Singapore – Standard Chartered Bank and FairPrice Group have recently launched their new digital bank for Singapore, Trust Bank, and WPP creative company Superunion has been tapped to lead its overall branding.Ā 

Trust Bank, known as Trust, is a digital bank designed to offer easy-to-use and transparent banking experiences with a launch of products that include a credit card, a savings account, and family insurance. Backed by a unique partnership between Standard Chartered Bank andĀ FairPrice Group, it brings together a leading international bank and a leading national food retailer, with more than 200 years of combined experience serving the everyday communities of Singapore. Superunion was tasked with creating a new inclusive brand, visual identity, and brand experience to reflect the new bank’s role ā€œin the fabric of the nation and the lives of its people.ā€Ā 

Superunion said the new brand is designed as a ā€˜love letter’ to everyone who calls Singapore home, celebrating the everyday lives and spirit of the people who come together to build a brighter future for the country. The brand is inspired by the idea ā€˜a digital bank for the everyday us’, and is designed to reflect the approachable and accessible nature of the bank. 

According to Superunion, the wordmark in lower case is an expression of trust as the foundation of today’s banking and indicates the bank’s aim to be more in tune with customers through a clear, down-to-earth banking experience. 

To develop a unique illustration style for the bank’s communications, the agency worked with typographer Raymond Burger and illustrators Soh Eeshaun and TYC Studios. The added signature icon of the letterform ā€˜T’ in two blocks is inspired by Singapore’s building architecture – designed using its iconic pastel colours. Created in two core colours, the blue captures the bank’s stability and security, while the purple is a symbol of optimism and a nod to the national flower, Vanda Miss Joaquim. 

Scott Lambert, Superunion’s creative director, said, ā€œIt’s been a privilege to partner with theĀ Trust Bank team to create a new revolutionary digital bank in Singapore. Banking, as an essential aspect of everyday life, needs to be simple, accessible and easy for the end customer to use. The Trust Bank aims to deliver that experience by demystifying banking and empowering local people. We brought this to life within the brand through collaboration with employees and leaders across the entire business.’ 

He added, ā€œSuperunion wanted to show that Trust Bank is a brand that truly understands what it means to call Singapore home. We are proud of a brand platform that inherently delivers against theĀ needs of Singaporeans through deep insight around what it means to live, work and spend here.”Ā 

Meanwhile, Kelvin Tan, CMO of Trust Bank, commented, ā€œWorking with Superunion to build the Trust Bank brand was both a strategically and creatively-inspired experience. They took the time to immerse in our consumer insights and corporate ambition – and coupled with their creative expertise, aĀ brand that speaks to the diverse needs of consumers in Singapore was born! Having trustĀ deeply rooted throughout the collaborative journey, from strategy development through toĀ visual identity, means we all had a hand in creating this new brand for all of us in Singapore.ā€Ā 

Trust was officially launched on 1 September 2022. The bank brings several market-first innovations to Singapore, including banking only through the app with integrated rewards and spend trackers, as well as the first-to-market numberless credit card, which also combines a credit and debit card, removing the need for users to own multiple cards.

Supporting the launch of Trust is an omnichannel brand campaign by IRIS Worldwide and Havas Media with the tagline ā€˜The digital bank for the everyday us’, which will be delivered acrossĀ TV, print, digital, out-of-home and creative in-store activations at FairPrice Group retail stores.Ā 

Singapore – Following the departure of Vivek Kumar from retail giant NTUC FairPrice as its director of strategic marketing and omnichannel monetization, Kumar is immediately announced by World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in Singapore asĀ its newest chief marketing and communications director.Ā 

As he brings in more than 20 years of diversified experience in management and strategic communications, Kumar will be leading WWF-Singapore’sĀ campaigns, focusing on conservation and climate change goals such as deforestation, haze pollution, food security, plastics, sustainable finance, sustainable consumption, and illegal wildlife trade.

The role takes effect immediately, and entails him to work closely with communities, businesses and governments to advocate for positive change.

At NTUC, Kumar helmed the marketing of over 160 Cheers and FairPrice Xpress convenience stores across Singapore, as well as setting up the FairPrice Group Media.

He also held various roles inĀ the Singapore Labour Movement since 2010, and was assistant director-general (ADG) and director of the membership services division of NTUC.

