Philippines – Media and marketing agency Mediabrands in the Philippines has announced the elevation of Tricia Camarillo-Quiambao, former chief growth officer for IPG Mediabrands Philippines and managing director for Initiative Philippines, to now assume the position of CEO.
Camarillo-Quiambao brings with her 27 years of experience, the majority of which within the IPG network including 20 years in business leadership, and executive committee roles for McCann Worldgroup Philippines. She is also an advocate of business growth through modern marketing.
Commenting on her appointment, Camarillo-Quiambao said that leading the organization at this time is a purpose she takes very seriously, and together with the strong client and partner network, they are on their way to an even higher trajectory.
“Mediabrands Philippines is built on strong capabilities; its consistently outstanding performance made possible by an extraordinary team bound by a unique culture,” said Camarillo-Quiambao.
Meanwhile, Leigh Terry, Mediabrands’ CEO for APAC, said, “It always makes me very proud to be able to elevate such quality leadership talent from within our own organization, and even more so to be fulfilling the plans and wishes of our much loved long-standing predecessor leader of Mediabrands Philippines, Venus Navalta.”
Manila, Philippines – The Association of Accredited Advertising Agencies of the Philippines or known as 4As Philippines has announced the suspension of local creative agency GIGIL’s membership, slated for one year.
This follows after the agency came under fire with the campaign they made for medical-aesthetic clinic Belo Medical Group.
According to 4As Philippines, said ad was found to be in violation of certain terms in their association’s code of ethics.
The ad, titled ‘Pandemic Effect’ features a woman watching a barrage of news while her appearance changes: the skin under her eyes darkens, gets acne, grows facial and body hair, and gains weight. As the ad draws to a conclusion, the woman in focus receives a call from her friend, and catches up with one another.
The ad closes off with the tagline ‘Tough times call for beautiful measures’, alongside a line to encourage customers to book an appointment with Belo Medical Group.
Following the ad release, many netizens have criticized the ad, stating that it was ‘tone deaf’ and body-shamed women in the middle of the pandemic.
Both Belo and GIGIL have taken the ads out of their social media channels by 10 August.
In a statement regarding the 4As Philippines suspension, GIGIL posted on Facebook, “We acknowledge that alongside the unexpected thinking that comes with our work, we must always be mindful of sensitivity and respect.”
They added, “We also assure that this does not in any way hamper our ability to represent and deliver work for clients. Our business continues.”
MARKETECH APAC has reached out to both GIGIL and Belo Medical Group for additional comments.
GIGIL has been known for creating humorous and tongue-in-cheek campaigns for brands such as Julie’s Bakeshop, Unioil, and Allianz. They are also responsible for multiple campaign drives for Netflix Philippines as part of the promotion of the Filipino-based occult series ‘Trese’.
Manila, Philippines – One of the leading commercial banks in the country, UnionBank, has partnered anew with creative advertising agency FCB Manila, to launch a new campaign titled ‘Love The Way You Bank’.
Earlier this year, UnionBank and FCB Manila have taken the viewers on a tour in a film inspired by Dante Aleghieri’s Divine Comedy, where the pains of banking were visualized by the circles of hell.
In the newly launched film, which was created in collaboration with Director Marius Talampas for the second time, viewers will be taken through the usual stages of a romantic relationship, starring the two lead protagonists – the customer and the app. Bearing in mind the vision of telling the love story as if it were a real-life documentary, the film lets viewers really feel the ‘love’.
Tin Siapno, UnionBank’s first vice president and digital marketing head, commented that they love how this film mimics how customers feel after using the UnionBank app.
“It feels good to know that UB Online delivers on its promise and brings so much joy to our customers,” said Siapno.
Meanwhile, Rab Evangelista, FCB Manila’s creative director, shared, “An idea can really come from anywhere. In the previous campaign, it came from hell. This time around, it came from the heart.”
