Tag: personalization

The outlook for e-commerce marketing strategies is more dynamic and complex than ever, as digital transformation accelerates and consumer behaviours continue to evolve. As marketing leaders, it’s crucial to recognise the shift from traditional, one-size-fits-all approaches to more personalised, data-driven strategies. 

The rise of artificial intelligence and machine learning enables businesses to analyse consumer data at unprecedented depths, offering insights that drive more targeted marketing efforts. Moreover, the increasing importance of mobile shopping and social media integration requires marketers to adopt a multi-channel approach, ensuring a seamless and engaging customer experience across all touchpoints.

Looking ahead, marketing leaders must prepare for a landscape where agility and adaptability are key. The growing demand for sustainable and socially responsible business practices also impacts e-commerce strategies, pushing brands to align their marketing messages with these values. 

As part of our E-Commerce Marketing 2024 series, we invited industry leaders to share their insights and advice on how to traverse the ever-evolving landscape of e-commerce marketing. From improving customer experience, hyper-personalisation, social commerce to influencer marketing, these are the insights various industry marketing leaders have shared to push forward the e-commerce marketing scene further into 2024 and beyond.

Check out the line-up of published insights by marketing leaders under the series:

For our first byline under this series, Eleanor O’Dwyer-Duggan, CX solution strategist for Southeast Asia at Qualtrics shares her insights on why delivering a superior CX is one of the most impactful, sustainable, and efficient ways to achieve greater business impact in challenging market environments. Learn more about her insights here.

To succeed in the world of digital commerce, Annie Yao, head of growth and market intelligence at Flywheel offers up advice of having a winning recipe that requires a data-driven approach, operational efficiency and the seamless integration of omni-channel strategies. Check out her piece here.

Brick-and-mortar stores and online versions are continuously growing in APAC–but how can brands create a seamless integration between the two? For Keith Ho, strategy lead at NP Digital Malaysia, the answer lies on finding the right model that fits both the needs and interests of a brand’s target demographic and meets them at their convenience. Check out his byline here.

Speaking of seamless commerce, Anson Bailey, head of consumer & retail at KPMG APAC notes in his piece that a seamless online-offline customer experience has now become a baseline expectation. Only by excelling in this domain can retailers expect to lead the market.

When it comes to retail media spend for brands, Sebastian Diaz, head of media innovation at Bench Media explains that marketers recognise the need to provide a personalised shopping experience and retailers are increasingly monetising access to ad spending across their websites and in-store activity. Check out his piece here.

In this piece by Vikram Kharvi, CEO at Bloomingdale Public Relations, he explains that AI-driven hyper-personalisation in e-commerce marketing offers numerous benefits, but it’s essential to address the concerns it raises and find a middle ground that satisfies both the business and its customers. Learn more about it here.

Speaking of AI-driven solutions, David Ko, managing director at Ruder Finn Interactive Asia (Ruder Finn Asia) notes that by embracing transparent and responsible AI practices, companies can unlock the full potential of personalised marketing while building and maintaining the trust of their customers. More of this here.

Ynes Nar, head of account, marketing strategy & client servicing at Tomato Interactive Singapore (BlueFocus company) focuses her piece on the fact that as this new era of social commerce unfolds, those who understand and harness its potential will not just survive but also lead the way in this new era of social commerce–thanks to KOLs who support their campaigns.

The future of e-commerce marketing–according to Francis Dy, head of innovation at Wavemaker Philippines–is set to be defined by an intricate blend of advanced technology, personalisation, and a commitment to sustainability, all while maintaining a human-centric approach. Learn more about this outlook here.

For Glenn Gore, chief executive officer at Affinidi, as the latest technology trends diving into how consumers’ lives continue to merge with the digital realm, personalised experiences are beginning to see even stronger demand. Check out his piece here.

Should marketers channel more resources into attracting the right audience, or should they optimise their websites to convert visitors into customers? In this piece by Sebastian Klett, general manager at Balance, he explains that brands must evaluate current strategies, make the necessary adjustments, and ensure that every step of the digital experience guides their audience toward becoming loyal customers.

APAC is witnessing a significant shift in consumer behaviour, with the rise of direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands becoming a major disruptor in the retail landscape. To ride this growing trend, Kevin Daniel Kuntoro, regional commerce head at Summer International explains that to ride this success, this depends on their ability to adapt to changing consumer behaviours; prioritise key trends and insights; utilise social media and influencer marketing to build trust. Check out his piece here.

In this last–but not least–piece of this series, Sorrel Kesby, head of global commercial operations at GumGum explains that capitalising on the e-commerce boom of recent years calls for a strategy that meets customers in the right place and in the right mindset.

