Growing successful brands during economic volatility

The topic is growing successful brands during economic volatility. Now, if you've been reading your news, especially if you saw the C N A headline today, you know how relevant this topic is and to discuss this topic, we have with us Glenn Tan, who's the deputy chairman and managing director of Tan Chong International and a leading luminary in the world of automotive industry in Singapore and beyond. Thank you for joining us gl- Glenn.

Good morning. Happy to be here. Thank you. And we have Chloe Neo Chloe is the Ceo of Omnicore Media Group and has a long track track record of working with successful brands, blue chip brands, Google brands uh for a long time, Chloe. So thank you for joining us Chloe. Thank you for having me as well. I look forward

to a robust conversation. Wonderful. So, all right. So before we turn this to our panelists and before they tell us about what they think about the topic we want to hear from you, the audience, we would want to know what's your area of focus in this year? Uh Now I know all of these things, performance, marketing, brand, marketing, product innovation, customer acquisition investment in March

are important for you, right? I don't think you, you can ignore any of these, but if you were to choose the top ones, you can choose one, you can choose all totally up to you. What would it be? So, tell us what's your area of focus? You see the poll, you can click as many boxes as you want or one box up to you. But let's hear from you and let's get the mood of our audience over here again. As I said, I'm sure all these are important, but tell us what's most important to you. All right.

So 62% said brand marketing is important for them. So clearly, that came out on top. Uh customer acquisition was number 2 54% 41% said performance marketing and then investment in March. Hm, that's interesting. Uh You know, we've done our own surveys about March and all these things and I'm gonna share some of the surveys with you. But that's interesting. Clearly, brand marketing and customer acquisition is on top for this audience who

over here. So let's keep that in mind. And this is a note to my fellow speakers as we talk about this talk topic that this is the important thing for our audience over here. All right. So before I dive into the actual topic, why don't we just get to know both of our speakers, uh you know, better. So let's go a little off topic and let's ask them a personal question. So I'll start with you, Glenn Glenn. You, you run a, a large business in the automobile industry

in Singapore and beyond many countries. Clearly, you're a busy man. But I know I have seen you being laser focused on marketing. Where does this love affair for marketing come from Glenn. So take us into the background and tell us how did it all start? Well, I mean, you know, uh Subaru is a different

car and uh Subaru advertisements have always been different. Uh you know, I've tried to take a cheeky and kind of irreverent and fun way to, you know, handle uh the advertisements a bit like how the drivers of the cars are and it kind of suits me, you know, we, we do a lot of crazy things um like the car, you know, the cars, of course, the focus of the car is, you know, keeping safe and things like that. But, you know, uh I've done a lot of ads that kind of

could have pushed the envelope, wind some people up. Uh but, you know, it got got noticed in the early days and uh quite uh exciting to, to see people, you know, pay attention to it, sometimes get complaints but, you know, it's all part of the excitement. Right. Yeah. And you, you've done a wonderful job of it. Uh And I'm always keen to see what the latest campaign and the, and what the latest creative is. Uh

And it's always fascinating. Thank, thank you Glenn for telling us more about how it all started for you in the world of marketing. Chloe. Let me ask you, uh you know, you've had a long and very successful track record in the media and the advertising space. How did it all start? When do you act? When did you actually think that, hm, this is it that I want to do as, as my vocation as my long term profession.

I was first introduced to the world when I was 14 and you know, we were watching a movie in the theater a came out and my friend went, hey, you know, this ad was done by my dad years later. No, I ended uh in an internship with a ad agency. It was M Harrison and happens to be the same agency my friends that was in. Um honestly, I wasn't looking for a lifelong career in media

when I was in my twenties. I think that whole passion and also I, I think you have that clarity of what you want to do, what you enjoy doing after having a bit of more experience exposure. And that happens for me uh during my China thing. And that's where I kind of validated my own uh interest if you call it a passion for advertising communication. And also found my growth, my personal growth in terms of my professional development, as well as leadership. And that's

where I know I enjoy this industry. I enjoy the people I meet. Wonderful. And the rest as they say is history. Thank you for, thank you for giving us a peep into your background. Uh All right. So let's let's jump into the topic now. Economic volatility. All of us know all of us have been reading the headlines, but just to refresh your memory on what's happening, I'll just point you

to a very recent headline as recent as yesterday. This is the result news that came out yesterday, Singapore economy grew 0.0.1 percent in Q one slowing from 2.1% in previous quarter. The GDP contracted by 0.7% Q and Q and Q. If you read your C N A this morning, there's an article on why and how there's a slump in exports. In fact, one line in that article stood out for me. It's a statement by IMF which says the fog around the global economic outlook has thickened. It's a very interesting line.

The fog around the global economic outlook has thickened. This is IMF saying in today's C N A. Uh so clearly, we know uh you know, the, the, the, the entire vol volatility is there. And all of us are seeing this. This is also echoed in a recent, you know, in a poll we did uh of marketeers in Singapore. This was done a few months back. We asked CMO S uh how do you feel about the future? 76% of CMO S right here in Singapore mentioned, it will become more challenging.

10% said it's constant 14% actually were optimistic. Great. I like that, but 76% said it will become more challenging and why they said this is because the consumers are saying we're gonna be spending less. Now if you see this poll by this is by sales force done. Uh you know, across I think 5000 number, around five countries.

Singapore included 1000 respondents from Singapore overall. This is consumer speaking, overall budget for spending will be 81% of them said overall budget will reduce and then you can see different sectors, retail and consumer goods, travel, media, entertainment, automotive, if I'm sure Glenn you're interested in. This is a little low, which is good news for you, I guess uh 68% health care. So clearly consumers are saying we're gonna be

spending less but and here's the interesting part. If you go to the next slide, they want to spend less, but they are saying we want a better experience. 52% expect a better experience from their favorite brands as a result of the current economic climate. Now, this makes the job of marketeers of product practitioners very challenging. And that's why we have the topic today. You want to spend less but you want a better experience. So

how do you achieve both? And that's something we will unravel as we go on in this, in this session. So let me just take a pause here and ask, you know, both Glenn and Clay Glenn. Let's start with you. Does this data resonate for you? Do you, what do you think about this data when you see this is it, is it mirrored in your own industry as well? I think when we look at um survey or poll like this, right? Remember the questions appeals to the logical mind,

right? And there is a lot of underlying of human psychology and there's an influence that we see as well from what we are seeing in terms of consumer demand, consumerism is still high. No um meet a persisting inflationary environment. No doubt consumer will reassess their spending priorities but priorities is what consumer team as important to them, right? And that's where they're going to assess the value the brand brings to that portfolio of consumption.

