Tag: Southeast Asia

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.”

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Media Prima, the media and entertainment company in Malaysia, has recently announced the appointment of Rafiq Razali as its new managing director.

Razali brings with him his comprehensive experience in business development and strategic planning. His track record includes establishing and scaling start-up companies related to digital and information technology. 

The new managing director first joined Media Prima as the chief executive officer of REV Media Group on 15 April 2016 and was subsequently appointed as group executive director on 18 February 2021. 

Prior to joining Media Prima, Razali has previously worked with Maxis Berhad, where he held various positions that included responsibilities in the International Business Division and the Corporate Strategy divisions.

Datuk Seri Syed Hussian Aljunid, the group chairman of Media Prima, said Razali has been pivotal in driving the group’s positive results in recent months, and his many contributions to the group include establishing Media Prima as the local industry leader in the digital realm. 

“He has a strong understanding of the group’s business operations and when combined with his prior experience leading successful digital start-ups and commerce companies, we are confident that Rafiq is the ideal choice to lead Media Prima to new levels of success,” said Aljunid.

Singapore – Advertising agency Forsman & Bodenfors in Singapore has appointed Deborah Abraham, former director of communications at creative agency TBWA\ Group Singapore, to be its new director of PR strategy and communications. 

Abrahan is a former journalist turned communications professional with over 20 years of experience in the APAC, where she has played a key role in securing high-profile visibility for both agency and clients. Aside from her previous role in TBWA\ Singapore, Abraham has also worked as the regional communications director at creative firm BBH Asia Pacific. 

The integrated role will see Abraham as an active strategic PR counsel across both the agency’s internal communications and client work.

Commenting on her appointment, Abraham said, “Forsman & Bodenfors appreciation of an integrated PR approach to creative communications is critical to the cultural and business impact we’d like to make, and to be able to fully utilize my potential here is the best opportunity I could ask for.”

Susanna Fagring, Forsman & Bodenfors’ CEO for Singapore, noted that a fundamental understanding of the power of PR and how to start conversations in society is part of Forsman & Bodenfors’ core offering and an intimate part of our creative process. 

“Deborah’s solid experience and reputation in this market make her a fantastic addition to our team,” said Fagring.

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.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – The satellite communication services premium supplier, MEASAT, has appointed media agency Trapper to be its new integrated marketing agency on record for their first consumer brand, CONNECTme NOW.

CONNECTme NOW is Malaysia’s premier prepaid WiFi satellite broadband service, which connects all corners of the nation as part of MEASAT’s national commitment to support end-to-end digital growth.

The partnership will see Trapper handling CONNECTme NOW’s integrated marketing communications, including brand and creative services, digital, and social, as well as media solutions, and PR management.

Kenneth Wong, Trapper Interactive’s CEO, noted that consumer journeys have continuously evolved and require brands to become more interesting and engaging. 

“With a brand like CONNECTme NOW, they hope to continuously drive meaningful and accountable experiences that connect audiences in new ways,” said Wong.

Meanwhile, Sue-Anne Lim, the CEO of Trapper, thanked the team and partners who did an amazing job in ensuring they give their all support to MEASAT. 

“Our ambition for the brand was to ‘leave no place unconnected’. We showcased the most effective way to spark change and the most efficient way to keep an always-on presence among these unconnected communities to encourage adoption. We are extremely grateful for this trust and we look forward to growing with CONNECTme NOW,” said Lim.

Singapore – StashAway, the intelligent wealth management platform designed to build and protect users’ wealth, has just announced the launch of its Thematic Portfolios, which include three themes namely ‘Technology Enablers’, ‘The Future of Consumer Tech’, and ‘Healthcare Innovation’.

The new portfolios feature exchange-traded funds (ETFs) from some of the world’s top fund managers, including ARK Invest, iShares, and Global X, as well as VanEck.

The ‘Technology Enablers’ includes sub themes such as AI, blockchain, and cloud computing, as well as robotics, and semiconductors, which is the technology that consumers do not see but it enables new technologies to transform the world, while ‘The Future of Consumer Technology’ invests in technology that everyday consumers use, such as e-commerce, fintech, gaming, and internet, as well as mobility, and social media.

And lastly, the ‘Healthcare Innovation’ portfolio is investing in the technologies that cannot only improve but even change the way people stay healthy, get treatment, and recover. It gives investors exposure to biotech, genomics, and pharmaceuticals, such as smart beds and software used for genome sequencing.