As we move into 2024 and beyond, the outlook for e-commerce marketing strategies is both exciting and dynamic. Businesses will need to adapt to rapid technological advancements, such as AI-driven personalisation, voice search optimisation, and augmented reality, to create more immersive and tailored shopping experiences. The emphasis on data privacy and ethical marketing practices will also grow, as consumers demand greater brand transparency and trust.

Additionally, leveraging social commerce and influencer partnerships will continue to play a crucial role in driving engagement and sales. Overall, successful e-commerce strategies will be those that blend innovation with a deep understanding of consumer behaviour, ensuring brands remain agile and relevant in a constantly evolving digital landscape.

The retail industry is primed to continue its growth trajectory, with the global consumer class (comprising of consumers spending US$12 or more per day) reaching 4 billion in the previous year, and 5 billion people by 2031. In Asia-Pacific, the retail e-commerce market size is expected to grow by 8% CAGR from 2023 to 2028. These numbers reflect a growing appetite around consumer spending, but are retailers able to keep up? 

With the latest technology trends diving into how consumers’ lives continue to merge with the digital realm, personalised experiences are beginning to see even stronger demand, with 90% of businesses acknowledging that these experiences play a pivotal role in increased sales and even repeat business. However, figures show that only 35% of marketers say their customers have personalised experiences, illustrating a gap between perceptions and reality.

Personalisation – How Challenging Is It, Really? 

For retailers to even begin looking towards personalised experiences, they need valuable data and insights which they can tap into to develop their marketing strategies. However, the concrete data they require from their customers are stored in existing silos such as social media platforms or respective e-commerce sites, leaving the wider pool of retailers with a fragmented view of a customer’s behaviour, and in turn, inaccurate data.

Imagine a tailor creating a suit without considering the client’s budget, the suit’s purpose, skin conditions, or the climate it will face. This is akin to businesses ignoring key consumer insights. Without understanding these crucial factors, they struggle to offer truly customised solutions. Relying solely on partial data leads to misguided marketing strategies and product offerings that miss the mark, resulting in wasted resources and lost opportunities. Just as a perfectly tailored suit requires more than a good fit, businesses need a holistic view of their customers to deliver truly personalised experiences that resonate and satisfy.

In the competitive retail landscape, where standard data is widely accessible, retailers must differentiate themselves by offering exceptional consumer experiences and personalisation through deeper insights. Failing to do so risks leaving consumers feeling undervalued, dissatisfied, and disengaged, while competitors who prioritise up-to-date customer data will excel and dominate market share.

The Band-Aid Solution At Present 

To grasp any form of insights about consumers, retailers at present typically turn to first-party, second-party, and third-party data. First-party data, collected directly from customers, is highly accurate and compliant with privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA, making it a reliable source. However, its scope is limited to the existing audience database, and it can become outdated if not regularly refreshed. Second-party data, shared between trusted partners, provides additional perspectives but may not perfectly align with a company’s specific needs and can also suffer from data staleness. Third-party data, quite commonly used, is often viewed as a cost-effective method for expanding audience reach, is collected from a wide array of sources across the digital landscape, including websites and social media platforms.

However, third-party data is fraught with challenges. It often contains incomplete or outdated information, making it less reliable for strategic decision-making. Additionally, it raises significant privacy concerns, as it is typically gathered without direct consent from the individuals, making it far less accurate and trustworthy than first-party and second-party data.

The Gold Standard of Data Collection

For the uninitiated, zero-party data, a term that has gained traction in recent times, is defined as information shared directly by customers, with transparency and knowledge on how their data will be used. Differentiating this from first- to third-party data, zero-party data is intentionally shared by customers themselves, delivering unmatched precision and relevance in grasping their needs, preferences, and expectations. 

Consider Lily, a fashion enthusiast who visits an online apparel site to cart out new outfits. By sharing past shopping information, and current style preferences with the site, Lily gives the company valuable insights into her interests – a prime example of zero-party data.

On a grander scale, businesses that utilise zero-party data will be able to foster healthier and more positive relationships with their customers, increasing their brand loyalty and building trust. 

Holistic Identity – What Is It? 

The Holistic Identity concept is designed to return data ownership from centralised platforms back to individuals, allowing them to securely manage, store, and share their information. This approach empowers individuals to control what they share and with whom, ensuring a unified and accurate representation of themselves are shared.

For e-commerce businesses, these solutions also streamline onboarding by enabling efficient identity verification and data sharing with a. single click, providing customers with a frictionless experience. This approach allows companies to gain deeper insights into their customers, enabling personalised product recommendations and marketing, which enhances satisfaction and loyalty.

Businesses that adopt Holistic Identity technologies into their technology stack reduce their liability by gathering only necessary customer data through zero-knowledge proof methodology, minimising the risk of data breaches, and ensure compliance with privacy regulations. 

