Digital Branding and Marketing

Digital Branding - listening to VOC (Voice of Consumer)

2012-01-12T16:29:00.005-05:00

What makes Prosumer or Generation C so unique is that they are not afraid to tell marketers what they want. The old school marketers are still ignorant to the voice of consumer and busy delivering their own brand message.

As I gain deep insight to visitors, I learned that visitor can use the information different than intended purpose. Often visitors are not necessarily impressed with fancy marketing driven images or message that distracts their purpose of visit. Marketer should not undermine that very marketing effort to improve brand can become distraction to the visitors. Marketer must spend more time listening to what visitors are saying to us rather than what they want to say to the visitors.

Here is a good example; for some time, web visitors to a manufacture site did not gave high satisfaction scores. The online team worked on a lot of things to address the issue but could not move the needle. Later they discovered that providing price information significantly improves satisfaction. Most manufacturers do not want to put MSRP since MSRP could be viewed as too pricy against competitor’s price. What manufacturer did not know was that visitors use MSRP to bench mark how much savings they can get from different retailers. Many marketers love to develop extravagant flash banners to make them feel like they have accomplished something. The truth is a visitor may not find it very impressive at all.

Framing a story

2010-04-27T13:08:00.003-04:00

In communications, framing a story can drastically change the people’s perception and opinion. Here is an example. There were two catholic fathers who love to smoke all the time. They loved smoking so much that they even wanted to smoke during their prayer time. Since they didn’t want to hide their desires or smoking without permission, they both decided to ask for a permission from the cardinal.

The first father asked to the cardinal, “May I smoke while I pray?” The cardinal denied the permission to smoke during prayer time. The second father went to the cardinal and asked for a permission and it was granted. How did he do it? He asked “ Is it ok to pray while I smoke?”

The same event can be viewed completely different depend how the event is framed. Here is another example. There were two doctors and two patients with same cancer. The first doctor said to the patient, “I am sorry but one out of ten patient will die within one year with your cancer type.” On the other hand, the second doctor said to the patient that “ I am happy to tell you that nine out of ten patient with your cancer type will survive”

Effect on framing can be dramatic on how people view things.

Why do millions of Asians rush to buy expensive luxury brands?

2010-03-25T18:17:00.003-04:00

Today, the Asian luxury goods market constitutes 37% of the global market of 80 billion. The actual percentage of spending is even higher because of the Asian penchant for shopping abroad—ably led by the Japanese and Chinese, easily adding another 15-20% to the continental share.

Why do millions of Asians rush to buy expensive designer label bags, clothes, watches, jewelry and other accessories—even if they aren’t wealthy?

The answer lies in the political, social and economic changes that have steadily transformed Asia, dismantling centuries-old ways of denoting both personal identity and social classification within society in the process. What hasn’t changed is the belief that privileges come with social status.
In the past, social status was defined by birth, caste, family position or profession. In modern society, social status is defined by economic power for the most part and it is prominently displayed through personal possessions such as luxury houses, cars and designer items.
Wealth has now become more accessible to more people and in turn, access to the symbols that define social status. But for those who have limited wealth turn to western luxury brands with a loud logo that provides a handy tool for letting the world to know their financial prowess. The belief is that “you are what you wear.”

Multicultural Marketing Organization Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

2010-01-19T10:24:00.004-05:00

By Michael Hong, EVP Strategic Services. AdAsia Communications.

Based on my own experiences, the role of a Multicultural Marketing Organization (MMO) is relatively the same if the main purpose of the MMO is to deliver multilingual advertising to the target audience. However, the magnitude of multicultural marketing activities can be just as complex as a General Marketing Organization(GMO) when the MMO has a P&L responsibility. For those MMO, their roles and responsibilities are not just limited to the multicultural advertising but extend into the 4P’s(Product, Price, Place and Promotion) as well as the multicultural marketing infrastructure that supports all areas of marketing discipline to stay competitive. Today, however, there aren’t that many MMO with P&L responsibilities. Most MMO are a part of GMO sharing the same P&L and thus MMO provides a supportive role in overall marketing discipline.

In the 80’s to 90’s, as the competition started rising in the telecommunications industry after the demise of AT&T’s monopoly, the International Long Distance(ILD) market became one of the lucrative markets for every telecommunication company. As the price of ILD rate reached an affordable level, there was an explosive demand for ILD by the immigrants who needed to stay connected with their friends and families in their home countries. It was then that many telecommunication companies started MMO that is capable of not only delivering advertising in multiple languages but providing customer service in the languages that those people could understand. As their marketing mix became highly complex, MMO invested their profit into building a better marketing capability introducing inbound and outbound telemarketing, PR, DM, Feet-on-the-Street, events and so on. By then, the structure of MMO became evolved just as complex as their GMO counterpart, if not more.

