Using AR effectively is no simple matter. As with any innovative technology, new benefits come with new challenges. Before embedding an AR solution in your business, it’s important to consider four questions:

The new IDC 2019 Future SMB Pulse survey shows that 84% of SMBs in Asia Pacific (excl. Japan) recognize the need to use digital technologies to make significant changes in their companies' processes and operations to become more competitive. While 39% of those have already started their journey and are at different stages of digital maturity, 42% are just planning to start. The survey reveals further that the top priorities of SMBs in the next 18 months include improving revenue growth, increasing efficiency/productivity, and reducing costs/expenses.

In Singapore, the Department of Statistics revealed an increase in online sales in November, attributed to the higher online sales from major online shopping events. Since customers engage with brands through various offline and online channels, meeting the needs and expectations of a digital consumer has become a mandate for retailers of all sizes.

Do you know just how much new data information we’re creating? According to IDC forecasts exponentially more and more, growing to 163 zettabytes by 2025. And not only does IDC predict the frantic growth of data generation, it estimates that one-fifth of all this data will be critical if not hypercritical to our daily lives.

As we approach the start of a new decade, ADA (part of Axiata group) has released a thought leadership piece, 2020 Outlook for Southeast Asian Marketers: 4 Steps to Outmaneuver Your Competition, to help marketers navigate this period of economic uncertainty.

Today, every customer is leaving behind vast amounts of data while shopping online, providing marketers with numerous indications of their personality, their preferences and their purchase intentions. Each point of contact with an individual customer can be tracked across channels and evaluated according to the role it played in the purchase decision process.

Zendesk’s vision to connect customer conversations across web, mobile, and messaging comes to life with WhatsApp for Zendesk, now available across Asia Pacific (APAC). The WhatsApp Business API connector will allow businesses to quickly and easily reach and respond to their customers using WhatsApp across the region.

After more than two years in development, PUBLIQ’s new publishing platform is now live and fully operational. Anyone can open an account free of charge and start earning income from their creations within minutes. Content creators around the world can publish text, music or video and see payments automatically made into their accounts six times an hour, every ten minutes. These automatic payments continue to be made ad infinitum and individual users are never charged a fee for using the platform.

The key to a personalized and targeted customer approach is a good understanding of your customers. Sounds simple, but what exactly should you know about your customers?

Read on to find out our top 7 recommendations for better understanding your customers:

1. Who are my top customers? Top customers are the proportion of customers who regularly generate high sales. These can be identified by the so-called RFM analysis. To do this, ask the following questions:

• Recency: How long since their last purchase?
• Frequency: How often do they buy?
• Monetary: How much revenue was generated?

The top customers can then be determined from the intersection of these three groups.

2. Where are my customers located? The geographical location of customers can be important for marketers, as it can have a decisive influence on customers’ preferences if their purchases are geographically based – for example, which airport to book flights from, or which venue to attend a live event at. Geo-analysis uses spatial information such as postcodes for visualizations and selections. This enables new perspectives on market penetration, the identification of new market potential and the dispatch of regional offers and/or teams.

3. What do my customers buy? Which customer bought which product? This is a fairly important question. Not only does it inform you about your current customers, but it also allows you to identify customers with a similar profile who have not yet purchased this product. This enables the realization of untapped potential. Customer profiles can be defined based on demographic, psychographic, geographic or behavioral characteristics.

4. What turnover do my customers generate? Knowing which customer group generates what turnover is crucial for the distribution of your marketing budget. For example, customers can be identified in order to receive loyalty rewards or higher quality communications. Often referred to as Customer Lifetime Value (CLT), this metric represents the total revenue that a customer generates during a company's life cycle.

5. When and how often do my customers buy? When and how often customers buy is essential information, especially in retail, in order to optimize orders and inventory accordingly. In addition, this information can be used to identify the best possible time for advertising or campaign contact, and customers at risk of churn. The prerequisite for this is the transaction history of the customers. This can be mapped, for example, in a CRM system.

6. How many customers do I lose per year? Even though your number of customers may have remained constant over a longer period of time, it’s possible that some customers have churned, and this effect has been offset by new customers. In order to increase the customer base in the long term, however, it’s important to know how many customers churn each year, identify possible causes for this and take appropriate countermeasures. Precisely which customers have churned can be determined by the last transaction date using a CRM system.

7. How many new customers do I gain each year? Based on the number of new customers you can see which marketing communications have been particularly effective to date. This helps to plan your sales forecasts for the coming year and determine which marketing measures should be given more focus. New customers within one year can be recognized in the CRM system based on the creation date of the data master record.

By Apteco

The integrated communications consulting firm Ruder Finn Asia just announced new leadership appointments in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia and senior-level appointments in the regional Luxury, Automotive and Integrated Marketing practices, strengthening the firm’s capabilities and expertise across Asia-Pacific.

In Hong Kong, Winnie Lai joins as Vice President and General Manager, Ruder Finn Hong Kong. She brings 20 years’ experience in providing award-winning communications counsel to clients in Greater China and Asia-Pacific including Microsoft, GE Healthcare and Jebsen. Most recently VP, Greater China at Waggoner Edstrom, she strengthened revenues and profits, grew the team to 50 executives and established the firm as one of the largest communications consultancies in Hong Kong. Prior to WE, she was Senior Reporter at ComputerWorld and Senior Consultant at Hill & Knowlton.

In Singapore, Brian Witte has been promoted to Deputy General Manager, Ruder Finn Singapore. He is leading the firm’s corporate and technology practice since 2014, representing clients including Visa and DBS. With 15 years’ experience, Witte has been responsible for providing clients with strategic counsel across Asia-Pacific, from integrated strategy and stakeholder engagement to reputation management and internal communications. Prior to Ruder Finn, he held senior positions at Porter Novelli and Burson-Marsteller China.


