SCMP Archives - MARKETECH APAC

Hong Kong – The South China Morning Post (SCMP) has announced it has rebranded its SCMP Events to SCMP Live as it initiates a new phase of business transformation in its events division.

SCMP Live is set to deliver fewer but larger-scale events that are more impactful and more aligned with the organisation’s top-of-mind news events. However, the China Conference, Family Business Summit, and Redefining Hong Kong series will remain its flagship events in 2024.

Additionally, SCMP Live’s custom events, which are produced on behalf of its partners, will leverage SCMP’s brand to convene the right target audiences and curate the most relevant programmes and speakers to drive meaningful connection, high engagement, and consideration.

Catherine So, chief executive officer of SCMP, said, “For 120 years, our readers have placed their trust in SCMP to help them make sense of the news events across Hong Kong, Greater China, and Asia. Through SCMP Live premium event experiences, we ignite our readers’ journey from informed to empowered, enabling them to dive deeper, connect with opinion leaders, and shape industry conversations—all LIVE.”

She continued, “The way our audience engages with our events is constantly evolving. As such, our events division has transformed to anticipate and adapt to our audience’s needs and expectations. The rebrand to ‘SCMP Live’ marks this transformation.”

Kevin Huang, chief operating officer of SCMP, also commented, “There has been tremendous growth in our Events division this past year. In the current fiscal year, we’ve already seen high double-digit revenue growth YOY. With the rebrand and transformation to SCMP Live, we hope to turbocharge our events capability to further build out the depth and breadth of our events portfolio and to help many more of our partners bring their event vision to life in the most impactful way that supports their business priorities.”

Hong Kong – The South China Morning Post (SCMP), the Hong Kong-headquartered news company, has unveiled its Readers of SCMP Campaign, which tells the international story of Hong Kong through the lens of six readers from different walks of life who exemplify the defining qualities of the Post’s audience base.

The campaign spotlights the message that great journeys start with ‘anyone, anywhere, at any time’ by featuring the vignettes of six readers whose profiles epitomize the international story of Hong Kong in their ‘moments of creation’.

The six personalities featured in the Readers of SCMP Campaign are Allan Zeman, chairman of LKF Group; May Chow, chef and founder of Little Bao; Steven Lam, co-founder and CEO of GoGoX; Shalini Mahtani, founder of The Zubin Foundation, Gregory Van, co-founder and CEO of Endowus; and Anson Chan, a student at Island School.

According to the release, they represent the Post’s reader archetypes, as represented by makers, leaders, pioneers, innovators, and visionaries. The vignettes are a celebration of the social, cultural and economic influence these archetypes wield.

“The first brand initiative of our 120th anniversary, this Readers of SCMP campaign celebrates the entrepreneurial community of Hong Kong which has been with the Post every step of the way since day one,” said Kevin Huang, chief operating officer of SCMP.

He added, “We connect partners to quality Asian affluent and influential business decision maker audiences. Our culturally relevant content and events drive connection and consideration, and our first party data platform and brand safety tools deliver impact through insights and context.”

Paul Phillips, strategy and insights director at SCMP said that the campaign was conceived as a result of findings by in-house market research conducted in January 2023, revealing SCMP’s leading and nuanced market share in quality, affluent and influential readership.

“With this campaign, we are celebrating our readers who are shaping our world. They are the makers, leaders, pioneers, innovators and visionaries of today and tomorrow,” he added.

Previously, SCMP has also released its campaign that showcases journalism as more than the sum of its parts, titled ‘More than a story’.

Hong Kong – Hong Kong-headquartered global news company The South China Morning Post (SCMP) has announced the appointment of Lou Wee as its new director of global strategic business.

Based in Hong Kong, Wee’s role sits within the Post’s Advertising and Marketing Solutions (AMS) business with the mandate to build and nurture long-term partnerships with global strategic accounts.

Wee rejoins SCMP after his move to VICE Media as vice president of sales and brand partnerships, APAC in 2022. In SCMP, he previously held the roles of head of advertising sales for Hong Kong and regional markets as well as regional director of advertising and partnerships for more than three years.

With over 15 years of diverse media and advertising experience acquired from Hong Kong and Singapore, Wee counts VICE Media, FOX Networks Group, CNBC, and The Wall Street Journal amongst his prior career appointments where he was responsible for advertising sales and partnerships.

Commenting on his appointment, Wee said, “Hong Kong holds a very special place in my heart – not only has it been my home base for the past 8 years, I also owe much of the success that I enjoy in my personal and professional life to this city.”