I'll just use a very recent one, tickets to BT S. I think a lot of audience could have heard about it. The two day concert was sold out, right? A third show is added yet they are scalper selling the tickets for 1000 500 with clear demand from a marketing perspective, I guess um in practice, the consultative conversations we have with our clients are largely around marketing transmission as well. Should be around

data and tech integration, um popular management and maximization. So no, we are looking at a lot more brand partnership and collaboration as well as learning plans for advertisers and client partners to look at how they can navigate a period of uncertainty ahead. You know, the future is always more uncertain than what we could see today. Adding optimizing clients, media investment and delivering on performance matrix are considered operational hygiene.

Adding brands are looking at driving this proportion of R I with the investment and not necessarily looking at spending lesser. It's about spending smarter. OK? It's not about spending less about spending smarter. That's that, that's a great line, Glenn. What about you? Does this data resonate with you? Yeah, I think, you know, um it's quite interesting. Uh So when we ran our ads and it's different you you can see from the uh response.

So a more creative ad. So uh uh an ad that kind of resonates with uh the consumer uh has a lot of higher click to ad. That's very just, you know, selling this feature, that feature is not very lifestyle focused, there's no story to it. Uh actually has very low click truths and the expiry date uh uh for creatives is actually quite fast like if we run it maybe more than two months that, that

you can see that the click to drop very quickly. So, um and everybody wants a personalized experience, everybody wants to see, ok, if you know, I look at your brand, what do I get out of it? Um You know, if I look at your car, so what every car is like that every car has four wheels, every car, you know, has four doors, two doors, some of them, uh what's the big deal? Everybody's saying your car is safe.

So what, you know, they want to see explicitly what is different and even that, you know, um everyone looks at the micro moments, right? If you look at the an ad within the first five seconds, if it doesn't capture you, no one's gonna, they're just gonna swipe past it. They're just, everyone's so used to that clicking next. So it's really about uh in the first five seconds, 10 seconds. What can you deliver to the customer? How do you show the potential customer why they should

complete watching your ad? Why they should click through to your website? Why should they should find out more about your product? That that's a great pro tip for our audiences. Um micro moments, you have to make an impact in the first five or six seconds. Otherwise it's such a content dense world and they get so distracted, they're gonna move on. So I, I love that the first five seconds are

very important. Uh So let's talk about uh you know, another phenomenon that happened recently that shook our life a little bit COVID. So how do the world of, how did COVID impact marketing and lives for you? You know, did it changed brand marketing in a, in a, you know, in a way that's like everlasting? I mean, if you talk about, look at this webinar, right? We started this webinar during COVID, but it's continuing even after COVID as well. So clearly, some of the things

have lasted beyond COVID as well. How did it impact brand marketing for you? Let's start with you Glenn first. Uh Well, I mean, for us, we kind of uh since the start of the lockdowns, we shifted from like a very traditional type, uh things like print uh into very digital uh type, things like uh to a social media platforms such as uh tiktok I G Facebook. And it's kind of helped us reach a wider audience and you can kind of focus on what kind of audience you want and the conversion rates a

lot higher. I would say, you know, uh digital is like a precision bomb where, you know, you select the target and then, you know, you fire the missile, but the newspaper is like a carpet bomb where you just bomb everything. So uh maybe only 5% of what you want to bomb is the target. But you have

to bomb the 95 is wasted. Whereas in digital, if you get it right, you can have a very, very high R O I. And uh in, in our case, like we always focus on our uh safety, like for Subaru's cases, like 100 safety features and how uh subs keep the families and themselves safe on the road and off the road. So very simple messaging. But how do you make it uh very interesting. Um We've also kind of experimented with using uh K A I was in, in our different

markets to kind of add a lifestyle touch. So, you know, a different way of storytelling. So I think storytelling has become uh very uh interesting in, in terms of how uh people uh uh so this is like a call to action for us to get people to come down and the traditional car test drive is very boring. So enter this super advanced technology drive to kind of show that, you know, our, our brand has a little bit more

something different. People don't want to. Oh, you know, I come for a test drive, the salesman gives me sales. I come and drive it in circles for like 10 minutes. So what, so, you know, we kind of created this advanced technology drive to kind of first the the key word is I'm what I'm trying to sell you is my advanced technology. So it kind of gets people. Oh, what is this.

And uh you know, using K O L s like our ambassador Ken is showing uh you know, our core technology and showing in a normal way how a regular consumer would use our cars where it kind of steers the car back in lane for you by itself, things like that. These are very hard to show. And if I just said, oh, this is lane keep function, this is lane centering function, This is lane keep assist. People don't understand what that means. What does it mean to you? You know,

it's too feature rich two word. Uh You know, there are too many words, too technical, nobody understands. And in the past, you know, my team used to be like obsessed with putting, oh, we should put all the features. I said, nobody cares because I said you pick it up and can you remember what the last five features were? No one can tell me the answer. So I said there's no coin, right? So you have to sell if I'm the consumer, what does it mean to me? How

does it affect my daily life? Uh You know, how does uh the car help me drive better? How does the car, uh you know, help me in my day to day and in, in COVID, uh you know, everybody wears a mask because, you know, they worry about uh keeping safe. So I kind of pair that with, how do I keep you safe? With our car. Yeah, you know COVID uh the mask keeps you safe. But uh you know, for us, we are also selling safety. Our car keeps you safe, but how does it keep you safe better than other, other

kind of every brand can say, keep you safe. So I'm trying to make our cars like the N95 mask. Everybody knows N95 is the highest level of safety. So we have the N95 mask of safety compared to just

a surgical mask or cloth mask. So that kind of thing, I try to differentiate uh using this kind of things to kind of show why my product is different from uh other kinds of product, other kind, other people's safety, the difference between a cloth mask, uh surgical mask, N95 mask, of course, you know, and an N95 mask is uh very safe. Uh It's not the greatest looking but it's safe and, and keeps you safe and it's not the most expensive.

