Tag: Taiwan

Taipei, Taiwan – Automotive brand BMW in Taiwan has partnered with SaaS company Appier and creative agency Bremen Digital Creative to create joint efforts in raising BMW Taiwan’s brand awareness and further foster its customer loyalty.

Through the partnership, BMW Taiwan aims to engage both potential buyers and existing BMW car enthusiasts on social media channels. With this, Bremen Digital Creative has developed a campaign around a cherished Lunar New Year tradition where the first person to burn incense in the temple after midnight is blessed with good luck. 

Meanwhile, Appier’s BotBonnie conversational marketing solution has been implemented, allowing BMW Taiwan better utilise Meta’s Recurring Notifications feature and successfully connect with its community on Facebook to achieve four times more engagements than it did in previous years with a 78% opt-in rate and 99% read rate. Moreover, with BotBonnie’s comment auto-reply feature, the brand will now be able to immediately respond to users and create a longer duration of engagement with each of them.

Brian Chen, Bremen Digital Creative’s account manager, said that with the directions pre-discussed with BMW Taiwan, they designed the social campaign for the Lunar New Year holiday, hoping to increase the number of engagements that BMW Taiwan could have for Facebook campaigns.

“With BotBonnie’s expertise in conversational marketing, we not only hit the target but also greatly exceeded expectations in several key results,” added Chen.

Meanwhile, Li Chiang, digital marketing specialist at BMW Taiwan, shared that during the whole campaign process, Appier’s BotBonnie solution provided the users with 24/7 support, and with the conversational marketing solution, they could respond to users immediately and create longer and more engaging journeys.

“Importantly, in order to broaden the community of BMW fans and potential customers, we implemented Recurring Notifications which helped the company gain 1,500 subscriptions and 2,500+ participants in three days,” said Chiang.

Samuel Chiang, Appier’s assistant manager of customer success, noted, “With the Lunar New Year campaign, BMW Taiwan saw a tenfold improvement in customer participation over previous online campaigns, and we can attribute that success to Recurring Notifications, powered by Appier’s conversational marketing solution BotBonnie, Meta’s authorised partner.”

Taipei, Taiwan – Dentsu International has announced key appointments in its branch in Taiwan namely Tomonori Inasaka as chief transformation officer and Taku Ozaki as chief client officer for Japanese business. 

The new appointments are part of its business operations transformation to strategise and streamline its teaming platforms for client services and future innovative business model solutions.

With 25-years’ experience in media and communication, Inasaka joined Dentsu Inc. in 2012 where he helped drive the growth in product development for dentsu X. Prior to joining dentsu Taiwan, he was the representative officer at Dentsu Group Inc. London office since August 2017, where he was responsible for business development opportunities and client servicing between dentsu Japan and dentsu International at EMEA and global level.

Speaking on his appointment, he said, “Taiwan is always recognized as one of the focused key markets in the dentsu group. I am incredibly honoured for the opportunity to be part of this big family. As part of the business transformation, I will be working with the management team closely to develop various business initiatives with upcoming projects in the pipeline and leverage on my cross-regional experiences in Japan, APAC and EMEA to meet with the growing business needs in the Taiwanese market.”

Meanwhile, with over 20 years in the business development and account management for both International and Japanese clients, Ozaki joined dentsu Inc. in 2004 where he was responsible for the dentsu client network expansion across Japan and its overseas account servicing division. He was also a former general manager for the client servicing team in the business producers division for Dentsu Inc.

“Japanese enterprises have always placed a priority on the Taiwanese market, and with my extensive experience in business development and client servicing, I hope to develop more strategic partnerships and continue to expand our footprint in the market,” Ozaki said regarding his appointment.

Jennifer Tang, CEO of dentsu Taiwan, commented “Dentsu is constantly striving for breakthroughs in transformation and leading the industry forward. We are actively recruiting experts in the field and cultivating talents both locally and globally to implement the dentsu client-centric model while developing the areas of sustainability, Metaverse and CXM. With the addition of Mr Inasaka and Mr Ozaki to the dentsu Taiwan leadership team, I am confident that we will be able to continue to build on our organisational transformation to deliver operational excellence and business performance.”

Taipei, Taiwan – Local based video marketing technology company OneAd has partnered up with global visual marketing SaaS company Wootag to scale visual marketing in Taiwan by integrating Wootag’s visual interactivity solution into OneAd’s in-stream advertising platform SuperView.

Through the partnership, advertisers will be able to drive more interactive and in-visual engagement from understanding audience’s preference, developing actionable insights to increase the conversion rate through in-stream advertising.

By using Wootag’s technology, in-video interactions can be generated at various points of the video without leaving the video ad, including purchases, sign-ups, participation in polls, receive promotions, view product catalogues, make bookings, view store locations, among others.

