Magnus Ekbom, Co Founder and Chief of Strategy at Lazada

I would say is that there has never, I believe in history, been a more important time for great marketing than where we are today. Over the last 10 years, the discussion in the discourse, in the marketing domain and the marketing realm has been very much about online marketing

What happened to the discussion about what really makes great marketing great, what happens about the marketing that really touches peoples hearts touches people’s minds and really are relevant in ways that that creates memories and brand associations that don’t go away and I think that you know marketers have a tremendous challenge to be visible, relevant, and recognized in a very noisy marketplace.

Algorithms can make that distribution more efficient and yes, data is there to help us evaluate but the discussion has become a bit that marketing is about the evaluation; using the data that is available and nothing could be more wrong in the way I look at it. Data is about, sorry, marketing is about connecting with our users with our partners and really telling that story about our brand and the data is is is there to help us guide how to do that in the best way but it’s not the primary purpose and I really hope that that that is the way marketers take.

Hari V Krishnan, CEO & Managing Director of PropertyGuru Group

Marketing one thing that is difficult to understand is digital products, is marketing is as much about the media and communication as it is about the product experience. So we invest a lot in product development and making sure that we can deliver on the promise that our marketing campaign needs. And so for us it is sort of two arms essentially working hand in hand together, the marketing campaign going out and making promises to the consumer and the product actually delivering on those promises.

So for us, I think that it’s critical to understand both phases I think some companies get it wrong by focusing much more on their marketing campaigns and their advertising slogan but not focusing enough on the product experience itself, in the end for digital company brand is really about the product experience

Kaajal Shivdasani, Head of Marketing, SEA & Haagen Dazs Brand Leader, AMEA

I have to say it’s a brand, we’re probably moving away from online versus offline and into a more omnichannel approach And the idea behind that is really to be where our consumers are at all points in the journey
So as you walk a High Street in Singapore or in Malaysia or in Thailand, you might come across one of our shops and that really is a big part of the offline experience But even as you walk into that shop, you could choose to become a member and join our loyalty program and then the engagement moves off online

Most of our marketing dollars are actually spent online, it’s really about being where our consumers are And they’re on social media and so, YouTube and Instagram have become an important part of our marketing mix But really, it’s about what gets us the best reach and efficiency We also experiment with platforms like Spotify and Tiktok, to see how we can learn and grow with our consumers on those platforms.

Hari V Krishnan, CEO & Managing Director of PropertyGuru Group

Transcript:

Marketing one thing that is difficult to understand is digital products, is marketing is as much about the media and the communication as it is about the product experience. So we invest a lot in product development and making sure that we can deliver on the promise that our marketing campaign needs. And so for us it is sort of two arms essentially working hand in hand together, the marketing campaign going out and making promises to the consumer and the product actually delivering on those promises. so for us I think that it’s critical to understand both phases I think some companies get it wrong by focusing much more on their marketing campaigns and their advertising slogan but not focusing enough on the product experience itself, in the end for digital company brand is really about the product experience

Magnus Ekbom, Co Founder and Chief of Strategy at Lazada

Transcript:

I would say is that there has never, I believe in history, been a more important time for great marketing than where we are today. Over the last 10 years, the discussion in the discourse, in the marketing domain and the marketing realm has been very much about online marketing

What happened to the discussion about what really makes great marketing great, what happens about the marketing that really touches peoples hearts touches people’s minds and really are relevant in ways that that creates memories and brand associations that don’t go away and I think that you know marketers have a tremendous challenge to be visible, relevant, and recognized in a very noisy marketplace.

Algorithms can make that distribution more efficient and yes, data is there to help us evaluate but the discussion has become a bit that marketing is about the evaluation; using the data that is available and nothing could be more wrong in my the way I look at it. Data is about, sorry, marketing is about connecting with our users with our partners and really telling that story about our brand and the data is is is there to help us guide how to do that in the best way but it’s not the primary purpose and I really hope that that that is the way marketers take.

Kaajal Shivdasani, Head of Marketing, SEA & Haagen Dazs Brand Leader, AMEA

Transcript:

I have to say it’s a brand, we’re probably moving away from online versus offline and into a more omnichannel approach And the idea behind that is really to be where our consumers are at all points in the journey
So as you walk a High Street in Singapore or in Malaysia or in Thailand, you might come across one of our shops and that really is a big part of the offline experience But even as you walk into that shop, you could choose to become a member and join our loyalty program and then the engagement moves off online

Most of our marketing dollars are actually spent online, it’s really about being where our consumers are And they’re on social media and so, YouTube and Instagram have become an important part of our marketing mix But really, it’s about what gets us the best reach and efficiency We also experiment with platforms like Spotify and Tiktok, to see how we can learn and grow with our consumers on those platforms

Magnus Ekbom, Co Founder and Chief of Strategy at Lazada

The point on employee engagement is also it’s extremely important right. And how you also take time to talk to people, ask how someone is doing, what someone needs or what are the challenges that they face right because what we’re asking when we tell people to work from home, right it’s often the people who, should we say not everyone has a good or possibility to do that in a good way we have a lot of people who are out in our facilities, in our logistics operations and so on right. And that is of course whereby nature you can’t do that from behind the screen right.