Manila, Philippines – Fast-leading retail company, Metro Retail Stores Group Inc. (MRSGI) in the Philippines, has unveiled its roster of initiatives to boost its e-commerce presence.
The company targets to launch its official store in e-commerce apps Lazada and Shopee in the fourth quarter to take advantage of the expected holiday shopping surge.
“All these developments we are doing are in line with our commitment to grow our e-commerce business and ultimately enable us to continue meeting the changing customer demands in today’s digital environment,” said Manuel C. Alberto, president and chief operating officer at MRSGI.
For its supermarket vertical, MRSGI is looking to expand its reach by adding multi-service superapp GrabMart to the list of their on-demand goods delivery service partners. Metro Supermarket customers in select areas of Metro Manila and Cebu can purchase from an assortment of more than 3,500 goods and have these delivered to their homes through the Grab app.
At present, Metro Supermarket in Ayala Center Cebu and Market! Market! in Taguig have this convenient arrangement, and plans are underway to include six more stores to join GrabMart before the year ends.
MRSGI is also working to integrate its Metro Rewards Card with customers’ Metro online accounts, allowing loyalty cardholders to earn points for all purchases made from shop.themetrostores.ph and even use accumulated points to pay for their online purchases.
In addition, the company is on track to introducing a Progressive Web App (PWA), which is considered more efficient and convenient as they have reduced memory requirements and battery usage, and are expected to load faster and provide better navigating experience for users.
“Our customers can look forward to a more exciting and pleasant online shopping experience. We have lined up a number of strategic initiatives that are geared towards making e-commerce an important component of MRSGI’s overall value proposition,” said JJ Moreno, chief strategy officer and head of e-commerce at MRSGI.
What a great way to start the ‘Ber’ months this year with a list of high-flying stories which gave the industry a peek of the latest developments in the startup, e-commerce, and digital payments scene.
This September, an Indian-born PR agency leading the way for communications in the startup sector has expanded its presence to Singapore. A Buy Now Pay Later platform is also ramping up its market in Southeast Asia with the announcement of its country manager for Thailand.
Meanwhile, e-commerce makes another round getting into readers’ radar with a data-driven marketing firm in Asia unveiling its new leader for its e-commerce offering.
Stories from the Philippines are also in this month’s top spots with one career coaching firm in the country sharing its business story, and also, a report that saw the convergence of consumer products and social media snared readership for the period.
Value 360 Communications, the startup-focused PR agency in India, has announced that it will be expanding its market to Singapore to unlock growth opportunities in the country’s burgeoning start-up space.
Speaking to MARKETECH APAC, Kunal Sinha, the founder and director of Value 360 Communications, shared that the company has been part of the journey of 15 unicorns in the market of India, where they have built communications from the ground up. Learning from the process, the agency eventually grounded its name and reputation in the sector.
Working with a complex market such as India, Sinha believes, gives the agency a strong value proposition to bring to the start-up space.
“We are going to focus on providing start-up PR in the SEA region, and Singapore will be the core for us in extending our services to start-ups. We are also in a discussion with other global brands who have both India and Singapore presence, and we are looking to hire talents with specific experiences in start-ups,” said Sinha.
We have an internal training module where we will be able to help them learn and understand about the start-up space.
Entering this month’s top stories is one of the latest episodes of MARKETECH Spotlight featuring career coaching firm in the Philippines, Metamorphosis Group (MG).
In an exclusive conversation with the firm’s Founder, President, and CEO, Danica Octa, she shared MG’s start-up journey which began in the pandemic year in 2020. Gaining more expertise and leadership into the current job and recruitment industry in the country, the coaching firm has now firmed up its mission of becoming an end-to-end employability solution for those seeking guidance on their career development.
Speaking MARKETECH APAC, Octa shared how the firm sees its role in the Filipino workforce.
Our role [in the workforce] is to be some kind of a learning partner [and] an accountability buddy.
Octa believes that above all, it’s able to help shape people’s career journey through its future-oriented thinking.
