BRANDTHINK Malaysia » Insights

#04 Media+Headlines: New Looks for the New Year & A Gr8 Bash

BRANDTHINK Malaysia — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 04:32:37 +0000

Welcome to Issue #04 of Media+Headlines, our brand new article series focusing on the latest trends around media in Malaysia. As we greet the new year, we would like to highlight a couple of publications doing greetings of their own too.

Malay Mail returns

After a month-long hiatus in which the publication re-looked at its features and offerings, the Malay Mail returns with a new take on news.

Instead of a free afternoon daily, the Malay Mail is now positioned as an “evening tabloid covering Klang Valley”. In 2009, the paper was sold by Media Prima Berhad to the Redberry Group. Prior to Media Prima, the Malay Mail was one of New Straits Times Press’ publications and had a strong presence in classified ads.

To keep up with the times (and the competition, to an extent), Malay Mail is also solidifying its digital presence, with a dedicated website and a Twitter account which has almost 6,000 followers. The change in the paper’s business model comes with a focus on in-depth investigative reports. Its current editor is Yushaimi Yahaya.

Prestige Magazine’s New Look

“A new approach, a beautiful new look and exciting new contents” – according to Prestige editor Winne Yong, that’s what can be expected of Prestige magazine this year, as a result of its regional strengthening exercise. The magazine, now licensed under Burda Singapore Pte. Ltd. will see a change in the way it delivers luxury news and editorials.

With new sections in the monthly magazines such as Fanfare, The High Life, and The Good Life, the publication is set for a year full of excitement and glamour via its unique monthly offerings.

8TV 8th Anniversary Big 8 Bash

Local television channel 8TV marked its eighth year of broadcast in Malaysia by hosting a grand anniversary celebration for the public. Held at the 1Utama old wing car park, a stone’s throw away from its studio in Sri Pentas, the anniversary celebration kicked off with a carnival-like atmosphere, emphasized by games, petting zoos and other fun games. Two Twitter hashtags were created for the celebration: #Celebr8 and #Big8Bash

The celebration was topped off with the 8th Anniversary Countdown Concert in the evening, featuring performances by local artistes and celebrities. The Countdown Concert was also broadcast live to homes and available to stream on the internet.

8TV is owned by Media Prima and is catered to the young urban community, through its variety of shows and programs. The channel also caters to the Chinese community through selected programs, such as the prime time news – which is the only Chinese language prime time news in the country.

– E –

Media+Headlines is a brand new series of articles on what’s happening in and around the media scene. Combining resources from our PR, advertising and media agency teams in Malaysia, we’ll be bringing you updates and analysis on the latest trends in publishing, editorial and events related to newspapers, magazines, television and other media in Malaysia.

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#03 Media+Headlines: Newspapers’ Specials in Malaysia

BRANDTHINK Malaysia — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 18:35:05 +0000

Welcome to Issue #03 of Media+Headlines, our brand new article series focusing on the latest trends around media in Malaysia. Today, we take on the ever increasing competition between English dailies in Malaysia in its fight for readership, advertising dollars and marketshare.

Bid & Win with The Star Newspaper

On the 11th of November 2011, The Star, Malaysia’s leading English language daily revealed a contest for consumers in conjunction with the celebration of their 40th Anniversary this year.

The Bid & Win contest is based on the bidding mechanics. Every day from 11th November 2011 till 5th January 2012, different Star Points will be published on the front page of the daily. The points come in denominations of 100, 200, 300, 400 or 500. The highest bidder has to answer a question correctly to win the prize.

The bidding process happens every two weeks, and every cycle sees a new set of prizes up for grabs. So far there are laptops, massage chairs and home theatre systems on offer. The grand prize up for bidding at the last cycle (early next year) is a Peugeot RCZ.

BRANDTHINK’s take: If historical evidence is any indication, promotions like this from The Star is an instant crowd-puller. For readers who are eyeing the sports car, they may be stockpiling on as many The Star newspapers they can get everyday – which may not necessary be what advertisers want. But the increase in unique readership as a result will offset the small percentage of hardcore contestants who are hoarding multiple copies of the daily.

New Straits Times Special 3D edition

Also on the special date of 11th November 2011 (11.11.11), another English daily added some pizzazz to their daily edition. This time, it involved the power of 3D.

New Straits Times readers were greeted on Friday morning with a pair of 3D glasses in the Life & Times pullout and a 3D-ready newspaper. Almost all advertisements and several editorial content in the publication was published in 3D format. The 3D-ready content were marked by a “Best Viewed in 3D” symbol.

Also in the 11.11.11 edition of NST, the NSTP group managing editor, Abdul Jalil Hamid announced a convergence of content and presentation for the 166-year-old publication across four platforms: mobile, online, print and the iPad.

BRANDTHINK’s take: Not a bad way to make an impact in the industry. The 11.11.11 edition may even be seen as a collector’s item because of its the unique 3D content scattered throughout the daily. It is also valuable to advertisers – the added dimension to their advertisements that day may even see a higher-than-usual recall rate. But more importantly is the announcement of a multichannel strategy that would allow the paper to tap into a wider audience.

Google+: Sink or Swim?

Google’s homegrown brand of online social networking, Google Plus (also known as Google+ or G+), was one of the newest additions to the social networking scene. It has been almost four months since its launch, and how are consumers (not forgetting businesses and brands alike hoping to leverage on it) adapting G+ to their daily life cycle?