The Future and Beyond

In today’s competitive and rapidly evolving market, businesses must be proactive in meeting consumer demands for personalisation and privacy. By leveraging zero-party data through Holistic Identity, businesses can unlock new opportunities, craft highly effective marketing strategies, and build stronger brand loyalty—all while ensuring strict adherence to privacy regulations. Embracing these advanced technologies is not just an option; it’s essential for retailers aiming to pivot effectively and lay the groundwork for sustainable, long-term growth.

This thought leadership is written by Glenn Gore, Chief Executive Officer at Affinidi

Taipei, Taiwan – Global fast food chain Burger King in Taiwan has tapped software-as-a-service (SaaS) company Appier to aid in its personalised marketing campaigns to boost local customer loyalty.

By leveraging Appier’s ‘AI Personalization Cloud’, Burger King Taiwan harnessed diverse creative modules to create engaging marketing campaigns, offering customers a unique and personalised experience.

Moreover, with Appier’s AI-powered personalised marketing platform, Burger King Taiwan was able to collect and analyse customers’ online behavior, including product pages browsed, and shopping cart items. This enabled Burger King Taiwan to execute targeted segmentation marketing campaigns based on detailed information about customer behaviour and preferences, allowing them to seize crucial moments of customer interactions.

Lastly, by integrating the ‘AI Personalization Cloud’ with the OpenWeather API, Burger King Taiwan can recommend products or promotional activities aligned with the local weather conditions in a user’s location. 

For instance, during warmer days, the platform will automatically recommend refreshing cold beverage promotions, while in the event of a high probability of rain, it will push delivery promotions. By offering customers the most suitable products or offers for their current situation, Burger King Taiwan was able to enhance customer loyalty even further.

Karin Jiang, marketing director at Burger King Taiwan, said, “Burger King Taiwan is committed to embracing new technologies and using creativity to drive sales. With AI data analysis and segmentation capabilities, we can develop personalised marketing strategies based on customer insights, delivering engaging and precise messages and offers to each customer, and seizing every communication touchpoint. Appier’s user-friendly solution, coupled with their proactive approach in proposing practical marketing strategies, has significantly enhanced our marketing endeavours.”

She added, “Looking ahead, Burger King Taiwan is excited to sustain our collaboration with Appier, planning more eye-catching and customer-centric marketing campaigns, fostering website interaction and conversions, and strengthening our customer loyalty relationships.”

Hong Kong – Local beauty retailer Sa Sa has tapped omnichannel customer engagement platform SAP Emarsys to deliver a personalised online-merge-offline (OMO) experience that elevates interactions at every stage of customer lifecycle.

SAP Emarsys’ e-commerce service enables Sa Sa to build on this foundation and pursue a two-pronged approach to customer loyalty that optimises both acquisition and retention. The solution also allows Sa Sa to collect and analyse data from its various consumer demographics and gain real-time visibility into their shopping and buying preferences.

Moreover, these consumer insights enable Sa Sa to curate appropriate online product portfolios and offer the right mix of loyalty programs, such as rewards points and cash-back incentives geared to different customer groups.

Lastly, the solution helps Sa Sa build strong activation programs, utilising marketing automation and real-time personalization to create sophisticated insights-driven campaigns that drive real business outcomes.

Hong Li, director of e-commerce at Sa Sa, said, “The SAP Emarsys e-commerce solutions elevate Sa Sa’s customer engagement to the next level by offering intuitive and relevant online experiences to our customers. Sa Sa thrives on staying close to what our customers expect and thus it is important to have real-time panoramic visibility of customer data at every point in the customer lifecycle journey.” 

Li added, “With Emarsys, our data analysis capabilities are continuously improving so we can discover the best way to engage, retain and expand our customer base, with data-driven customer programs.”

Meanwhile, Esmond Tong, managing director at SAP Hong Kong, commented, “Today’s retail environment is complex and competitive, shaped by new technologies and fast-evolving customer behaviour and preferences. SAP Emarsys presents a single, integrated platform where customer-centric market leaders like Sa Sa can build, execute and scale real-time marketing campaigns. With Emarsys, Sa Sa is growing its customer lifetime value through omnichannel interactions that are personalised, intelligent and compelling.”

It is the year 2023. For a very long time we have been warned about the levels of data that are collected about us online and the consumer becoming more and more identifiable. Yet, we all see ads daily that are absolutely irrelevant to us and what will never turn us into a consumer or even would probe us to consider the advertising brand.

The Challenge Many Brands Face Today

In an era of increasingly targeted marketing and limited budgets, how can brands effectively reduce wastage and improve performance by ensuring that their ads reach the right audience? For example, how can we prevent a consumer with no children from seeing a diaper ad or a vegetarian from being exposed to a burger ad? The key lies in developing personalised marketing strategies at scale that cater to individual preferences and needs, ultimately enhancing both brand image and return on investment.

