Taipei, Taiwan – Automotive brand BMW in Taiwan has partnered with SaaS company Appier and creative agency Bremen Digital Creative to create joint efforts in raising BMW Taiwan’s brand awareness and further foster its customer loyalty.

Through the partnership, BMW Taiwan aims to engage both potential buyers and existing BMW car enthusiasts on social media channels. With this, Bremen Digital Creative has developed a campaign around a cherished Lunar New Year tradition where the first person to burn incense in the temple after midnight is blessed with good luck. 

Meanwhile, Appier’s BotBonnie conversational marketing solution has been implemented, allowing BMW Taiwan better utilise Meta’s Recurring Notifications feature and successfully connect with its community on Facebook to achieve four times more engagements than it did in previous years with a 78% opt-in rate and 99% read rate. Moreover, with BotBonnie’s comment auto-reply feature, the brand will now be able to immediately respond to users and create a longer duration of engagement with each of them.

Brian Chen, Bremen Digital Creative’s account manager, said that with the directions pre-discussed with BMW Taiwan, they designed the social campaign for the Lunar New Year holiday, hoping to increase the number of engagements that BMW Taiwan could have for Facebook campaigns.

“With BotBonnie’s expertise in conversational marketing, we not only hit the target but also greatly exceeded expectations in several key results,” added Chen.

Meanwhile, Li Chiang, digital marketing specialist at BMW Taiwan, shared that during the whole campaign process, Appier’s BotBonnie solution provided the users with 24/7 support, and with the conversational marketing solution, they could respond to users immediately and create longer and more engaging journeys.

“Importantly, in order to broaden the community of BMW fans and potential customers, we implemented Recurring Notifications which helped the company gain 1,500 subscriptions and 2,500+ participants in three days,” said Chiang.

Samuel Chiang, Appier’s assistant manager of customer success, noted, “With the Lunar New Year campaign, BMW Taiwan saw a tenfold improvement in customer participation over previous online campaigns, and we can attribute that success to Recurring Notifications, powered by Appier’s conversational marketing solution BotBonnie, Meta’s authorised partner.”

Jakarta, Indonesia – Ginee, an e-commerce merchant services technology platform in Southeast Asia, has announced a partnership with TikTok Shop to provide a new online shopping experience for brands and merchants to reach their consumers through TikTok Shop, an exclusive and innovative marketplace where entertainment meets commerce that is fully integrated into TikTok, bringing together online sellers, buyers, and creators. 

The collaboration with TikTok Shop is one example of Ginee Ads, which integrates with multiple online advertising platforms to help businesses grow sales and better manage advertising spend.

Since its launch in early 2020, Ginee has supported over 130,000 businesses and sellers, processing USD 2.7 billion in gross merchandise value. Ginee provides a SaaS Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platform to help brands and online sellers with day-to-day operations and customer relationship management via multiple marketplaces, as well as warehouse management services (WMS).

Currently, over 2,000 brands in Indonesia on Ginee are also on TikTok Shop, which held a month-long TikTok Shopping Ramadan Sale ending on 25 April. Over the entire month, total livestreams received almost 2 billion views, translating into a gross merchant value (GMV) sales increase of almost 92 per cent. Among the brands who saw a boost to their website and sales was Yongki Komaladi, one of the largest shoe, sandals, and accessories retailers in Indonesia. A Ginee customer since June 2021, Yongki has had over 450 SKU pages listed on the Ginee platform.

Yongki Komaladi’s, Sales Manager Reza , said, “During the recent Ramadan, we used Ginee Ads and its integration with TikTok Shop to really tap into the platform’s vibrant user community, not just for brand exposure and drive sales, but also to streamline the purchase process and drive conversion. The embedded product anchors in the form of short videos and livestream format on TikTok Shop really makes it easy for us to have effective, meaningful engagements with our customers at scale.”

Ginee’s Head of Southeast Asia, Evelyin Wu, commented, “Ginee’s mission is to help our partners and sellers like Yongki manage and grow their businesses more efficiently.”

Wu added, “Ginee Ads is one of our newest product innovations where we collaborate via system and API integration with leading innovative platforms like TikTok Shop, enabling our merchants to run simple and effective campaigns to drive traffic and conversion on their SKU pages and online stores. We are really proud and excited about this collaboration with TikTok Shop.”

Melbourne, Australia – Australia’s independent media company, ACM, has partnered with Dailymotion, the video solutions provider and content discovery platform, to further grow its video journalism capabilities in local and regional Australia and to further monetise audiences across its network through the Dailymotion Video Player.