“We are very forward-thinking, we understand the future of work, we as a company is very, very in touch with what’s going to happen 10 years later,” she said.
Octa adds, “We have the intuition, we can give our market the information they need to succeed moving forward, of course, so that they can upskill and reskill to the appropriate job that they need to have, moving forward. So I think that’s the role that we take here.”
Twitter Philippines has recently released a report on the products Filipinos love to talk about on the platform. The data shows that there are five key trends in how Filipinos converse around food, beverages, and personal, as well as home care.
Chandan Deep, Twitter’s head of emerging business for SEA, shared that people on the app and the conversations that they create are what makes Twitter unique, and that 71% have rated it as a great platform for brand interaction, making it the number one among its peers.
MARKETECH APAC conversed with Deep, and she noted that when you looked at the top mentioned brands, which were listed on their CPG dispatch, you will see some good samples on how brands can engage with their customers on Twitter, to be able to drive more meaningful conversations.
Twitter has a diverse community so they can connect with people who like entertainment, gaming, or health, making the first move as a brand by initiating conversation and making your audience enjoy it.
ADA, the data- and AI-driven marketing firm in Asia, has appointed former Chief Business Officer of Lazada Malaysia, Sherry Tan to be its regional head of e-commerce.
ADA has just unveiled its end-to-end e-commerce solution for brands in APAC, and for the new role, Tan will be leading a team of leaders who will support the growing demand for e-commerce in the region.
In the interview with MARKETECH APAC, Tan shared the challenges that brands in e-commerce are faced with in this pandemic.,
“In the last 18 months right, the pandemic catapulted e-commerce retail significantly, and there are more users in the digital space whether it is the buyers or the sellers. Now, it has become harder for brands to attract customers because there are wider options available,” said Tan.
According to Tan, besides having more choices, customers are gaining smarter as well and therefore, have higher expectations toward their shopper journey.
Brands need to stay on top of their game to predict industry trends…and then they need to enhance engagement and attraction to their brand to build loyalty and retention.
On ADA’s e-commerce solution, Tan said, “Leveraging on our data and digital shelf, we are able to craft [an] e-commerce and digital strategy based on sentiment analysis, customer insights as well as [competitive] landscape. This data allows us to understand what consumers are interested in, where they have visited over a period of time, and ADA is able to target these audiences for the brand.”
For our top story for the month, we have Buy Now Pay later platform in Asia Atome’s appointment of its country manager for Thailand, Poompong Tancharoenphol Tancharoenphol was formerly Zilingo’s country head for the country.
Speaking to MARKETECH APAC, Tancharoenphol said, “I think I have been fortunate to look at e-commerce both from AddVentures and Zilingo before. There [are] a few key factors in making an e-commerce company successful, namely the business model itself, whether it is B2C e-commerce, B2B e-commerce, and marketplaces, and there is [a] supply chain, marketing, and payment.”
He adds that with BNPL being quite new to the Thai market, it could mean either two things: it may be potentially good or something which the market may not adapt to.
I think the direct value we offer to the retailers and e-commerce players is the increase in the market size. We were able to increase the market size to 30% more than any other payment method, and this comes along with increasing sales and conversion [afterward]
Watch our exclusive interviews with the brands themselves on the latest episode of MARKETECH APAC Reports, now live on our YouTube channel.
This is in collaboration with Malaysia-based media company The Full Frontal.
Manila, Philippines – YouTube retains its leadership among Filipino viewers, where in the country,the watch base now stands at 45 million viewers. With this, local brands are in a better position to tap the platform in attaining desired business and brand results.
In their latest ‘YouTube Brandcast’ press event, the platform noted that there has been more than 25% rise in watchtime from April 2020 to April 2021, while total hours of content uploaded to YouTube by channels in the Philippines grew more than four times between 2020 and 2019.
There has been a huge influx of new creators on the platform as well, with over 3,000 local channels hitting more than 100,000 subscribers, over 250 channels having more than one million subscribers, and 12 channels having more than 10 million subscribers, as of June 2021.
