The Singapore Marketer (Oct - Dec 2018)

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marketer knowledge for marketing excellence

oct-dec’18

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12 APIs: What are they, and why should marketers care?

20 Marketpreneurship Strategies to Thrive in Turbulent Environments

The Official Publication of the Marketing Institute of Singapore, the National Body for Sales and Marketing

Editor’s Note

THE SINGAPORE MARKETER October - December 2018 Editor Gerry Gabriele Seah Sub-editor Sylvia Huang Contributing Writers Christopher Daguimol, Emma Kriskinans, Franziska Grobler, Dr. Hooi Den Huan, Joe Nguyen, Karthik Reddy, Linda Schindler, Michelle Lai & Rene Kelvin Anthony MIS EXECUTIVE COUNCIL President Mr Roger Wang 2nd Vice President Dr Roger Low Honorary Secretary Ms Gerry Seah Honorary Treasurer Mr Ken Tay Asst Honorary Treasurer Mr Lee Kwok Weng Production, Advertising & Circulation Sheila Berman Sheila.berman@mis.org.sg Jane Franklin Jane.madonna@mis.org.sg Sylvia Huang author@mis.org.sg Design & Layout Kelvin Wang Publisher Marketing Institute of Singapore 51 Anson Centre #03-53 Singapore 079904 Tel: (65) 6327 7580 Fax: (65) 6327 9741 Email: singaporemarketer@mis.org.sg Website: www.mis.org.sg

Dear Readers, Artificial Intelligence is all around us and we use it consciously or subconsciously, a few hundred times a day. From selecting recommended shows on Netflix, to navigating trips in Google Maps, ordering products on Redmart or Amazon, reading your Facebook Newsfeed, and even unlocking your iPhone.

Needless to say, AI is fast changing the marketing industry and shaping how businesses reach out to consumers. Marketers today will need to manage the changes brought about by AI applications. The good news is that AI is becoming increasingly accessible, with more and more options and intuitive platforms that allow marketers to harness important data using minimal resources and time.

From the more rudimentary image processing technology, to predictive analytics, and now chatbots, AI is becoming more sophisticated and can become a competitive advantage if leveraged effectively.

Paul Roetzer, founder and CEO of PR 20/20 and Marketing AI Institute says, “Marketers who can harness the power of artificial intelligence will be able to do more with less, run personalized campaigns of unprecedented complexity, and transform business as usual through new methods of machine-intelligent marketing. The opportunities are endless for marketers and entrepreneurs with the will and vision to transform the industry.”

How can marketers integrate AI in decision making? And how does one navigate the jungle of hundreds of vendors and sites pushing AI-powered solutions to business challenges? In this issue, we explore the current state of AI in the industry. For this issue of Industry Chat, we interview practitioners on how AI and data has impacted their marketing strategy and operations.

We speak to PR director from e-tailing giant Zalora to get his perspective on how the company leverages AI in decision making. We also get some tips from comScore’s Joe Nguyen on how to look at big data.

GuruTalk sees Emma Kriskinans, Marketing Lead for Tyk, an Open Source Application Programme Interface (API) Gateway and Management Platform, share how marketers can use APIs to help automate select marketing processes.

AI has transformed marketing and allowed it to become more intelligent.

This enables marketers to spend more time and effort on listening, relationship building, creativity and cultivating community. We hope that through an improved understanding of AI, we will become better people, professionals and brands.

Happy reading!

Gerry Gabriele Seah

Editor

The Singapore Marketer is a quarterly magazine published by Marketing Institute of Singapore.

The views expressed in The Singapore Marketer do not necessarily represent those of the Marketing Institute of Singapore. No responsibility is accepted by the Institute or its staff for the accuracy of any statement, opinion, or advice contained in the text or advertisements, and readers are advised to rely on their judgment or enquiries, and to consult their own advisers in making any decisions which would affect their interest. All materials appearing in The Singapore Marketer is copyright. No part of the publication may be reproduced without prior written permission of the Marketing Institute of Singapore. The Marketing Institute of Singapore welcomes contributions and letters. These might be edited for clarity or length. Articles, letters and requests to reproduce articles appearing in The Singapore Marketer should be sent to the Editor, Marketing Institute of Singapore, 51 Anson Road, #03-53 Anson Centre, Singapore 079904 or write to singaporemarketer@mis.org.sg or marketing@mis.org.sg.

Content Page

04 COVER STORY Artificial Intelligence (AI) AIn’t What It Seems…

FOCUS 08 AI Trends That Every Brand Should Watch Out For In 2018

FEATURE 12 APIs: What are they, and why should marketers care?

GURU TALK 16 Panel Interview: Why is

social media important for businesses?

INDUSTRY CHAT

24

Interview with Michelle Lai, MISCHA

28

Interview with Christopher Daguimol, ZALORA

LEARNING SITE 20 Marketpreneurship

Strategies to Thrive in Turbulent Environments

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Cover Story

Artificial

Intelligence (AI) AIn’t What It Seems…

» By Joe Nguyen

A few years ago, “Big Data” was the “in” thing. Marketers, agencies and publishers, as well as every company, were told that this could change their businesses. There was a plethora of information available that they could use to better compete, better market and even better strategize if they could leverage “Big Data”. But what many companies realize was that they just opened a can of worms. Yes, there were tonnes of data out there – too much in fact, but a lot of it was confusing and hard to harness correctly. Companies were trying see how “Big Data” could help change the way they do business or open new opportunities or compete on analytics. The reality was that this would take more time and resources than many thought.

Then came the deluge of data management platforms (DMPs), particularly in the advertising industry. These DMPs (not to be confused with the Data Marketplaces) would enable advertisers, agencies and publishers to connect up and integrate various data sources that a company has access or own. What these platforms have done was to enable the connection between data sources and increase the efficiency or usability of datasets. Ultimately, with any data that was ingested, there was still a need for a “key” – a way to link the data sets together.

This is where AI comes in.

What is “Artificial Intelligence”?

“Artificial” means human-made. “Intelligence” is when the term AI gets murky. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary has a number of definitions, and the first two are: 1. the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations :reason; also :the skilled use of reason 2. the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one’s environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria (such as tests) Are computers able - at this point in time and with current technology to learn, understand or deal with situations? Can they reason? Can they really think abstractly?

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Current platforms use algorithms, machine learning and deep learning to teach computers how to process data. These are all very exciting developments and will immensely help us all.

Perhaps those questions are too cerebral and not practical enough.

But marketing terms like “AI solutions” or “AI powered engines” want us to reference HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Mr. Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation, and R2D2 and C3PO from Star Wars. This just seems like hype, because the big difference between those and anything that exists today is sentience and self-awareness. We are supposed to think that there is intelligence within platforms that can access and process infinite amount of information to help us market better.

This is just not the case. And this does not mean that the definition of AI is sentience or that the Turing Test is not valid.

Current platforms use algorithms, machine learning and deep learning to teach computers how to process data. These are all very exciting developments and will immensely help us all. These innovations may eventually lead to the “AI” that we all think of, but in business, we need a reality check.

Deterministic vs. Probabilistic Coming out of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Singapore’s FYI Series on AI Myth, it was apparent that many of us will need to understand the fundamental difference between what we have been working with and what machine learning is. Up until recently, most who use data and databases are working on a deterministic premise. That means, in order to connect datasets, there have to be “hooks” or data fields that can be used to link one data set to another – like a cookie match or a device ID or IP addresses or a browser ID. Using this data requires that all these connections be made directly.