Through the partnership, Dailymotion will be bringing its full range of products and services, including bespoke migration of the video catalogue assets, workshops, training, and insights on both video content and monetisation to ACM’s editorial, product and technology, ad operations, and local and national sales teams. The partnership also seeks to upskill every team in the ACM newsrooms, front and back office, with 24/7 support and cutting-edge tools.

Moreover, Dailymotion will be committed to supporting ACM’s news sites with its advanced video solutions to enhance user experience and digital content strategies.

Chul Hong, Dailymotion’s vice president of content for APAC, said that partnering with ACM is a thrilling achievement for Dailymotion, and it expands their premium network and allows Dailymotion to join hands with ACM to support community, regional and rural news outlets reach and engage wider audiences, to monetise their video content better. 

“Our OVP technology will contribute to ACM’s mission and innovation ambitions in the journalism field,” added Hong.

Meanwhile, Paul Tyrrell, ACM’s chief customer and marketing officer, noted, “By partnering with one of the world’s largest video hosting platforms, we are able to provide our audiences with state-of-the-art video content to increase engagement, encourage shareability and ultimately drive growth in ACM video consumption. This is a win for the community and our commercial partners.”

Manila, Philippines – The Media Specialists Association of The Philippines (MSAP) and ad-tech player, Moving Walls, have partnered to launch the ‘Video Outside’ playbook to share their knowledge and provide guidance on how to extend video advertising to the real-world using billboards and placed-based Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH) media.

In digital, video has become the most popular and engaging form of content with the world’s largest advertising spenders relying on premium video formats to reach audiences. We are now seeing video advertising extend to DOOH with more venues covered by digital panels from traditional roadside billboards to in-mall signages.

Video in the ‘real world’ offers several benefits that TV or mobile videos can not – higher reach than TV and greater brand safety than online – all with targeting and measurement capabilities that digital advertising offers.

According to Jam de Guzman, president of MSAP, the partnership between the association and Moving Walls Philippines has created measurement, transparency and accountability across the Philippines OOH landscape.

“We already know that video is the most popular form of digital content that is consumed across Social, Over-the-Top (OTT) media services, and the internet. Extending this to locations ‘Outside-the-Home’ presents an untapped opportunity to reach new audiences,” De Guzman said.

The initiative was launched by former president Michael de Castro, whose stellar leadership and guidance helped accelerate the adoption of new technologies that ensure measurement, accountability and automation. With the ‘digital-like’ planning capabilities in place for the Filipino Digital OOH scene, the medium’s full potential can now be realised.

This playbook will take marketers through a step-by-step guide to building a successful video outside campaign in the real world and help marketers and advertisers learn how to leverage non-intrusive, brand-safe, and measurable advertising on physical screens.

Sri Lanka – Sri Lanka’s online payment gateway solution provider, WEBXPAY, has partnered with global payments company Visa to expand the scope of the country’s digital economy by enabling seamless, effortless, and sustainable digital payment acceptance solutions for SMBs across Sri Lanka. 

The partnership provides WEBXPAY with a boost to faster achieve its goal of empowering SMBs island-wide with face-to-face digital payment acceptance capability, offering them access to Visa cardholders across the globe. This in turn will increase scalability for the small business sector and consequently aid its recovery.

As a new member of the Visa Acceptance Fast Track Programme for APAC, WEBXPAY hopes to widen its net of financial inclusion by enabling digital payment acceptance to 10,000 new-to-digital Sri Lankan SMBs by 2025, aiming for a Gross Merchant Volume (GMV) of Rs 10 billion by 2025 to elevate the country’s digital economy. This will help increase contactless payment acceptance through soft POS, enable tap-to-phone payments with soft POS technology and bring about low-cost face-to-face transaction acceptance. In a post-pandemic economy, this will also help merchants rebuild and increase sales to more consumers and improve customer loyalty; all while offering their shoppers a friction-free digital payment experience at checkout.

Avanthi Colombage, Visa’s country manager for Sri Lanka and the Maldives, shared that small businesses have always been keen to adopt technology to further their business and most times, only need enablers to accelerate this. 

“Through the Visa Acceptance Fast Track Programme, we are excited to partner with WEBXPAY and play a role in helping thousands of small businesses across Sri Lanka go digital. With Visa’s solutions and best practices and WEBXPAY’s superior payment gateway solutions, small businesses can now accept contactless payments and enable tap-to-phone for merchants quicker and in a secure manner, in their path to recovery,” said Colombage.

Meanwhile, Omar Sahib, WEBXPAY’s founder, commented that they appreciate the support extended by Visa to help expand the fintech’s products and social goals in reaching out to the SMBs in Sri Lanka.