He shared that his leadership style centers around ā€œpeer-powered learningā€ that will help to foster meaningful connections among team members.

ā€œAs a leader, it is important to have empathy so that we can support our peers and colleagues. I am excited to be joining a driven, highly capable and diverse team at WWF-Singapore. I hope to engage individuals and companies in creating greater awareness through human-centric angles that support our mission and Singapore’s Green Plan 2030 goals,ā€ Kumar said.

He also added that his interest working with the organization started out as a donor to one of WWF-Singapore’s initiatives and soon became his dream job to join the organization.

ā€œI have always been driven by a sense of purpose, from volunteering in my college days, to my recent role with the Singapore Labour Movement supporting union members. As the 2021 IPCC report highlights, there is really no time for us to lose when it comes to the health of our planet,ā€ Kumar said.

While still in his position at NTUC FairPrice, Kumar graced the recently-held roundtable of MARKETECH APAC ā€˜Business Growth Levers from Acquisition to Retention’ in SeptemberĀ where he shared how the organization’s convenience store Cheers adapted to the changes in the pandemic which included doubling down on good consumer research and offering innovative products.Ā 

ā€œWe can’t wait for the customers to come to us. We can create the right occasion [as long as] we understand the customer’s needs. We must give them very friction-free shopping experiences where they can complete their mission – you can’t leave it midway,ā€ Kumar said in the roundtable.

We know that the consumer is ever-changing but the fluidity of their behavior has taken an entirely different meaning this pandemic – with unprecedented changes that unfolded such as the constraint on physical interactions and the economic plunge of markets, this completely overhauled how brands and businesses engaged with their target consumers. 

Last September 21, MARKETECH APAC, in partnership with CleverTap, gathered marketing leaders from all over the APAC region representing different industries, for the roundtable “Business Growth Levers from Acquisition to Retentionā€ to discuss how the pandemic has shaken brands’ current playbook on consumer acquisition and retention strategies. 

Growth and marketing heads from the edtech, grocery, TV, airline, fitness, fintech, fast food, and publication sectors each shared their unique challenges and how their teams adapted to emerging brand new cohorts, shifting priorities among consumers, with new desires and motivations at the front.Ā 

Watch live the highlights of the roundtable and hear straight from APAC’s marketing heads the notable changes this pandemic on consumer acquisition and retention.

The rise of new consumer segments amid the pandemic

The areas of educational platform, publication, and fitness witnessed the arrival of new consumer personas borne out of the heightened digital lifestyle. 

Marisha Lakhiani, CMO of Mindvalley, a learning platform for self-help and entrepreneurship, shared that during the period, the platform suddenly attracted younger users, a group it didn’t predominantly draw in before. 

Meanwhile, for global fitness brand Les Mills International, it found that its main fitness consumer now favors a split between in-gym and home digital workouts.

ā€œThe consumer’s new normal is 60:40 in terms of live and digital fitness; so if they’re doing 5 workouts in a week, 3 of them they want to do it in a club, in a live environment, and 2 they want to do as a digital workout,ā€ shared Anna Henwood, CMO of Les Mills International. 

As for publications, Philippines’ Summit Media saw these changes most evidently on how consumers shifted their patterns in finding and consuming content. Specifically for its parenting brand, Smart Parenting, Facebook used to be its biggest acquisition channel, but over the current period, the channel has not been giving the volatility that’s expected, according to its Growth Lead Iza Santos-Cuyos.

During the roundtable, David Lim, the vice president for marketing of grocery platform HappyFresh, pointed out that whatever strategies that may have served marketing teams pre-pandemic can now be officially considered bygones.

“As a marketer, whatever we have learned in textbooks, on websites, [and] on webinars can be forgotten in the past 18 months…because if you just look at acquisition, everything has changed,ā€ said Lim. 

Lim adds, ā€œI think when it comes to the topic of acquisition, everything has to be extremely localized. We have to look at each market on its own, we have to look at each cohort on its own, and then link it back to how they retain, how they come back month after month in a very granular [manner], much more granular than before.ā€ 

For acquiring consumers, improving SEO and search strategies have been the common thread, while forging strategic partnerships showed itself to be the redeeming factor among marketing teams to both acquire and retain consumers in the current market climate. At the roundtable, marketing leaders also emphasized the importance of first-party data.