Initially available to a select few through beta testing (and later on, invites), G+ in its basic elements do not differ markedly from its main competitor, Facebook. Functions and appearances such as profile view, photos, updates and other shared media are similar to Facebook’s. There are differences unique to Google+, but its current feature sets are still under development and trails behind Facebook’s extensive platform.

However, G+ does bring a few brand new features to the table. “Hangouts” lets up to 10 people join in a video chat. The “+1” button functions like a “Like” button on Facebook, but we believe the “+1” function is currently, or will eventually play a big role in search results on Google. Something that marketers need to be aware of for Search Engine Marketing (SEO) purposes.

For more insights on Google+, read our comparison article: Trend Watch: Social Media Fragmentation – Facebook or Google+?

– E –

Media+Headlines is a brand new series of articles on what’s happening in and around the media scene. Combining resources from our PR, advertising and media teams, we’ll be bringing you updates and analysis on the latest trends in publishing, editorial and events related to newspapers, magazines, television and other media in Malaysia.

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Trend Watch: Social Media Fragmentation – Facebook or Google+?

BRANDTHINK Malaysia — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 07:33:13 +0000

Over the past week, Google launched their Google+ pages for Brands in order to capitalize on the use of social media by businesses around the world. New networks in the social networking scene would no doubt create a potential sea of change in all social media campaigns in the coming future. How does Google+ currently stack up against Facebook Pages? What should you, as brand managers, or us as an agency take note of?

Facebook Brand Pages

A Facebook campaign created by BRANDTHINK Malaysia

The fact that Facebook Pages had a long head start allowed the company to tweak and improve the experience of engaging customers with brands via the platform.

But the biggest advantage Facebook page has over Google+ — apps. Apps can be created and run on Facebook pages and has been one of the major engagement opportunities for brands and consumers.

Facebook’s mobile applications also allow the experience to extend beyond the desktop to mobile phones. With the recent tweaks to the Facebook App for iPhone, even custom applications and games can be used on the mobile, something that would undoubtedly extend the reach of brands from the desktop to the mobile.

Coupled with a strong ad platform that emphasizes the social connection with friends and pages, integration with location services, customizability with the use of Custom Tabs has allowed Facebook to be the Gold standard for every brand’s social media strategy.

Google+ Brand Pages

When Google+ first launched, we had described it as Facebook meets Twitter. Having a go at the recently launched Google+ for brands, we have to conclude that it’s still not quite ready for prime time.

Nice features like public video chats via the Hangouts feature is overshadowed by deficiencies like the inability to assign multiple administrators to the Page. It will be difficult for any social media agency team to collaborate on a brand page with such limitations.

Google’s use of indecipherable address in the URL, unlike Facebook’s “vanity URL” is also a downside. Brands invest heavily through advertising to promote their social media platforms, and if they have to choose between facebook.com/mybrand or plus.google.com/107051503820974236811, it’s easy to see which they’ll pick.

More importantly, without a strong focus on building APIs that third-party developers can use to extend the utility of Google+ — something essential to the strength any social media platform – it will trail behind Facebook for the time being.

To be fair, Google+ Brand Pages was launched only recently a fix to many of the gripes is said to be in the works, so the future is long. But with its current limitations, it’s hard to say if it’ll be used for more than just being a new experiment.

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#02 Media+Headlines: New Reality TV, Crowd-Sourcing StyleKandi

BRANDTHINK Malaysia — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 10:46:19 +0000

Welcome to Issue #02 of Media+Headlines, our brand new article series focusing on the latest trends around media in Malaysia. This issue we are taking a glimpse of Masterchef Malaysia, Crowd-sourcing trends on StyleKandi and 16 years of Cleo in Malaysia.

Breaking News: Google+ launches Brand Pages

Just as we’re finalizing this edition of Media+Headlines, Google launched it’s Google+ Brand Pages. This add yet another channel to the already crowded set of social media tools brand managers are required to look into for their social media campaigns. Can Google+ take the game to Facebook Page, the current gold standard? The jury is still out on that one. In any case, we’ve started our own page just in case. Our first gripe? The address is really ugly at: https://plus.google.com/107051503820974236811/

MasterChef Malaysia

The international television cooking show franchise, Masterchef, has finally landed on our shores in the form of Masterchef Malaysia. The locally-produced version of the reality show helmed by Astro Ria will see 24 amateur chefs pitted against each other to be crowned Malaysia’s first Masterchef.

Unlike the Australian or American version of Masterchef (which has a set of judges), the Malaysian edition has a panel of five judges who will rotate the duty of judging every week.

The series, which is airing on Astor Ria (Channel 103) and StarWorld (Channel 711) is produced and filmed entirely in Bahasa Malaysia. The main sponsor of the show is Panasonic, and the show has already attracted a steady stream of advertisers like Hong Leong Bank, Maggi and Jaya Grocers.

BRANDTHINK’s take: Not without controversy to begin with, the success of the show will come from the interplay of personalities of the judges and the contenders. In the American version, viewers look out for both the outlandish characters of the judges as well as the near orgasmic quality of the dishes created. We’ll see how Malaysians fare in the face of such high pre-set standards. Nevertheless, the popularity of the US and Australian versions would have given the Malaysian version a built-in audience to tap into.