To achieve this, brands have to understand their core consumer in the best way possible and identify the demand opportunities they want to focus on to enhance ROI. This is then followed by the question of how to target these audiences in the most efficient and effective way in a world that is becoming more complex.

Understanding Your Audience: The First Step to Success

Brands might not know their customers and potential customers well enough to determine the right strategies for engagement and growth. By understanding the audiences in their full granularity, we can identify which segments are more profitable and tailor our communication blueprint. 

The Approach: Applying the Pareto Principle

The Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, suggests that 80% of a company’s profits come from 20% of its customers (this applies best to leading brands in well-established categories). By targeting these “core customers,” businesses can increase customer retention, boost sales, and drive growth. However, identifying and communicating with these key customers can be a challenge for marketers, particularly during times when budgets are split between brand and performance objectives, and many brands struggle with long-term brand building while chasing short-term sales goals.

Breaking Down Silos for Effective Strategies

Breaking down silos between CRM, Media, Creative, and Data teams is necessary to help build effective strategies that efficiently communicate with these audiences along the funnel. Core customers are those who make repeated purchases, provide feedback, have higher Life Time Value and refer others to the business. Targeting them at scale with high efficiency requires a deep understanding of their characteristics, needs, and behaviours, which can be achieved through data analysis and personalization techniques. While the 80/20 rule may not hold true for every business, analysing data to identify key customers should be crucial for maximising business success for all marketers.

Who needs to be in charge to tackle the challenge?

The simple answer is every team needs to own it and the CMO needs to break down silos between CRM, Media, Creative, Data and Insight teams.

As privacy concerns and data regulations continue to evolve, targeting audiences effectively while remaining compliant is becoming more challenging. However, there are still ways to reach target audiences in a world that is becoming less targetable. Here are some strategies that companies can use:

  1. CRM: The customer relationship management (CRM) team is responsible for managing the customer database and developing strategies to improve customer retention and loyalty. The CRM team can play a critical role in identifying key customers and tailoring marketing strategies to meet their needs. 
  2. Data: The data team is responsible for analysing customer data and developing insights that can inform marketing strategies. By leveraging data analytics tools, the data team can help identify key customers, track their behaviour, and develop personalised marketing strategies.
  3. Media: The media team is responsible for developing and executing marketing campaigns across different channels. By tailoring campaigns to key customers, the media team can help increase engagement and drive sales. Experiment with new targeting technologies: As privacy concerns continue to evolve, new targeting technologies are emerging that can help companies reach audiences in a compliant way. For example, contextual targeting based on artificial intelligence (AI) can analyse the meaning of web pages and match ads to the content that users are viewing. Other technologies, such as differential privacy and federated learning, are being developed to help protect user data while still allowing for effective targeting.
  4. Insights: Insight teams in a marketing department gather and analyse data to provide actionable insights that shape marketing strategies and drive business growth. They play a key role in market research, customer segmentation, consumer behaviour analysis, campaign performance analysis, product development, competitive analysis, forecasting, and reporting.
  5. Creative: The creative team is responsible for developing the visual and messaging components of marketing campaigns. By working closely with the other teams, the creative team can develop personalised and effective marketing messages that resonate with key customers.

Ultimately, successful implementation of the 80/20 rule requires a collaborative effort among all these teams that requires support from top-level management. Moreover, collaboration between creative and media teams is essential to turn the segmentation into a reality. Some of those steps to make that possible include:

  1. The magic comes to life when creative and media teams collaborate closely together to develop effective marketing informed by data and rigorously optimise and improve. 
  2. Share data and insights: The media team can provide the creative team with insights about the target audience, such as demographics, interests, and behaviours. This information can help the creative team develop messaging and visuals that are more likely to resonate with the audience.
  3. Develop media-specific creative: The creative team can develop messaging and visuals that are tailored to specific media channels. For example, social media campaigns may require shorter, more attention-grabbing visuals and messaging compared to email campaigns. By tailoring creative to specific media channels, the campaign can be more effective in engaging the target audience. The cookie cutter approach is not going to work anymore. 
  4. Test and optimise creative: The media team can provide data about the performance of the campaign, such as click-through rates, conversions, and engagement rates. The creative team can use this information to optimise the creative, such as testing different visuals or messaging to improve campaign performance.

An example of a clearly defined and carved out demand opportunity that has resulted in a tailored communication is this activation from McDonald’s.