You can buy those masks with a built in filter that filters, but that's $100.95 mask is $3 you know, so we want to be the reasonable price but have filter 95% it doesn't filter the 5%. That's why it's 95. But you know, it's better than a cloth mask. Very interesting. I mean, I I I love, I think three things that you mentioned one is don't just say advanced technology because everyone says that right, be very specific. So your ad over there was very specific about which

features are there. Plus, I think you did a great job of translating the feature into user benefit. You know, everyone talks about features but tell people what's the user benefit. And I love the entire N95 mask of safety. I'm gonna remember that. That's great. Uh Chloe, what about you? Uh how has COVID impacted marketing for your brands? I mean, you have a diverse set of brands, technology, food, consumer goods, how has life changed after COVID?

I think thankfully, we are in Singapore, so many of the brands we partner with, right on the strong post pandemic recovery. So it's not that it's not about COVID, but it's more about the impact of COVID thereafter. All right, like most businesses, the operational challenges around supply chain and talent recruitment are real and we see more uh tactical campaigns as demand upstream supply. And uh there's a renewal in defining an antic being brand purpose just like what the Glen has shared for

Subaru as well, right? And that focus is even stronger ever more than before as brand kind of find that positioning in the consumer mind map and we see more consideration for brand led uh communication that are grounded on consumer truth and through more empathetic lens. Great. Um Yeah, so uh I think uh a bit more empathetic lens because of a very human situation, a human uh set of circumstances that we're all going through?

Great one. All right. So uh just a reminder for the audiences, please do keep the Q and A box buzzing. Uh click on that box and give us more questions. We have time allocated towards the end of this for your questions. So please keep them coming. Uh All right, let's move on to uh something else that is not a new phenomenon, but I think has got put on steroids in the last few years or months maybe, which is brand and performance marketing. There's a lot of

buzz and debate about should I spend on brand? Should I spend on performance? Are these different? Can you combine both into one? And we'd love to get your opinion on this uh brand versus performance again. Let me start with you Glenn first. Do you see them as two separate categories or are they just same things uh disguised into uh two different big jargon? Yeah. So I, I think, you know, um people always, you know, everybody's always interested. Oh, if I spend on branding,

you know, it doesn't translate to sales. How do you link the two things? So, I, I think uh so we do do split our marketing into hard uh brain and wallet, but I think the overarching message. So first is for uh every brand I think, you know, um and, and I guess a lot of the sme s and things like that. Uh

What does your brand stand for. So if you're not clear and you're just building your brand name after a while it becomes a name, you know, I could be this coffee, that coffee, this water, that water even, you know, mineral water is 20 different brands. What is the difference between uh uh, um, the, the, the, the your own bottle of water and E V I and it's just water, right? But, you know, uh like in Ian's case, they are, they are they, they say that they are from the spring or the Alps or

something like that? They have five minerals, something like that. So it's, it's first, what does your brand stand for? What is unique about your product? Why did you bring your product uh to market in the first place? Uh What did you, what do you feel that is very important for, to push your product? So that's the overarching brand? What, what, what do you want to sell? And then of course, then uh the, the performance marketing comes in in terms of what do you want the consumer

to get out of buying your product? What do you want the consumer to feel like when I have your product, what kind of happiness do I get out of you by paying this money? What kind of benefit do I get from this? So it's kind of like a overlapping, but at the same time, you still have to build the brand based on what your brand stands for in terms of what does it, why is it different from

some somebody else? Why is it different? Why should I buy your uh and, and I, like I said, water is a very simple example or um masks are very simple example. So these are things that what, what is your brand uh uh unique for, you know, and, and I think uh these are the uh things that, that the brand where the brand is very important to establish why your brand stands for, why, what it is and the performance marketing be your product, what is your product, which is the

brain portion? What is your product uh unique? What's so unique about your product versus other uh products in, in, in the market? And why should people consider uh your product? And, you know, people, a lot of people research uh online now and, and they, they, they are all, you know, based on their social feeds and, and following K O L s and, and things like that and

what people say. So that's very important as well. So if you don't make your, uh how would you say brand uh your product uh product benefit very clear, but in a way that how it benefits the user or the, the, the consumer, then I think that would be uh probably the biggest challenge because, you know, uh uh uh a lot of uh times people like, especially for our industry car sometimes, you know, people tend to, when, when, when in the past, we used to uh get people to, to

review it and then they will list blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah of features. But you know, if you watch it by the third feature, I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about because the manufacturers like to list the features, it gets longer and longer. I can't even pronounce it. And then they start using acronyms or ad L C F L K A, you know, AC C PC B so many after a while, it's just three alphabets, right?

I mean, maybe the Singapore government is good at naming, you know, acronyms. But I, I'm not, you know, I'm not sure everybody understands it. Yeah, that's a great plan. You know, a note for our audiences don't give too many acronyms and I love your, your, the categorization of heart brain and wallet. I think that's a very nice way of putting it.