In Malaysia, Elya Eusoff joins as General Manager, Ruder Finn Malaysia. Eusoff brings more than a decade of experience representing corporate, consumer and technology clients, including Cetaphil, Suntory and Lenovo. In his most recent role as Director of Digital PR at Bonsey Jaden, he focused on designing and implementing tailored, end-to-end, integrated branding campaigns for both local and regional clients. He also led activation work across Malaysia, Asia-Pacific and the United States.


Within Ruder Finn, Gao Ming has been named Senior Vice President, Managing Director, Luxury Practice, Ruder Finn Greater China. This new role will see him expanding the firm’s China luxury stronghold to additional markets. Having led Ruder Finn’s National Luxury Practice in China since 2015, Gao Ming has been instrumental in developing a network of industry-leading clients, including Chaumet, Hermes, Mont Blanc, Longines, Hennessy and Cartier. Before joining Ruder Finn in 2005, he was founder and partner at West Village Agency, a boutique Shanghai-based communications firm.


Long Xi has been promoted to Leader, Integrated Marketing Practice, Ruder Finn Greater China, growing the firm’s focus in consumer digital marketing communications after launching the new practice in China in 2017. Representing clients including Almond Board of California, MHD, and 3M, she has since led the data-driven business unit through a period of double-digit growth, ensuring Ruder Finn delivers a complete arc of strategy, web, digital, online, media, social media and advertising capabilities for clients. Prior to Ruder Finn, Xi previously held senior positions in Michael Kors, Edelman and Giorgio Armani Group.


Completing the appointments and promotions at Ruder Finn Asia, Will Yuan joins as Leader, Automotive Practice, Ruder Finn China. Yuan has 15 years’ industry experience and was previously General Manager at Genedigi Group and Deputy General Manager at HighTeam Marketing Communications. He will lead market growth strategies for the firm, overseeing clients including Audi, Mercedes Benz, Volkswagen Group China, Lamborghini, and other automotive clients.

The South China Morning Post announced the appointment of Adrian Lee as Senior Vice President of Marketing and Events, who will lead its growth strategies to build SCMP’s global brand.

With SCMP’s exponential international readership growth at over 25 million monthly active users, Lee’s appointment bolsters its focus on market and audience development across Asia and broader global markets. Lee’s responsibilities include raising brand awareness, increasing traffic to SCMP’s digital platforms, overseeing product and digital marketing, as well as driving SCMP’s event’s business.

With a passion for combining data, technology and cultural insights to revolutionize company marketing strategies, Lee has transformed some of the world’s most influential brands for the digital economy. He has worked in executive leadership roles in London and across Asia and was previously Head of Digital Client Solutions at global media agency Wavemaker where he helped lead the Hong Kong agency's direction, growth, profitability and people development as well as directing global marketing campaigns for clients. Prior to that Lee was the Global Digital Strategy and Innovation Director for Vizeum in London, leading innovation across a global network for clients including Burberry and Honda.

Lee also directed digital growth and marketing for multinational companies at MediaCom in Hong Kong.

Lee’s appointment is effective from 2 December 2019 and he will be based at SCMP’s global headquarters in Hong Kong.

LG Electronics Inc. appointed PHD as its Global Media Agency of Record following a competitive market review that included Dentsu, Horizon and Carat. The appointment will see the Omnicom Media Group owned network manage the media planning and buying duties for the full portfolio of LG products in over 50 international markets.

Effective from January 2020, PHD will be tasked with supporting LG’s global growth through media, strategy, technology and data expertise. The assignment will see a global team of strategy leads based in key markets, in addition to a central team managing the business from a global hub in Seoul.

The appointment spans all regions, with Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Spain, UK, USA and Vietnam being amongst the 50+ markets. LG will continue to use Korean agency HS Ad for local activations.

Aqilliz, a blockchain for marketing solutions provider, announced the appointment of Prateek Dayal as Chief Strategy Officer (CSO).

Prior to joining Aqilliz, Prateek held the role of APAC Innovation SVP at HSBC, one of the largest banking and financial services institutions in the world. With over 15 years of wide-ranging international exposure, Prateek previously served as Head of Strategy at Royal Bank of Scotland; VP of Mobile and Digital at Barclays Bank; and McKinsey & Company. Across these roles, Prateek led cross-functional teams to build new, innovative, and commercially viable business lines across payments, mobile and digital.

With a wealth of experience across the financial services sector, Prateek will lead the Aqilliz team in driving the adoption of blockchain and emerging technologies within the marketing sector. Led by Gowthaman Ragothaman, former Global Client Lead at WPP, Aqilliz addresses sector-specific challenges in the field of digital marketing and actively collaborate with various partners in the advertising, data, marketing, technology, and analytics industries.

The competition in the markets is getting tougher. In the long run only those who constantly win new prospects will make it. However, a personal approach and support of individual prospects and customers is hardly possible due to more and more complex sales processes and limited resources.

Qlik, a leader in data analytics, announced that it has secured its latest patent for Qlik Data Catalyst that’s focused on the product’s innovative capabilities in data management using a metadata repository.

Transmedia storytelling - also known as transmedia narrative or multiplatform storytelling - is the technique of telling a single story or story experience across multiple platforms and formats using current digital technologies.

Tom Szirtes, founder of the immersive technology company Mbryonic, believes we are at a tipping point where immersive technologies will become the dominant mediums of the 21st century, which is why he left a successful career in the video games industry around 5 years ago to start his company.