proponent of women leadership, not just by mere lip service, but by action”

“Be the consumer’s voice”

When we sat down with Jasrita, she relentlessly spoke of marketers being the consumers’ voice throughout the interview, and finally, when we asked her of her ultimate advice to young would-be marketers, she uttered the same snippet of wisdom: represent the voice of the consumer. 

She explains why: 

“As marketers, we need to have a pulse on our consumer, on the economy, on the market. You are the eyes and ears of the marketplace to the organization,”  she said. 

“You are the consumers’ voice inside the boardroom. No matter how unpopular it is, no matter how harsh it is. There will be times when the consumer is disillusioned with your brand, dissatisfied with your brand.”

“Speaking truth to power is something that comes very naturally to me. And this is something that I have chosen, that I will be that consumer’s voice in the boardroom.”

Another advice that she wants to give to marketers, which right off the bat, can be said to be a true life advice, marketing folk or not, is to continually upgrade oneself.

She speaks anew of now the proverbial “pulse” of the consumer: 

“Keep upgrading; it’s nobody else’s responsibility to upgrade your skills. Because your consumer is going to keep changing; there are new avenues, there are new mediums, [and] there will be new platforms. You have to have their pulse.”  Finally, she shared how such a growth mindset can jumpstart, at the same time, keep it grounded for the years to come. ”If you keep upgrading, you will keep your creative juices flowing, and you will be a marketer who’s in demand always.”

Subscribe to MARKETECH APAC’s YouTube Channel and watch the full video interview with Jasrita as we premiere tomorrow, August 24 at 5 pm (PHT).

If you’re a marketing leader and you want to share your career experience to inspire the marketing industry, please reach out, we want to hear your story.

In the second edition of #MARKETECHMONDAYS, MARKETECH APAC and Blogapalooza sat down with an agency-side expert, Jim Guzman. Jim is the Network Head of Social Media for Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN) Philippines. He is also the General Manager of D+GILITY, DAN’s Social Media Intelligence Center. He is also a Managing Partner of iProspect Philippines, DAN’s Digital and Performance agency.

Jim had previously worked with McCann Worldgroup, where he worked for a decade. He handled big brands like Nestle, Unilever, Unilab, Jollibee, BPI, and other prestigious brands in McCann. In 2014, he moved to Singapore to join Commonwealth//McCann, a bespoke agency that was created for one of McCann’s biggest global accounts, General Motors.

Recently, he co-founded the Creator and Influencer Council of the Philippines (CICP) with industry colleagues and partners. He is now the founding president of the council. Early this year, Jim became the recipient of the 15th Mansmith Young Market Masters Awards which recognizes excellent Filipino marketers of today as role models.

First Dive into Marketing

Jim dove headfirst into marketing after finishing Integrated Marketing Communications at the University of Asia and the Pacific. He is also part of the faculty teaching Digital Marketing for graduating students under the university’s Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) Program.

Right after graduation, he joined McCann Worldgroup Philippines, where he started as an Account Manager. Jim led the digital success of Nescafe in the Philippines. Nescafe Points was the first-ever DRM platform in the country and was at the forefront of the brand’s success online.Nescafe Points was a digital rewards engine that helped drive growth, engagement, and influence within Nescafe’s social communities. During this time, Jim also worked with other brands like Jollibee, where he launched Jollitown.com.ph, BPI Loans, Coffee-Mate, Nestle RTD, MLhuillier, Sky Cable & Sky Broadband, and United Laboratories.

Holistic Mentoring Under Dr. Donald Lim

Jim’s mentor, Dr. Donald Lim, is regard as the Father of Digital Marketing in the Philippines. Jim said that Dr. Donald Lim continues to guide him in his career.

“He [Dr. Donald Lim] started digital marketing in the country, having built websites for a lot of brands when he used to be with Yehey.com. I met him when he joined McCann Worldgroup to head MRM, the agency’s digital arm. I learn a lot from him day-by-day, even until now, as he continues to guide me in my career. 

 “One thing I learned that I value up to now is his style of working. He has trained me to always add value to the company that I work for, the industry, and the wider community.