You have to do all of it. You have to appeal to the heart, you have to appeal to the brain and obviously people obviously think about their wallet and they're spending and you have to make sure that your advertising and your marketing addresses each of these three. I think that's a very nice way of putting it. Chloe. What about you? I mean, you walk across a cross section of brand, how do they are brands? How do they think about

brand versus performance? And I would love you to uh you know, amplify a little bit about measurement as well because uh people are always confused about how do I measure brand marketing versus performance marketing? Do I use different metrics and so on? So please give us your take on this. I I think it goes back to the marketing organization as well, right? We work with different, like you say a diverse portfolio of clients the way they organize their

uh marketing structure as well as budget allocation. Some they have speed branding and uh performance into two different buses, uh buckets and business units, right? And there are also brands who do one single marketing focus because you are marketing the same audience might be branding or performance. It's about understanding consumer truth and being meaningful throughout that journey. So we are seeing branding ads having strong halo and attribution on lower finance

activities and this is not new. Um even when I was in China, when we do a lot of marketing needs modeling and predictive modeling and all you see that brand effect, technical activation still has the highest direct impact on sales and conversion matrix. Don't get me wrong. However, an effective branding communication could result in incremental up leaf in the short term performance

while delivering the long term brand building effect. Yeah, I think um I echo what Glen say, you know, increasingly we are looking at um brand manager quite differently as well. So in fact, you know, when we look at performance measure as well, while its clear card is about the conversion of purchase a landing on the page. But increasingly, we're looking at attention as a matrix across both branding and capital ads

to understand the effectiveness and optimize for performance. Because be branding ad or a performance a you want to know that the app is engaging, getting some form of attention to be able to maximize its effectiveness. So budget allocation is often um optimized based on several factors, not

just based on the marketing objectives. Um I think most agencies have their budget allocation tool uh that is built on very robust data and research and for some clients, they we we build bespoke predictive model for budget allocation towards their desired outcomes as well and these outcomes could be against us. Um awareness metrics, considera uh consideration index or eventually to

the intent to purchase. So now when it comes to management framework, I'll say no align it with your brand portfolio and brand goals, right? Yeah, no, I I think that's a great fun. Uh activations are important clearly, but if you do not invest in building the brand, the effectiveness of those activations

comes down as well. I mean, I can give you some uh you know, from our own experience at media Corp, we do a lot of performance marketing campaigns with our uh brands and we realize that while the performance marketing campaigns are focused on sales activations, the brands that have spent money on building the brands long term actually get better results from their performance marketing campaigns as well. So while all the things that you know, you and Glenn talked about that appeal to the brain

and the wallet pricing and product features are great. Those who invested in the brand building actually get more out of their performance marketing campaign as well. So that's seen something that we've seen consistently across all our performance marketing campaigns. Uh All right, let, let, let's, let's move on. I just want to address uh you know, some,

you, are you saying something? Yeah, sorry. I, I, I think I also forgot to mention that uh you know, um the uh combination of like brand and performance marketing, uh we kind of, we may I, I combined it, for example, like uh using K O to demonstrate uh how our cars, the U SPS of the cars are easy to use. Um I don't know if uh they have the video.

Um and we had a video and then we would get the herb uh the K O L s uh viewers to actually come and spot the car on the road and, and book a test drive appointment to, to win prizes as well. Uh And uh if there's a video, please play that. Ok, everybody, everybody scream. That girl's got some serious swirls in her pains.

Uh and then we give away like I premiums and things. So so, but, but by doing this, it's better than a salesman coming to say, oh, you can't test drive my car because I'm trying to make a sale. What I'm trying to do is I'm trying to showcase my technology. You don't have to buy it today. But this is what our car is all about. This is what our safety features, eyesight mean. And so it's kind of branding in the sense that I'm branding the

the Subaru eyesight technology, the safety technology. So it's kind of a branding campaign. But at the same time, we add in the hook like, oh you know, you come and test drive the car and, and then there's that performance uh uh apart. So we kind of measure the K P I space on. How many test drives did we get? How many people are signed up? How many people actually spotted the car on the road, her driving the car, things like this was

in Malaysia. So, um you know, and, and, and showing a little bit of relevance to how, uh uh uh especially in Malaysia, you guys drive to Malaysia, you know that, you know, the, the road, uh the road lines and the, the road signs are kind of suggestions. Only nobody really follows them like, you know, so it's flexible driving there. So um you kind of have people rushing across in front of you and, and

you need to suddenly break and things like that. So it's kind of showing uh the differences of how the car can kind of help you see. And, and so I made something very complicated into something very simple to, to, to get the customers to easily understand why our car is different. Yeah, so that's a, that's a great point here. And I think coming to the, you know, the topic of economic volatility where marketeers feel a bit stretched on how to make sure that we have our advertising spread across

branding performance uh activation. There's a very smart way of combining all three heart brain and wallet. What you're doing over here is you have a K O L obviously that does great things for your brand, uh comes up your brand attributes come out very clearly. You have very specific product features, so are appealing to the brain and then you're topping it up with specific offers, test drives and you know, uh

pricing as well. So it looks like there's a if you work smartly, you can actually combine all three and you do not have to have watertight pockets of brand marketing versus performance marketing. And that's especially important in these times of economic volatility. When times are good, you can have a separate brand marketing campaign and a performance marketing campaign. When times are not so good, you have to be able to work smartly and combine all three. So that's

great. Uh Glenn, I also wanted to touch upon something that you've done very effectively, which is radio. Uh You've been one of the earlier, you know, uh pioneers of advertising on radio and not just advertising advertising in a very unique, distinctive style, which has almost become iconic. Uh So we'll play one of the radio ads uh so that people know, I know people know what you're talking about, but just as a reminder and then we'd love for

you to talk to us about some background. Tell us, give us, tell us a story about your radio ad. It's very fascinating. So let's first hear your radio app, Kara, why are you bringing the entire office home for my mom? Mom? Tomorrow's Mother's day boss. Test drive, the Forester Ebo hybrid G T edition. Now at Subaru Linky Showroom, my mom reads my reports to relax. That's why I'm Kolling and my mom is made. Her name is Madeline. Yes. And she's meddling with my life. Yeah,

I kind of, I always end up driving. I always filing and laughing and, and it's, uh, when I listen to your ads, Glenn. So tell us more about how did this campaign or series of campaigns come about. And so, I mean, you know, I think, uh in the earlier days, I, you know, radio ads, sometimes people tune in because, you know, well, ok, so in our case, why radio is important to us is uh we only pause radio during the uh pandemic when people work from home

and people were not in their cars. But, you know, when people start going back to work, traffic was coming back, immediately started the radio ads again because in the cast, typically people are listening to radio, they wanna hear, uh you know, the DJ S talk and things like that. So that, but at the same time, people tend to queue out during um too many ads. So I thought that, you know, we should create some comedy to, to, to make uh people kind of remember

uh the ads. And so, you know, that's where this uh asking uh character was, was invented. I said, you know, we have to do something funny and then you know, the, the agency, um, uh, the scriptwriter came out with it and she was like, oh, you know, we do this and then they're like, oh, you know, uh, we should find some talents to do that. I said, no, no, no, no, no. You know, you really have to make it sound very Singaporean. You really

have to make it sound very unique. And then, so I gave her an example of, I want a voice like that and then she was like, then why don't you just do it? So, and then I've been doing a saying all this time. Uh So it's kind of like my fun uh thing. And then, you know, we, uh we, I started making fun of, of things. And along the way, I just realized that you don't have to keep talking about the car.

