Tag: South China Morning Post

Singapore – Last November 3, APAC industry leaders gathered in an industry discussion that talked about the future of event marketing as brands and marketers prepare for 2023. Conducted by MARKETECH APAC, in partnership with events platform Hubilo, ‘What’s NEXT 2023: Events in Asia Pacific’ roped in industry leaders from Dentsu Creative India, Generali Philippines, and South China Morning Post. 

The events industry was one of the worst hit during the pandemic, and now that things are gradually getting back to normal, it’s crucial to take a look at how events have evolved and the new trends that have emerged as it rises from a prolonged halt. 

Kicking off the webinar was a panel discussion graced by Amit Wadhwa, CEO of Dentsu Creative India; Milca Javier, head of marketing at Generali Philippines; and Razlan Manjaji, director of global events at South China Morning Post. Moderated by Sophie Ahmed, SVP for market strategy at Hubilo, the group of leaders talked about the importance and strategy of leveraging event-led communities. Furthermore, the panel touched on the best event engagement strategies that brands can employ. 

Meanwhile, Ahmed who’s had 20 years of industry experience in events and marketing, further shared her insights into strategising events through a fireside chat with MARKETECH APAC’s Regional Editor Shaina Teope. 

In the conversation, Ahmed shed light on the burgeoning strategy called ‘365 Community’, and discussed how said marketing direction can be monetised and give way for greater personalisation by brands. 

The webinar drew marketing professionals hailing from the industries of media, airlines, financial services, retail, and hospitality, amongst others. Attendees come from the markets of Singapore, Australia, India, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Hong Kong. Furthermore, those who took part represented brands such as ByteDance, CIMB, Crimson Hotel, Foodpanda Malaysia, Malaysia Airlines, MetroMart, Netflix, and Tickled media. 

Teope commented, “We can’t just expect the growth of events to be a one-way, straightforward path. Just because it was the in-person format that we left behind, does not mean we’re simply going back to how it was. Events have been forever changed and this is what this industry discussion is for – to get us back on track and open our eyes to newer innovations and strategies.” 

Register HERE to get your on-demand access to the webinar. 

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.”

Hong Kong – The South China Morning Post (SCMP) has announced the launch of its inaugural NFT collection called ‘1997 Premium Series’, which gives Hongkongers, history buffs and NFT enthusiasts the opportunity to own a piece of history–all from Hong Kong’s historic year of 1997.

The year 1997 has been a pivotal year for Hong Kong, primarily because of the British handover of Hong Kong to the Chinese authorities on July 1, 1997. Other notable events in 1997 that shaped Hong Kong’s history include the Asian financial crisis, the deaths of Deng Xiaoping and Princess Diana, the Avian flu outbreak, among others.

The first drop of the NFTs will release more than 1,300 unique mystery boxes, with each box containing five random NFTs of the Post’s front pages from 1 January to 1 July 1997. An upcoming second drop will release a further 1,300 boxes covering 1 July to 31 December 1997.

As part of the NFT release, SCMP has named portto, the company behind Blocto, as its exclusive wallet partner for the ‘1997 Premium Series.’

For Gary Liu, CEO at SCMP, the publication has witnessed many historic moments as Hong Kong’s newspaper of record and the launch of the ‘1997 Premium Series’ is significant as the city marks the 25th anniversary of the handover this year.

“ARTIFACTs by SCMP brings together collectors and history enthusiasts, and we’ve been delighted by the growth and enthusiasm of our community in the lead-up to the launch. We look forward to releasing more of the Post’s 118-year-old media archives as NFTs as well as partnering with other guardians of history to preserve historical assets on the blockchain,” Liu said.

Meanwhile, Hsuan Lee, CEO of portto, commented, “Blocto has a lot of experience in the deep blockchain having cooperated with large enterprises, from Vault by CNN, MotoGP Ignition and the South China Morning Post. We have been continuously focusing on co-creating an easy-to-use experience that is intuitive to both users and the companies we work with.”

The new NFT launch by SCMP is part of ‘ARTIFACTs by SCMP’, the first NFT collection released using the ARTIFACT metadata standard, serving as the foundation upon which history can be discovered, connected, and collected on the blockchain. The project aims to seed a community of collectors and eventually produce an ecosystem around the preservation of historical accounts and assets.

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 appointed David Wightman, former group director of business operations at independent marketing and media consultancy Ebiquity, to assume the newly created role of global head of advertising.

Wightman brings more than two decades of industry experience, gained at the intersection of media, data, and technology. He has previously built and led local and international sales and operations teams within digital and traditional media companies. 

Aside from his previous role at Ebiquity, Wightman has worked as the managing director of GroupM’s audience intelligence and activation solution arm [M]Platform, where he launched and scaled the regional programmatic, data, and technology division of GroupM APAC. He has also worked as the chief operating officer of sports publication GiveMeSport, where he overhauled the editorial and content marketing approach, increasing readership, revenues, and investment.

In his new role, Wightman will be spearheading the ongoing growth and international expansion of SCMP’s global advertising business, leading a department spanning Hong Kong, mainland China, Asia, the USA, and Europe. He will also be overseeing the company’s global media sales, marketing, and creative solutions, as well as branded content, and advertising technology, among others.

Commenting on his appointment, Wightman said that he is energized and enthused to be joining SCMP.

“The award-winning history of the brand, coupled with an innovative approach to how we harness data and technology, offers an unprecedented opportunity. I believe the future is very exciting for our company, our advertising partners, and our audiences,” added Wightman.

Gary Liu, SCMP’s CEO, commented that they are delighted to add a leader of Wightman’s global expertise and reputation, and they look forward to broadening their business reach and international relevance with his strategic, operational, and commercial experience.

“His C-suite exposure across the EMEA and APAC markets will greatly benefit SCMP’s growing portfolio of international clients,” said Liu.

Just recently, the news company’s advertising arm announced the launch of the next version of its existing brand sustainability tool, SIGNAL 2.0, which features a suite of new functions to help drive optimization for advertisers and brands in their return of investment (ROI).

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 – Global news company reporting on China and Asia, The South China Morning Post (SCMP), has launched today its new Global Subscription product to provide unparalleled intelligence and insights on China, tailored for enterprises and corporate organizations.

The new Group Subscription packages offer holistic solutions that combine comprehensive news reporting and industry insights, that illuminate global trends as the epicenter of global economic growth continues to shift towards Asia. 

Through SCMP’s new product, group subscribers can access all the latest news coverage on international trade, finance technology, geo-economic policies, as well as the environment, sustainability, and governance trends. Meanwhile, exclusive member benefits will include policy briefings, research and industry reports, access to flagship events and conferences, and invite-only conversations with a community of globally influential senior executives, China experts, and SCMP editors. 

Ang Jin, SCMP’s senior vice president, said that it is increasingly essential to understand nuances in global trends to keep ahead of the competition in a fast-changing environment.

“SCMP’s Group Subscriptions are designed for professionals to make well-informed decisions with customized news and industry intelligence and to help navigate complex economic, business, and political issues. As a product aligned to organizational needs, we believe it is an investment that will see invaluable benefits in return,” said Jin.

Just recently, SCMP has also launched a global brand campaign to communicate its ‘Understand China, Understand the World’ value proposition, demonstrating its mission to lead the global conversation about China. It aims to position itself as an important resource for readers looking to acquire a more complete understanding of global trends.

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.