Navigating Privacy Concerns and Data Regulations

As privacy concerns and data regulations continue to evolve globally, targeting audiences effectively while remaining compliant is becoming more challenging. However, there are still ways to reach target audiences in a world that is becoming less targetable. Here are some strategies that companies can use:

  • Focus on first-party data: First-party data refers to data collected directly from customers or prospects. This could include data from website analytics, customer relationship management (CRM) systems, or loyalty programs. By using first-party data, companies can develop more personalized messaging and offers that are tailored to individual customers.
  • Foster partnerships: Building strong relationships with key partners, such as publishers, ad tech vendors, and data management platforms, can help you better understand your audience and leverage their expertise to develop more targeted marketing campaigns. Collaborating with partners can also help you navigate the rapidly changing landscape of privacy regulations and targeting technologies. Start to develop personalized messaging and offers using data collected directly from customers or prospects.
  • Measure success and iterate: Continuously monitoring the success of your marketing campaigns is crucial for refining your strategies and ensuring that you are effectively reaching your key customers. By analyzing the data and adjusting your campaigns based on insights and feedback, you can improve your targeting, messaging, and overall marketing effectiveness over time.
  • Use contextual targeting: Target ads based on the context of the content being viewed and continuously test and experiment with different personalization tactics to find what works

Conclusion

In an age where personalization is king and consumer privacy is a top concern, brands must develop strategies that effectively target their core customers at scale with high efficiency. By breaking down silos between CRM, Media, Creative, Insights and Data teams, leveraging first-party data, experimenting with new targeting technologies, fostering partnerships, and prioritizing customer experience, companies can navigate the complex landscape of privacy regulations while still reaching their target audiences and driving growth. Implementing these strategies will not only help brands reduce wastage and improve performance, but also build trust and foster long-term relationships with their most valuable customers.

This article is written by Jan Harling, chief executive officer at Virtus Asia Consulting

The insight is published as part of MARKETECH APAC’s thought leadership series under What’s NEXT 2023. What’s NEXT 2023 is a multi-platform industry initiative which features marketing and industry leaders in APAC sharing their marketing insights and predictions for the upcoming year.

Over the past two years, the pandemic has transformed the consumer, the brand, and the advertiser. The absence of physical interactions created a ripple of massive changes that have either brought sectors down to their knees, or proved to be a boon for others.

If anything, the upcoming year is presenting a better promise for business as social restrictions further ease down and travel reopens. But despite this remains the challenge of unearthing and uncovering who the consumer will be – What will please him and what will fall off his radar? 

MARKETECH APAC, the digital media who itself was born in the mid of the pandemic, aims to take the intimidation off the new year and instead help marketers focus on the potentials for innovation through the thought leadership series, ‘What’s NEXT’.

What’s NEXT is a collection of expert insights by marketing leaders which aims to present predictions and insights on forecasted trends in 2022 and help future-proof brands’ strategies coming into the new year.

“As a watchdog and a dedicated content hub for the industry, we know how fluid trends in this part of the world could be. Metaphorically speaking, we want to hold marketers’ hands and be with them as we step into a new chapter in this global situation, and see how the pandemic – now endemic – will change the way brands and consumers interact with each other,” said Shaina Teope, regional editor of MARKETECH APAC.

The series which ran from December 2021 to February 2022 gathered marketing leaders coming from different domains to present ideas on how to stay ahead of the marketing game this 2022. 

Check out the full line-up of insights by marketing leaders under the series:

What’s NEXT: The top personalization strategy for the increasingly nuanced consumer

  • In the recent webinar by MARKETECH APAC on the future of digital marketing in the Philippines, AirAsia PH’s Head of Marketing Allenie Caccam; Anvey Factora, the head of marketing communications, e-commerce, and retail at Canon Philippines; and Mark De Joya, chief operating officer of Max’s Restaurant – all agreed on one personalization strategy that would remain constant in relevance no matter what the changes the new year will bring to the market and the consumer.

What’s NEXT: Why marketers need DXP more than ever in 2022

  • It’s now no question that any platform or tech that help push brands’ digitization further is worth being the centerpiece of brands’ marketing strategies. Don Lee, the managing director of CMS provider Magnolia for APAC dug a little deeper on how DXP, specifically a composable DXP, can best help brands not just adapt to the changes in the consumer today, but how such type of platform can 

What’s NEXT: Moving beyond static ads by leveraging programmatic creative management platforms

  • Travis Teo, executive director of adtech adzymic, shared the different possible hindrances that are keeping brands from providing optimum digital creatives – and deep dived on the root cause of all of them.

What’s NEXT: Predictions for customer experience in 2022

  • In this read, Shellie Vornhagen the CXO at CX platform Emplifi, enumerates the ways CX is going to transform itself as newer trends firm up in the market in 2022, such as social commerce, conversational chatbots, and most especially, metaverse. 

What’s NEXT: How can platform businesses supercharge their loyalty programs in 2022

  • In the pilot article under the series, we roped in Loyalty & Growth Leader Henry Christian to talk about how on-demand businesses, which has surged in need among consumers during the pandemic, can leverage their present demand to deliver highly-retaining and -converting loyalty programs.