 “He involved me in various groups and organizations and has honed me holistically and professionally. I am also a fan of his charm, PR skills, and style of leadership; that’s why people love working with him,” Jim said.

Back to the PH: Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN)

According to Jim, it was Dr. Donald Lim who had asked him to go back to the Philippines to help build the social media capabilities of Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN). Before returning to the Philippines, Jim had been working in McCann Worldgroup Singapore, leading Social Media in the agency.

 “So far, I’ve been enjoying my work in Dentsu as I lead social media in the network and drive businesses for both D+GILITY, the network’s social media intelligence center, and iProspect Philippines, a digital and performance agency. Both belong under the DAN group. I love working with great minds and talents and, of course, with Industry icons in the network.”

Jim also talks about CICP, a newly-established organization composed of creators, influencers, and marketers in the Philippines. The organization “aims to shape, inspire, educate and empower the creator influencer industry by leading training, initiatives, and projects to benefit its members and stakeholders,” Jim said.

The Learning Curve

Jim also shared  what he considered a memorable “career failure” and his most significant accomplishment in his marketing career thus far. For the ‘failure’, Jim recounted a failed website launch for one of his agency’s biggest clients.

 “It’s not really like a massive failure, but I will never forget the website I launched for a client before that crashed on the day it was supposed to be launched. What made me worried about it was that the client had invested a lot of money to amplify it, but it turns out, it wasn’t launched on time.

“I consider this one of my most memorable booboos during my junior years because we almost lost the account after the incident. And it was one of the agency’s biggest accounts. Although, to be fair, it was not just because of me. Needless to say, this experience made me a better project lead and, luckily, we were able to retain the client. Since then, I am always OC with my work and would do everything to avoid the same mistake.

 “It taught me the value of always planning and having alternative game plans all the time. It honed me to avoid cramming at the last minute. This experience taught me to become more responsible, OC and detail-oriented,” Jim recounted.

His greatest accomplishment, he recalled, was his stint abroad. Working in Singapore contributed immensely to his personal and professional growth. Jim admitted that the work he handled in Singapore was different but much more advanced than what he did in Manila, especially in leading Social Media for General Motors then eventually for the entire agency.

 “I Never Planned My Career”

Jim admits that he doesn’t have a personal mantra. However, over the years, he said that he never planned his career.

“I don’t have a mantra nor a fan of life quotes, to be honest. But through the years, one thing about me is that I never plan my career. I enjoy my work, learn, and experience as much as I can, ensure that I have a significant contribution and value to the organization I am part of and be nice to people. I believe that everything that’s happening in my life is all part of God’s plan,” Jim said.

D+GILITY in 2020

When asked about his key marketing strategies, Jim shared the mandate of DAN in 2017 when he joined, which was to centralize the social media expertise in one group. This led to the birth of  D+GILITY.

“It was challenging because, technically, it’s another agency all together but servicing all DAN agencies internally to support their client’s social media requirements.

 “Back then and even presently, our key strategies are basic: (1) Drive business, (2) Build products and capabilities, and (3) Lead thought-leadership and future-thinking. Proud to say that it has worked effectively given the businesses that we were able to strengthen and acquire in the last two years.

 “I am not a big fan of grand plans. It’s okay to be ambitious but make sure that goals are doable and achievable. Sometimes, we create our own failures because we set unrealistic targets.

 “For D+GILITY, the timing was perfect because our strategies are aligned with trends, address the present gaps internally and deliver what our clients need for their business. Along with these strategies, we strengthened our talent pool, our tools and technology, and social support processes,” Jim recounted.

“Don’t Rush It.”

Jim’s advice to new and young marketing professionals is as straightforward as his mantra: don’t rush it:

 “Aligned with my “never plan” mantra, my advice is not to rush their career journey and success. There’s always a perfect time for everything.

 “What’s important is you enjoy the present, learn as much as you can, and experience every opportunity to expand your network and learn from industry leaders and practitioners.

 “Time will come that you will be leaders yourselves, and you will realize the value of maximizing what you have learned and experienced during your junior years,” Jim concluded.

Subscribe to MARKETECH APAC’s YouTube Channel and watch the full video interview with Jim as we premiere today, August 10 at 6.30 pm.