You just need to be talking about something interesting. And then the, the, the V O kind of comes in to, to talk about the car. So you basically tell a story halfway, you sell your product and then you continue with a, with a, the joke at the end, right? So that's what, you know, kind of lightens people's day. OK? If you don't buy my car, it's fine. But at least you heard my ad, you know, because it's, it's kind of different. And uh

so yeah, we kind of write all these things. Uh uh There's one time when uh I think Singapore. Uh There was this big thing about uh aware and uh the, the women's organization and I started making fun of the word aware. You know, there's one time the courtesy Lion retired, I start making fun of the courtesy Lion. Uh You know, so, so this same character start of kind of makes fun of uh uh many uh different things and the kind of tongue in cheek. Uh But, you know, we kind of write it in such a

way that it's more uh uh interesting. And then our latest one is where and his assistant are doing things and we can introduce the character as well. So, you know, it kind of adds some dimension to it, like pets and things like that. So just, you know, something uh fun and interesting to, to kind of uh uh get people to, to, to kind of get people to remember our brand uh differently. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so, so two things for our audiences.

One is uh do listen to what Glenn said. He said he combines storytelling with selling, you know, sometimes we think that storytelling and selling are two different things. I'll do storytelling for a brand campaign and I'll do selling, which is just blatant selling. What he said was they do start a story then in midway as he's taken you and he's gripped you with a story. The selling part comes and then you back to the story. So the audience

stays gripped throughout. I thought that was very interesting. And the big reveal for some of our audience is that Glen, the managing director of Taung International is an accomplished voiceover artist as well. That's the big reveal in this webinar. So thanks Glenn. Uh Prue. Uh tell us more about some of the best practices of some pretty iconic campaigns that you are involved with right now. I know. So tell us more

our reference to highly established and most considered brand. I, I think it's easier to use uh actual use cases uh for illustration, right? And um one being mcdonald's, so at O MD, the team take a portfolio planning and optimization approach to balance and maximize both brand and performance effort on mcdonald's. So um just to give a very quick background, this brief is all about brand build

brand affinity. So mcdonald's the single 11 is a pure brand affinity campaign where um we want to engage the and be meaningful and relevant to Gen X and Gen Z. And the insight is that single space has become a hyper commercialized event losing its way from its original purpose of celebrating and embracing being singer. So 13 challenge convention by leveraging the exciting um the, the the excitement around a traditional e-commerce led moment and making it a moment to build stronger brand affinity

for mcdonald's. So if we go to the next slide, the single 11 the cheeky campaign that introduced a line of single product that don't always get a second glance. So we are not going out like, you know what you usually buy and uh that is high demand. What we curd is a set of single 11 that usually get overlooked and breaking away from the usual price off and discount driven promotions consumer were invited to mingle with this 11 lesser known menu items in a very time

in cheek uh dating profiles. So the whole campaigns utilize a range of swipe and interactive formats to encourage uh consumers and fans to find and match in the single 11. There's also in-store activate activation such as uh singles VIP area to drive awareness and bus and engagement of K L L which can uh reference to as well, which helps to build bit more brand conversations and share

their love stories with the single 11 product throughout. I think the result is um I'll mention a bit about the result management for this campaign because it's a very single proposition, uh a single minded proposition, right? It's to rebuild and established brand affinity with Gen X and Gen Z. Sorry, Gen Y and J M Z. What we did is we looked at social engagement as a management, the buzz created throughout um and measuring the impact of

e and paid media activities. So the result is a we overachieve on social engagement with the Nintendo audience and the social bar also boosted um through not just our own paid media effort, but also in publicity across um trade, as well as mass publication and, and where the increase and halo effect from sales performance just from the

single 11 items we see as a secondary benefit. So that's something that um we can use to illustrate in terms of how branding actually kind of establish itself on its own, but have a short term spike on your performance as well. The other campaign is Singapore Airlines. So I believe this would have gotten quite a bit of um attention, at least from the views that we are seeing in the launch month. It, it accumulated close to

43 million views, right? It has recently released uh it was released in January and it's titled Welcome to World Class. So the airline conducted in depth research to measure its global brand perception and we use that insight and finding to create a campaign that resonate with customers around the world. And um this campaign is done in collaboration with TB W A and phd that you can look for it on uh youtube research and you'll be able to pick it up. I'm gonna

do a quick voiceover. It's a 1.5 minute video, but it it's very beautifully done video. So the brand campaign is presented through the eyes of the airline's cabin crew who to travel, her encounter of people, experience of different cultures

and places around the world. The connection that the airline cabin crew bring to the as Singapore Airlines customer right along with their distinctive combination of empathy and confidence that is what enables Singapore Airlines to deliver its world class in flight service. I think this uplifting and emotive brand video like I mentioned, it saw a 43 million views in its long month. And within the first month, we see significant uplift in

brand search volume. That's you know, people are actively seeking out your brand, there's very high conversion rate from this brand activities and finally to actual purchase transactions. Um Next slide, I in summary, just to bring home all together right now, I I I believe and that's where we I think as marketers

and advertising agencies, right? It's about, you know, connecting with the consumer finding that brand opportunities and the right association and resonance with the brand with for the brand to connect with the consumer, make sure consumer is at heart of everything that we do, right? And brand needs to be clear about what they stand for then sell it as well, right? You know, brand needs to know what they stand

for. Don't be everything to everyone, be clear about your position, be clear about what the what is the value that you can offer and make it your own and plan ahead of time, right? Um Branding is something that does need a bit of work. So a lot of the successful branding campaigns that we see takes sometimes months and years to develop, especially when it comes to master brand um having a effect, overall effect over

portfolio of different product units or line extension. And when it comes to brand campaign, establish clear brand matrix because it's easy for someone within the organization to question, right, what is the impact of this brand campaign? Because they will be i it it is common for a lot of organizations who want to look at marketing result from sales, right? We need to deliver on today's success in order to build tomorrow.