Li Suzhen, CEO at OneAD, said, “Consumers’ reading habits have changed from articles to short posts, then to visuals and videos, and now short-form videos within 15 seconds are popular; this trend shows that brands need to have more sophisticated interactive participation capabilities. Only in this way can we bridge the gap between discovery and purchase to deliver a seamless and personalised experience that exceeds customer expectations.”

Suzhen added, “OneAD’s partnership with Wootag is an important step to unlock further potential of In-stream advertising, providing advertisers with a more complete high-engagement advertising solution.”

Meanwhile, Raj Sunder, CEO at Wootag, commented, “Wootag is committed to empower brands in utilising the power of human curiosity to integrate interactive elements, insight and understanding of audience behaviour into its videos. Working with a forward-thinking company like OneAd, brands can leverage our solution through OneAD’s platform to engage with customers, collecting valuable audience behaviour data from multiple perspectives to generate unique insights for the brand. We’re looking forward to boosting our growth in Taiwan with OneAd on in-stream advertising.”

Taipei, Taiwan – Digital signage operator and digital out-of-home (DOOH) media provider PilotTV Media has partnered with adtech Hivestack. Through this partnership, PilotTV will integrate their premium DOOH inventory into the Hivestack supply side platform (SSP). 

PilotTV Media’s digital place-based media inventory will be available programmatically to both local and global advertisers via Open Exchange deals and Private Marketplace (PMP) buys. Advertisers will initially have access to six large LED digital screens located in the popular Kaohsiung Metro Stations in Taiwan. 

In addition, brands, agencies and omnichannel DSPs both within Taiwan and globally will be able to purchase and run data-driven and highly impactful programmatic DOOH campaigns in the country.

Troy Yang, managing director for North Asia at Hivestack, said, “We are excited to build on the momentum we have already created in North Asia and continue our expansion in Taiwan through this new partnership with PilotTV Media. Our partnership with PilotTV is instrumental in our vision of building up the largest local DOOH marketplace in Taiwan, just like all the other markets we operate in, so buyers can precisely target their audience throughout their path to purchase journey.”

Meanwhile, YF Juan, VP for international operations and infrastructure services at PilotTV, commented, “Hivestack is the natural partner for us in Taiwan given their position as a world leading programmatic DOOH adtech company. Leveraging our existing technical infrastructure, we are excited to partner with a pioneer for programmatic trading to drive growth through DOOH advertising campaigns across our increasingly large network of inventory in Taiwan.”

Recently, Hivestack has announced a partnership with KanBan Culture, a privately owned programmatic DOOH media owner in Taiwan.

Taipei, Taiwan – Small businesses in Taiwan are most likely to unlock hidden growth opportunities, while wreaking havoc on others during the pandemic. In a new data from CPA Australia, it shows that half of Taiwan’s small businesses grew in 2021, while 63 per cent expect to expand this year. Both results are the highest among the advanced economies included in the regional survey. 

Of the markets surveyed, includes 4,252 small business owners or senior managers across 11 Asia-Pacific markets, including 310 from Taiwan. The survey was conducted from November to December 2021, was designed to understand local business conditions, challenges and confidence. 

Based on the characteristics of high-growth small businesses from the survey, CPA Australia recommends that small businesses in Taiwan consider the following actions: increase their focus on online sales and digital transformation, seek professional advice to improve the profitability of their technology investments, and explore opportunities to innovate through new products, services or processes.

Elic Lam, FCPA (Aust.), honorary Taiwan adviser to CPA Australia, said that COVID-19 is a double-edged sword for Taiwan. Fifty-two per cent of small businesses nominated COVID-19 as a major negative factor in 2021, up from 45 per cent in 2020. However, 38 per cent also said it was a major positive influence on their business. For the second consecutive year, COVID-19 was nominated as both the top positive and negative influence on local small businesses.

“This is not a coincidence. Taiwanese small businesses in export-oriented and technology sectors such as manufacturing, transportation and information technology continue to benefit from surging global demand,” Lam explained. 

Lam added, “The rise of the Otaku (“stay‑at‑home”) economy in Taiwan has boosted domestic demand for computer and internet-related devices, delivery services and gaming. Many small businesses have grasped these opportunities, even under strict social restrictions. However, tourism-related industries such as retail and hospitality registered relatively weaker performance due to a drop in local consumption and overseas travellers.” 

In response to COVID-19 last year, Taiwanese small businesses were most likely to reduce capital expenditure to 27 per cent, followed by seeking government support and subsidies 22 per cent. 

The government’s relief measures aided many small businesses to overcome major COVID-related challenges last year. However, with small businesses facing a new COVID-19 outbreak, increasing costs and the possible end of government support in June, they should be proactive in transforming their business model, especially increasing their focus on digitalisation.