With machine learning and deep learning, the platform makes connections between different data sets based on patterns and correlations. This necessarily means that connections are modelled on statistics and probability. Of course, when a cookie is targeted for example, there is still a certain amount of probability involved, but most people do not factor that in or take it for granted. Now, with the enactment of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), deterministic data matching could become very challenging.

There are many platforms that use machine learning and deep learning today. Google, Bing and Baidu have been doing this for years to enable better search results for your searches. Amazon’s recommendation engine that shows shoppers items “for you” is based on algorithms built based on what “you” have done on Amazon. Netflix does the same with their own algorithms. Beyond just “recommending”, this is really becoming “personalisation” and bettering the “customer experience” for a brand. In marketing, advertisers, their agencies and the whole ecosystem are beginning to understand what the consumer wants rather than where they have been, and hence, are able provide more relevant advertising. Brands want to reach the right consumers, at the right time, and with the right message, and AI-enabled programmatic platforms are making this a reality.

Cover Story

Optimising Toward The End Of The World?

With machine learning, humans are “teaching” computers what patterns to investigate, and it is a continual learning processing.

The platforms need a lot data in order to learn, and they learn by trial and error. Programmers, data scientists and fellow geeks must continually monitor and tweak the algorithms so that the accuracy gets better and better with time. So be patient. Machines can process more information, much faster than humans can, but without proper instruction, they can easily go down the wrong path.

The “wrong path” in the 1983 movie War Games is when the computer – based on parameter given to it – decides that the best way to win a nuclear war is by starting one and getting most of the opponent’s nuclear arsenal first. It does not care that millions of people will die directly from the ones that get through or the radioactive fallout, because it is not programmed to

do so. So working with machine learning and deep learning computers, the responsibility is with the humans that program them and give them the parameters within which to operate and optimise.

So in business, when we use computers for machine learning and deep learning, we need to be thinking in terms of probability and likeliness, rather than just ones and zeros. We need to take responsibility and invest in resources to direct these computers in the right direction so that the probability for success increases as the system gets better and better. Everything that is done now contributes towards the evolution of “artificial intelligence”. Whether sentience will be a reality or not is almost impossible to guess; that “spark of life” and self-awareness are notions on which humankind have been pondering since the beginning of civilization.

This article was first published in Mumbrella Asia and adapted for The Singapore Marketer.

ABOUT THE WRITER

Joe Nguyen is Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific at comScore, Inc., a global research company that measures metrics that make cross-platform audiences, consumer behaviour and advertising more valuable. Joe is also currently serving as the Chair of the Board of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Singapore.

Joe has more than 20 years of experience in Asia Pacific and is a veteran of the online analytics industry, with experience on both the user and vendor sides of panel-based audience measurement as well as site-side analytics. He is an active thought leader, moderating and speaking at key digital, media and technology conferences in the region.

Joe is the co-founder of iamWednesday Singapore. He is currently serving on the Asia Pacific Board of Directors of the Mobile Marketing Association and has been on the Board of Director of the IAB Singapore for over 8 years.

Joe holds a BSE degree in Mechanical Engineering from Princeton University. He was born in Vietnam and emigrated to the United States after spending a year in a Malaysian refugee camp.

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Focus

AI Trends

That Every Brand Should Watch Out For In 2018 » By Karthik Reddy

Rapid and continuous changes in technology are altering the way brands interact with customers.

Advancements in technology have enabled improved customer experience; shorter transaction times and contributed to streamlined and smoother shopping processes over the years.

According to a Mckinsey Global Institute Study, Amazon managed to reduce “Click to ship” cycle time, which ranged from 60 to 75 minutes with humans, down to 15 minutes with Kiva, a robotics company it acquired, that automates picking and packing. All this, while increasing inventory capacity by 50%.

Operating costs fell an estimated 20%, giving a return of close to 40% on the original investment.

This improvement and increased efficiency is also a double edged sword. Over time, consumers expect and demand better and want more.

AI has the potential to change and revolutionize the structure of almost every industry, including healthcare, finance, traveling, cybersecurity, and agriculture, just to mention a few.

As such, both companies and the government are vying to develop advanced AI. Here are the top AI trends that will continue to shape 2018.

1. The launch of more self-driving

vehicles Tesla made headlines when it launched the first self-driving car. At CES 2018 (formerly The International Consumer Electronics Show), American technology company, Nvidia, announced ‘Xavier’, a new self-driving car chip with artificial-intelligence capabilities. Nvidia also announced its partnership with Volkswagen to develop AI for future self-driving cars. Together with Toyota, MIT Researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) announced a new system that allows self-driving cars to drive on roads without 3D maps.

2. Machine conversations Brands and marketers are always striving to offer relevant content to build deeper connections with customers. Technology has introduced new platforms to engage in conversation and make communication more exciting.

This phenomenon can be seen in marketing automation where technology provides brands with powerful new ways to engage with their customers in a deeper, more meaningful manner.

The rise of Chatbots is evidence of this. A study by Gartner predicts that Chatbots will power 85% of all customer service interactions by the year 2020.

Today, many brands have a ‘live’ Chatbot service that can help online customers with questions. For example, Sephora recently launched a Kik Messenger Chatbot that asks the customer questions about their cosmetic preferences, and then uses that information to present them with intelligent recommendations on products based on their purchase preferences.

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Text and voice communication will also become increasingly popular.

Microsoft is currently looking into the possibilities of developing multi-sensory interactions with its customers. This will make sound, gesture, touch, and even person’s gaze a part of the machine conversation in the future.

3. Social media image recognition Visual content has already proved to be a powerful social media engagement tool. With the rise of image based social media networks like Instagram and Snapchat, being able to create compelling and engaging visual content has become increasingly important.

You have probably experienced it on Twitter where video and picture tweets get more retweets than the text-only tweets. Identifying images that social media users love, respond to, and share has been the most significant challenge for marketers.

Rob Begg, VP of marketing for Salesforce shares, “AI based image recognition technology is making it easier for marketers to identify visual responses posted by consumers, even when they are not accompanied by explicit hashtags or text mentions. Through image recognition software and other AI tools, the image searching process is possible with search criteria that sift out size, scene, objects, and characteristics.”

This allows brands to better analyse what’s being said about them, how consumers are reacting to campaigns or messages in real time, thereby allowing them to respond quicker and improve content to influence and engage with their customers on a deeper level.

Marrying the most compelling visual image with the right information is not an easy task and is time and resource intensive.

Images have a significant impact and influence on consumer behaviour and preference and are vital in building brand awareness, advocacy and ultimately brand allegiance.

Focus

“

... it is only a matter of time before technologies like predictive analytics start to influence and automate a significant part of the content creation process.

4. Machine content creation In 2018, the possibility of robot involvement in content creation will continue improving. Intelligencebased machines have yet to be deployed in developing high quality content. However, it is only a matter of time before technologies like predictive analytics start to influence and automate a significant part of the content creation process. Some brands, such as Associated Press, are already using this technology to assemble some of their new content. Another example in the area of content editing is grammarly. com. The programme has already been assisting writers in eliminating mistakes in written content.