StyleKandi – crowd-sourcing Asian trends

Mark Wills, StyleKandi co-founder: “We wanted to build a community around the love of brands and products for Asian people – a place where people, who applaud brands, could share, discover and learn. A place where brands could also be part of that conversation.”

StyleKandi is a new online sharing platform aimed at bringing together style and fashion-related media to its users. Unlike other content aggregator websites or exclusively-online editorials which are managed and maintained by computer software programs or hired hands, StyleKandi relies on its userbase of members to create, share and display content on the website. The crowd-sourcing method proves to be a pull, seeing as many are hopping on the bandwagon of Collective Inspiration.

Targeting Asian consumers between the ages of 18-34 years old, StyleKandi’s model is similar to that of popular microblogging website, tumblr and visual bookmark websites. Users stamp their approval on an item with the “Love It!” gadget and share their own content by uploading it from their hard drive or from an online source. There is also a Shopping Filter function on the website (which can be turned on or off), which is used to find out where an item is sold – a plus point for small business owners based online who want more visibility through the internet clutter.

StyleKandi is looking at businesses, brands and fashion designers alike to utilize the website as a unified platform of sorts to reach out to and engage with the consumers. The free membership is expected to attract big name brands, indie designers and fashion enthusiasts, where they can gain public exposure for their content and maybe even a loyal band of followers.

BRANDTHINK’s take: While we are quite enamored with the whole concept, two things will be required to keep the site relevant. The first being the ability for the crowd to continue to contribute very high quality content that isn’t repetitious, and second the ability to really filter out what’s hot from the not. Something we will be inclined to watch in the coming months. Do check out our experimental page on StyleKandi at http://www.stylekandi.com/brandthink

Cleo is 16

One of Malaysia’s English magazines turned 16 years old this month. Monthly women’s publication Cleo marked their 16 anniversary with a new competitive price (RM 5.00 from RM 5.80) and a promotional campaign to drive further growth.

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#01 Media+Headlines: iPad Publishers, New Magazine

BRANDTHINK Malaysia — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 07:05:45 +0000

Print, Online or iPad? Trends in tablet publishing

Many publications in Malaysia are looking at the seamless integration of their traditional publications with the digital media. While most magazines and newspapers already have an online presence through their respective official websites, some have taken the plunge into bringing their offerings to iPad users through apps.

The Star, Malaysia’s leading English newspaper with a circulation of almost 300,000 daily, was one of the first publications to hop on the iPad app bandwagon. The Star, Malaysia app was released in the earlier part of 2011 and has become a staple for those who seek for daily news in Malaysia on their iPad.

New to the scene and launched in Oct 2011, The Edge Malaysia has released its own iPad app, bringing the Financial Daily newspaper to the tablet form. The app contains news contents aggregated from both The Edge Financial Daily and The Edge Malaysia weekly (focusing on business and investments).

Catcha-owned Juice Magazine recently threw a grand party to celebrate the launch of its iPad app. Boasting more than its regular themes and topics, the JUICE Magazine app features interactive content like videos and audio material.

All three apps are available for free from iTunes or the app store.

The Edge: http://itunes.apple.com/my/app/edge-tablet/id472052296?mt=8

The Star: http://itunes.apple.com/my/app/the-star-malaysia/id392881083?mt=8

Juice Magazine: http://itunes.apple.com/my/app/juice-magazine/id454728862?mt=8

The apps that we have seen so far have ranged from the effort to created iPad-unique versions of the publication to replicating the look and feel of the print cousins to the tablet format. It’s still too early to tell which strategy will work best but some advertisers have begun to run tablet specific advertising campaigns in this new medium, such as HSBC’s ad campaign within The Star’s iPad app.

WW Launches Fashionably

A new Malay-language women’s magazine debuted its inaugural issue in this past month of September. Headed by former Glam editor-in-chief Wirda Adnan, WW is targeted at affluent Malay and Malay-speaking Malaysian women aged 27 and above.

The magazine, owned by MPH Magazine Group and published by W Publication concentrates on fashion, beauty and lifestyle.

WW Magazine (which stands for Wanita dan Wawasan or Women and Vision) caters to the ambitious and educated woman of today and offers a fresh perspective on style and substance through its localized content, and can be identified by its covers featuring local celebrities and social figures.

Media Events and Happenings

Prestige Magazine recently held a Shakin’ Supper Party in conjunction with its annual edition of the “Top 40 Under 40” awards. The retro-themed bash held at The Elements Gallery in Ampang saw the attendance of who’s who in town – some members of the media and celebrities. Dominic Lau of E! News Asia fame was spotted, as was Fay Hokulani.

The main sponsors of the bash were BMW, Kronenbourg 1664, among others.

Prestige will be having another celebration in October, this time to commemorate its 10th Anniversary at the diamond-themed Infinite Ball. In its October 2011 issue, Prestige looked back at its past balls and themes.

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Trend Watch: Marketing in the era of the iPad

BRANDTHINK Malaysia — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 03:05:10 +0000

In April, we published a post about how the iPad will change marketing. Now that it’s June and the iPad had the time to sell through 2 million units worldwide (an amazing figure), we are now seeing signs of iPad ACTUALLY changing marketing.

Who’s doing it at the moment?

1. Wired Magazine iPad Edition

Wired recently launched their Wired Magazine June edition and literally set the bar for digital magazines. Designed specifically for the iPad and taking advantage of the benefits of it being digital as well as offering iPad exclusive content, the Wired app quickly became the best-selling app on the iTunes store.