Last year, several Taiwanese small businesses improved their digital capabilities. In 2021, 45% of businesses reported receiving more than 10% of their revenues through new digital payment technologies, a new high for Taiwan. Another 45% reported that online sales accounted for more than 10% of their revenue last year, which is a new high for Taiwan. These rates, however, were still well below the survey averages of 65 and 61 percent, respectively.

Aside from digitalisation, the survey findings indicate that high-growth small businesses in the Asia-Pacific were more likely to focus on innovation. It’s pleasing to see expectations to innovate in Taiwan this year rose to a record high of 67 per cent.This is further evidence that COVID-19 has caused many businesses to look for hidden growth opportunities. 

Lam emphasised, “Stimulus voucher programs such as the ‘5000 Quintuple Stimulus Voucher Program’ were successful initiatives that not only helped to stimulate the local economy but also accelerated the adoption of digital payments. The government may consider introducing similar stimulus measures to continue encouraging adoption of technology and to boost Taiwan’s digital economy. 

Taipei, Taiwan – Mass media company Discovery and video on demand (VOD) platform TaiwanPlus have announced an online contest for filmmakers in making stories that are related to the beauty and tourism in Taiwan. The competition kicks off on 25 April, and three filmmakers will be chosen to receive a grant of US$35k each that can go into the production of their short films.

The chosen filmmakers will have the opportunity to work with one of Discovery channel’s producers and have their films shown on-air across Discovery platforms in Asia and on TaiwanPlus. The winners will be announced on 23 May on Discovery Channel’s website and Discovery Taiwan’s Facebook page.

“The contest is in line with TaiwanPlus’ mission to deliver independent news on global and local events, bringing stories from Taiwan that will resonate across the world. TaiwanPlus also celebrates the culture, lifestyle, and best of Taiwan’s food, travel, music, and entertainment as a global community,” Discovery said in a press statement.

Interested filmmakers are invited to submit their story ideas in the form of a 600-1,000-word proposal along with a portfolio of videos here. The contest is open for submissions from 25 April to 15 May, 2022.

Singapore – Global communications firm Edelman has appointed John Koay, former executive creative director of creative agency Ogilvy, to be its new regional executive creative director (ECD) for Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Thailand. 

Koay brings over 17 years of experience. He has worked at several of the large creative networks and produced award-winning disruptive campaigns that have resulted in business growth for brands such as KFC, Pizza Hut, Nike, Toyota, Panasonic, Air New Zealand, Qantas, Nestle, and Kellogg’s, as well as Johnson & Johnson, and Heineken.

In his new role, Koay will leverage his integrated thinking and channel-agnostic creativity to further enhance Edelman’s ability to deliver work that is rooted in culture. He will also be tasked with leading the firm’s creative team, as they develop earned creative for clients across its offerings.

Commenting on his new role, Koay said, “By embedding creativity and other integrated solutions into the core of its offerings, the agency’s work truly stands out in resonating with local audiences. I am looking forward to partnering with the talented team to continue pushing the envelope for what clients can achieve with the power of creativity.” 

Meanwhile, Tim Green, Edelman’s chief creative officer for APAC, shared Koay is an industry renowned creative maverick with an impeccable track record of delivering disruptive work.

“He joins us at a time when more and more clients are turning to us for creative solutions that swiftly respond to their business challenges and resonate with their consumers or audiences in a digital age. John is the epitome of multiculturalism and global thinking, while being fluent in the language of CMOs,” said Green.

Most recently, Edelman has also announced the appointment of Jamshed Wadia as its newest vice chair for digital in APAC, where he will be responsible for overseeing the firm’s growing digital practice and Edelman Studios’ operations in the region.

Taipei, Taiwan – Playing on the Chinese New Year tradition of using fortune sticks to get predictions and fortune, potato chips brand Lay’s in Taiwan took this step further: by using artificial intelligence and their own line of potato chips.

Through Lay’s Fortune Telling ‘lucky cam’, users can scan a single chip and then the ‘lucky cam’ telling you how much luck you will enjoy in 2022 overall, and what to expect in five areas of your life – Wealth, Health, Love, Family and School.

Some of those predictions include ‘You may be like a god in stock investments’, ‘You will laugh all year long’ and ‘Your year-end bonus is incalculable’.

The campaign was conceptualised alongside Leo Burnett Taiwan, where the agency first had to teach artificial intelligence (AI) technology to recognise whether different objects really are chips or not. Over 5,000 chip samples were used to train the AI and create data sets. This meant photographing 5,000 chips and painstakingly tracing their edges, nooks and crinkles. With between 1,500 and 2,000 data points in every outline, it took between three and five minutes to document each chip by hand. 