In addition, technology will continue to increase its role in research and outcome tracking.

Analytics software has already evolved rapidly with tracking metrics becoming increasingly specific and sophisticated. This provides a key source of feedback and will provide content creators with an invaluable arsenal of insights that will inform their strategy.

AI is fast transforming the marketing industry. Beyond streamlining processes, simplifying tasks, and enhancing accuracy, it allows brands to create deeper, stronger and more meaningful connections with customers.

Harnessing AI to deliver a stronger brand will no doubt be one of the most important skills that every marketer will need to invest in.

https://www.inc.com/rebecca-hinds/ by-2020-youre-more-likely-to-have-aconversation-with-this-than-with-yourspouse.html

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ABOUT THE WRITER

Karthik Reddy, Community Manager at www.16best.net, is the author of India’s Number 1 travel blog. Boasting an MBA in computer science, he once decided to get away from the office desk life and take a breathtaking journey around the world. He is eager to use the power of the global network to inspire others. A passionate traveller and photography enthusiast, he aspires to share his experiences and help people see the world through his lens.

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Feature

APIs:

What are they,

and why should marketers care? » By Emma Kriskinans

There’s never been a more exciting time to be a marketer.

Technology continues to shift the goalposts for us: through the data that helps us refine our users’ experiences, the digital channels that help us reach potential customers, or new revenue streams that arise from tech’s possibilities.

Application Programming Interfaces, or APIs, sit at the heart of all these capabilities. Their technical name may sound removed from the marketing sphere but they are central to the digital services we use, and create.

Ever logged onto a new online service with your Facebook profile, integrated your email marketing platform with your CRM system, or even checked the weather on your phone? APIs power all of these activities - whether you’re aware of it or not. They’re the unsung heroes of digital transformation - powering a new ‘API Economy’ valued by IBM at an estimated USD $2.2 trillion.

We’ll be taking a look at just a few choice examples of how APIs are driving innovation, but first of all, let’s start from the very beginning.

What is an API anyway?

An API, put simply, is a set of technical tools and protocols that allow two systems (or more) to talk to one another. An API allows these systems, such as digital platforms, applications or services, to request information or actions from one another, with the intention of creating value from that collaboration.

An analogy that I have found helpful is that of an API as the waiter in a restaurant, connecting two distinct systems: the customers, and the kitchen. The customer can only request what’s on the menu, and the waiter can only return the available meal. Each system is operating using data displayed in different ways: the menu, and the ingredients respectively.

In this example, the proof (of value) is quite literally in the pudding but let us look at a real world scenario.

Every time you check the weather on your iPhone, for instance, Apple’s weather application calls The Weather Channel’s weather API to return data on the weather in your chosen location.

This is a great example of how APIs add value through collaboration: Apple does not want to spend money on creating a meteorology team - their business is in design, and, anyway, this data already exists. Why reinvent the wheel? Instead, they can work with an authoritative source, The Weather Channel (you’ll see their logo in the bottom left hand corner of the app screen), who is likely paid for Apple’s access to their data.

This is just one example of how APIs provide win-win outcomes.

Here are a few more inspiring snapshots of how APIs are being used in the marketer’s toolkit to drive value for organisations and consumers alike.

APIs encourage new revenue streams for your organisation through collaboration Skyscanner and Booking.com are just two companies whose entire raison d’etre is thanks to APIs as product aggregators. Yet there are plenty of existing organisations

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Most marketers also now depend on a wealth of specialised tools in their marketing kit, rather than days of old when we’d depend on one particular ‘vendor suite’ - the move to cloud computing only encourages this.

that are using APIs to discover new revenue streams and distribution channels for their existing business units, usually with the help of external or internal collaboration.

Apple’s Weather App is one such example we’ve already looked at.

In the B2B world, Tyk is working with one of the world’s leading insurance firms who are using APIs as part of an innovation project with a car manufacturer. Together they work to query data pulled from IOTenabled vehicles against insurance payout applications in a separate database.

The manufacturer can determine how to better design their cars to keep their customers safe, and the insurers gain valuable insight that will drive their policies. In both cases, the marketing teams gain a better understanding of their target audience.

APIs help organisations maximise their existing data APIs make it easy for companies to expose their existing data for commercial partnerships, but they’re not the only ones who are benefitting. Governments are also wising up to the returns their citizens might see if city data is opened up to the world.

Singapore’s Smart Cities initiative is just one global city investigating ways to share the immense amount of data they have with talented individuals, groups and organisations in the hope they’ll help create added-value digital services.

This type of initiative has already worked well in other cities such as Manchester, England, whose recent Cityverve project opened up city data on everything from train times to street lights. Their Cityverve developer portal provides a wealth of APIs sharing usable data just waiting to be played with.

As well as bolster their innovation credentials, Smart Cities initiatives tend to be a great way for the Government to engage its citizens, both through consultations, open data programme and interactive hackathons. All these help service providers create truly user-centric services for the people, by the people!

Feature

Using APIs to make your (marketing) life easier Given that APIs are at the heart of connected data, systems and services, it may not come as a surprise that any tool that speeds up and cuts out complicated or mundane ‘middle-men’ tasks has APIs at the heart of it.

Most marketers also now depend on a wealth of specialised tools in their marketing kit, rather than days of old when we’d depend on one particular ‘vendor suite’ - the move to cloud computing only encourages this. Whether it’s connecting your MailChimp account to your CRM system to automate your subscriber list updates, or sending an automated hello to your new sign-ups, APIs allow you to plug and play with different tools.

If you’re not technical enough to make head or tail of these API integrations yet, don’t panic. There are also many tools, applications and integrations out there to help you make the most of the benefits APIs can bring, whatever your level of technical knowledge. Though you can’t see the work behind these scenes, these tools are based on constructing simple ‘recipes’ of commands, which in turn lean on APIs to complete the actions required.

Two you might find particularly useful are Zapier and IFFT, which help you easily automate certain marketing actions so you can free up more time to strategise. Examples include ‘When I post to Instagram, post the same content on Facebook and Twitter’, or ‘Create an Evernote to-do list when I star an email in my inbox’. The possibilities are endless.

What innovation could APIs power in your organisation?

I hope that this article has gone some way to demystify APIs and showcase the possibilities they hold for marketers. Whether it’s powering tools to make your marketing tactics more efficient, giving you greater strategic insight, or opening up entirely new customer-focused products, APIs connect both marketing and technology and will be a vital string to your bow.

Whatever your level of technical knowledge, I would urge you to spend even just one hour this week considering what APIs already exist in your organisation, and what new API-driven creations, innovations and collaborations could benefit your customers. Many marketers are only just scratching the surface of what APIs could do as part of their marketing mission. What could it do for yours?

ABOUT THE WRITER

Emma Kriskinans is Marketing Lead at Tyk, an Open Source API Gateway and Management Platform with offices in London and Singapore. For the last 2 years Tyk has been shaking up the world of API Management - and they’re only just getting started. Connect with Emma on LinkedIn or follow Tyk on Twitter @tyk_io

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Guru Talk

Panel Interview

Why is social media important for businesses?

Linda Schindler

Rene Kelvin Anthony

Franziska Grobler

The Singapore Marketer speaks to Linda Schindler, COO of LegalTech startup FirstCOUNSEL, Rene Kelvin Anthony, the Editorin-Chief of Revv Evolution and Franziska Grobler, Founder & Director of Jadeways Solutions, to understand how businesses can leverage digital marketing and social media for expansion and success.