But I think it's also being clear about managing expectations and also establishing clear brand metrics and um established with that, right? A clear management plan that's aligned to brand grows, then that's where you are able to kind of justify and also protect that brand synergy and also the brand impact for the long term otherwise, no,

there's a tendency for the organization to do very short term. Yes. No, it drives sales, it drive conversion, it drives bottom line, but it doesn't take the brand to the next level where it can do no more. Yeah, that's, that's a great group for a good brand.

Uh you know, management practices. Uh You know, I I especially found what fascinating was, I mean, you look at Singapore Airlines, we all know what the travel industry went through over the last couple of years when they are during the time of as they are coming back, they chose to announce their entry with the brand campaign, right? I know they've done a lot of sales activation. They need time to fly with, with, with us, which

they are very heavily oriented towards sales activation. But they chose to do a brand campaign during these times, right, of, you know, because they know that you have to make sure that your brand gets enough spotlight, your brand gets nurtured even if the times have been tough for the

travel industry before that. And if you haven't seen this and, and Chloe mentioned you can go to youtube but please switch on the media go channel as well because the Singapore Airlines campaign is on all our channels too. So, all right, I'll move to something else. Technology. Uh I, I don't know, I, I can, I just uh add um I think, you know, some people are asking about SME S and things like that. Um And I mean, just for the record, we don't use uh

a big brand agency. Uh no offense to the brand agencies. But uh you know, so uh I don't believe that uh the brand agencies yet they're good at overall branding or that we don't have big budgets for branding. And um the reason I do it myself is because I feel that I would know my brand better than anybody else. Um So the passion and I guess everybody here is, you know, why are you selling your item. Why are you in

this business? Is your passion? And uh I wanted to add for the SME S, you know, like the, the asking ads. I mean, I really together with our, my, my scriptwriter, uh we come up with the ideas. Um the, the uh is actually my real life assistant. Uh So we are actually making the ads and then, you know, we produce it at uh one of our friend's home studios, uh not very expensive, reasonable price.

So we, we kind of do it. Um But by doing that, we actually improvise on the creative while we're recording. If it doesn't sound funny, we change the line, you know, things like that, go to his flat and we just toggle around with it, you know, play that, that kind of thing. Um A lot of the content we make, we started making ourselves um we would get uh raw footage of the cars or like with our super ambassador, Ken doing raw footage or,

or random stuff. And then we put in uh like, oh, so another thing that we came up with was uh uh my music producer, friend, he composed our Keeping You Safe song. So we actually have a song, keeping you safe and Ken sang that and then we kind of just have that as our jingle and the whole point is just keeping reminding people keeping you safe and so on. Uh I'm not sure if

I put that in the video. But, um, and it's just like something that I just thought up that, you know, I, I, I don't have budget to license music so we just came out with something interesting, lively and, and the keyword so that the song is not very complicated. It's like a minute long, but it's just keeping you safe. I can't sing it properly. But, you know, and I don't think anyone wants to hear me sing it. So um that kind of thing and, you know, we kind

of sell that as, as our key jingle. We kind of um the to, to, to us like our brands in uh overseas. We are considered a very small brand. I mean, I don't have the budget in Thailand like Toyota, they probably have 100 times my budget in Thailand. Uh There's no way I can out advertise them. So the only way I can do it is to be very creative

in our ads to be very uh unusual in our ads. And, and uh you know, I, I mean, just for the record like uh a car TV commercial cost upwards of $1 million each time because it's very complex to move the cars and all that. So, but to me, I felt that like a digital application is really not

that complicated. So we literally have a guy squatting inside the back seat of the car filming the insides and another guy following in another car filming that as the car is moving and uh not so uh expensive and then we kind of cut it, it may not be super professional, but to be honest because people are more interested and with the uh social media, a lot of people create their own content, tiktok has kind of made people like everyone's a content creator.

So I think that what I can share is that don't be afraid to make your content, um don't be afraid to, you don't need production level uh like a high world class level kind of content. You just need uh content that resonates with the audience because everyone is used to homemade

content now. And I think a lot of people pivoted to that during COVID, they were all stuck at home, everybody started making it, uh everybody's phones, you know, it's like uh production level, the iphones, the production level kind of video quality. So, you know, it's things that, you know, you can edit on Tik Tok, it's really quite straightforward. And um and I think it actually is more fun if you and your team actually work with it. Like my, my team, uh you know, uh we, we discuss creative

stuff on our telegram chats every day. We we, we, you know, bounce crazy ideas and, and things like that and actually the best ideas come from with it and, and uh you know, I, I, I think some of the people are asking about uh for SME S and I think that within your team don't be afraid to try new ideas, you can post it on, on

social media and, you know, see how that goes. And I think that kind of uh uh is a good start because the, the content that uh is best made is usually made by the people that work with the product directly. That's such an important myth you shattering here, Glenn, especially in these times, you know, we normally think of brand and performance marketing as two separate categories. In performance marketing,

you can be scrappy, you can be raw. But in brand marketing, you have to be sleek and high class and production quality. What you're saying is not necessarily so you do not need a very high quality, high production house. But you know, it's just stories and as long as the stories resonate, people don't care whether it's raw, innovative social media has attuned us to seeing videos which is very scrappy and very raw and very just heartfelt, right? And that's what

really matters. I think that's a very, very important point that you made and I want our audiences to take note of this. People think that if I have to do brand marketing, I have to have a huge production quality budget allocated for that. Maybe not all you need is a good story and great stories come from people who feel about the brand who feel about the product, uh great points.