Freddy Lim, StashAway’s co-founder and CIO, noted that this gives investors access to thematic investing without the risk inherent with thematic investing, and the remaining non-thematic assets in a portfolio are there to manage risk. 

“We call these non-thematic assets ‘balancing assets’, and their role in our Thematic Portfolios is just as important as the thematic assets,” said Lim.

Meanwhile, Amanda Ong, the country manager of StashAway Singapore, commented that they are excited to offer new investment opportunities to the clients.

“The promising innovations that make up these portfolios take time to reach mass adoption. So, it’s important for investors to have a long-term mindset when investing in Thematic Portfolios,” said Ong.

StashAway said that its Thematic Portfolios are different from any other thematic offering available to both retail and institutional investors. Its risk management feature includes investors select the downside they are willing to accept in a given year, and the platform maximizes the thematic exposure as much as possible within the risk constraints.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Multinational low-cost airline and superapp airasia, with the aid of their recent VTuber agency Project Kavvaii, and online art community Pixiv have joined forces in officially kicking off a fan art contest dedicated to Project Kavvaii’s first-ever VTuber Aozora Kurumi.

Said contest kicked off last 9 September and will conclude by 24 October this year.

The fan art contest was previously announced by airasia during Aozora Kurumi’s media announcement last May of this year, which was also her debut month, in which she was introduced last 8 May.

Top winners of the said contest will receive a variety of prizes from airasia and Pixiv, including Wacom drawing tablets; hotel accommodations for use in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand, as well as CabinZero backpacks. The other consecutive winners will receive 20,000 BIG points from airasia, which is from BIGLIFE, airasia’s loyalty management subsidiary.

Speaking to MARKETECH APAC, Izal Azlee, senior manager for content strategy at airasia, said the four months that they have shared with their first-ever virtual idol was at first unexpected, but they have totally loved it, adding the reason of how together and tight knit the community is, from fellow VTubers in the online community, to other VTuber agencies, as well all the way to the fans and viewers themselves.

“Doing what we do in airasia, we are in total awe of the community. We as a company have always aimed to embrace the various communities across the region and we are just getting started with the VTubing community. And the best part about this whole thing is how much we (the talent and agency) are learning a lot of things together on this journey. The fact that it’s collaborative makes it all that more exciting,” Azlee stated.

For the team at Project Kavvaii, the contest is not about making it resonate with the brand but rather showing their gratitude and appreciation to Kurumi’s fanbase that have welcomed not only their talent but them as an agency as well four months ago.

“We just want to show our appreciation and hopefully we can continue on this journey for a long long time. Ultimately, our bigger goal is to bring the creativity in the region into the spotlight. This is one of the small ways we can achieve that,” Azlee added.

Such positive relationship of fans and the brand themselves, according to Azlee, is best observed when looking at the gradual reception of these communities to the brand in focus.

“For brands, we would say learn about the community first to see what it’s all about and understand what this would mean, not just to the brand but to the community. It isn’t a walk in the park, so there’s a lot of learning. From our experience the best way to excel here is to listen to the community and VTubers,” he concluded.

Aozora Kurumi, who speaks multiple languages namely English, Mandarin, Hokkien, Cantonese, Korean as well as some Bahasa Malaysia and Japanese, now currently holds 11.8k subscribers on her official YouTube channel as of this writing, and has made multiple collaborations within the VTuber space, with the larger majority concentrated in the Southeast Asian region like Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia.

Philippines – Image filtering is the new stunt of Mountain Dew on its latest meme-fueled campaign. The release of the ‘meme-generating’ augmented reality filters on Instagram comes after Mountain Dew’s initial three launch films, which was created in collaboration with creative agency BBDO Guerrero.

The three prior films highlight a comic parody that claims—literally and figuratively—everything is “mas cool ‘pag my Ice,” which in English translates to “cooler with Ice”.

Meanwhile, the filters use face-swapping technology to let fans own that ‘cooler’ element in their own way by inserting their faces over choice characters in popular online films and literally turning themselves into a meme. These filters were inspired by two out of the three launch films for Mountain Dew Ice which puts some of the most famous local memes and viral content.

Mikey Rosales, the marketing director at PepsiCo, shared that there has been an outpouring of engagement and praise for the “mas Cool ‘Pag may ice” campaign presenting such a bold and unconventional take on modern Filipino meme-culture.