Linda, Rene and Franziska were featured speakers for Marketing Institute Singapore’s Guru Talk, a series of regular dialogue sessions with practitioners from the marketing industry, to exchange insights, share experiences and understand different perspectives.

Why is social media important for businesses?

Linda: Social media is important for businesses because it is where customers are spending the majority of their time now. It provides the potential to engage the customer in a 2-way dialogue, as opposed to traditional media in which the information only flows one way.

Businesses are therefore able to tell their story and connect with customers in a more meaningful way.

And what’s great is that there are affordable, targeted advertising options so you can reach your customized demographic and make better use of your budget. So the power of social media is in the ability of businesses to curate their content, tailor it to their audience, and reach their intended customer faster and more affordably than ever before.

Rene: Given the influence of social media on services or products, businesses cannot ignore the collective perspectives and reviews of its customers, no matter how impressive features / offerings may be. Social media platforms like

Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, comprise millions of users daily, making it a cost-effective way to reach millions of potential customers.

Franziska: We live in a digital world where everybody uses social media multiple times a day to socialise, network, inform themselves and entertain themselves. Every business should understand how their target audience is present on social media.

Social Media offers a lower cost option to reach large and segmented audiences. Not everybody needs to reach influencer status but ignoring social media altogether as a business is like deciding not to go up the Eiffel Tower when in France or never trying Laksa when in Singapore - it’s choosing not to see what’s staring right in your face. Social Media is a great platform to generate awareness, create interest and to direct traffic to your website. It’s a major platform for indirect and direct public customer communication where audiences form opinions and check for references.

Chatbots, page impressions, SEO, social media conversions – these are some of the basic terms used for one managing social media and online marketing. What, in your opinion, are the key skills required for today’s entrepreneur with regards to managing social media and growing an online presence?

Linda: In managing social media and building an online presence, today’s entrepreneurs need to be flexible and adaptable. They need to be able to balance the need for speed (getting their products in front of customers as quickly as possible with headline grabbing social media campaigns) while ensuring that their communications strategy can adapt in real time. Also, being able to balance scalability with viable conversions are key to running successful social media campaigns.

In addition, they need to understand how to respond to both positive and negative feedback. Since the feedback is already out there, the key to protecting your brand and reputation will be the way in which you respond as well as the reaction time.

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Businesses produce great content when they are focused on what their customers need rather than what their business has to sell.

Today’s entrepreneurs should be equipped to navigate this new world where employees are posting content on social media and the internet. Having explicit social media guidelines can clarify the expectations of a business when employees post online, either as part of their employment or in their personal capacity. (And we offer a social media policy template on our FirstCOUNSEL website!)

Rene: It sure seems like you would need a degree in IT to manage countless tools out there to help you enhance and engage users on the internet. Besides knowledge, two key skills are to learn continuously and be adaptable to keep up with the ever-changing pace of technology.

Humility to learn is key. Today’s most efficient tools may not be relevant next year.

Franziska: Strategic; creative and analytical thinking - the ability to correctly assess which of these are your strength(s) and which ones to “buy” in.

Strategy is imperative. Everything must have a purpose; the rest will follow. Know why you do what you do.

Creativity helps you to stand out; engage your audience and get noticed.

Analytics will assist you in determining your return on investment (time, effort, money) and very importantly the skill to interpret analytics properly allows you to adjust your course to optimize your input / output relation.

The most important analytics tool for me is Google Analytics. If I had to name one thing entrepreneurs should skill themselves in, it would be to leverage Google Analytics to manage social media more effectively. It is a simple way to measure your social media performance and the respective contribution for your overall business goals.

Content is king in the digital age.

Many businesses have moved towards producing their own content.

How do businesses produce great content? How does research, analytics, artificial intelligence feature in this?

Linda: Trying to produce great content is tricky because you need to be focused but authentic, and there is always a temptation to overproduce your content.

Businesses produce great content when they are focused on what their customers need rather than what their business has to sell. So focus on stories that resonate with the customer.

When you fail (and inevitably you will), you need to learn from those mistakes and quickly adapt. And when you have success, you need to find those key attributes and scale.

Analytics are a great way of providing supporting data to identify the posts and content that are resonating with the audience, and then the marketing and budget decisions can be made accordingly.

However, be careful. Although analytics, artificial intelligence, etc are good to have in theory, businesses need to figure out how to turn all that data into actual insights.

Having data without understanding the story that the data tells will not be helpful.

Rene: When it comes to content, businesses need to know their target audience well. Research is key - you really need to know the audience you are attempting to connect with and develop a strategy on how to connect with them through the desired content.

Franziska: Firstly I am a strong believer in “knowing your strategic objectives” so you can create content with intent, purpose and consistency. Great content results from businesses leveraging their Unique Selling Points. Ideas can be found anywhere; what problem does your product / service solve? Is there anything interesting or relevant happening during the process/ production? What is unique about ingredients or materials? Whose problems have been solved through that product / service; and how did that impact those people? Once you have the content, the visual / audio elements need to be considered talented copy writers, photographers and videographers can make a big difference here. Research and analytics can help you to better understand your audience, the market and your competition.

Guru Talk What does good content mean in the world of social media? What are some of the key requirements?

Linda: In the world of social media, “good content” comes from an authentic voice that has a meaningful story to tell. The trick is to take something that takes an incredible amount of work (photos, content, authenticity), and have it come off as effortless. You need to emphasize value creation for your customers, and not come off artificial. Things that are obvious to you could be mindblowing to other people. So the key is how do you distill it down to the basics and present it to your target audience.

Rene: There is way too much content being posted - From an acquaintance posting what he had for breakfast to topics on management and leadership, health and nutrition, and even spirituality. If you are posting a personal perspective, you would not put much thought into statistics like number of views for your post. From a business standpoint, however, your post needs to be newsworthy, relevant and, of course, eye catching.

Franziska: Good content is relevant to the audience and offers value to the audience; it informs or entertains, engages, convinces.

What are some of your favourite social media tools and why? (Briefly explain function for each tool if possible) Linda: My favorite social media tools are Facebook and LinkedIn, used in conjunction with the blog on our website for increased SEO. With these platforms, we can get our message out quickly, organically and affordably.

Franziska: Buffer or Hootsuite for scheduling of content.

Bitly for url shortening and tracking traffic on the url IFTTT - “if this, then that” - a tool to automate some process across various apps and channels that an entrepreneur or business regularly uses

Feedly - as customized content aggregator Google Analytics - because it allows me to measure social media channel performance against by business objectives and it is easy to compare the various channels What are your top tips for budding entrepreneurs looking to establish and grow their online presence?

What are some of the common pitfalls to avoid?

Linda: My top tip for budding entrepreneurs looking to establish and grow their online presence would be: distinguish yourself and be true to yourself. There is so much content and “noise” out there that it’s important to have an authentic and distinct voice that will separate you from the crowd. You need to have a story to tell, and give someone a reason to listen and engage.

Do not be afraid to say something that might have been said before.

Sometimes your words, your pictures, and the way you view the world through your lens can make your message distinct.