For Mindvalley and Summit Media, it has been the same go-to response – focusing and investing more in search and SEO. 

ā€œWe identified the customers that we are actually retaining and try to acquire them, so like micro-acquiring a particular audience,ā€ said Mindvalley’s Marisha Lakhiani. 

Summit Media’s Iza Santos-Cuyos shared that as they bolster their search strategies, the publication realized that it is in fact attracting a different set of cohorts on search versus those coming from Facebook, bringing them to conclude that they cannot now discount Facebook altogether while focusing on search.

ā€œWhat we learned from doing that is to devise a separate strategy for audiences acquired on Facebook versus those acquired on search,ā€ said Santos-Cuyos. 

Brands forming strategic partnerships to cushion drastic market changes

The fast-food industry took one of the biggest hits during the pandemic, with the phased-out in-person interactions blowing the footfall for dine-in. 

In the roundtable, KFC Malaysia’s CMO May Ling Chan shared that partnering with food delivery platforms acted as a safety net, where within the e-commerce scene, the QSR sector has not been the fastest in adoption. 

ā€œI think what happened during the pandemic was [the] growth of food aggregators. For us, I think that’s the biggest part of acquisition that we see,ā€ said Chan. 

Online food delivery has seen an unprecedented rise in adoption by both brands and consumers. According to a report by Statista, in Asia, revenue in the online food delivery segment has been projected to reach US$223,372m this year. 

Singapore’s supermarket chain NTUC FairPrice echoes the same gameplan, where its convenience store Cheers inked a tie-up with top delivery platforms GrabFood and foodpanda in order to answer to the surge in need for on-demand and fast delivery of food products. 

Vivek Kumar, NTUC FairPrice Group’s director for strategic marketing & omnichannel monetization, cited ā€˜Supper moments’ which Cheers aimed to create through the partnership, where consumers can not only see product offerings in a snap but to ā€œgo ahead” and complete their transaction in real-time.

ā€œSupper moments on food delivery platforms is quite a unique opportunity. [When] restaurants are closed and you [still] want your beer and your nachos and your croissants, and stuff like that, this is the place to go to.ā€ Kumar said.

He adds, “We can’t wait for the customers to come to us. We can create the right occasion [as long as] we understand the customer’s needs. We must give them very friction-free shopping experiences where they can complete their mission – you can’t leave it midway.ā€

The fast-changing consumer patterns pressing the importance of first-party data

Global cross-border payments platform OFX was also one of the brands that participated in the roundtable and its Global Head of Digital Acquisition Shad Haehae shared that as the pandemic pushed the stronger need for brands to know their customers a lot more, this made the platform re-evaluate the quality of data it obtains.

ā€œWe’re a money business, and people send money for particular reasons, so those reasons have changed,ā€ said Haehae. 

OFX previously relied on third-party data for insights, but Haehae shares that as a business, OFX figured that it needed to be smarter on this front.

ā€œWe adopted new partnerships, new types of technologies [not just] from [a] martech [and] adtech perspective, even from a data perspective. We’ve done a lot of consolidation on platforms and data.ā€ 

The same is the case for TV and radio operator giant, Astro, in Malaysia. 

ā€œSo it’s a balance between providing value to the customers to [keep] them from churning [and] aggregating our first-party data with social data, and with data that we have in the network to go after customers a lot more aggressively than we have in the past,ā€ said Norsiah Juriani Johari, Astro’s vice president of marketing. 

For Les Mills International, they eventually leveraged first-party data which it successfully included in its marketing strategy because of the direct-to-consumer journey it now has via its own fitness app. Predominantly, its consumer was a gym member which Henwood admits the brand had no prior visible data of as well as on how its products looked like. 

With digital fitness now ingrained in people’s exercise routines, Henwood shared that content has become its differentiator, which is what makes ā€œpeople stay.ā€

ā€œSo how we film our content [in] the lockdown, how we do that more and more so it’s really engaging with the customer, and how we [connect with] different personalities through [our] content – that’s been a big part of our retention strategy,ā€ Henwood shares. 