You know, I have a couple of other questions but I want to take the audience question and I found, uh so let me just change the, you know, uh the, the, the track a bit. One of the questions, is it a specific question for a specific industry? It's about customer loyalty, customer loyalty starts wavering during the times of economic crisis. Now, this individual has talked about, uh you know, he's talking

about a mid-sized local apparel brand. Uh not a big brand, uh you know, e-commerce brand, but a mid-sized local apparel brand. How do you keep customers loyal during economic crisis? Any thoughts on this from either of you? Uh Yeah, so I mean, I'm just gonna chime in uh you know, keeping customers loyal is quite interesting, right? Um Customers these days again, they want to see what, what's, what's in it for me? What does my product, uh what value do I get from paying you? $50 for

this item? What value do I get for paying $3 for this item? So it's really about showing the customers how your product is different and how your product consistently uh can improve their lives. So I think that is the main thing I would buy a product to improve my life experience. So how do you keep that? And it's not about all this, my, I feel like the the badge of the brand is not important anymore. It's more about what can your brand or what can

your product, uh, help for? Like, what does it do for me? What does it, uh, stand for? How does it improve my life? Why is, you know, why is your product, uh, when I buy it? What kind of satisfaction do I get from it? And

how does it give me continued satisfaction? And that kind of keeps them coming back, um, for, uh, like, you know, even like in mcdonald's, you know, everybody loves their French fries, everybody loves the mcnuggets and people just keep coming back over and over again because it's a comfort food. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So talk, talk in terms of the customer and not just about your brand features. I

think it's an important one. You know, there's a question on technology uh about chat GP T and that was meant to be my next question as well. So why don't we combine an audience question with my question? What do you think of the technology? So four things metaverse N F T chat GP T uh what else, uh you know, artificial intelligence, all these A R A R V R, what you know, are these all buzzwords or is there any of these technologies that you feel particularly passionate about

uh Glenn? Let's start with you and then we can, you know, we'll come to you after that. Well, so, I mean, um in terms of A R V R like in our case, we use V R to show uh car crashes. So we actually kind of uh that. So that was a bit complicated. But we used it because I there's no way for me to demonstrate what is, what happens in a crash. So we kind of use the V R technology with the Oculus headset to show people at road.

So, so we will bring the car to malls and then show that and then, but you know, people say, oh your car crash, you know, in the old days you show a video of the car crashing, but people cannot feel it. So you kind of use the V R headset to show like, oh when in a crash, what happens? Because I cannot keep crashing a car, it's just not possible, right? So, uh we kind of use that to show what's what happens in a crash and

how the car keeps you safe. And of course, you know, in terms of like uh chat GP T and things like that, um What's interesting is so far in our case, we work with uh uh uh kind of A I company recently, I just started working with them and we basically uh are working on how to answer the customers inquiries using A I uh 24 7 because so, you know, my team can answer the queries in a day, but sometimes at night, my car is broken down. People usually don't call, they're

used to typing questions on the chat board. And so you kind of use that to say, oh, if your car has a problem, this is what you do with kind of standard answers because usually in an emergency situation, people are confused and, and they want an answer straight away or in the case of, you know, at night they're surfing and they want to know how much is this car. So we use A I to kind of answer that kind of question for them. Uh So I think that it's good for answering fa

Q s that in the past people would search online for. But, you know, it's kind of the, if there's standard questions that you can answer, uh then A I will be good for that. But, and if they cannot, then it will be kind of escalated to a live person to call you back tomorrow morning, something like that. So I think that's how we use uh A I and uh V R technology uh in, in our case for, for at least for end consumers uh uh uh where we go business. Uh uh B to C Yeah,

got it. Uh We just a note for the audience. I know we are over time but we are, we're extending it a little bit because the discussion is very engaging. So if you can stick with us for uh seven more minutes, that will be great. Uh We've got some interesting things. Coming up, uh you know, pretty soon Floy your take on technology. I know you have something interesting to share with us. Yeah, I, I think when you look at um, the

current landscape, right? Be N F T Metaverse or G BT, when, when you talk about T G BT is largely around the A I, I think at one it's about bringing all together and make it meaningful um to your consumer in the space that is appropriate for the brand, right? I think if you look at A I, that's all the encompassing and you see a lot of functionality and application of it in the consumer life. But no, in terms of technology, there's always an opportunity to kind of merge it altogether.

And um in fact, no, there's a strong synergy between the different technology advancement. It's not one over the other. Um I attended a few sessions around um technology for Asia, right? So we are going to see a big impact, not just in the metaverse France, but adoption of A I for business. Um There is this site for our audience who are keen uh and you do not want to write your own marketing brief anymore. You can go to uncreative dot A I, right?

So basically you are able to put in keywords and you generate a marketing brief for your agency or for your team internally and it it's pretty good, I must say, right? And those are business application. In fact, this particular slide we have generated using A A I tag. So it's purely automated. So in no, the impact of metaverse N F T and A I no. And the problem comes this is the problem that we put in and what we get out this whole slide, including the

image and all. In fact, there's more, in fact, it generated a six page document. But what we did is no, we took the closing summary and this is what you see, right? So that is very powerful application. But I think with any technology is about human understanding, the human connections and elements that you put it into to make it better because it's circular. I know machine learning comes from uh extensive data and human generate that experience in an exposure into those data to free

a machine for further technology advancement. So I say no future of marketing human led A I empowered human led A I power. That's great. I mean, that's, that's, you know, that's scary and fascinating, right?