“In the second year of the pandemic, more Filipinos turned to YouTube to use content that can help them with their everyday life. YouTube’s reach, creators, content uploads, and watchtime increased phenomenally and this ecosystem growth unlocked great possibilities for brands to drive results at scale, and deliver a fulfilling experience for viewers,” said Gabby Roxas, marketing head at Google Philippines.
In terms of the genres or categories most watched on the platform locally, recipe videos grew by more than 50% in watchtime during the first quarter of 2021 compared to the same time last year. Skincare video watch time had also jumped by more than 80% in the same period and interestingly, that for shampoo videos more than doubled.
Furthermore, in continuing to seek entertainment to cope with the prolonged isolation periods, watchtime for role-playing game (RPG) videos grew by more than 80% while that for drama television series grew by more than 70% in the same period.
With these genres rising to popularity, brands locally can tap into these categories through their respective content creators to create meaningful brand-infused content, such as the platform’s sponsorable activities like Super Stream, Music Night, and FanFest among others allow brands like Unilever to engage consumers effectively.
“Marketing in a connected world opens new opportunities for brands to connect deeper with people, and YouTube is an effective platform to do that. Through YouTube, we were able to tell our brand stories in an unmissable way, standing up in the frontline of culture to engage today’s attention-restricted audience,” said Dennis Perez, media director at Unilever Philippines.
The platform’s success on brand integrated campaigns has been evident when they launched their first-ever YouTube Works locally, where they recognized the brands that have created campaigns that take the support from the platform’s diverse audience and capabilities.
“YouTube empowers brands to push the boundaries of creative storytelling that delivers results and I’ve seen this with the finalists of the inaugural YouTube Works awards. They used YouTube and its content creators in a powerful way, resulting in key achievements in awareness, engagement and action. I’m excited to see what brands and agencies will come up with and submit in the next run of YouTube Works,” said Leigh Reyes, jury head at YouTube Works and chair 3meritus and product officer at MullenLowe TREYNA.
Manila, Philippines – Growsari, a first-of-its-kind e-commerce enabler for the Filipino ‘sari-sari store’ or the mom-and-pop neighborhood stores spread all over the region, has just announced its expanded presence across the Luzon region, aimed at serving 100,000 sari-sari store owners to maximize earnings and get access to best prices.
‘Sari-sari stores’,which are hyper-proximal stores of sundries situated in the country’s neighborhoods, have been an economical staple in the Philippines. As such, they are considered the backbone of the country’s retail.
The expansion follows Growsari’s concluded Series B funding in June this year, where it has secured more than US$30m in funding.
The Growsari app enables sari-sari store owners to quickly order goods, while also providing essential services such as microfinancing support and assistance, and other e-services including telco, bills payment, and remittances.
With the expansion widening its presence to 100 municipalities across Luzon, Growsari aims to add more in the months to come. Among the new provinces where Growsari will now be available are Batangas, Bulacan, La Union and Camarines Norte and Sur in the Bicol region. Growsari expects to cater to almost 220 municipalities across Luzon by the end of the year.
ER Rollan, Growsari’s CEO and co-founder, shared that with their fresh funds, they aim to more than double GrowSari’s existing coverage and service more than 100,000 mom-and-pop-up stores by the end of 2021.
“This will also help us broaden our supplier marketplace with new third-party partners and scale our financial service pilots,” said Rollan.
Manila, Philippines – TikTok in the Philippines is moving to support would-be entrepreneurs through the launch of its new campaign, ‘’Negosyo Mo Na Yan’. Negosyo is a Tagalog term for business, and the campaign is aimed at helping Filipinos cope financially in these trying times by empowering them to launch their own businesses.
Through this campaign, TikTok hopes to equip aspiring entrepreneurs with the tools and basic knowledge they need to jumpstart their business ventures. During the pandemic, a lot of beginning and closeted entrepreneurs came out of their shells with online marketplaces seeing an unprecedented surge during the period. With this, content platforms and e-commerce platforms themselves have been launching online initiatives to teach budding business owners to navigate and foray into online selling.