What’s NEXT: Guide to help you master the art of content marketing in 2022

  • Who better to share insights on forming the best content marketing strategy coming into 2022 than a marketing leader from leading Asian news publication South China Morning Post. Its Regional Sales Director for APAC Darryl Choo shared how brands can refresh their content marketing strategies, imparting helpful insights on how to successfully work from internal process to delivery.

What’s NEXT: How mobile is redefining shopping experiences

  • We have become mobile-first even before the pandemic struck, but with stronger demand for fast and on-demand shopping experiences by the consumer, the mobile platform is now opening up more greenfield opportunities for brands to explore and innovate. Check out the thought leadership piece by Karam Malhotra, global VP at SHAREit Group. 

What’s NEXT: What the future looks for marketers beyond the cookie

  • When Google earlier announced that it will be phasing out cookies by 2022, the advertising community was brought to a standstill, suddenly overcome by the urgency to re-calibrate ad targeting strategies Then the community had some kind of dejavu when this was further delayed to 2023, providing a breather but at the same time asking of brands and advertisers to do better in their preparations. Let this insight on cookies by Cheetah Digital’s Billy Loizou, further add to your cognizance on dealing with a cookieless digital environment as there is no such thing as overpreparation.

What’s NEXT: Why brands must focus more on customer retention than acquisition this 2022

  • David Harling, the managing director of MoneySmart, touches base on the state of growth marketing now that we are about to navigate a digital world without cookies. His top piece of advice – brands may want to lessen dependence on acquisition as this will start to cost more in the efforts to scale.

What’s NEXT: How businesses and brands can thrive in metaverse

  • Metaverse is now taking the digital world by storm, and marketers are at a great position to leverage this platform to turbocharge brand engagement – but how does one start? Cheelip Ong, Lion & Lion’s regional chief creative officer, shared how metaverse can be the implementation ground for other emerging trends in marketing such as NFTs and gamification

What’s NEXT: Unpacking opportunities in digital finance for 2022

  • Of course with the surge in digital activity this pandemic tags along the supercharged growth of digital finance. Superapps in SEA is leading the way with financial services, becoming the anchor by which consumers can have a brand as top-of-mind across all services. UM APAC’s Elizabeth Shie and Abygayle Brani share the ways fintech marketers can leverage its growth this 2022.

What’s NEXT: Why brands must adopt a multi-platform strategy for social advertising

  • According to Stewart Hunter, the director of Smartly.io for customer success in APAC, each social media platform has grown to serve a different role in the funnel, posing a challenge to the brand message and format in various platforms. Hunter shares why brands must start adopting a multi-platform strategy for their social advertising and where to begin in their efforts.

What’s NEXT: Top tips for CRO this 2022

  • Whether you’re an online retailer, a startup with a valuable B2B product, or an entrepreneur selling your expertise, CRO could be the key to a bigger profit margin in 2022. Charlotte Ward, the director of Agnes media, shares her top three pieces of advice in achieving greater conversions.

What’s NEXT: Shoppable Content: The convergence of content and commerce

  • In narrowing the gap between commerce and consumer, big brands are moving from a publisher model into an e-commerce one. Sven Lung, CEO of Green Park Content, takes a look at some of the best case studies of previously launched shoppable content initiatives and shares how brands can successfully deliver said efforts on their own.

What’s NEXT: What to expect in influencer marketing in 2022

  • What’s the next phase of influencer marketing? We’ve seen the power of influencers in brands’ marketing in the past period, and now, we need to prepare for what’s to come next in this area. Ace Gapuz, CEO of Blogapalooza, shares what she believes the 5 forces that will drive influencer marketing forward – including the phenomenon that will start streating content creators as individual media companies.

What’s NEXT: How brands can connect with Asia’s next generation of culture shapers

  • How has the pandemic changed the youth? In this insight, Lesley John, the MD of Virtue for APAC, shares the consumption and lifestyle changes that have occured among Gen Zs and Millennials in the past two years, and shares how brands can get under the skin of this cohort moving forward in the pandemic.

What’s NEXT: How BNPL can be a merchant enabler for retailers in Asia

  • BNPL services have increased in adoption in the past year with the pandemic seeing a surge of consumers jumping into digital consumption. Moving forward in 2022, Jeremy Wong, head of strategic partnerships at Atome, shares the ways BNPL is expected to evolve, and what retailers can do to leverage its power in enabling sales among merchants.

What’s NEXT: 2022 will see the evolution of corporate purpose

  • As consumers become more conscious about their impact to society, they have grown to demand more accountability from the brands they consume. Mel Panabi, business director of Red Havas Philippines, shares on what has become of this new resolve and how brands must act in accordance to this new value-laden consumer behavior.

What’s NEXT: Welcome the age of reimagination

  • Virtual events are here to stay, and it’s time we step up these online interactions beyond standard online meetings and gatherings into something more powerful. According to Cathy Song Novelli, SVP for marketing and communications at Hubilo, it’s about creating a supportive ecosystem to enable innovation among event marketers.