At AT&T, for example, although MMO existed as a part of the Marketing Communications organization, multicultural marketing was embraced by the entire marketing organization as a marketing discipline. Since MMO was only responsible for ILD business and their P&L objective or the promotion schedules were not aligned to GMO, they had the freedom to develop their own ad campaigns that were maybe more effective and relevant to the multicultural segment. While this practice offered a great opportunity for the multicultural ad agencies to present innovative and creative ideas that are unique and effective for the multicultural customers, it also presented potential concerns on keeping a consistent brand identity.

Today, however, most MMO and GMO are sharing the same communications objective and promotion schedule as they are all responsible for the same P&L. The function of the MMO is viewed as an extension of communication discipline and other marketing channels are yet to discover the potential or value of a holistic marketing approach. Under this structure, multicultural ad agencies are somewhat limited in their creative approach as the leading ad agencies provide overall communications directions and standardized creative format. This approach requires a massive coordination effort among different ad agencies and clients. Cooperation, simplification and long-term planning are highly demanded in order to deliver a single branded message.

In both cases, there are obstacles that the marketer must be aware of. On one hand, a consistent brand message can be overlooked unless a brand team monitors all branding activities. On the other hand, a leading ad agency may discourage the creativity from other multicultural ad agencies. Either way, role of MMO must go beyond marketing communications in order to gain confidence from the multicultural customers in my opinion. Certainly it doesn’t make sense to equip every marketing channel with multicultural capabilities, but it will require a discipline discovering opportunities in ongoing basis and develop appropriate multicultural capabilities that would benefit both the business and consumer.

I believe more brands would become successful in the multicultural market if they start asking what the unmet needs of the multicultural customers are, instead of treating the segment as a market extension to increase sales opportunities. As long as the multicultural segment serves as an extension of the general market, it’s just a matter of time before the MMO become the first sacrificial lamb when the product or business reaches the end of its life cycle. As the multicultural market continues to grow, I am optimistic that more marketers will see the opportunity differently. And for those who see it differently sooner, they will become the new leaders of tomorrow.

Review Driven Marketing

2010-01-07T10:44:00.001-05:00

Review Driven Marketing strategy is the key to sucess in Social Media marketing

Review Driven Marketing

View more presentations from Adasia Communications.

How innovative is your ad agency?

2009-12-21T16:24:00.005-05:00

By Michael Hong, EVP Strategic Services. AdAsia Communications.

Innovation is often the focal point of every brand management. The future of a brand depends on how well you can sustain the competitive edge through innovation. If you look into the last ten years of mobile brands you can see how innovation has impacted some of the leaders.

While Motorola was still enjoying the market leadership with a rather bulky but functional phone in early 2000, LG and Samsung introduced smaller, multifunctional and stylish mobile phones that instantaneously captured the hearts of consumers. For the next few years, it was the era of LG and Samsung leading the market with various stylish phones. Mobile phones continued to get thinner and more stylish over the years, but it was the debut of the Motorola Razr v3 in 2004 that took design to another level. With its super-slim lines and sleek metallic look, the Razr quickly became the must-have accessory. For the next three years, it remained one of the most popular handsets on the market until Apple introduced the IPhone in 2007. Without a comparable phone against the IPhone, Motorola hit the bottom in less than two years.

As you can see in the mobile industry, innovation is the key driver behind competition and the cost of falling behind it can be detrimental to the business. This principle does not remain in the technology sector alone, rather it applies to all businesses, including ad agencies. For an ad agency, innovation can be hard to come by despite the fact that they are known for their creativity. Here is an ad agency who is innovative when selling their service:.

“Agency Nil is an advertising agency with no set prices for freelance branding, media and advertising services. They do the work, and then their clients can pay them whatever they want. In order to get started, prospective clients are asked to submit a work request form outlining the scope of the project. Agency Nil will then assign an advertising professional to get the job done, and once it’s completed by the requested deadline, the client can look over the work and set their price.

Of course, clients do have the option to pay nothing (except for the previously agreed upon fees for travel, production, and research tools); however, according to Agency Nil executives, if that happens, they’re not likely to take your business again. They do claim, however, that this has never happened, and that business is booming because this fee structure better caters to the supply and demand format dictated by the financial crisis. I would be surprised if they’re making more money off of their clients, who feel a sense of generosity in knowing that the work was done well, even when Agency Nil didn’t know what they were working for monetarily.”