‘Negosyo Mo Na Yan’ will focus solely on food-related businesses, largely because, according to the short video platform, most of the thriving local businesses born during the pandemic are centered around food.
The campaign will kick off with ‘Negosyo Week’ from 27 September to 3 October 2021. During this period, a series of masterclasses will be hosted by different TikTok partners via TikTok Live. Each session will last for 2 hours where viewers will gain insights and information relevant to a food entrepreneur’s journey. Partner speakers include GCash, Puregold, Abenson, Canva, and When In Manila Food as well as Globe.
This will be followed by a #NegosyoRecipe challenge from 4 October to 21 October 2021, where participants can win amazing prizes, including appliances and tools that can help them start their businesses. In order to join, users need to upload their best negosyo recipe videos on TikTok using the hashtag #NegosyoRecipe. TikTok will then select 10 creators from among all the participants who will move on to the next round.
Shortlisted creators will be given the exclusive chance to develop their negosyo ideas, and improve their business models through one-on-one mentoring sessions. The challenge will culminate with a business pitch, where the final 10 creators will present their ideas to a panel of judges composed of respected entrepreneurs and experts from the food industry such as RJ Ledesma of Mercato Group, celebrity chef Marvin Agustin, and Mark del Rosario of Let’s Eat Pare.
After the pitch, the three creators with the most promising business ideas will be awarded as winners. Along with the business-building tools, one grand winner will also be entitled to a six-month mentorship with Marvin Agustin, which includes a spot in his cloud kitchen, The Secret Kitchen.
As the leading short video platform, TikTok has been ramping up its content strategy in order to include conversations relevant to society. Its Singaporean counterpart has recently launched a livestream series dedicated to anchoring the discussion on mental health awareness.
Manila, Philippines – As the platform continues to grow its presence in Southeast Asia, including the Philippines, the local arm of e-commerce platform Lazada has launched a new process called ‘Start It Up, Laz It Up’ which encourages new sellers to register via a simplified three-step sign-up process. To add up to the encouragement, the platform has also placed a raffle for the new registrants, amounting to US$10k worth of prizes.
Said raffle will be awarded to one lucky recipient and is composed of cash and advertising credits to kickstart the recipient’s online business on the platform. Interested new sellers must sign up and launch their Lazada marketplace stores in active selling mode during the period of 27 September to 30 October.
The ‘Start It Up, Laz It Up’ process is as follows: submit and enter a registered local mobile number, then enter a one-time six-digit code to verify the mobile number, and finally setting a strong and unique password.
Once finished setting up the account, online sellers can start selling on the platform by adding the address of the location where the seller will ship their products from; then adding a valid government-approved identification so that payments can be processed, and adding a valid bank account information for ease of withdrawing earnings from the platform.
For Carlos Barrera, chief operating officer at Lazada Philippines, the first six months of 2021 saw the number of Filipino sellers joining the platform tripled, which is a striking testament to how e-commerce is a must-have for many local businesses in today’s digital era, adding that the company remains committed to empowering Filipino SMEs with the tools and services that are key for their online growth ambitions.
“This journey starts from something as simple as making the first step and registering as an online seller. With the simple and seamless seller registration process, we hope more aspiring entrepreneurs from all walks of life will dream big and explore e-commerce with zero barriers. Lazada is here with you to build resilience and preparedness in order to tap onto the massive online opportunity,” Barrera stated.
The rise of sellers has been noted in their first-ever ‘Digital Commerce Confidence Index’, where 70% of Southeast Asia’s online sellers are optimistic and confident about their future growth and prospects for the third quarter of 2021.
To further help new sellers in setting up a successful online shop in the platform, Lazada University has an introductory step-by-step guide to welcome new users with a manageable Learning Management System (LMS) with a suite of diverse training materials for easy understanding especially by first-time sellers. Topics available range from advertising to budget management, as well as offline and live-streamed training sessions conducted by Lazada staff and peers from the seller community.