What’s NEXT: How the ride-hailing industry shifted gears to meet market demand

  • Ride-hailing services is no longer a luxury and the pandemic has further pushed for its value with the recurring limitations on social interaction. Ryde’s CEO Terence Zou and PR Lead Katrina Adrianne takes a look at this transformation over the past two years and shares what we can expect from the industry as we move forward in 2022.

What’s NEXT: The state of dine-in, food aggregators moving forward in 2022

  • When food aggregators cushioned the downward growth of dine-in during Covid, it has gradually stepped up from being an afterthought to becoming F&B players’ top business model. KFC Malaysia’s CMO May Ling Chan reviews the current opportunities and challenges as brands further strengthen their strategies on food aggregators.

What’s NEXT: The future of CTV measurement and transparency

  • Connected TV (CTV) and over-the-top (OTT) has overtaken the linear TV experience over the past two years. Laura Quigley, SVP for APAC at IAS, talks about what has been these changes in media consumption and the opportunities that lie for advertisers and publishers in programmatic technology.

If you are a marketing leader and would like to share your insights and predictions under the series, email us at [email protected]. 

Last 2 December, MARKETECH APAC, in partnership with Adzymic, gathered marketing leaders from top brands in the Philippines to discuss the future of personalization in marketing in 2022.

Moderated by Marilyn Romero-Ventenilla, senior director for communications and marketing at Teleperformance Philippines, the panel roped in Allenie Caccam, head of marketing of AirAsia Philippines; Anvey Factora, the head of marketing communications, e-commerce and retail at Canon Philippines; and Mark De Joya, chief operating officer of Max’s Restaurant.

Data – leveraging it to learn and adapt to the nuances of the consumer – this is what all marketers agree as the sureshot personalization strategy that will sail brands in the right direction, no matter what the changes will be in 2022.

Factora of Canon Philippines said in the panel that planning way too ahead would turn counterproductive to the situation at hand since the consumer is rapidly changing in tandem with the fast shifts in the pandemic. Coming up with multiple strategies then would be the best approach.

“I think the best approach or strategy is to come up with multiple strategies that you can realistically activate in this constantly evolving world that we all have right now because at the end of the day, if you plan in advance, maybe a year, it may not be as effective as it could be in the next three weeks or two weeks because of all the lockdowns happening, because of all these pandemic variants coming into the picture,” said Factora in the panel. 

When the pandemic struck in 2020, Canon Philippines greeted a boulder of a challenge with the creative and imaging industry being one of the badly hit industries. Since local travel came to a halt and events all pivoted to virtual, there had been less reasons for people to buy and invest in imaging products. 

Caccam of AirAsia Philippines, on the other hand, shared what the airline industry had to deal with in order to retain consumers amid shut local and international travel. Being a highly regulated sector, Caccam shared that answering to multiple stakeholders became a top challenge for AirAsia. Aside from thinking of ways to keep the airline in consumers’ top-of-mind, it also inevitably carried the responsibility to build up the confidence of travelers as travel gradually reopens.

“So when the pandemic hit, everything was constantly changing; from safety protocols to travel regulations, imagine the coordination that needed to happen for us to personalize our marketing efforts. It was definitely a challenge.” 

Max’s restaurant, a well-known local F&B brand in the Philippines, meanwhile, was thrust fast into digital transformation during the pandemic. Its COO Mark De Joya on the panel shared that from being an analog brand, it has become something that is very much reliant on digital fulfillment.

Leveraging data acquisition in 2022

With the consumer now becoming more unpredictable due to the rapid changes in lifestyle, it demands brands be more granular and targeted in their approaches; and marketing leaders agree that this can be achieved by continuously obtaining real-time data.

Caccam said, “I think personalization based on data will help us offer the right product at the right time [and] at the right price. So this is hard but by listening to customer pain points from different channels and combining it with data trends, I think brands can stay relevant.” 

Moving forward in the pandemic, consumers would be zeroing in on brands that bring greater convenience considering the inevitable distress the current situation is causing them. With this, Caccam also believes being a one-stop-shop for customers would be a crucial determinant of how they choose what brands to trust.

“So it’s really creating that personalized trust and being a one-stop-shop for your customers especially because I’m in the airline industry and you know our product is basically really good service, so I think that’s one personalization strategy that I would stick with coming into 2022 which is a recovery period for our industry,” said Caccam.

This is also something that De Joya agrees with, especially that Max’s is part of a larger group together with local and franchised F&B brands.

“Personalization comes from having more and more parts to stitch together and with the array of brands we have, covering separate cohorts and different territorial strengths [has grown in importance],” said De Joya. 

De Joya adds how the current times present a good opportunity to experiment combining brands, or for that matter, services together in order to create a new value for consumers. 