I mean, it's scary that you told me the slide is no human intervention whatsoever, which means people who take a lot of pride in just creating a slide uh will say, oh my God, my job is being done by A I. But I think human imagination and this is where your earlier point, Glenn's earlier points about, you know, storytelling, human imagination, uh bringing out a passion in your in your messaging that is still need human beings, right? So it's a combination

of both. I think that's a great one. So uh there, there, there's one question over here uh which I do wanna address, which is uh you know, by Marcus, he's asking digital activations. How do you go beyond C T R S when you look at a typical digital campaign, uh what's there beyond C T R s? How do you make sure that we get more deeper metrics than C T R? Any, any advice to Marcus? Um I mean, in, in our case, yeah, you know, just, just clicking through is not gonna help. So you have

to look at the whole uh user experience, right? The whole user journey from when you see the ad to that they actually uh touch your product. So how do you, you know um link this whole thing up? So at the end of the day, what do you want the end consumer to do is to purchase your product, right? So whatever you do, you have to think through. So it's if you just have a brand campaign and then where does it go? W w at the end of the day, if I'm the consumer, where does the journey end? So

the end point is where you actually start. So you don't start with, I want to do this for the brand, you start with, what do I want the end consumer to feel at the end of the day. And if I want him to feel him or her, to feel that I want to touch the product, I want him to feel the product, then, then your brain campaign starts the other way. So a lot of people start from the top, but actually you

should start from the end result that you want. And I think um uh so, so brand events uh is very important to not just have branding, but at the end of the day, what do you want the consumer to feel? Uh uh at the end of the day, it should always be. What do you want the consumer to feel at the end of the day for your product? That's, that is very important. If not, there's no point in just doing a generic brand campaign. If they like mcdonald's won't do

a brand campaign. No one comes and buys the french fries. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, IC T R is just one measure of a particular touch point, right? You have to, as you said, you have to have different touch points with the consumer and each touchpoint requires a different metric, a different uh measurement, one metric. Yeah. Not just one metric. I think that's a great fun. All right, I have a sum up slide and then I have a fun

question for uh both of you. This is a slide, you know, I, you know, this is done by a two leading lum in this field of marketing, Bennett and field uh check them out. They are very famous for a rule called 60 party rule. Now you may or may not agree with the 60 party rule. It says 60% of your budget is to be spent on brand marketing, 40% on performance marketing. I know there are caveats with it, but

they are very famous for that rule. They, you know, for those of you who find it very difficult to actually argue it out with your CEO S with your management on how do you allocate money between brand and performance? This is a great one. What it shows is this sales uplift on the on the y axis, you have sales uplift on the on on on the x axis.

You have time right now. If you look at the entire those spikes over there, those brown colored spikes, those are temporary sales uplift impact due to sales activation. Now those are very important. Of course, you need those spikes. But notice one thing, the spikes are staying at the sale same level every time you do a sales activation, only a sales activation, the overall demand does not go up.

The overall demand goes up when you're doing brand and building, you know, the black or the dark brown line over there. So you need both. You do need day to day temporary spikes with sales activation. But your overall brand, the consumer base will grow only if you build a brand long term. And if you do long term planning, long term branding, your sales growth will grow as well. So both need and I think this is a great way of articulating what both our panelists have been talking about.

Sales activations are good performance is great, but you have to do brand building, especially in times of economic volatility, you cannot ignore brand building. We saw some great examples. Glenn has some great examples of how he's combining heart brain and Wallet Croy showed us example of hosting airlines is actually starting with a big brand campaign in these times. So both are needed and I think is the great way to articulate that. So we are at the end of the time. Uh just one last question

for both the audience. This is nothing to do with this particular topic. But we just love to end on a more personal note. Uh You know, what's the, you know, what's the one book or a movie or a TV series that has inspired you that you would like to share with this audience? So uh Glenn let me start with you and then Chloe will come to you. Uh Well, I mean, uh doesn't mean this is a media cop thing and I'm, I'm promoting a media cop show, but I actually like downstairs, the cartoon that you have

on me watching it. So funny. And um the reason why I like it is because, you know, um each episode is only a couple of minutes long but, and it, this Mr This Dong never gives up and, you know, that's the kind of attitude we should all have that, you know, he was never afraid to reach the sky, never dare to, never afraid to dare to dream. And we should not

be afraid to make fun of ourselves. And the situation we find ourselves in And I think, you know, Dong and, and the the downstairs characters, uh these are the very basic things that encompass, you know, if don, if downstairs was actually selling a product, it will be quite effective. And, and I actually quite, I really look forward to, to, to watching it all the time because I really think it's really funny and kind of tongue in cheek and, you know, books fun of like

um social media, there's some episodes on there. So I think these are things that um and this actually is the attitude that you should have when you actually do marketing. So I think downstairs would be an ideal way to kind of for sme people who are tuning in. Um you know, as this is the the simplest best way to, you know, get uh audiences that, that that's a straight from your heart recommendation. Glenn

just like radicalizing. Thank you for that. And for those of you who have not seen Downstairs, please go to me, watch it's there on me watch. It's, it's, it's really funny and it's really funny in a very original and a very earthy way. Uh Chloe. Uh What about you? What inspires you? I'm more of a reader. So, um you, you mentioned a book, right? So I think one that comes to my mind is Trillion dollar coach, um which codifies the

coaching beliefs and principle, Bill Campbell, right? A business coach to trillion dollar businesses like Google and Apple. And why this book has a special meaning for me. For one is a gift from Mac uh co-founder and chief executive officer for Mill, um an inspiring and humble leader whom I personally respect. He sent me this book after our catch up during the pandemic um where we share about each other's struggle and growth in our leadership journey.

And this book is special for me because a lot of the coaching beliefs and principle around people, teams trust and charity really resonate with me, right? My personal mantra is to be a better version of myself and as part of my growth journey, bring someone along. So echoing one of Bills can bells inspiring code when you are blessed, be a blessing. That's wonderful. It's a great book. Uh Chloe, I mean, Bill Campbell has been a coach to most of the Silicon Valley CEO S and I I written the name

on the messaging of message over here. So please do look it up uh for all of you who are here? All right. Thank you very much. This has been an insightful engaging and for me a big learning session. Thank you, Glenn. Thank you Chloe. Thank you very much, everyone. Thanks for hanging out with us, see you again soon. Uh Stay safe and have a great time.