Manila, Philippines – Metamorphosis Group (MG), the digital, remote, and tech-enabled career coaching firm in the Philippines, has been named the winner of a Bronze Stevie® Award in the Startup of the Year category in the 18th annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business.
The Stevie Awards for Women in Business honor women executives, entrepreneurs, employees, and the companies they run – worldwide. The Stevie Awards have been hailed as the world’s premier business awards.
Winners will be celebrated during a virtual awards ceremony on 13 January 2022, where registration for the ceremony is now on sale.
More than 1,500 entries were submitted this year for consideration in more than 100 categories, including Executive of the Year, Entrepreneur of the Year, Company of the Year, Startup of the Year, and Women Helping Women, among others.
“Kudos on developing a multiplatform business model to enable the career success of individuals across the globe – from events to social to empowerment through a coaching network, your growth efforts since 2019 are notable. Keep up the good work,” said one of the judges of the awarding body.
“Helping people cultivate their talents, create career opportunities, grow their talents, and much more are great attributes the Metamorphosis Group displays. Very helpful service,” said another judge.
MG was granted a guaranteed win after telling stories about its career coaching service and most especially about its flagship project – the Virtual Career Academy Summit.
Last March 2021, it held its biggest virtual event for the community, the Virtual Career Academy Summit on Digital Transformation which is a virtual career fair with employers showcasing their companies and talents benefiting from free career coaching services. The virtual summit gained over 600 participants and featured about 17 industry speakers.
The event was able to reach over 115,000 people and generated over 15,000 engagements. During the summit, MG gathered more than 17 companies and employers, mounting a platform to present over 100 job openings, and most especially over 20 career coaching opportunities.
The recognition was timely as the company was entering a new phase in the business.
“Metamorphosis Group is about to enter a growth phase that will require some uncomfy adjustments,” said the young female Founder and CEO, Danica Octa, to MG’s team and pool of coaches.
“You will be with us in this growth and we are happy that you are. Thank you for being part of the journey! Metamorphosis Group is what it is because of all of you. I know that the public associates MG to my name, but I am done being the only face of the company. As a startup, I was just simply pouring my reputation to the company at first to improve its credibility. But moving forward, I want you to know that the company’s success will also be yours. Because Metamorphosis Group will really stand for what it really means – a ‘group’. And I am excited to see you help us make that happen. MG is not Danica Octa. MG is all of us!” she added.
Details about the Stevie Awards for Women in Business and the list of Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners in all categories can be found on its official website. Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie Award winners were determined by the average scores of more than 160 business professionals around the world, working on eight juries.
Maggie Gallagher Miller, president of the Stevie Awards, said, “We thought the remarkable stories of achievement we saw in last year’s awards couldn’t be topped, but we were wrong. Women-owned and -run organizations have contributed significantly to the increase in innovation and entrepreneurial activity we’ve seen globally since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The nominations submitted to the 18th Stevie Awards for Women in Business that attest to this are inspiring, humbling, and motivating. We congratulate all of our Gold, Silver, and Bronze Stevie winners. We look forward to celebrating them during our January 13 virtual ceremony, and to hearing from some of them during our Women|Future Conference.”
For one of the latest episodes of MARKETECH Spotlight, MARKETECH APAC sat down with Octa to learn how MG sees its role in the Filipino workforce.
Octa shared in the exclusive interview, “Our role is to be some kind of learning partner [and to be] an accountability buddy. We help our clients learn new things, not just the technical skills, but also the life skills, and we help them become more accountable to whatever they learn, and to whatever goals they want to achieve.”
MARKETECH APAC is an official media partner of Metamorphosis Group’s Virtual Career Academy Summit.
We use cookies to improve your experience and to analyse our traffic. To find out more, please click here. By continuing to use our website, you accept our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions. Cookie settingsACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