Some common pitfalls to avoid when trying to establish and grow your online presence are: 1. You forget or are unclear about who your consumer is. If you don’t know who your target audience is, then your story and message will be muddled and ineffective.

2. Timing. As much as we think that the internet is on 24/7, there is a time and place element to social media posting. Use analytics and a trial-and-error process to see when your posts are being read and seen. Social media can provide a “multiplier effect” that traditional media doesn’t. If your post gets in front of the right people at the right time, “likes” and “shares” can accelerate things and blast it out much faster.

So getting the timing element right with social media posts can be the difference between making a viral video or dooming your post to the social media “graveyard”.

3. Internal guidelines. People usually only think about external component of social media posts — what customers see and how they react to them. But you need to remember the importance of internal social media guidelines within your own company.

Employees are constantly posting content on social media and the internet. Businesses can clarify their expectations by having explicit social media guidelines that address when employees post online, either as part of their employment or in a personal capacity.

The company mission/vision/ values/goals should be consistent throughout the social media campaigns, from the company account itself as well as from the personal accounts of those related to the company. At scale, businesses need to have clear, consistent messaging throughout the organization.

Franziska: Keep it simple and have a plan. Do not be afraid to ask for help. Know what you want to achieve through your social media (build huge followership; establish credibility, website traffic, brand awareness, online sales. Define your audience, and identify what would be relevant to them and where you would find them.

Be creative and consider the right messaging when conceptualising content. Put some thought into your process: are you good at posting spontaneously, can you / do you need to schedule in advance?

Consistency and quality are more important than quantity.

Common pitfalls are: posting for the sake of posting, lack of direction / purpose; writing blog posts without prior keyword research, short-term planning which usually leads to high-frequency posting for the first 3 months - followed by a severe drop in quality and quantity thereafter.

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Learning Site

Marketpreneurship Strategies To Thrive in Turbulent Environments

» By Dr. Hooi Den Huan

Due to the ever-changing demographic, economic, natural, technological, political/legal and social/cultural landscape, today’s environment is turbulent.

Such a turbulent environment presents immense challenges and yet at the same time, generates significant opportunities for all organisations - large or small, profit or non-profit, public or private, startup or established to achieve further significant growth.

Marketpreneurship strategies will go a long way to help organisations thrive in turbulent environments.

Changes in the environment.

Changes in the environment occurs on all fronts – be they demographic, economic, natural, technological, political/legal and socio-cultural. Where they differ, for any particular organisation is the (a) timing and (b) tangency, that is, (a) when these occur and (b) how impactful that change is, for any particular organisation.

In a McKinsey publication, “No ordinary disruption,” authored by Richard Dobbs, James Manyika and Jonathan Woetzel, four forces have been identified as breaking all the trends: (1) The Age of Urbanisation (2) Accelerating technological change (3) Challenges of an Aging world (4) Greater Global Connections According to the authors: (1) In the Age of Urbanisation, city populations are growing by 65 million every year; 2.5 billion people will live in Asian cities by 2025; 440 cities in emerging markets will account for nearly half of global GDP growth by 2025 and by then, emerging economies will grow 75% faster than developed countries.

(2) Given the accelerating technological change since the day of the first phone call in 1876, 1 trillion objects are expected to connect to the internet by 2025.

The estimated potential impact of the Mobile internet will grow to $11 trillion; Automation of knowledge work will grow to $7 trillion and the Internet of things will grow to $6 trillion by 2025.

(3) Global life expectancy is increasing from 47 years in 1950, to 69 years in 2014 and 76 years in 2050. An aging world can present immense challenges. Without productivity increases, GDP growth will shrink dramatically.

(4) There is Greater Global Connections. For example there are 1.35 billion Facebook users in 2014 which is equivalent to the population of China and there had been a 500 times increase in global online traffic from 2000 to 2012. Global flow in the volume of trade, finance, people and date are increasing and contribute $250 billion to $450 billion to yearly global GDP growth and this is likely to grow (unless intervening factors set in, such as trade protectionism).

That today’s environment is turbulent and RUDE, is without doubt. It is not only Rapidly changing but at times, Ruthless; It is not only Uncertain but at times, Unpredictable; It is not only Dynamic but at times, Disruptive and it is not only omni-Engaging but can also be Enabling.

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The very dramatic fall in prices of some technological products, as shown in Figure 1, is an example of a rapid change in the environment.

Figure 1: Rapidly changing prices of some new technological products 2007

2014

Sensors (3D Lidar)

$30,000

$80

3D Printing

$40,000

$100

Drones

$100,000

$700

Industrial robots

DNA Sequencing

$550,000

$10m

$20,000 $1,000

(Source: Accenture analysis bases on research in Exponential Organisations by Salim Ismail)

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The environment is not only Rapidly Changing but also Ruthless. An example is how the business of Taiwan’s airlines for the domestic route from Taipei to Kaohsiung is hit hard by the bullet train. Air travel is expected to be adversely affected between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, when the highspeed train is planned to be operational in around 10 years’ time from now.

It is Uncertain for example, as when President Donald Trump decided to impose tariffs on steel and alumni, and Unpredictable too, as can be seen by the worst Tsunami faced by humankind that was caused by the most powerful 9.1 Richter scale earthquake on earth. This catastrophe, which took place on December 26, 2004, killed more than 220,000 people and displaced an estimated 1.77 million people.

Yet another significant aspect of the environment is that it is Dynamic, as evidenced by a number of new faces that appear as the top 5 publicly traded companies (by market capitalization) in the 5-yearly intervals of 2006, 2011 and 2016 (Figure 2) Figure 2: Top 5 publicly traded companies (by market capitalisation) 2006

Exxon $446b

GE $383b

Total $327b

2011

Exxon $406b

Apple $376b

PetroChina Shell $277b $237b

2016

Apple $582b

Alphabet Microsoft $556b $452b

Microsoft $293b

Amazon $364b

Citibank $273b ICBC $228b Facebook $359b

(Source: “Preparing Leaders for the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” talk by Dr Lee Howell, Managing Board member, WEF, at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore on 23rd Feb, 2018)

It is also Disruptive where for example, new players such as the likes of Uber, Grab, Go-Jek, Didi Chuxing, disrupted the taxi industry in the many countries that they operate in.

Finally, the environment is not only omni-Engaging as evidenced by the proliferation of different types of social media and apps but also Enabling by new technologies such as self-service robots, voice and facial recognition technology etc.

In such turbulent environments, we need marketpreneurs – excellent marketers with enterprising mindsets and outstanding entrepreneurs with excellent marketing skills.

According to Greg Watson, entrepreneurship is a process to (a) Identify opportunities, (b) Allocate resources and (c) Create value and according to Professor Philip Kotler, the three key essentials of a great marketer are: (a) Creativity, (b) Leadership and (c) Differentiation.

Opportunity identification, Resource allocation and Value creation definitely has much in common with Creativity, Leadership and Differentiation and it is therefore not surprising to see the creation of the term, Marketpreneurship by the Marketing Institute of Singapore.

What are the marketpreneurship strategies that can be employed to help one thrives in turbulent environments? Market evidence has supported the notion that marketpreneurs are able to identify opportunities for significant growth through the Value Gap that may be created through changes in the environment.