If you’re a marketing leader and you want to share your career experience to inspire the marketing industry, please reach out, we want to hear your story.

Fast-growing Software as a service (SaaS) and other cloud-based solutions providers in Singapore, and across the region, have developed data apps for a variety of business uses across functions and industries. These companies are receiving huge volumes of valuable data that promises to unlock significant insights for their customers, if managed properly. From marketing apps that provide customer insights, to Internet of Things (IoT) apps that handle device feedback, and data analytics apps that process both historical and near real-time data, the demand for data apps for analysis is growing exponentially. 

Various data apps that promise to help companies take advantage of their data in real-time to improve business outcomes are emerging. However, many businesses using these applications struggle to extract and analyze these growing volumes of data efficiently. This is due to challenges that developers often face when building, designing, and supporting these applications including developing a 360-degree view of the customer data, handling IoT device data in near real-time, combining historical and current data for analysis, bringing data together for machine learning (ML) models, and embedding analytics in data-intensive applications. 

A key obstacle in overcoming these challenges is app developers’ reliance on legacy architectures that only enable limited scalability, concurrency, and performance. To address these challenges, software companies can turn to cloud data platforms to build and manage their data stack. By adopting a modern, cloud-based data architecture, developers have an opportunity to deliver differentiated and defensible value to customers who need powerful features and real-time insights to run their businesses better.  

Why does architecture matter?

While apps have been modernized, the infrastructure powering these apps still runs on a traditional architecture that was built on the assumption that small clusters of machines with predictable amounts and types of structured data would be created largely by internal sources. Not surprisingly, these companies struggle with large volumes of data, as well as schema-less and semi-structured formats from external sources, such as application logs, web applications, mobile devices, social media, sensor data, and IoT data. This legacy architecture, created long before the emergence of the cloud and IaaS and PaaS services, was not built to run massive SaaS applications with semi-structured data. Additionally, traditional data warehouses cannot scale to match data capacity or demand easily, which creates constraints on data availability. Adopting generic architectural plumbing and tools might be a quick and low-cost fix, but such strategy can cause technical challenges down the road that can lead to lower output and a disappointing customer experience. 

As a result, investing in new architecture is critical to delivering on customer expectations of data apps. Some key capabilities to look for in a modern data platform for data applications are:

  • Decoupled resources which allow apps to scale computing resources independently, and in a linear fashion for each job. It also enables multiple queries to be run against the same data without conflict. 
  • Elasticity to allow software companies to grow or shrink dynamically and adapt to load changes. 
  • Support for various data types to provide a holistic view of the data.
  • Developer tooling and automation to enable developers to “plug in” services with APIs, applying a building blocks approach, rather than rebuilding with each addition to the app.  
  • Strong security baked into the design to enable fast development, while protecting against security threats. 

To ensure that data apps deliver on their customers’ expectations, software companies need to align technology decisions with long-term product needs, keep evolving customer needs in mind and design with growth and flexibility in mind. App developers need a central repository to provide the workload isolation, instant and near-infinite elasticity, unlimited concurrency, and ability to natively ingest semi-structured data. 

Additionally, many data app developers adopt generic low-cost tools that allow for quick development without upfront investment, as well as using traditional data platforms. When developers do not fully consider what is needed from their data stack to deliver powerful data analytics apps, problems can arise down the line. These problems include data storage and computing strains on the system, difficulties supporting semi-structured data, frequent maintenance and upgrades, and a lack of employee resources to configure the platform to their requirements. That will eventually lead to a full re-architecture of the data platform to address these issues, which can leave customers frustrated by latency issues and incomplete data analysis.  

In order to develop powerful, modern data apps, software companies need to invest in a modern, cloud-built data platform. Consider the data architecture before technical issues arise to enjoy a lower total cost of ownership from the beginning, remove the restraints of traditional data platforms and deliver fast, differentiated customer experiences.

The author is Geoff Soon, Managing Director, South Asia, Snowflake. Snowflake equips organizations with a single, integrated platform that offers the data warehouse built for the cloud.

If you want to be part of MARKETECH Experts Group, please click here.