“Through this partnership, we are further extending our ability to offer fast, convenient, and frictionless payments processing in the hope that we contribute towards the greater expansion of the local digital payments ecosystem, and in turn play a transformative role in the growth of the digital economy of Sri Lanka,” said Sahib.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Malaysia’s digital entertainment service enabler, UniPin, has been appointed by Moonton, a Chinese video game developer and publisher, to be its official regional esports partner for the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Southeast Asia Cup Tournament, MSC 2022.

Through the partnership, UniPin will be providing an opportunity for MLBB fans to attend the Grand Finals of the MSC 2022 by offering a fully paid trip for three days and two nights in Kuala Lumpur, including a Gold Tier ticket for the Grand Finals itself. 

From 27 May to 19 June, UniPin will also be offering prizes such as cashback MLBB in-game prizes and Epic hero skins. It will also be hosting some fun activities at its booth in MSC 2022, where participants can win even more prizes and exclusive merchandise.

Stella Soh, UniPin Malaysia’s commercial director, said that UniPin and Moonton’s partnership is based on the same vision to support the growth of the esports ecosystem in Southeast Asia, which can be done by forming and running various activities and tournaments.

“We’re delighted to partner with Moonton Games in MSC 2022 as we share the same passions and values. UniPin is committed to developing grassroots opportunities and supporting the community. It is also UniPin’s vision to make our service accessible to all gamers no matter what location, demographic or socioeconomic status especially in Southeast Asia and other emerging countries,” added Soh.

Meanwhile, Adrian Cher, head of regional sales at Moonton, believes that the collaboration with UniPin will provide avenues for their fans to catch MSC 2022 in action as they celebrate esports #SupremaSEA in the best possible way by once again hosting a large-scale live stage event.

“This tournament serves as the regional platform for MLBB players and fans to gather and celebrate the best talent across Southeast Asia. UniPin’s commitment is in line with our vision to help drive growth and sustainability within the esports ecosystem, and we are thrilled to work closely together with them to bring the action even closer to our fans,” said Cher.

Hong Kong – Insurtech company YAS Microinsurance and telematics insurtech company Amodo have teamed up to deliver autonomous insurance on-chain. Both companies formed the partnership share the same goal of reforming traditional insurance and revolutionising the industry to be integrated with smart technologies.

YAS’s on-demand mobile application and eco-blockchain currently provides insurance for new generation lifestyles not limited to outdoor sports, online commerce, public commute and the world’s first NFT insurance to address the emergence of Web3 activities. The protection offered by YAS will be enriched by the deep data insights generated from the telematics technology provided by Amodo, helping to better address users’ risks.

Marijan Mumdziev, CEO at Amodo, said, “It really is fascinating to enter a new partnership with such an innovative high-tech company like YAS. Offering on-demand microinsurance for different kinds of activities and situations is truly changing the way people buy and claim insurance. Using Amodo’s technology and know-how, YAS will enrich and further optimise its current offer. I am delighted about this and can’t wait to show to the world what these two companies have on their roadmap.”

This partnership unlocks the ability for YAS to provide autonomous insurance, combining with YAS eco-blockchain to automate and streamline the underwriting process with greater transparency and ownership of data back to users.

Meanwhile, William Lee, co-founder at YAS Microinsurance, commented, “We see huge synergies in forming this strategic partnership with Amodo. Their presence in Europe and our footprint in Asia will unlock a truly global platform for us. By integrating Amodo’s telematics engine to YAS’ eco-friendly insurance blockchain, we will leap ahead, ever closer to our vision of how future insurance works – autonomous insurance on-chain to the world as we transition from the old and Web2 world into a more interconnected world with Web3. YAS will take this partnership forward to produce machine-to-machine and human-to-machine protection, preparing global users for the interconnected future of smarter and greener cities.”

Philippines – Bent Pixels Asia (BPA), a joint venture between Bent Pixels and Hepmil Media Group to empower esports and gaming creators in Asia to efficiently operate and scale their earnings on YouTube, has partnered with Tier One Entertainment, the Philippines’ gaming and esports entertainment talent and entertainment company, to help creators accelerate their revenue from YouTube reserved media offerings, as well as grow their capabilities as creators in producing quality content to engage their audiences.

The partnership officially marks the expansion of BPA in the Philippines. This will bring its total network of premium gaming and esports YouTube creators to over 400 from the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, US, and European markets, enabling advertisers to potentially reach over 300 million subscribers.

Through the partnership with BPA, Tier One Entertainment’s creators will be offered to advertisers as part of YouTube Reserved Media deals, which offers brands to secure sought-after ad spaces instead of via auction. Creators can potentially unlock opportunities to uplift their YouTube revenue via access to branded content deals and access to premium tools.