For Cebu Pacific Air, meanwhile, one of the Philippines’ leading airlines, answering to pandemic-induced shifts meant working inward and letting the team adapt to new ways of implementing marketing strategies. 

Alongside relying on new consumer segments during this period, Michelle De Guzman, the airline’s marketing director, said, ā€œEven the ways of working that we have as a marketing team, it has changed as well when it comes to user acquisition and retention.”

She shares, “We have also developed agile marketing sprints – and that was not something that was done before, but [has become] very important on what we do now.ā€ 

Consumer acquisition & retention in 2022 and beyond

While overcoming each of the hurdles in their industries, marketing leaders agree that staying on top of the game is all about being continuously aligned to the shifts – from the minute to the massive transitions – in consumer and market behavior. 

HappyFresh’s David Lim believes that we cannot apply the same methods of acquisition anymore, and in 2022, one of the beliefs and assumptions that their team has is things would not be the same as pre-covid.

ā€œEvery country has [its] own announcement, every country has [its] own waves of covid with different government announcements. I think when it comes to the topic of acquisition, everything has to be extremely localized,ā€ said Lim. 

Building trust among consumers also remains a vital factor in the consumer engagement journey, says Katherine Cheung, CMO of edtech Snapask. 

ā€œOne key factor that we have in Snapask on user retention and how to retain customers to our platform is of course by building trust. We have to bear in mind that since the pandemic, people have so much more free time, as most of the regions are still experiencing lockdown and they are not allowed to go out from time to time. We have to bear in mind that users have so much more time to invest in your product,ā€ Cheung said.

FairPrice’s Vivek Kumar’s advice to leaders, ā€œAs a marketing leader, we need to create that vision and then keep people involved in the journey, so that becomes their objective and their mission and not just [acting according to] marketing teams’ wishlist – the moment that silo happens, we have lost the battle.ā€

Singapore – With the meteoric rise in technology, it isn’t new anymore to hear of innovations from time to time – from robots to never-thought-of digital services, from the next rocking software to just about any tech that aims to automate and digitize every point of human activity. 

In the often dubbed ā€˜technological hub’ Singapore, homegrown supermarket operator NTUC Fairprice has launched a new branch under its cashless and zero-staff format for food mart brand Cheers, which is turning the ā€˜convenience’ business on its head. 

In the new Cheers store, a sign is displayed reading “no queues. no checkout. just walk out.”

The new branch is the fourth Cheers store to be opened of the type, where the first one was launched in 2017 at Nanyang Polytechnic in Singapore.

Having partnered with Visa, customers going to the store only need to pick out the items they wish to purchase and are good to go. Cheers uses an advanced A.I. system that is smart enough to detect the items that have been grabbed by customers, where payment will automatically be processed upon their exit. 

Cheers is a 24-hour convenience store with over 160 branches in Singapore.Ā The new location is built in the integrated lifestyle hub Our Tampines Hub. Following the pilot cashless and unmanned branch at Nanyang Polytechnic, the two other tech-driven stores were put up at National University of Singapore.

NTUC FairPrice continues to embrace innovation and develop new service concepts to enhance the shopping experience for customers. We complement the efforts at promoting a self-service culture in Singapore through our unmanned store concepts along other initiatives that facilitate efficient service delivery. By collaborating with our strategic partner Visa, we are able to leverage on our respective strengths and experience to further propel the retail industry forward.

Seah Kian Peng, Group CEO, FairPrice Group

According to a Facebook post by NTUC FairPrice, to enter the store, customers need to download the Cheers SG mobile app, and add their Visa card details as their payment mode. At the gantry after the entrance, customers need to scan the on-screen unique QR code or they can use facial recognition which customers can register in the app. Purchases are automatically added to the virtual shopping cart, and charged to the Visa card upon exit.

This is the first time that Visa is partnering with our retail merchant partner to create this concept of kind in Southeast Asia, and we want to help our merchants power the future of retail and create innovative retail experiences so that consumers and businesses can pay and be paid effortlessly.

Kunal Chatterjee, Visa Country Manager, Singapore and Brunei

In 2014, Singapore announced its national Smart Nation initiative which aims to harness technological advancements to build Singapore’s status as an outstanding place of living. NTUC FairPrice said its efforts are in support of the said direction.