He added, “My appointment and return to SCMP comes at an exciting point of the Post’s journey as it enters its 120th year of journalistic legacy, the reopening of Hong Kong to the rest of the world and a tech-forward next-phase which will continue to pave the way for SCMP’s leading role in the Asia media industry.”

Kevin Huang, chief operating officer of SCMP also said that Wee’s rich industry and regional background reflects the mission of SCMP’s global strategic business, which is to work with partners worldwide in targeting respective local markets across APAC and globally.

Huang added, “As our readers are a global community, the majority of which comprises the APAC market with a particularly strong presence in Hong Kong, Singapore and the rest of Southeast Asia, followed by the North America market, Wee’s homecoming highlights the Post’s robust regional position and strong confidence in Asia as a leading global hub for media and advertising.”

This follows Sophia Yu’s appointment as managing director of SCMP’s magazine division, SCMP Hearst.

Hong Kong – The South China Morning Post (SCMP), the Hong Kong-founded and -headquartered global news company, has released its biggest brand initiative in five years. Called ‘More than a story’, the campaign aims to tell that ‘a story’ is not to be digested at face value as its purpose and essence transcends more than just it being a set of facts or a trove of words. It seeks to share the message that it is more than just reporting, words on a page, facts, and a story – it is greater than the sum of its parts.

Adrian Lee, SVP of audience growth at SCMP, says the campaign serves as a ‘love letter’ to the city the Post calls home, that is Hong Kong. The brand initiative honours the vocation of journalism and how it is an enabler of keeping the principles of truth, responsibility, and community intact within society.

“[It is] a reminder of the resilience and tenacity which we share with our home audience, made possible because of a vocation informed by purpose and mission,” added Lee.

He continues, “This shared mission by our people is fuelled by a deep sense of belonging, serving as their beacon every step of the way as they report on the entire spectrum of social issues in our community.”

The latest campaign builds on its previously-launched messaging ‘Journalism that Hong Kong Deserves’. Divided into three parts, the inaugural episode of ‘More than a story’ brings us behind the scenes to offer a candid and unvarnished close-up of the deep commitment Hong Kong desk reporters exhibit in.

The campaign turns the focus inwards and allows readers to hear straight from the source – SCMP’s journalists and its people – of what motivates and inspires them, as they explain why they do what they do and are driven to effect positive change in their home city.

Episode one debuts across SCMP’s website, news app, and social media channels and will also make an appearance on the iconic videowall at Times Square in Causeway Bay, a location which has served as the Post’s newsroom headquarters since 2018. The campaign’s citywide rollout will extend to a wide range of locations in the coming weeks — a tribute to its journalists, readers and fellow Hongkongers who have been with the Post “every step of the way.”

Throughout the year, subsequent videos will be released featuring different aspects and individuals working in the Post’s newsroom.

“As our global coverage continues to evolve and expand, the Post remains committed to honouring its roots and origins as Hong Kong’s home-grown international newspaper of record,” said the Post.

Hong Kong – The South China Morning Post (SCMP) has appointed Catherine So as its new chief executive officer. The appointment takes effect 15 June as she succeeds Gary Liu.

Liu will be transitioning into a new role to oversee the development of Artifact Labs, a new blockchain and NFT company created by SCMP.

So joins SCMP from Expedia Group where she was the managing director of Asia-Pacific, overseeing its consumer brands in all APAC markets. She was previously the managing director of Groupon Hong Kong as well, and has previously held leadership positions at iProperty Group which is now REA Group, Tom Group, News Corporation, and AOL Time Warner.

She brings into SCMP a background in digitalisation, audience development, and content commercialisation. This is in addition to her extensive media and technology leadership experience, strong track record for corporate transformation and innovation, and success in growing consumer-focused companies.

Speaking on her appointment, So said, “I am honoured to take on this position and thrilled to lead the South China Morning Post. The need for quality journalism has never been higher in today’s complex and polarised world. As a trusted news media company in Hong Kong and around the world, the Post is well-positioned to shape the global dialogue on Greater China and Asia.”

She added, “Building on SCMP’s world-class editorial, I will focus on strengthening business fundamentals: growing our global readership base, and expanding commercial opportunities, through both product and technological innovations. I look forward to leading and working with the team to achieve the next phase of transformation and growth at SCMP.”

Meanwhile, Joe Tsai, chairman of the SCMP Board of Directors, commented, “We are thrilled to have Catherine as our next CEO. She brings exceptional leadership acumen to the company, and she will drive continued business growth with a deep focus on editorial excellence and user experience.”

He added, “We also thank Gary for his dedication and contributions over five-and-a-half years as CEO. He has created a lasting legacy by transforming the Post digitally and culturally, and has empowered the company to further innovate with purpose and passion.”