Moreover, BPA will be offering creator development programmes for Tier One Entertainment’s talents who have YouTube channels to help them grow their reach and subscriber base, by offering workshops, best practices, and tools that will help creators strategise, analyse, and execute compelling video content. It will also provide creators troubleshooting support for issues faced by Tier One Entertainment’s creators on their respective YouTube channels.

Karl Mak, CEO and co-founder of Hepmil Media Group, commented they are thrilled to be partnering with Tier One Entertainment and its creators to offer advertisers more brand-safe advertising options targeting a highly engaged group of audiences in one of the fastest-growing esports markets globally. 

“We believe that with our expertise and strength in providing premium reserved inventory, we will be able to help creators within Tier One Entertainment unlock new monetisation opportunities, especially in uplifting their earnings from their video content, as well as helping them build a sustainable earning strategy in their content creation journey through tools and resources that offer them the insights and know-how to grow their presence,” said Mak.

Meanwhile, Tryke Gutierrez, CEO and co-founder of Tier One Entertainment, said that they are excited to be partnering with the Hepmil Media Group and Bent Pixels Asia to give more creators the opportunity to turn their dreams into careers. 

“We’ve been saying for years – since Tier One was founded, one of our main goals is to open doors for aspiring creators, for gamers with big dreams, and we strongly believe that our partnership with Bent Pixels Asia is going to help us fulfil that goal,” added Gutierrez.

Manila, Philippines — The Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) recently sealed a pioneering partnership with Alipay+, a suite of global cross-border mobile payments and marketing solutions operated by Ant Group, to enable digital banking customers to shop globally. This makes BPI the first bank partnering with Alipay+ as a mobile payment provider to extend its payments service beyond local merchants.

Through this collaboration, BPI is now available as a payment option at regional and global online merchants supported by Alipay+, while users of BPI can make payments in these merchants with their preferred and familiar payment method.

Noel Santiago, chief digital officer of BPI, said, “We aim to better serve and engage the now digitally savvy customers, by continuously innovating and expanding our digital ecosystem of partners and merchants, for an enhanced digital experience that goes beyond banking.”

Santiago adds, “With the use of BPI Online credentials, the partnership with Alipay+ will bring a convenient and seamless payment experience to BPI customers and connect them to regional and global brands.”

According to BPI, their consistent push to adopt new technologies, 91% of their transactions is now digital, up from 85% prior to the pandemic. Their digital customer base has also grown to 4.9 million in 2021 with a 20% increase in active users compared to the previous year.

With innovative technologies and products, Alipay+ has seen strong adoption since its launch in 2020 among regional and global online merchants across e-commerce, digital entertainment and O2O. More than 1 million offline merchants in major European and Asian markets have also partnered with Alipay+ since.

CHENG Guoming, GM of Alipay+ global payment partnership of Ant Group, said, “Digital payment is not only about mobile wallets, but also includes banking apps and other digitalized payment methods. Alipay+ is working closely with digital payment providers such as BPI to alleviate cross-border payment pain points for consumers. BPI is one of the largest and most trusted banks in the Philippines with a loyal customer base. We are excited to partner with BPI to make regional and global brands more accessible to local consumers and to enhance their lifestyle.”

Hong Kong — Bluebell Group has announced its partnership with K-Way French outwear brand. Following the brand’s in-market digital launch in June, the new mono-brand physical store opening is planned for October 2022 at Pacific Place under the Swire Group, one of Hong Kong’s premium shopping malls.

The iconic French brand known for its windbreaker, lifestyle fashion and sportswear is part of BasicNet, an Italian company that also owns Kappa, Superga, Briko, and Sebago, and is on track to rapidly expand beyond its homebase. Bluebell Group, an Asian brand curator and operator, will manage the brand’s overall presence including an online e-commerce shop, local marketing activation, and overall retail operations.

K-Way will be introduced to Hong Kong consumers first through its online k-way.com.hk and a planned physical store in October. Targeting the active young local audience, and offering a mix of technical meets fashion apparel, the brand’s footprint is expected to grow further in Hong Kong and into Mainland China later this year.

Lorenzo Boglione, executive vice chairman of BasicNet, said, “We are very proud to open the first K-Way mono-brand store in Hong Kong and happy to embark on a path to a long presence in the city for the brand and for a long partnership between BasicNet and Bluebell.”

Meanwhile, Samy Redjeb, managing director for Bluebell group Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, shared, “We have no doubt K-Way will become an anchor brand for us in Hong Kong, where retail today is geared solely on local consumption. The brand offers a desirable and accessible lifestyle of unisex fashion and kids’ wear, which is one of our core focus for the development of this market. BasicNet has some very exciting global growth plans and hype collaborations for K-Way and we are pleased to play a role in bringing something fresh and playful to our Asian consumers.”