As Chris Anderson, Editor of Wired said in its Editor’s Note, “The tablet is our opportunity to make the Wired we always dreamed of. It has all the visual impact of paper, enhanced by interactive elements like video and animated infographics. We can offer you a history of Mars landings that lets you explore the red planet yourself. We can take you inside Trent Reznor’s recording studio and let you listen to snippets of his work in progress. And we can show you exactly how Pixar crafted each frame of its new movie, Toy Story 3.”

2. Mercedes-Benz to use iPad as sales tool

The program, called Mercedes-Benz Advantage, puts the iPad into the hands of the automaker’s sales force. With the iPad and Mercedes’ new sales tool app, associates will have lightning-fast access to the latest deals, while also providing a quicker turnaround time for customer credit application processes. Benz also says the iPad will help speed up the time it takes to turn-in a leased vehicle. Andreas Hinrichs, Vice President of Marketing for Mercedes-Benz Financial, contends the Apple tablet will “provide a competitive advantage to our dealers by increasing their service levels through a more flexible financing process.”

3. Jetstar to use iPad as inflight entertainment

Jetstar has gone a step further and using the iPad as a point of differentiation to its computer. Australian media has reported that the Qantas-owned budget airline will begin trials of the product in June. Jetstar chief executive Bruce Buchanan said he expected the iPads to prove very popular onboard.

“Given the demand for the iPad so far, I anticipate it will have strong appeal amongst our passengers,” Mr Buchanan said in the statement. ”Based on demand for the iPads as part of the trial, we’ll be looking to roll out the devices across our entire domestic and international network later in the year.”

More to come – for sure

The examples given above are just a handful. As the iPad is launched internationally, businesses and brands around the world are scrambling to create iPad versions of its apps. In Australia, banks and even Domino’s Pizza has launched iPad apps to capitalise on its popularity.

As the platform matures, we’ll see more and more creative use of the iPad to push the boundaries of marketing further and to create new ways to engage with consumers.

If you come across any local or regional examples of brands using the iPad as a marketing/sales tool, do let us know!

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Facebook to Advertisers: No low-quality ads

BRANDTHINK Malaysia — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 20:17:51 +0000

Early this month, Facebook unveiled new guidelines on advertising on its performance network. The new guidelines aim to weed out questionable ads on its performance network. Personally, we think it’s a good development as improving the quality of advertising on its performance network will ultimately improve credibility and trust.

Facebook’s advertising guidelines can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/ad_guidelines.php and its promotion guidelines found here: http://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php

The above information is obtained from affiliate marketer Jonathan Volk, from a more detailed document by Facebook.

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Trend Watch: Apple launches iAd – Mobile Advertising with Emotion

BRANDTHINK Malaysia — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 08:36:07 +0000

Steve Jobs previewing the iAd. Image from Engadget.com

At its Developer Preview of the iPhone 4.0 software, Apple launched the iAd. iAd, Apple’s new mobile advertising platform, combines the emotion of TV ads with the interactivity of web ads. Today, when users click on mobile ads they are almost always taken out of their app to a web browser, which loads the advertiser’s webpage. Users must then navigate back to their app, and it is often difficult or impossible to return to exactly where they left.

iAd solves this problem by displaying full-screen video and interactive ad content without ever leaving the app, and letting users return to their app anytime they choose. iPhone OS 4 lets developers easily embed iAd opportunities within their apps, and the ads are dynamically and wirelessly delivered to the device. With the iAd, Apple intends to milk opportunities from impressions on their devices.

Is it game-changing and revolutionary? Time will tell but we believe that it is definitely a market mover for many of us who works in a marketing function.

How will that affect mobile advertising?

It’s no secret that consumers largely have embraced the mobile life. The smartphone market is exploding thanks to the likes of Apple’s iPhone, RIM’s Blackberry and Google’s Android. Steve Jobs have rightly observed that on the phone, the Web plays a less important role compared to the desktop where it is the primary interface. Interaction with the phone happens primarily on the app, and that is where opportunities lie. Having a standard platform that enables us to create interactivity and advertising is always welcomed because it helps us focus on the engagement aspects with the consumer.

Another note to observe is that the implementation of this platform will be on HTML5. With many technology companies championing HTML5 instead of Flash, is it time to milk the opportunities and ramp up the development of HTML5?

Questions to come

There are still questions left unanswered and the details would surface in the next few weeks.

How will Malaysian advertisers buy ad space?

Will the ads be Cost per click? Or by impressions?

Our take

The dust have not settled yet from the launch of the iPad and Apple’s has thrown a curve ball at us. In Malaysia, the iPhone market is still relatively small, but we expect Apple’s approach to mobile advertising will be copied by other platforms and the entire market will move in that direction. In a not too distant future, almost all major smartphone platforms will have its own implementation of the iAd.

As marketers, we will need to consider the implications of reaching consumers on the mobile platform and there are now a variety of ways to do that – via an Branded App (such as Gap’s) or through iAd-like platforms.

In preparation, we should begin exploring and sharpening our methods in creating an experience for our consumers. We will need to understand how consumers will interact with our Apps, or our Ads. We will require data, insights and information to analyze and optimize.

If you believe that the market is still birthing and it’s too soon, consider this: what value will you place on experience, insight and knowledge gathered from real-world results? That power comes only from seeing how your brand engages the consumer in this platform.

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Trend Watch: How will the Apple iPad change marketing?