Lastly, Liu commented, “SCMP is in great hands with Catherine as our next CEO. The Post will benefit from her deep digital and commercial expertise and her leadership experience. I look forward to SCMP’s continued growth under Catherine’s stewardship.”

More marketers are recognizing the power of branded content in our rapidly evolving digital age. Consumers are constantly being bombarded with all sorts of adverts, so it is vital for brands to tell stories that resonate with their customers to ensure they stand out from the crowd.

Content marketing also offers a range of other business benefits, including helping companies to build brand awareness, cultivate consumer loyalty, and generate organic growth through publicity.

Up to 80 percent of marketers regard content creation as one of the top priorities, according to a 2021 report by Hubspot. It also shows that content marketing makes up 26 percent of their business-to-business marketing budgets, while spending is on the rise.

Plan your next successful content marketing campaign

To better plan, manage and evaluate a successful content marketing campaign, it is important that companies put a clear structure in place. Here is our five-step guide to help you plan your next content marketing campaign.

1. Define your strategy with a framework for measurement

Brand equity modeling is a useful tool to assess the impact of measures of brand equity on long-term brand performance. Marketers should first include metrics such as ‘trust’, ‘quality’, and ‘reliability’ with a definitive monetary value and hierarchy, alongside other tangible indicators such as the audience engagement level or sales conversion.

With such a framework, marketers can constantly measure the effectiveness of each campaign and adjust their strategy to optimize the results.

2. Know your audience through data

Storytelling is a form of art, but tailoring your content to the right audience is a science. Making use of first-, second- or third-party data is instrumental in mapping out the key communications challenges of engaging your target audience.

By analyzing the data, which shows such things as who your audience is, what content they consume, and how they behave; marketers will have a better idea about how to strengthen the brand relevance to the target audiences in the right context.

3. Internal support for creative process

Compelling content requires creativity, but the bureaucratic approval process sometimes kills imaginative thinking. As such, marketers should lobby internally and get the backing of C-suite, or senior executives, to ensure the least intervention in the creative process, while gatekeepers are in place for quality assurance and crisis prevention. Ideally, two to three sign-offs would be sufficient in keeping the right balance between gatekeeping and the creative process.

4. Tailor your distribution plan to match user journey

With a massive volume of content available, both online and offline, marketers need to work towards more than just clicks and eyeballs. Instead, they should curate a content journey – through the right distribution channels at the right time for the right audience – that allows people to discover your brand, generate interest and build brand loyalty.

5. Focus on long-term benefits

Most content marketers define the success of a content marketing campaign by the number of sales conversions. This overemphasis on short-term results prevents marketers from benefiting from the long-term returns – gained from: creating real bonds with your customers and cultivating customer loyalty.

This article is written by Darryl Choo, regional sales director for APAC at South China Morning Post.

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 news company South China Morning Post (SCMP) has announced the launch of the next version of their existing brand sustainability tool, SIGNAL 2.0, featuring a suite of new functions to help drive optimization for advertisers and brands in their return of investment (ROI).

The new functions include ad fraud detection, personalization, and measurement by terms of viewability and brand lift.

The tool, which is under the SCMP Advertising arm that recently went under rebrand from ‘Advertising and Marketing Solutions Team’, ensures true performance measurement and enhancement at no extra cost, while aligning with supply path optimization goals and ensuring more media investment is put to work.

The platform also has its own viewability and time-in-view measurement for all campaigns and this data has been integrated for optimization and reporting to ensure the news platform can deliver quality engagement and post-click action. This means advertisers can increase their brand familiarity by up to 55% and ad recall by up to 79% with the platform engines’ ability to target ad placements with exposure time beyond five seconds.

“This advancement of our proprietary technology clearly demonstrates the value of working directly with a publisher as brands can now reduce their tech costs whilst also driving their overall performance,” said Ian Hocking, vice president of digital at SCMP.

Data collected by the new version of SIGNAL can help brands optimize their activation by making format, content, sentiment recommendations before a campaign goes live by looking at ad log data from the brand’s past campaigns as well as aggregated cohort data. Brand lift studies for all scaled display campaigns have also been introduced to help brands demonstrate the effectiveness of their branding campaigns and measure, awareness, consideration and intent, amongst other insights.

“With the understanding that marketers want to ensure their advertising commitment avoids all possible malicious and fake inventory, SCMP SIGNALensures the immediate identification and exclusion of spiders & bot traffic that minimises advertising fraud to help drive effective advertising spend,” the company said in a press statement.