Learning Site

The Value Gap

Source: Kotler, Kartajaya, Hooi and Liu, “Rethinking Marketing,” Prentice Hall, 2007

Real life examples of opportunities for significant growth through the Value Gap, can be found for example, in the sneakers industry.

Nike was able to establish its global footprint because it was able to identify a gap in the market by cleverly positioning itself as the major brand for excellent shoes for joggers – it was able to ride on the crest of the wave of the popularity for jogging. In a similar vein, some years later, when aerobics gained immense popularity and publicity, Reebok was able to grow from a small enterprise to become a global conglomerate by positioning itself as the major brand for excellent shoes for aerobics.

Yet another marketpreneurship strategy that organisations can employ is instilling a culture of reinventions. Marketpreneurship, by its very substance, requires all organisations to be entrepreneurial

and make continuous and timely transformations in order to stay as relevant as possible, to any environment, however turbulent it is.

By continuously adapting themselves through the sustainability loop, a concept that is propounded by David Hirst in his book, “Crisis and Renewal,” organisations can remain sustainably successful in the everchanging market.

According to Noel Tichy, business transformation requires three types of changes – technical, political and cultural changes. The leaders must have the political will to direct the changes and words should be backed up by actions through technical changes such as changes in the assessment and rewards system and for the changes to be sustainable, behavioural changes in line with the new direction are required so that a compatible culture can be developed.

As what Hermawan Kartajaya said, “Nothing is right forever!”

Hence all organisations must be willing to discard practices that are no longer relevant in order to stay sustainable. They must not only learn, but also un-learn and re-learn, when circumstance so require.

There are so many examples of how even very well-known and big companies or products, eventually fail and fall into a “crisis” because they did not adapt in time and/or in scope, to the new environment.

Eastman Kodak and Sony Betamax are just some examples.

For instance, “new market” conditions may be created not only by the changing consumer behaviour, but also by various reasons, such as new competitors, new technologies, new regulations, new lifestyles and many others. No wonder Jack Welch, former CEO of GE, quoted that, “When the rate of external change exceeds the rate of internal change, the end is near” Conclusion Especially in a turbulent and RUDE environment, Competition is not your number 1 enemy - Status Quo is enemy number 1. There is no better ignorant way to kill one’s business than to stay put.

Hence in a dynamic and changing environment do not blame your competitors if they are able to thrive and are superior to you; Blame yourself for not being able to identify and exploit the value gap and through continuous innovations.

(This article was first published in the Sri Lankan Marketer, Volume 14, June, 2018, pp 10-13 and reprinted with permission from the Sri Lankan Institute of Marketing)

ABOUT THE WRITER

Dr Hooi Den Huan is the Associate Professor in Marketing and International Business at the Nanyang Business School.

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Interview with

Michelle Lai

Creative Director of MISCHA/ Managing Director Brandcap We speak to Michelle Lai, founder and Creative Director of MISCHA, a global brand known for its iconic hexagon print travel accessories, and Managing Director Asia of Brandcap, a new generation brand consultancy.

About 24

Michelle

Like many things in life, Michelle’s journey with building brands has been serendipitous and not without a spark of madness. After gaining a degree in Biomedical Sciences at Kings College London, Michelle began a career in education. However, it was not long before her passion for travel and creative pursuits lead her in a new direction. She launched her namesake brand MISCHA in 2008 and built it from scratch, setting up supply chain, distribution channels and brand strategy that would transform it from a wholesale to direct to consumer business.

Michelle has featured in Forbes as “One of Asia’s handbag brands to have successfully gone global” among other notable magazines. Michelle has a long standing commitment to empowering women, expressed through her work with The Women’s Foundation and charities supporting girls education and Room to Read. 2018 was the the beginning of a new chapter with her heading up the Asia office for London based consultancy, Brandcap, bring her experience full circle.

Industry Chat Could you tell us about Mischa’s brand story? (What does Mischa stand for and what kind of women does Mischa attract?)

I founded MISCHA as a passion project in 2008. In its infancy, MISCHA (which is my nickname and what my close friends call me) was about embodying my personal style and sensibilities. Later, I became inspired by the intrepid spirit of women around me; all very accomplished, well-travelled and style savvy. They’d seen it all and owned most of it too. They came to me for something nobody else had at the time; something that resonated with their East-West backdrop, whether they were expats who’d settled in Asia or Western educated Chinese. From day one, I took a very pragmatic approach as I was neither a fashion nor business graduate, I wanted to create designs that were sustainable and could stand the test of time. Something for your everyday journey. Now, the brand is fast becoming a travel and style essential for the global citizen.

Like many things in life, my journey with MISCHA has been a serendipitous one and not without a spark of madness. I think this is what draws women to MISCHA,

it’s a story they can relate to. The MISCHA woman is like your best friend, she’s with you on a beach holiday, getting after work drinks, on weekends with the kids and to business trips too. After gaining a degree in Biomedical Sciences at Kings College London, I began a career in education, but it wasn’t long before my passion for travel and creative pursuits lead me in a new direction. I debuted my collection of hand-stitched vintage Japanese obi clutches, which quickly gained a cult following. We very quickly discovered copycats and that signalled a pivot in my strategy. The answer was sitting under my nose the whole time. My inspiration came from the classic heritage brand with its monogram steamer trunks and signature canvas bags. But there were none with an Asian identity. So in 2010, the brand’s signature hexagon print was launched. The ‘hexagon’ represents the sea tortoise’s shell, which symbolises longevity, and this was poetic symbol for me in such a fickle industry. To take the sea tortoise analogy further, the term ‘hai gui’ is the term for Chinese returning home after having studied abroad, of which makes up a large majority of my clientele.

You started out as a traditional B2B business but have evolved into B2C and have also started doing pop ups – could you tell us more about the evolution of your business model?

I started the label as a traditional wholesale business; developing new designs for every season, showing at trade fairs globally, building distribution through the right channels, taking buyer feedback and fighting for editorial coverage. This was in the early 2011-2012’s, and this model worked very well for us and allowed us to scale our productions and brand awareness quite quickly.

Our brand launch in Lane Crawford in 2011 helped us open doors to other retailers in the region and establish MISCHA as a serious player.

On top of the wholesale business, we would do seasonal pop ups to reach our customer directly. Initially it was because we couldn’t afford retail space. Over time, it became a key way for us to interact with our clientele and to acquire new clients. They got more sophisticated as time went on, but stayed small and seasonal. Now, experiential pop ups are the norm among even the biggest brands e.g.

Pantone Cafe, BirchBox, Cos. In terms of the change in strategy, it was due in part to the changes in retail landscape, shopping behaviour and customer needs. We used social media from day one and thankfully this is what allowed us to gain traction and brand awareness in a very cost effective and targeted way. Owning the relationship with the customer has allowed us to have a pulse on the rapidly changing landscape of affordable luxury brands and how they’re being marketed to the millennial population. We launched our own e-commerce in 2013 and pivoted the brand to a direct to consumer model in late 2015, following a rebrand. Having said that, brands launching these days would have a more difficult time as, the market is quite saturated with new brands and social media has evolved to a paid to play model, in a very short period of time.

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Online marketing can be very targeted and data driven, however it is becoming more costly and with diminishing returns.

How does data and AI feature in MISCHA’s brand and marketing strategy? Is this important for MISCHA? What kind of data do you look at?