MARKETCH APAC and Blogapalooza proudly unveil the first episode of #MARKETECHMondays. 

#MARKETECHMondays provides a platform for learning and sharing as we handpick influential marketing leaders and ask them about their careers, marketing journeys, and challenges, and successes. They will also be providing sage advice and rare insights from the most competitive frontlines of APAC marketing. 

In our pilot episode, we sat down with #MARKETECHExpert Mark De Joya, the Head of Corporate Communications of Max’s Group, Inc., and the Marketing Director of Max’s Restaurant. Mark De Joya is a recognized marketing professional with 17 years of experience.

He has worked with diverse brands, including Samsung, Huawei, Unilever, and Mondelez. He has also worked as a business leader and strategist for McCann Worldgroup Philippines. He believes in creative excellence and marketing effectiveness through “work that works.”

First Job

Mark began his career as a Brand Assistant at Unilever. He handled Lady’s Choice, a popular line of sandwich spreads in the Philippines. Unilever is widely considered as the “marketing university of the world.” He said that he is always grateful for the opportunity that he was able to begin his career the right way. He learned the nuts and bolts of brand development, equity management, portfolio management, and a truly integrated point of view of marketing communications.

He tells us about his first campaign and how he worked with Creative Guild Hall of Famer, Raul Castro.

“The first campaign I ever worked on was this little ad called “Isipin Mo Na Lang” (Think About It) for our Sandwich Spreads line; I’ve seen so many different iterations through the years—updating the food shots, packshots, tagline—but all with the same base ad. This was my first introduction to advertising, working with Creative Guild Hall of Famer Raul Castro.

“He’s intense, intuitive, and naturally brilliant. His team gave me my first taste of insight-based advertising and crafting narratives rooted in universal human truths and tensions—in this case, the innate nervousness of a young mom imagining the “lunchbox wars” that happen in the schoolyard, away from her eyes. But this first experience also taught me so much about the craft itself—pacing, casting, framing, lighting, blocking. I’m glad my first ad gave me hands-on experience both in the science and art of advertising.

“To this day, before the age of viral ads memes, I will always recall the pride I’d feel meeting people off the street who could recite the ad back to me verbatim. Back in the pre-YouTube world, I consider that quite a feat.

I’ve carried the foundations I built in these years throughout my career as I branched out to different industries: consumer electronics, retail dining, the advertising industry, etc.,” he says.

Mentors

Mentoring is crucial to success in this industry. It gives a career person a head start that may help him get ahead faster than those who have to learn the ropes. While Mark is an independent go-getter, he says that two people also influenced him as he went through his career.

“The first was Gino Borromeo, my mentor at the McCann Worldgroup when he was the Chief Strategy Officer. You need a certain level of creative IQ to thrive in the creative industry. To many people, “being creative” meant being artsy, having a sense of métier, and a natural affinity for the arts.

“I learned from Gino that “creativity” isn’t just those things; it’s the ability to solve problems. Classically defined—something is not truly “creative” unless it solves a real problem for humanity. Creativity, at its core, is an exercise in problem-solving. Therefore, the job of a marketer is to prove his effectiveness by creating real solutions,” he relates.

The second person who influenced him the most was Ariel Fermín, the Group Chief Operating Officer at Max’s Group. Ariel was also Mark’s first Marketing Director when he was still working at Unilever, seventeen years ago.

“His mind is one of a kind. He was trained as a chemical engineer, his incisiveness, and his ability to break down any problem—into its most basic equation. And that makes any problem, no matter how impossible it may seem at first, eminently solvable, because there’s always an equation to solve for X, Y, and Z.

“Under him, I’ve learned the perfect balance that has to exist between building great brands and doing great business. No marketer can say they’ve done great brand work if it doesn’t help the business; likewise, a strong brand makes a great business sustainable. His adage of “brand over time, business overnight” guides me in trying to craft great, effective work that adds value to life, value to the culture,” says Mark.

Current Job

Mark joined Max’s Group three years ago. He currently holds dual roles: Head of Corporate Communications and Marketing Director for Max’s Restaurant, the group’s flagship restaurant.