Meanwhile, Timmy Bankole, associate director of operations at SCMP, commented, “SCMP continues to invest in its own advertising technology tools to ensure the best possible result for our advertisers, while ensuring we can continue to provide effective solutions independent of changes to the identity and data privacy marketplace. We also remain committed to transparency and third-party measurement so that brands may measure the uplift for themselves.”

SCMP has recently launched a new global subscription dedicated to enterprises and corporate organizations.

Hong Kong – Asia news company South China Morning Post (SCMP) has announced that its ‘Advertising and Marketing Solutions Team’ will be rebranded as ‘SCMP Advertising’, which brings a greater focus on the company’s emphasis and strength in focus on digital innovation to help drive impact for brands and partners.

Through the identity revamp, SCMP positions itself as an insight-driven brand partner committed to driving client success across APAC, after being the first news publisher in Asia to launch a first-party data platform in SCMP Lighthouse and brand suitability tool in SCMP Signal. These digital tools have garnered positive feedback from clients who can look forward to new and updated features when SCMP launches their next iteration this year.

SCMP Advertising aims to help brands and partners to make an impact with readers seeking to understand global issues from an Asian perspective. The news company’s expanding international audience has allowed advertisers new opportunities to connect with globally-minded readers, with a reach of nearly 51 million monthly readers globally.

Furthermore, SCMP Advertising connects thought-leading editorial content with brands across print and digital media platforms and develops leading digital marketing solutions, and runs campaigns that deliver results.

“SCMP Advertising’s rebranding reinforces our legacy as a trusted partner that works with brands to make an impact with readers. This is a significant step in our evolution that showcases our commitment to industry innovations that drives performance and our commitment to our clients,” said Elsie Cheung, chief operating officer at SCMP.

In addition to the aforementioned objectives, SCMP Advertising offers a comprehensive portfolio of integrated offerings with 360-degree multiplatform coverage and campaign effectiveness. In addition to its first-party data platform, SCMP Lighthouse, to support its clients with purposeful intelligence that delivers more effective and efficient campaigns to highly-targeted audiences.

At the same time, SCMP holds brand safety as a top priority and has developed the publisher-built brand suitability tool SCMP Signal to ensure partners’ messages are placed in the optimal context. SCMP Advertising’s offerings includes its brand-storytelling team Morning Studio which continues to give leading clients across APAC a voice through bespoke content marketing solutions.

The SCMP Advertising revamp follows the recent appointment of Darryl Choo as the new company’s regional sales director for APAC, which entails him to identify new business opportunities, and define strategies to generate new growth opportunities.

Hong Kong – The South China Morning Post (SCMP), the global news company that reports on China and Asia, has announced a new regional sales director for APAC – Darryl Choo – who is most recently the sales director of ad tech Inskin Media for Asia.

The SCMP’s expanding international audience has given advertisers the opportunity to connect their brand to an expanded market, making the Post a news marketing partner of choice in the region. Choo will be leading the Post’s international advertising business in the Asia Pacific region and contribute to its international sales strategy.

Choo’s appointment bolsters the SCMP’s focus in Southeast Asia and will lead collaborations with brands keen to engage with its global business audience. He will be in charge of implementing and managing the sales activities in the APAC region, identifying new business opportunities, and defining strategies to generate new growth opportunities.

Choo will oversee the regional sales office in Singapore and report directly to Romanus Ng, SVP of Advertising & Marketing Solutions.

“Darryl’s deep understanding of the Asia market and expertise bolsters our growing digital advertising and branded content business in this region and we are delighted to welcome him to the SCMP team,” commented Ng.

“Southeast Asia continues to be a key market, and we look forward to leveraging his proven experience to scale our regional and global advertising business,” added Ng.

Choo brings with him more than 12 years of advertising sales experience. At Inskin Media, he was responsible for driving commercial and revenue for the business in Asia. In the past, he has held senior managerial advertising sales roles at digital, print, and broadcast media outlets such as BBC Global News Limited, Pixels Asia & Gravity4, Sony Pictures Entertainment Networks Asia, and SPH Magazines, in addition to stints at Discovery’s AFC Network and FOX Sports.

“News continues to make an impact by connecting people to their world and issues that matter most to them, and it is exciting to join a robust digital-led, multi-platform news organization in the SCMP. In Asia and across the world, the Post represents journalism that is credible and trustworthy and I look forward to helping partners engage with readers who want to understand global issues from an Asian perspective,” said Darryl.

SCMP’s Advertising & Marketing Solutions offers a portfolio of integrated offerings which includes advertising innovations with intelligence and insights through SCMP’s proprietary insight and activation platform, SCMP Lighthouse.