I think staying true to the brand and believing in its power to inspire women is the most important for me. It’s just the different ways that we go about it have evolved.

It’s like growing up and getting to know yourself through experiences.

You may have an intuition about a new product or campaign, but then you use data to confirm it.

Referencing data has become more and more important as we focus on e-commerce. Not only does it help us communicate more effectively with them, it gives us insights into who they are, their dreams, interests and shipping habits. To think how far we’ve come since the beginning!

With the help of trial and error and some tools, when we send out a campaign, newsletter or press release, we now have insights into how they engage with it, for example, click through rates, open rates, what content interests them etc. This helps to shape our content strategy and sometimes course correct.

Can you provide us with an example of a time where data/AI directly influenced your decisions?

I don’t have a specific example, but a series of small adjustments.

We spend a lot of time creating and curating content for the MISCHA Blog. At first we created an editorial calendar based around new collections, travel guides and insider must-do lists. Over time, we started writing about my personal story of creating and building a brand, entrepreneurship and career related pieces. The data was surprising.

These personal stories of struggle and challenges really resonated with people, so it inspired us to share more.

Mischa is pretty strong in content creation – you have weekly newsletters, engaging and original blog content, interviews, and collaborations with brands in other categories. Could you share your thoughts on content creation for an e-commerce business today?

For MISCHA, the motivation behind the content we create came from wanting to build a community and share our top tips. I want the website to be a place people visit for an extension of the MISCHA universe, just like how you ask your friends for career advice, new beauty regimes, and their restaurant list when traveling or where to go on holiday next. Similarly, the

collaborations we engage in are a reflection of that. The blog content, newsletters, video and interest pieces hopefully, are useful and inspiring. People talk about content being king and why it has to be engaging, unique and powerful, I think this is true more than ever now, and having great content is a prerequisite for a successful e-commerce brand.

Industry Chat

What are some of the pitfalls of online marketing?

I’m a big fan of it because it works very well for us! We routinely score 30% + open rates on each and every campaign we send. Online marketing can be very targeted and data driven, however it is becoming more costly and with diminishing returns. Traditional earned media is becoming challenging with the advent of native advertising and content marketing. The paid to play model is more apparent than ever, so allowances and budgets need to be put in place to make sure that all the time and effort spent on producing great content is being seen.

What kind of technology is MISCHA looking forward to in the next few years? What do you hope to see?

I’m looking forward to more automation of more labour intensive tasks, so we can focus on the creative and human aspect of building a brand.

How do you ensure the Mischa team stays current and continuously innovative?

The team is almost entirely millennial, so I think it’s in their blood! I’m the one who has to stay current. We incorporate a lot of tools and technology to make sure we’re very productive. I try to keep abreast of news and read a lot; Business of Fashion, Economist and Quartz are good sources or industry news. I travel a lot and that gives me the most insights and inspiration, when designing and when working on other businesses. I love modern technology because I can stay connected with my team and we increasingly work across time zones and remotely, We’re always open to discovering new technology. This can happen over conversations with fellow brands, agencies or reading, lots of reading! The existing tools we use continue to evolve and we’re very happy with them.

Could you share some of the lessons you have learnt on building a brand from scratch?

There are so many lessons learnt, I don’t know where to start! In terms of the business side, setting up a brand from scratch taught me that you can have everything planned down to the T, but it never works out that way. There are always unexpected curveballs and alchemy and you have to be ready to think on your feet when things happen. I think it’s important to pay attention to the market direction and adjust accordingly. That’s one of the major reasons we pivoted from wholesale to direct to consumer. The limited time and resources we had become increasingly more productive when deployed in the digital space, rather than our traditional channels. I would also add that you have access to strategic capital because all your efforts on digital marketing, new products and efforts to drive traffic will be in vain if there isn’t a generous budget to drive that.

Building a business from scratch can be a lonely and thankless, and being recognised for the sweat and tears is a good feeling. Early on, we were featured by Forbes magazine as one of the handbag brands in Asia to have gone global.

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Interview with

Christopher Daguimol

Group Director for Public Relations & Social Media of ZALORA The Singapore Marketer chats with Group Director for PR and Social Media at Zalora to find out more about how the e-tailing giant leverages technology and data to enhance its decisions.

About 28

Christopher

As ZALORA’s Group Director for Public Relations & Social Media, Christopher is responsible for the overall public communications strategy of the Group across Asia. He leads a team across six markets, taking care of media relations, external and executive communications, crisis and reputation management, events, corporate storytelling and branding, and social media.

Before joining ZALORA, Christopher spent most of his PR career handling luxury and fashion brands which includes Louis Vuitton, Atelier Swarovski and Asia’s inaugural Men’s Fashion Week in Singapore. He has also worked on FMCG clients such as Unilever, DIAGEO and Asia-Pacific Breweries, and served as inhouse PR lead for luxury properties and a non-profit organization. He specializes in running large scale events, crisis communications, media management and influencer engagement.

Christopher holds a Master’s Degree in Philosophy from National University of Singapore and a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy (Hons) from University of Santo Tomas.

Industry Chat

What are some of the key trends you have observed in e-retailing you have observed in the last few years? (Please outline the changes you have witnessed in Singapore’s digital space over the past few years?)

How has Zalora adapted your marketing strategy to address these changes and trends?

According to technology and market research firm Forrester, mobile purchases—or Mcommerce — will account for 49 percent of ecommerce, or $250+ billion in sales, by 2020. By 2026, no doubt that figure will have grown exponentially. Mcommerce revolution signals a whole lot more than just being able to buy stuff from your phone. Retailers are now being forced to completely rethink the shopping experience. The concept of trying things in a physical store, making the purchase on your mobile device, and having your items show up on your doorstep by the time you get home is becoming more common nowadays and can potentially be the new norm for most retailers. We are likely in a situation where most of fashion shoppers in the next 10 years will be mobile-first digital-only consumers, and fashion retail will leapfrog the national buildout of networks of traditional monobrand stores.

Another trend is the rise of shoppable content; brands are treating social media as a sales platform now more than ever.

Nearly 25% of business owners are selling through Facebook and 40% are using social media to generate sales. Not only does social media influence what people buy through recommendations (23%), a fully 30% of consumers say they would make purchases through social media. The social media penetration in Southeast Asia is incredibly high compared to US and Europe with 90+ percent. So that’s where millennials are spending time and you know where people spend time, that’s where you need to engage with them. It appears as if customers in the region are ready for the social shopping experience.

Last year we spearheaded the first shoppable video series with our long-time partner NBC Universal.

We created original videos, based on the ‘How Do I Look?’ Asia series, that was made available across Zalora e-commerce platforms (website, app, mobile site) The videos identify where and when products appear on screen, matching fashion items from the clips with ZALORA’s product catalogue. Consumers can view the video, browse the content and select items via mouse-over or in a “shoppable” bar, choose their preferred size and colour and

instantly purchase their items. We also introduced the region’s first shoppable livestream in the form of a fashion show during Singapore Fashion Week. The ZALORA supported Fashion Futures 1.0 show was the only show at Singapore Fashion Week 2017 to push the see-now-buy-now concept, which allows customers to purchase selected labels at the click of a mouse or tap of a finger, on their ZALORA app. With this, viewers can shop head-to-toe looks seen on the models during the live stream without having to search for the collections elsewhere. This will fulfil their need for instant access to favourite designers and a curated assortment of fashion the moment they see it on the runway.