According to Mark, there is the prestige of playing a critical role in the country’s largest casual dining group. In addition to Max’s Restaurant, Max’s Group also operates Yellow Cab Pizza, Pancake House, and Krispy Kreme.

“It is an honor to be part of an organization that is firmly rooted in heritage and tradition while being relentlessly geared toward reinvention and renewal.”

What’s fascinating about the retail industry is how it demands discipline in bridging the end-to-end the links, from high-level brand thinking, nuanced product development to intimate one-to-one relationships with our end-users in our stores and e-commerce platforms. 

Mark De Joya, the Head of Corporate Communications of Max’s Group, Inc.

“Much of my career was spent leading FMCG and consumer electronics brands—where, to be honest, the ability to connect directly with our consumers is not always as direct, given the layers of distributors and retailers between the brand on its pedestal and real human beings in the market.”

“These realities challenged my teams and me to be the best-in-class in five-sense marketing. Experiences and communications go hand-in-hand 24/7, not just as one-off branded activations.”

Leadership

Mark says he is blessed to have served under excellent leaders of his time. He believes that he learns as much from people as people do from him. He also believes that there are different kinds of leadership, but not all of them are ideal.

“Some of them lacked humility and self-awareness. So early on, I promised myself that I would try to do better when I was finally serving in the same position. Everyone has something to learn. Everyone has something to teach. That’s how teams grow together,” he tells us.

Failures & Successes

Mark doesn’t mince his words about the failures that he experienced in his career. But he takes it all in stride. He firmly believes that it is part of the process, and marketers must develop the right mindset when encountering failures in life.

“As the great Conor McGregor says, there’s no such thing as losing—either you win or learn. I’ve done it all in my career. I’ve made a bad strategic choice, played the wrong game, positioned something wrong, priced something wrong, built the wrong mix. But for every “whoops” I’ve made, I believe I’ve had the opportunity to say, “I’m grateful I learned this. So next time, I’ll do that.”

To Mark, his greatest achievement in life was being named the 2019 Innovator 25 for Asia-Pacific by Provoke Media. Provoke Media was previously known as The Holmes Report. It is one of the world’s leading resources on public relations.

When asked why he treasured this award more than anything else, he responded: “This mattered to me more than brand awards. I believe it was recognition built less on hard metrics and more on the accumulated body of work that I consistently built while working on meaningful brands and standing for making positive change in the world.”

Personal Mantra

Mark’s mantra is also the core of his work philosophy.

“I could state my orientation and professional philosophy as a marketer: Solve great problems, build meaningful brands, create great value.

“Or, in the words of one of the wisest men I’ve ever met, “Math + Meaning = Magic.”

“There is a growing public distrust of their sincerity and authenticity. There is also this sense that with growing commercialization, there is this inevitable invasion by people whose intentions are less sincere. The world needs less salesmanship, more soulmanship.”

Career Advice

He shares with us his essential list for career and life:

  1. Play with joy. Grit is great, but not when it starts to chew away your passion.
  2. Don’t wait ‘til you’re ready. Always say yes, then have the courage to figure things out along the way.
  3. Martyrdom is not a career path. Guaranteed, 100% of the time, martyrs end up dead.
  4. Focused bigness, not scattered smallness. Conserve your greatness for the moments that matter—then go to town.
  5. Be curious. The right questions can be as powerful as the right answers.
  6. Choose to say, “Yes, and…” Bring out the best in people by building them up, not breaking them down with a “yes, but…”
  7. Always be in beta. You are never a finished product. Progress is the goal, not perfection.
  8. Just do it. The world cares more about actions than about ideas.
  9. Choose to unite, not to divide. The things that bring us together will always be stronger than those that drive us apart.
  10. Be interesting. Your job is not your life. Find three hobbies to make your life more meaningful: One to make you creative, one to make you healthy, and make you rich.

Subscribe to MARKETECH APAC’s YouTube Channel and watch the full video interview with Mark as we premiere on Monday, July 27 at 6.30 pm.

If you’re a marketing leader and you want to share your career experience to inspire the marketing industry, please reach out, we want to hear your story.