“From polarizing online debates to the full-on explosion of fandoms—the reception of all three videos has been absolutely thrilling, to say the least,” said Rosales.

David Guerrero, BBDO’s creative chairman, said that they wanted to create something that was not just funny and attention-grabbing but resonated very strongly with the market.

“Mountain Dew Philippines is very much tapped into youth culture. And with all of us consuming and generating more memes and viral content than ever, it felt fitting to capture this generation’s spirit through the lens of the Internet,” said Guerrero.

Singapore – With concerns surrounding festive season marketing due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting inflation of products, marketers in the Southeast Asia region say that they need a stronger boost with their current and upcoming marketing strategies as the holidays are fast approaching, data from the latest survey conducted by digital experience management software Sitecore shows.

According to their survey, 69% of marketers reported a decline in sales so far this year, and nearly 40% of marketers said festive season sales represents the bulk of annual sales: which is particularly true for businesses with less than 500 employees.

Meanwhile, around 96% of marketers are concerned about the impact of inflation on the Christmas shopping season

Furthermore, 97% are concerned that changing local health conditions could result in the need for fast marketing pivots. However, despite the uncertainty, marketers feel better prepared than last year to deal with product availability, balancing online and offline demand, and their customer profiling and personalization programs.

The survey also notes that last year has made significant changes on their supply chain endeavors, and that this year they expect that digital brands ‘will win more’ during the festive season, evident with the fact marketers have started their promotional campaigns earlier than ever.

“Most marketers expect digital brands will win the holiday season, and are planning to offer in-person and online experiences, including virtual give-aways, wish lists, and special festive experiences. The offerings most likely to be delivered in digital form are free gifts or product samples attached to online orders, personal shopping services, and a festive season wishlist to share with loved ones,” the company said in a press statement.

Meanwhile, Steve Hawkes, chief operating officer for Sitecore Asia-Pacific and Japan at Sitecore, commented, “We are seeing many consumer marketers increasingly relying on digital initiatives to capture the needed increase in sales this Christmas shopping season. We know there are rising concerns about the health status of communities across Southeast Asia.”

He added, “Retailers and other consumer companies will need to be nimble and act swiftly in the face of a volatile economic landscape.”

Hong Kong – Lalamove, one of the leading on-demand delivery platforms in Southeast Asia, has recently launched a new regional campaign with the slogan ‘Lalamove it!’, that aims to inspire their partners in Southeast Asia and Latin America to get their businesses moving with the help of Lalamove. 

At the heart of the campaign is an ad featuring a playful and vibrant aesthetic, integrated with it a catchy tune using ‘Lalamove’ as part of the lyrics to make the message stick among viewers.

It helps that the platform’s inherent branding centers around optimism, with its bright orange brand color and within its name a workable catchphrase having the word ‘move’.

The ad promotes the company’s on-demand service offerings to a multicultural audience with the message that customers can deliver anything, no matter how big or small, with Lalamove’s wide range of fleets, reliable and affordable services.

Alex Kwan, the marketing director of Lalamove, commented that technology has only accelerated over the last 18 months in the wake of COVID-19, and that the new normal has greatly impacted the local supply chain and movement of goods. With this, Lalamove constantly strives to meet the many different needs of its customers which are both SMEs and individuals alike. 

“We are extremely excited about the ‘Lalamove it!’ campaign, which will help us reach out to new audiences in the southeast markets and boost awareness of Lalamove in the social space. We can’t wait to tell the world that you don’t just move it – you ‘Lalamove it!’,” said Kwan. 

Within the campaign is a TikTok dance challenge that launched in four specific markets today. Celebrities and KOLs all over Southeast Asia have been partnered up to take the lead in the challenge.

For instance, Luis Manzano, Filipino actor and TV host, and Malaysian influencer Wingkeh and her partner Keifth, have been roped in to show off their ‘Lala-moves’ to amplify the ‘Lalamove vibe’ on social. 

Followers can then showcase their spirit and creativity by entering the TikTok challenge, performing their best #LalamoveIt dance with specially designed Lalamove stickers to win attractive prizes. 

The platform shared that the campaign is a joint effort of creative input from creative agency BBDO and produced by production studio Heckler. The TikTok campaign meanwhile was created by global media agency m/SIX.

The campaign’s ad will be shown on traditional and digital media in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand, as well as in Vietnam, Indonesia, Mexico, and Brazil. The brand campaign at large will be running across TV, digital, OOH, and social advertising,