“We have such a great opportunity here to blend our brands together and make sure that if I’m not eating Sinigang today and I want to eat pizza tomorrow, and I want donuts on the weekend, [we] are able to blend together the branded offerings,” said De Joya. 

De Joya further comments, “So our definition of personalization here is understanding that there is more to life than the dish in front of you or the particular dish that we’re craving. It’s an integrated ecosystem of different brands which leads to several service platforms that we had to come up with…just to be able to make sure that we’re all able to offer that variety.”

While on the maturity of data acquisition, De Joya says, “I think [data] is something that we have truly invested many resources into. We really [are] able to identify the nuances in the behavior of our customers now not just the basic stuff like frequency, recency, [or] basket size but even trying to get the nuances [such as] what sort of dishes do they favor [and] what are the cross-brand usages that they have.”

With this, Factora agrees, “Data remains to be king when you [personalize] campaigns. You have to understand really how your customers are, how the data would be helpful to that campaign. I think the best approach in terms of creating a holistic strategy towards personalization is number one, properly understand your data. Having the right platform is important [together with the] right message and right channel.”

The panel was part of the webinar What’s NEXT: Digital Marketing in the Philippines which was held last 2 December 2021. Register here to gain on-demand access.

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The article is published as part of MARKETECH APAC’s thought leadership series What’s NEXT. This features marketing leaders sharing their marketing insights and predictions for the upcoming year. The series aims to equip marketers with actionable insights to future-ready their marketing strategies.

If you are a marketing leader and have insights that you’d like to share with regards to the upcoming trends and practices in marketing, please reach out to [email protected] for an opportunity to have your thought-leadership published on the platform.

Hong Kong – Global advertising company Taboola has been tapped by social messaging app LINE to bolster personalization for LINE Today Hong Kong, the news and content curation hub within the app. 

LINE Today Hong Kong will bolster content recommendations by leveraging several Taboola innovations, including Taboola Feed, a seamlessly integrated feed that provides readers with personalized content for a more engaging experience, across the LINE Today Hong Kong home page and all of its articles.

“Our goal has always been to bring people around the world closer to each other, to information, and to services. News readership plays an important part towards that goal, as it encourages people to read more about issues that surround them. Taboola’s team, technology and its expertise in recommendations made it the best choice for powering recommendations for our users in Hong Kong,” said Hyunbin Kang, SVP at LINE Plus Corporation.

To date, the LINE messaging app reaches more than 188 million global monthly active users and provides a wide range of services to its users. LINE Today serves as a news and content hub within the LINE app, which connects users with leading destinations for mobile news and content consumption in several countries.

“LINE has built an incredible mobile-first brand that places communication, content, and entertainment at the forefront. Their massive reach particularly in the APAC region, coupled with our ability to recommend content ensures that people will receive quality news on their devices,” said Adam Singolda, CEO and founder at Taboola. 

He added, “We’re excited to bring discovery and recommendations to LINE Today Hong Kong, operated by one of the world’s most popular messaging apps, and unlock new ways for LINE Today Hong Kong to monetize.”

Singapore – Mobile ad platform InMobi has partnered with multi-service platform Gojek, in an aim to provide privacy-compliant personalized advertising, consumer intelligence, and identity resolution for brands in Southeast Asia – particularly to Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, and Thailand.

Through the partnership, InMobi will also provide brands the capability to run surveys among Gojek audiences to unravel unique industry and consumer insights. The industry and vertical insights will be powered by InMobi’s AI-driven mobile-first consumer intelligence platform – Pulse.

Rishi Bedi, vice president and general manager for InMobi Southeast Asia, Japan and Korea, stated that through this partnership, brands can engage with Gojek audiences programmatically on InMobi Exchange via their preferred demand-side platform (DSP) platform.

Brands will have a unique opportunity to build a single view of the consumer by combining browse and buy patterns, category or brand affinity, location intelligence, and media behavior across the InMobi and Gojek platforms. Additionally, brands can also measure the sales impact of their online advertising across platforms using InMobi’s mobile intelligence, such as location and Gojek’s in-app engagement signals.

“With the deprecation of the cookie, identity resolution is becoming critical for brands across the globe and Southeast Asia to reach consumers in a relevant manner. By combining InMobi and Gojek proprietary intelligence, we will soon provide brands with a unique ID to drive contextual targeting and advertising in a cookie less world,” said Bedi.

Meanwhile, Vice President for AdTech, Data Partnership & Monetization of Gojek Pulkit Khanna commented, “Our partnership with InMobi will offer an actionable solution for marketers and be a key growth driver for their businesses, as we will be able to help them optimize their marketing spends via effective targeting. By helping marketers deliver the right content to users on the right occasion, they will be able to maximize impact and ROI. Users will also benefit from having more targeted and relevant content, in line with Gojek’s mission to remove friction from consumers’ daily lives.”