When companies are operating outside of normalcy, it is more critical than ever for marketers to have a strong grasp on changing circumstances and the evolving demands and expectations of their customers and their businesses. To navigate through periods of uncertainty and beyond, marketers need to create a robust marketing measurement strategy– one that is shaped by data-driven decisions, in order to be able to understand their performance and pivot their marketing strategies if something isn’t quite working. Marketing intelligence is the key ingredient to an effective measurement strategy.  Through a single system of record, marketing intelligence platforms provide the insights and analytics needed to drive informed decisions. 

A recent study revealed that 65 percent of marketers face moderate to significant budget cuts as a result of disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. While many displayed cuts between 10 to 20 percent, some reported deeper cuts, especially in industries where demand has decreased. With budgets fluctuating, having visibility over marketing activities across all channels can help marketers see the efficiency and effectiveness of every dollar spent. A clear view across all moving parts enables marketers to consistently adapt and reevaluate goals.

Additionally, customers are dealing with disruptions to their day-to-day life, causing behaviors and expectations to shift. For example, the consumer goods industry has seen vast changes in shopping behavior first-hand. Customers are prioritizing purchasing necessities and home entertainment products. Categories such as food, beverage and tobacco, toys and games and sporting goods were in top five for growth in page views and order count. While, luggage and bags saw a 14 percent decrease in page views due to travel restrictions. To respond appropriately to these shifts and deliver engaging and helpful experiences to address changing preferences, it is important that marketing teams double-down on measuring tactics, messages and content across all touchpoints.

Here are four key steps to building a measurement strategy that can guide marketers through this volatile time and into the future: 

  1. Connect cross-channel data  

The modern-day marketer uses a number of different channels to connect with customers, making it complex to keep track of the effectiveness and performance of a single campaign. From Facebook to LinkedIn to Google ads, the sources are endless. The dispersion of marketing data across different touchpoints means it ends up both siloed and inaccessible. In today’s landscape, where marketing teams are challenged with fluctuating budgets combined with changing behaviors of customers, they need to be as efficient as possible with their time and ad dollars.

Harmonizing data into a single source of truth gives marketers a cohesive view of the information they have at hand. Cutting man-hours spent bringing data together can be achieved by automating the process. This enables marketers to spend less time organizing data and more valuable time on campaign analysis and optimization.

2. Set up consistent taxonomies and ensure data hygiene 

Organizing and standardizing data is a crucial step in order for marketers to gain actionable insight. This involves formulating rules and naming conventions to dictate campaigns and media buys.

When data is derived and categorized in the same solid foundation, it can be used more accurately and consistently. This is key to gaining data accuracy– something that 84% of marketers lack confidence in.  By having all stakeholders work from a set of standardized data, teams can seamlessly report and share findings, as well as scale insights to launch new initiatives.

3. Set goals and track progress 

Now more than ever, the marketing landscape is impacted by the disruptions taking place across economics, politics, public health and more. Marketers must act swiftly and be flexible in the way they respond to, plan for and adjust to this new environment. 

Marketers can use this time as an opportunity to reset goals and benchmarks. Setting goals builds accountability and urgency, and helps identify and monitor specific key performance indicators (KPIs) across channels, regions and business units. Benchmarks such as industry standards and competitive benchmarks are helpful ways of allowing teams to track how campaigns are progressing toward these goals. 

4. Align and collaborate across a single system of record

With organizations adopting remote working, marketers need to overcome the geographical silos and team silos to stay aligned.  With data connected and standardized across a single system of record, marketers can visualize goals and benchmarks through shareable dashboards. This enables internal and external stakeholders to collaborate and work toward shared goals.

Moreover, marketers should adapt visualizations to tell the right story based on the audience. For example, the chief marketing officer and the executive team may be more interested in key KPIs that impact the broader business, while channel marketers may require a closer look at each tactic or data, broken down day by day, across creative, messages and more.

By creating a marketing measurement strategy, marketers can arm themselves with the data and insights they need to help answer difficult questions and pave the path to certainty for their customers and their businesses. 

The author is Leah Pope, Chief Marketing Officer of Salesforce Datorama. Salesforce Datorama provides the leading cloud-based, AI-powered marketing intelligence and analytics platform for enterprises, agencies and publishers. 

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