BRANDTHINK Malaysia — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 15:00:53 +0000

The moment has come, Apple today shipped the iPad — billed as a game changer in the tech world. Few product launches have received as much attention as the iPad since the iPhone or the iPod, and those two examples radically changed the music and phone industry permanently.

There are of course those who rubbish the launch of the iPad as nothing more than just an oversized iPhone. They have gone as far as claiming its demise. It’s easy to understand why: the iPad looks like a bigger version of the iPhone and runs the same operating system. However, dig deep into the product and you’ll uncover that many negativity surrounding the iPad stems from comparison with other netbooks and standard notebooks. The real power of the iPad comes not from hardware, but from software. The iPad’s allure will come from its power to change traditional media and consumer behavior along with it.

How will these developments affect you as a marketer? Here are some key areas to consider:

1. The iPad will change printed media

The biggest hopes for the iPad is its potential as a game-changer for publishers. The possibilities range from creation of magazines and books that have the ability to marry the traditional ease of use of a book or magazine and add in the interactivity of digital.

Suddenly, each press, magazine or book comes alive with the ability to add in video, animation and connectivity. The iPad’s relative ease makes the “pick-me-up” factor a whole lot easier.

If the iPad succeeds in changing publishing, it will also change advertising. Advertising in an iPad world will mean integrating into such an environment. The winner will not come from simply making a banner ad within an ad space, but product placement potential, interactivity and targeting to make the ad relevant and alive.

Take a look at Wired magazine’s iPad edition to see the potential.

2. The iPad will change television

It’s no secret that many consumers have become dual-users of media. One eye would be fixed on the television while the other their computers. The iPad will make interactivity a big possibility. It’s easier for consumers to carry in their hand and the intuitive nature of touch screens makes it more natural.

What are the possibilities? Interactivity can be added into all TV programs. Consumers can access sports scores, live statistics and timing during live sporting events. Additional information and images can be viewed following a news story. Voting can conducted during a reality TV show. While there are already applications created for the iPhone and the Blackberry, the iPad provides a bigger canvas to make content easier to consume. It will change the entire experience of watching TV.

3. The iPad will change marketing literature

What’s the current arsenal of sales tool do you have at your disposal? Brochures? Leaflets? Price lists?

The iPad will change the way salespeople do sales calls. You can replace bulky computers with sleek iPads for presentations. The battery life and the size wins any computer hands down and the form factor makes it infinitely more agile than a computer.

You can replace heavy brochures, catalogues and leaflets with the iPad. Plus you can add interactivity into the iPad that makes your brochures come alive. You can help customers customize their products on the spot or fill up an order form. Finally, It is infinitely more updatable than a printed brochure or leaflet.

Gap's iPad application - Digital catalogue and e-commerce site

4. The iPad will change your Agency

Here at BRANDTHINK Malaysia, we’re beginning our own exploration on how the iPad can be utilized for greater marketing purposes. Smart phones have already shown us the great potential of marketing beyond the traditional media and even past the standard computers into the realm of mobile and smart devices. The iPad will add an interesting new dimension.

That means new challenges for us. Our team will will be undergoing new training to adapt. We’ll have to partner with our clients to explore potential applications. How our client’s customers respond to this new era will have to be taken into account and our strategies adjusted accordingly.

5. The iPad will change you.

How are you responding as a marketer?

Are you taking steps to prepare for changes in print and electronic media?

Are you studying the potential of interactivity in your ads, your brochures and your sales tools?

Have you started imagining the possibilities?

– END

To see how the iPad will change business, you can also visit a story by the Huffington Post. Time Magazine also ran a cover story on the iPad in time for the iPad’s launch. Its review is also published here.

To learn more about the iPad, visit Apple’s website at: http://www.apple.com/ipad

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BRANDTHINK Tapes, Live on BFM 89.9

BRANDTHINK Malaysia — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 09:32:53 +0000

Recently, we sat down with the kind folks over at BFM89.9 and shared our thoughts on marketing, advertising, agency life and our business. Listen in to our interviews on Malaysia’s business station, BFM 89.9. These interviews were aired on Wednesdays at 1pm on BFM’s Resource Centre.

Episode 1: Marketing 101

Is marketing simply an advertising campaign? This episode explores the basics of marketing for SMEs and how different real-world marketing is from the textbooks.

Episode 2: Exploring Non-traditional Forms of Marketing

Are traditional forms of marketing dead? Join the discussion on how new marketing techniques like social media are changing the way businesses communicate with consumers and whether traditional forms of marketing are still relevant today.

Episode 3: Measuring Returns on Investment

How do you measure the success of your marketing campaign? Explore the different ways businesses should measure their entire marketing function – from ad campaign management, PR campaigns to branding activities – and how measurement can aid in business success.

Episode 4: What Makes a Great Agency, What Makes a Great Client

How do you create a successful partnership between an agency (ad agency, pr agency or events company) and a client? By being pairing a great agency and a great client. In this episode, we discuss about our ideas on what makes a great agency and a great client.

For more about BFM89.9, visit their website at www.bfm.my.

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Values of A Really Great Agency

BRANDTHINK Malaysia — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:47:14 +0000

In about 10 weeks from today, BRANDTHINK Malaysia will celebrate 10 years in the marketing communications industry. What started as a boutique ad agency in the year 2000 has grown into an integrated communications group that includes PR, interactive and activation. BT2010 is a passion project to highlight our thoughts and aspirations as we draw closer to our big year. Over the next 10 weeks, we’ll share our List of 10 on what we believe in, our hopes and our dreams for the future.