We have seen Zalora move into physical stores and the reverse – physical stores expanding and developing their online presence. Could you share some of the benefits and challenges of managing multiple channels?

ZALORA’s click-and-mortar stores generate word-of-mouth marketing among shoppers and function as creative spaces for various marketing projects including as a multi-purpose space for product shots, event space, influencer filming and collaboration with other 29

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Despite the rapid growth of e-commerce in the past few years, most customers in growth markets like countries in Southeast Asia are still not confident when it comes to shopping online. The barrier of establishing trust has always been a big challenge for online retailers to overcome...

brand partners. Click-and-mortar stores, which provide both an online shopping and physical store, provide customers with the efficiency of online transactions, as well as the face-to-face interaction of retail stores. For ZALORA, the clicksand mortar concept is now one of its key brand-building strategies while converting traditional consumers into e-consumers.

Having a physical store enables consumers to touch, feel and see the company’s products, which allows would-be buyers to gauge the quality and authenticity of the products. At the same time, online retailers get to connect directly with their customers who walk into their stores, and better understand their needs. Despite the rapid growth of e-commerce in the past few years, most customers in growth markets like countries in Southeast Asia are still not confident when it comes to shopping online. The barrier of establishing trust has always been a big challenge for online retailers to overcome, as customers seek to touch and feel the products before they purchase for the first time. The ZALORA x Abercrombie & Fitch Pop-Up Store marks the first ever Philippine retail space for the brand, which has become synonymous with classic, All-American style.

The store design is inspired by the Abercrombie & Fitch prototype store, and like previous ZALORA click & mortar store instalments, is a fully integrated experience where you get the best of both worlds between traditional shopping and online shopping. Customers can browse through Abercrombie & Fitch clothes for both men and women and see them in person — and then check out even more styles on the ZALORA website on the tablets available in-store. There are no cashiers and checkouts are done via your personal ZALORA account as you would if you were online shopping, and the products will be delivered straight to the customers’ doorsteps. At this point the key learning for us in running an ecommerce website, a mobile site and/or a ZALORA app store and of course a click and mortar store is that retailers should always be customer focused, their customer journey should be well-mapped and easy to navigate, and given the fact that customers today shop in multiple channels, the consistency in brand experience and service is key in winning them

We are interested in how Zalora leverages technology and data to enhance your business/marketing/ PR decisions. Could you please share how technology supports your PR/Marketing strategy at Zalora?

How does Zalora leverage AI in your marketing strategy? How important is this and what are some of the challenges with this technology?

We see our data efforts and automation as key engines for growth, it is core to our culture and how we make decisions. We also make use of predictive analytics to guide us with our interaction with customers. Consumers today expect us to know who they are, what they’re looking for on our site, the brands and style they love and their preferred price range. Putting customer and behavioural data to work, we can recognize individual shoppers when they land on ZALORA, and deliver tailor-made experiences and recommendations in real time, providing them a more meaningful and relevant online shopping experience. We recognise that data when properly managed can create value and drive competitive advantage. We also introduced wow innovations in our PR offline events from introducing region’s first virtual reality (VR) experience that gave event guests the chance to view behind

Industry Chat

the scenes footage of Topshop/ Topman’s fashion photo shoots via Google Cardboard in September 2015 to staging a shoppable runway show in Singapore Fashion Week in October 2017. Not only does it excite event guests but establishes ZALORA as a forward-thinking retailer with brand partners who are delighted by our efforts to marry technology and fashion.

What are some types of technology you are excited about as a company for the next few years? What’s next for Zalora in terms of digital marketing and communications?

Last year we introduced a few visual-driven innovations: visual search function on the app, the first shoppable livestream fashion show during Singapore Fashion Week and shoppable videos – all of which gave us an insight on consumer behaviour and positioned ZALORA as an innovator in the region. In the coming years we plan to continue investing on automation to drive efficiency and harness deep data machine learning to drive our campaign planning, forecasting and marketing executions, hopefully translating to a better customer experience and engagement, improved targeting and gives our shoppers the best online

shopping experience possible. We are also banking on refining the user interface and journey of our mobile customers to boost the potential to use our content and social media as platforms to inspire and sell our products to customers.

Parting Note: To sum up, what are you top 3 tips for digital marketers?

First advice is to practice disruption on a personal and company level – if we don’t learn to do this, someone else will. ZALORA has over 30 million monthly visits on its website, a robust email distribution list and actively maintained social media accounts.

We grew by testing new approaches in a very structured manner and focusing our efforts on whatever works. We started out with no almost no priority, knowledge or point of view. We started testing out several things on a weekly basis, in order to learn.

We embrace a data-driven approach to marketing. Marketing is fast becoming a data-driven discipline. Marketers would do well by seriously reviewing and leveraging data to make decisions, instead of paying lip service by using data o affirm decisions that have already made.

Second advice, don’t fall in love with your own idea; people tend to only see the data points that confirm whatever they believe in already.

This is cognitive bias – you only see things that you think and are open to. Marketers need to be open to new ideas. Hire a person that doesn’t come from a traditional marketing background, but someone from computer, analytics, data science background. Build from there, a platform that starts from the data rather than from a consumer panel or a customer survey. Go in at an agonistic point of view, and measure everything. Let the data speak for itself. In the digital world, one can set up multiple online experiments at very low cost. You don’t have to make big bets, but you can make a lot of small bets and then double down on what works. Thirdly, operational excellence needs to be strengthened with emotional attachment. People buy because it is more than just a transactional relationship, into an emotional attachment to the brand. The latter is a lot defensible than a transactional relationship. ZALORA’s efforts in digital outreach is merely a means to an end and is not an end.

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A4 Magazine Specs

Full Page (A4 Size) • Back Cover $2,500 • Double Page Spread $3,200 • Inside Page $1,800 • Inside Back Cover $2,100 Half Page • Back Cover (Horizontal / Vertical) $1,400 • Inside Front Cover (Horizontal / Vertical) $1,600 • Inside Page (Horizontal / Vertical) $900 • Inside Back Cover (Horizontal / Vertical) $1,100 Quarter Page • Inside Page (Horizontal / Vertical) $600 Sponsored Feature • Front Page plus 1,000 word article $2,500

Artwork Specifications • Images / photos at least 300dpi • All files should be in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) • CMYK or greyscale provides the best results • All transparency and layers flattened • No spot colours • Black and white photos and artwork can be set to print CMYK or greyscale • Please rasterise gradients as sometimes they can print differently to when they were viewed on screen.

• Fonts should be embedded/subset and should be PostScript Type1, TrueType or OpenType • Materials must be in printable file with no conversion required

For enquiries, please email:

singaporemarketer@mis.org.sg

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297mm

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BOOKING CONDITIONS

GENERAL CONDITIONS

Booking deadline: 30 days prior to the first day of the publishing month.

All copy is subjected to the approval of the Publisher, who may edit or reject any advertisement without assign reasons therefore

Artwork Deadline: 14 days prior to the first day of the publishing month.

(Publisher reserves the right to retract or use previous materials of copy is not received by deadline) Cancellations are not accepted after booking deadlines.

Cancellation fees: • 14 days prior to first day of publication --> 50% • 7 days prior to first day of publication --> 80%

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