From here, the agency created a vast database of fortune-telling sentences by using web-scraping and social listening programs to collect popular buzzwords relating to the five fortune categories. According to the agency’s social listening database, getting a raise or a bonus, attaining ‘financial freedom’ or getting an ‘All Pass’ to every subject are popular topics among Gen Z in the lead up to Chinese New Year.

Yuan Chuang, creative director at Leo Burnett Taiwan, said, “Fortune telling sticks are a well-known Chinese New Year custom. We wondered if we could modernize this tradition and connect it with Lay’s product in a way that helps Lay’s to engage with Gen Z digital natives. We challenged ourselves to use machine learning to do something that’s never been done before: could we tell people’s fortunes using something as unexpected and silly as the shape of potato chips.”

Meanwhile, Tina Liu, marketing head at Lay’s Taiwan, commented, “People think their fortunes are written in the stars, but now they are written in a packet of Lay’s chips. It has been lots of fun working with the team at Leo Burnett Taiwan to build a new consumer habit of buying Lay’s during Chinese New Year. We hope you will give Lay’s Fortune Telling Chips a try, and we wish you huge five-star luck in 2022.”

Divided into four levels of luck and five fortune categories, the Lay’s Fortune Telling Chips web experience delivers over one million fortune combinations. This ensures each fortune is unique no matter how many chips are scanned or eaten along the way.

Taipei, Taiwan — Taiwan’s leading telecommunications group Taiwan Mobile announced that it has executed a strategic investment into SoundOn Global, a podcast platform and the only Chinese Language hosting partner of Apple Podcast based in the country.

Andy Huang, CEO of SoundOn Global, commented, “SoundOn Global is committed to connecting the world through audio and we are very excited to be working with Taiwan Mobile to achieve this. We look forward to working closely with Taiwan Mobile on content diversity, marketing, monetization and more, to usher in the golden era of the audio entertainment market.”

SoundOn Global provides consumers with a selection of audio products, namely podcast originals, podcast hosting services, social audio entertainment platforms, podcast players, and 360° audio advertising services. In 2021, the podcast platform acquired Goodnight, the region’s leading social audio service and expanded its audio products beyond podcasts.

MyMusic, Taiwan Mobile’s audio-streaming service subsidiary currently has more than 6 million registered users, where according to its data, 82% listen to both music and podcasts, with  90% of its top programs hosted on SOG. Through the partnership with SOG, the podcast platform’s programs would be added into MyMusic’s audio library, giving MyMusic’s consumers access to listen to a wide selection of audio products. 

Through the collaboration, the number of podcast programs on MyMusic is estimated to grow by 20% and the number of podcast episode listens is estimated to grow by 40%.

Jamie Lin, president of Taiwan Mobile, commented that Taiwan Mobile is committed to bringing the world’s best technology applications and entertainment services to Taiwan’s consumers. The company sees great potential in the global podcast and audio market.

“Since the launch of ‘Podcast Zone’ on MyMusic in 2020, the platform now has more than 1 million episodes which help to drive continuous growth in the number of registered users and number of podcast/music listens. We expect that, through our partnership with SoundOn Global, both platforms will be able to share resources, create synergies, attract more talented creators, and jointly lead the positive development of podcast and audio entertainment industry,” Lin said.

Singapore – Direct-to-consumer streaming platform HBO Max has named Jason Monteiro as its newest general manager for Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Through the new role, Monteiro will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of WarnerMedia’s direct-to-consumer business, leading content experience, brand, marketing, subscriber management, digital partnerships and data analytics.

He will be temporarily reporting to Johannes Larcher, head of HBO Max International, until a new managing director for the broader INSEAK region (India, Southeast Asia and Korea) is appointed.

With extensive OTT leadership experience across Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, Monteiro will also oversee the existing HBO GO streaming service and the eventual launch of HBO Max in the region, building and leading a team of cross-functional executives to maximize the streamer’s success.

Prior to joining HBO Max, he was the director of AVOD at Shahid, a leading Arabic content streaming platform. Prior to Shahid, he was the general manager of Indonesia and Malaysia for iflix, and he also ran marketing as the company’s chief marketing officer. He has also held leadership roles at a number of telecommunications companies across Southeast Asia and the Middle East, as well as in Australia and New Zealand.

Speaking about his appointment, he said, “I could not be more excited to be joining this amazing organization and in particular to lead the charge for HBO Max. It’s going to be such a thrill to work with the people across WarnerMedia to bring the likes of ‘Game of Thrones,’ ‘Harry Potter,’ DC, Warner Bros., HBO favorites, new Max Originals and many more, to the viewers in Southeast Asia.”

Meanwhile, Larcher commented, “Jason arrives at HBO Max with a proven track record of building and growing subscription services across Asia and other important global markets. He’s a passionate leader known for building and inspiring high-performing teams, and I’m eager to see his leadership in action as he steps into his new role today.”