10 Values of A Really Great Agency

10 years is a really long time in this industry and in that time, I am often asked what differentiate us from other agencies. What makes us unique? Rather than the tired notion of how creative we are, or how good we are at providing great solutions or best thought-out ideas – things that every agency should already be good at – we thought we’d share with you what we believe are values that define a great agency.

1. Integrity
With the recent backlash in financial markets that resulted in the worst economic crisis of our time, the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles is more important now than any other time. Integrity must become a central part of any agency’s DNA in a world that is increasingly dishonest. It used to be tough in our earlier years when we refuse to offer kickbacks, or create illegal transactions as a precondition to win businesses, but in the long run, the trust that is gained from our reputation is the ultimate reward. Great agencies have integrity.

2. Only do something when you know you can do it well
It took us 7 years before we officially marketed our PR unit just because we couldn’t do it well enough until we established a winning team who can. I remember the pain of having to turn down projects because we don’t have the resources to run it or simply referred prospects to other agencies that specialize in their exact need. When we do have the ability to deliver, we made sure our capability is top notch. Only then would clients trust in our ability to deliver. That’s how a great agency gains a great reputation.

3. Love All Thy Clients
The most obvious of values: when you love the client – whether it is the brand, or the person working behind it – you’ll do what you can to help them. You’ll do work that’s better because the clients matter. And you’ll seek out the rush you feel when your clients are delighted by your work. That makes the agency a great agency to work with.

4. Remember the small things
We always look for the big in things. Big projects. Big ideas. Big budgets. But it’s the small things that make all the difference. Sometimes that means doing that extra little things that others will dismiss as insignificant distraction. It means taking small steps and consistently achieving mini-goals. It means never ever letting small mistakes put a mark on your otherwise flawless execution. Only when an agency excels in doing the small things can they become entrusted with the great things.

5. Zero Bullshit
A client once told me that if they have a penny for all the bullshit that walks through their door, they’d retire rich by now. A grave reminder to us that great agencies know that if there isn’t anything good to say – say nothing at all.

6. Be willing to roll up your sleeves and dig in
It’s 8am in the morning and it’s about 3 hours before the looming deadline. The press release has yet to be finalized, and the setup is in a complete mess. Agencies face obstacles like these all the time. It’s the nature of our business. But what separate great agencies from good agencies are how we respond. Great agencies will do whatever it takes to overcome challenges because they know all to0 well that when they are responsible for something, they will never be too high up there to roll-up their sleeves and dig.

7. Everyday is a learning curve
In our years growing up, we remember the countless amount of battles we faced with bigger, more established agencies in new business pitches. We’ve had our fair share of wins and losses but the pertinent thing I remember with all our wins was that we let our expertise, experience and skills trump the day. In the face of established agencies many times our size, what gave us the winning edge was simply that we knew the subject matter better than our competition. Those experiences taught us that great agencies never overestimate themselves no matter how big they grow and continually challenge themselves to learn new skills and acquire new knowledge.

8. Never give up. Never surrender.
If we had given up, we wouldn’t be working with some of our clients now whom we courted repeatedly for years before they hired us. If we have surrendered to stress of projects, we would have accepted sub-standard work simply to escape. If we had taken “no” at face value, we wouldn’t have convinced our clients to embark on unconventional ways to deliver exponential sales. If we were complacent, learning new skills or acquiring new knowledge will never be a habit and we wouldn’t have seen the need to be better versions of ourselves. If we just bow out, we will never become a great agency.

9. If you must give something up, quit gracefully.
Let’s face it. You can’t be good at everything you do. The brick wall is a familiar sight for us and that wall could represent anything. It could be a mismatch of client/agency personalities or conflicting views on the direction to take for a particular project. Sometimes, it may even be caused by an internal dilemma over integrity and legality. We sometimes have to decide whether the cost of scaling that wall is worth the reward beyond it. In that dire of circumstance, great agencies know when to quit gracefully and part ways with dignity and respect.

10. I will confess all my sins and repent.
No agency is 100% perfect. Great agencies however never shifts blame or find excuses. When mistakes are made, great agencies come clean quickly. They take responsibility for mistakes without justifying them; learn from them so that they’ll never repeat; and understand that failing to do this will quickly become another mistake.

What do you think? Do you have your own list of values of great agencies, or feeling we’ve left out any important values? Look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Jui Hong Teoh
Managing Director
BRANDTHINK Malaysia

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Our (Work), Presented in Cases

BRANDTHINK Malaysia — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 15:38:42 +0000

Case studies are a great way to learn new things. Over nearly 10 years, our agency has slowly built a collection of cases that we draw on every year for inspiration, for insight and for principles of success.

Highlighted below is a sample collection of the experiences we have shared with our clients. From our work in advertising, or PR to our recent exploration of social marketing, we hope you’ll find a case here that spark an insight on your own marketing campaigns. (If not, we’re simply a call away. *wink*)

Advertising & Interactive

Apple – The Mac Minute Show – Making radio fun again
We have been working with Apple – one of our largest clients – since 2002 in helping them build the brand in Malaysia. The Mac Minute Show represent perhaps the most fun we had in creating a radio campaign – and we really had plenty of fun with it. To date, it’s still the radio ad the sound engineers over at the radio station remember us by.