So I think that overall I would say that it has worked better than we expected and I think that many companies will say that wow it’s actually possible to do this but what I would caution against is to interpret the fact that you can run the company on the distance that that’s the same thing that it’s a good thing to do so. Because to maintain what you do is one thing. But when you talk about how do we problem solve? How do we innovate? How do we push the boundaries? How do we get those last 20% out of the whole organization that we need at the end of the day makes the difference? That is a completely different thing.

Hari V Krishnan, CEO & Managing Director of PropertyGuru Group

Both working from home, remote working, remote work, in general, is to become much more consistent with the workplace of the future, this has big applications on businesses not just for their own organizations but for partners, vendors, customers, suppliers that they work with. You’re gonna have to find digital technologies to interact with people within your organization but also key partners that you interact with and I think that’s gonna be something that’s going to become important.

Another thing that’s going to be critical is internal automation because if we aren’t all gonna be physically seating in one location together our ability to actually use automation software to create that similar experiences is critical so if you think about everything from procurement to the way in which we collaborate to taking notes and exchanging ideas all of this should be digitalised and automated

Another thing that’s critical. And I think the final part is immersive content is here to stay I think people are going to get used to using augmented reality and other experiences to discover browse and experience new content and services and to the degree that a company or brand is going to invest in them I believe that they will separate from the crowd.

Walter de Oude, Executive Director & Deputy Chairman of Singlife

I think the single most important success story is, is alignment across across your C-suite, senior levels. Having a combined or joint vision of where you want to go to is the secret sauce for bringing opportunities together. It makes for for good transactions, it makes good for corporate culture it makes good for how integrations happen. All of that is so so fundamental to to what we need to do to be successful. It’s all about hearts and minds.

People don’t wake up in the morning anymore and say I’m going to work today because I need to get a salary. People go to work today to get and feel that they part of something bigger than themselves and if we can’t demonstrates to to the people that that work with us, through our organisations in every way ,and through partnerships through through what we’re trying to achieve, this joint idea that people are working towards something better or something improving, or something that they can look back in their lives one day in the future and say I was involved in something special and if we can get back to people we can do great, great, great things.

Magnus Ekbom, Co Founder and Chief of Strategy at Lazada

Transcript:

The point on employee engagement is also it’s extremely important right. And how you also take time to talk to people, ask how someone is doing, what someone needs or what are the challenges that they face right because what we’re asking when we tell people to work from home, right it’s often the people who, should we say not everyone has a good or possibility to do that in a good way. We have a lot of people who are out in our facilities, in our logistics operations, and so on right. And that is of course whereby nature you can’t do that from behind the screen right.

So I think that overall I would say that it has worked better than we expected and I think that many companies will say that wow it’s actually possible to do this but what I would caution against is to interpret the fact that you can run the company on the distance that that’s the same thing that it’s a good thing to do so. Because to maintain what you do is one thing. But when you talk about how do we problem solve? How do we innovate? How do we push the boundaries? How do we get those last 20% out of the whole organization that we need at the end of the day makes the difference? That is a completely different thing.

Walter de Oude, Executive Director & Deputy Chairman of Singlife

Transcript:

I think the single most important success story is, is alignment across your C-suite, senior levels. Having a combined or joint vision of where you want to go is the secret sauce for bringing opportunities together. It makes for good transactions, it makes good for the corporate culture it makes good for how integrations happen. All of that is so so fundamental to what we need to do to be successful. It’s all about hearts and minds.

People don’t wake up in the morning anymore and say I’m going to work today because I need to get a salary. People go to work today to get and feel that they are part of something bigger than themselves and if we can’t demonstrate to the people that that work with us, through our organisations in every way, and through partnerships through what we’re trying to achieve, this joint idea that people are working towards something better or something improving, or something that they can look back in their lives one day in the future and say I was involved in something special and if we can get back to people we can do great, great, great things.

Hari V Krishnan, CEO & Managing Director of PropertyGuru Group

Transcript:

Both working from home, remote working, remote work, in general, is to become much more consistent with the workplace of the future, this has big applications on businesses not just for their own organizations but for partners, vendors, customers, suppliers that they work with. You’re gonna have to find digital technologies to interact with people within your organization but also key partners that you interact with and I think that’s gonna be something that’s going to become important.

Another thing that’s going to be critical is internal automation because if we aren’t all gonna be physically seating in one location together our ability to actually use automation software to create that similar experiences is critical so if you think about everything from procurement to the way in which we collaborate to taking notes and exchanging ideas all of this should be digitalised and automated

Another thing that’s critical. And I think the final part is immersive content is here to stay I think people are going to get used to using augmented reality and other experiences to discover browse and experience new content and services and to the degree that a company or brand is going to invest in them I believe that they will separate from the crowd.