HotelClub – Who Says You Can’t Enjoy Business Trips? Campaign & Birthday Sale – Promotions help you sell
One of our new regional clients, HotelClub is giving us the opportunity to work on the creative over many countries, and Singapore is just the start. From digital marketing to print advertising, we hope to see the brand continue its rise as the premier destination for hotel reservations online.

JetstarAsia – Plus! Plus! Plus! Campaign
JetstarAsia – KL-SIN Launch Campaign
JetstarAsia represent our second budget airline client in our stable, and the first we have officially launched. The timing could not have been better as Malaysia’s travel industry saw the most aggressive marketing war between the national carrier and the national budget airline. Against the odds, we created a campaign that helped the airline jumpstart its awareness level amidst a highly competitive market and more importantly fill their seats.

Public Relations

Although less than 2 years old, our public relations agency has been a true star in the industry. We have been blessed with incredibly wonderful and challenging opportunities with great clients. Here are some highlights:

Cortina Watch – Launch of Penang Boutique by the Penang Chief Minister
Max Mara – Official Press and Customer Launch, the party was indeed fun!
Caran d’Ache’s Beautiful Writing Instruments
Breitling’s Instruments for Professionals
MAX&Co – Private Preview
Cortina Watch Jewellery Time 2008 – all the way to Singapore
Facet Fire Media Explosion
Davidoff – Official Media Launch

On top of that, we have created a special NewsFeed site that serves as a wire service for our clients to reach the media. Visit BRANDTHINK NewsFeed and preview all our client press releases!

Activation

What is work if you can’t party a little, eh? Well, we are in the best positions to enjoy some of the most dazzling parties of the year. After all, we helped made it successful!

Breitling’s Party of the Year in Malaysia – How did the guest react to the appearance of the VIP in a custom made WWII-era Mustang?

Mac+iPod DiscoveryWeek – iPod Dancers – Imagine those iconic iPod ads coming to life right in the streets of Kuala Lumpur! We had the traffic grooving to our mojo.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEc8j-HUFB0

Apple iPod U2 Launch Party in 2005: One of our earliest and biggest events. To date, we still believe it single-handedly marked the start of the meteoric rise of the iPod in Malaysia. Since then, we have done another iPod Party, and an iMac Party.

How do you reach the highly affluent individuals? With a touch of class and plenty of exquisite wines, that’s how. Moet Hennessy Estates & Wines’s Flavors of the World & Riche Monde’s Cape Mentelle Winemaker’s Dinner.

Social Media

Mac+iPod DiscoveryWeek – Blog, Facebook, and Twitter Campaign – It started out as a quick & dirty way of promoting the DiscoveryWeek event. Today, the DiscoveryWeek blog, Facebook fan page and Twitter are fast becoming a sweet spot for marketing innovation. Next steps? Seeing how to integrate the social media aspects into the on-ground event!

Gap Malaysia & Guess Watches Social Media Campaign – When we first published the Facebook page for Gap & Guess Watches, an industry magazine ran a story on us. At the time, we had 200 odd fans each, and the target was 2000 by the end of 2009. Lo and behold, we hit our target in less than 2 months!

For both our featured campaigns, it marked some of the new initiatives that our client is beginning to explore, including custom Facebook pages and applications. The future landscape of social media is yet to be defined but these initial steps would prove to be a great enabler in the future!

Self-plug: Now is a good time as any to encourage you to join the BRANDTHINK Facebook fan page! Simply click on the Facebook Be A Fan button below and get instant updates on all our agency’s activities!

Interested in hiring our Agency for your marketing, advertising or public relations needs?

Let’s face it: every business is different. Even if your business is in the same industry, you’ll no doubt face unique challenges. Are you looking for a specific case study that is more related to your business? If what you are looking for is not listed here, call us! We might have a case study tucked somewhere we can share.

Call us at 603-22872255 or email us from here.

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Insight: Five principles of a great fan base

BRANDTHINK Malaysia — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:13:29 +0000

We all know the scenario:

Contest objective that targets a gazillion unknown people.
Competing for media coverage that appears in unknown corners in as many unknown magazines as possible.
Two teenage girls competing with one another to see how many friends they both have.
Database vendor bragging that they have more data than the nearest competitor.

The same with marketing. Every client marketer we know face the looming titanic metric: Numbers. Traffic. Readership. #.

If you start a social media campaign, you’ll probably be tempted to do the same as well: get as many fans, followers, retweets, blog post, etc, as possible.

That’s where you’ll stumble upon the trap of herding quantity with no regard to quality. Sure, a large fan base looks impressive on the outside, but at what cost? It’s a complete effort waster that will ultimately eat into your resources.

How do you stay on the path and avoid a herding mentality? The truth is, doing it right isn’t easy and there isn’t a magic formula or thing that can automate this for you. Over the years, our agency has built upon 5 principles that guide us in our quest to build quality fans.

Principle #1: Make a decision from the start: Quality or Quantity?

Giving quality the lip service is always easy. But when faced with calls for your head at board meetings or post-mortem evaluations, will you still stand firm to your value of quality or quantity? Everyone faces the pressure from higher-ups for quantity. More visitors, more eyeballs, more fans, more followers – generally in the belief that “more” will translate to more sales, more returns, more ROI.

But having “more” isn’t good enough for more ROI. Quality is what generates real ROI. The real focus should be on those who matter: real fans who are real buyers, a great story in a quality publication, and a group of highly potential clients following you on Twitter.

After all, it’s pointless to have thousands of people following you on Twitter or your Facebook page simply to hawk their “insert the latest affiliate/money-making scheme here” idea. In fact, sites like Facebook and Twitter are filled with such individuals that avoiding them will be a huge challenge.

Don’t scramble at the last minute to justify even the best decisions made. Make a decision early on. Write it down. Pin it up on your wall. Have torturously long meetings with your stakeholders and repeat throughout. When crunch time comes, you’ll be able to defend your position that quality matters.

Principle #2: Know when to BUY, SELL or HOLD

Great sales people will tell you that timing is everything. When do you give customers room to move (HOLD)? When do you provide relevant information that assist customers in making the right decision (BUY)? Or when do you aggressively close the sale (SELL)?

Timing is crucial to your success. For example, don’t make every blog post about the latest discount offer, or a sale. There’s definitely room to educate about product features, or even to solicit feedback and conversation.

These same principles apply whether you’re pitching for a sale, or pitching for a story to an Editor, or updating your status on Facebook or Twitter. Don’t simply stalk an editor simply to get your story across, but be a great source of material, even if it doesn’t benefit you one bit.

The right timing will result in building the one most important commodity in business: TRUST.

Principle #3: Invest in Quality

It is in our nature to go with the largest. The largest audience, the largest readership, the largest circulation. Do remember that hidden inside the mass are nuggets of gold. Invest in them. Invest in quality publications that reach quality audiences. Cultivate great bloggers who have great, but not necessarily the most fans. Seek out customers who may not be the year’s most famous socialite but hold their own nevertheless. When you do that right, you earn quality relationships.

Principle #4: Be patient

If you take the time to cultivate solid relationships with your best customers, and repeat the process over and over with your next best customer, sooner or later, you’ll have a lot of good customers.

We learn a huge lesson with several social media campaigns we ran on Facebook, that if you’re not prudent, you’ll end up with a list of fans who’re there simply to hawk their own websites, products or latest schemes. Taking the time to build quality fans and resisting the urge to mass invite and canvas for clicks resulted in a growing fanbase that loves the brand.

Principle #5: Know when to move on

Finally, even the best list requires pruning. Our agency for example, from time to time take stock of our relationships, from our Twitter followers, media lists, suppliers to even our customers and decide if they are worth keeping in the list. Pruning overgrown leaves is essential in keeping a beautiful tree healthy. It gives you amble opportunity to place proper focus on the right people.

Building quality customers requires time. Don’t succumb to the quick-fix of harvesting as many people as you can just to meet some magical number but rather take the time and effort to prune your own tree into something extraordinary. The result is worthwhile.

Do you have a principle that you use to build quality fans? Share it with us, we love to hear from you.

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(Work) Kicking of Social Media Campaigns

Advertising — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 19:49:47 +0000

Online advertising isn’t new. Neither is social media. From the days of BBS, online discussion forums, instant messaging and more recently blogs – social interactions between people online, now referred to as social media – is constantly evolving.

While Internet users used to congregate within portal sites and services the like of ICQ, today there’s a shifting usage trend towards services such as Facebook and Twitter. When the number of Malaysian Internet users joining these popular services grows daily, it is time to take note.

Brands must begin to understand these new platforms to engage and enable deeper communication with their customers. While technologies that enable new interactions are still new and unfamiliar in many ways, we’re beginning to get requests from more of our clients to begin experimenting with it.

New technologies it may be, but the precept of communication still applies. The challenge is how do you use these new tools to enable deeper engagement, particularly if your target market is embracing these tools rapidly.

This week, we have the opportunity to launch two new social media marketing via Facebook pages for Guess Watches and GAP Malaysia. It’s a whole big socializing experiment – and the key objective is to gather feedback on how customers would like to engage with the brands.

Be a fan of these pages, and take part in shaping these new forms of engagement. If you have specific opinions on how these new social campaigns should take shape, we would like to hear from you. Drop a comment in this post!

GUESS Watches on Facebook

GAP Malaysia on Facebook

Gap Malaysia Facebook Page

We love to hear from you, drop us a comment below!

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Highlight: Twitter for Business, 101.

BRANDTHINK Malaysia — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 16:51:19 +0000

If your business is looking for ways to leverage on new social media technologies to reach out to customers, then this guide is for you.

Twitter 101: http://business.twitter.com/twitter101

Made by the creators of Twitter itself, Twitter 101 is a friendly instructional guide for any business to create a strategic and effective presence on Twitter. It helps users to foster a collaborative community among customers that are increasingly turning to Twitter as a form of communication. With this guide, you’ll learn the lingo of Twitter, the basics of using Twitter, and some examples and case studies on how Twitter is currently being used for marketing purposes. It starts by answering the first question on any business executive’s mind:

While the technology is fairly nascent, and it will be awhile before it reaches the tipping point in Malaysia, it doesn’t hurt for you to learn more about Twitter now, so you are well prepared to use it when your business is ready for it.

This guide covers quite a variety of topics, which includes:

This guide provides a comprehensive overview on what can be applied in business and gives you a starting point for your own Twitter project. Closer to home, our local clients have began to experiment with ways of reaching their customers via Twitter. Follow a local example at: http://www.twitter.com/discoveryweek. You can also find out more about DiscoveryWeek as a whole here.

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