“Agency Nil has no physical location, no salaried staff and no set fees. They are channeling the skills of experienced but laid-off talents from the advertising industry and graduate students who are looking for their first job. Agency Nil landed the first project in 90 minutes after going live.” http://fuelingnewbusiness.com/2009/08/12/innovation-ad-agency-uses-crowdsourcing-for-new-business/

While innovation at AdAsia may not be as radical as Agency Nil, innovation is at the heart of our value proposition. Our focus of innovation is all about perfecting our “Customer Intimacy” operating model that matches our “team performance” against the “client satisfaction”. It basically means that we measure our success through our clients’ success. Our work does not finish when the creative work is delivered as Agency Nil might. At AdAsia, we put top priorities on building knowledge on client customers. To do this right, we engineered an online research platform that acquires deep insights on the target segment and we apply the findings not only in the creative but we integrated it into the overall marketing process. If we are not innovative in our service, we would not be the leader in the multicultural marketing profession.

More Asians in TV Spots?

2009-12-01T15:15:00.003-05:00

By Michael Hong, EVP Strategic Services. AdAsia Communications.

Recently I came across an interesting article welcoming Asian-American faces in general market TV commercials.

“AT&T, Priceline, Walt Disney and IKEA are just a handful of the many marketers who have included Asians in their commercials. And unlike the past, these Asian actors have roles that don't perpetuate or accentuate some of the tired stereotypes that have plagued Asians and Asian Americans for decades. In the Priceline spot with actor William Shatner, an Asian couple could be any American husband and wife team. No forced Asian accents, high-pitched voices or even kung fu moves; just a typical, married couple searching for place to vacation online.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KjMDc5IxUk&feature=player_embedded
“The American public really doesn't need to see more advertisements with Asians and Asian Americans engaged in karate fights, portrayed as laundrymen or kung fu masters, typecast as Chinese restaurant owners, or computer eggheads. Instead, Asians and Asian Americans want to see themselves (in TV, theater and movies) as being a part of the fabric that makes America one of the most richly diverse countries in the world.”

While I applaud and welcome that many marketers are moving away from stereotypical Asian images, I caution that it may also misrepresent multiculturalism or the diversity that we want to promote. Some of these commercials are clearly depicting the idea of “Assimilation or Melting Pot,” where every race and culture blends into a stereotypical Americanism. Some of the Asian characters are so well blended into typical American lifestyle, I forget that I am seeing Asian-Americans in the commercial.

I am certain that the ad comforts those Asian-Americans who want to be accepted into the “fabric” of a stereotypical American lifestyle; however, many Asian-Americans who maintain cultural heritage may not see it the same way. Certainly no race or culture should become an object of mockery, but neither should marketers ignore the rich heritage that Asians are proud to share with mainstream Americans. The fact that marketers are willing to utilize diverse ethnicities in their commercials are a sign that Americans are a lot more tolerant to other ethnicities than ever and the trend must be promoted.

However, if marketers are really interested in promoting diversity or multiculturalism, they need to go beyond just showing Asian faces in their commercials. They need to first recognize the Asian community by making marketing investments into the community. They need to discover the cultural insight and dimensionalized it into a relevant brand message.

Connecting with 12 million Asian Americans on Twitter

2009-10-07T13:23:00.003-04:00

By Michael Hong, EVP Strategic Services. AdAsia Communications.

Early this year, Jennifer Kim (@jennkim), VP of Sigma Group asked if I was on Twitter. Since I was the Director of Digital Marketing at LG Electronics with a high interest in learning new social networking media, I checked into the micro-blogging service and found that it had great potential for enhancing customer services and releasing PR material. So I passed my learning to the relevant teams for consideration and I pretty much left it at that. (It’s unfortunate that LG Electronics still don’t have a clue about this new digital marketing channel while their competitors, such as Samsung have been leveraging their tweets into the marketing communications mix)

A few months later, I moved to AdAsia Communications as EVP of New Business Development and Strategy Services. As I started exploring how I could quickly build up visibility of AdAsia to potential clients, it was very obvious that we needed to be found when searched online. Fortunately, AdAsia had a relatively high visibility, but we could use more from some of the fast growing social networking sites such as YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. So I started creating a presence within many of the social networking sites and started twittering to promote our ad agency. It was about that time when Twitter users were growing at an astounding rate and the mass media started reporting how millions of people follow celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher and Oprah Winfrey via Twitter. So I thought, “what if I could meet every Asian American via Twitter?” So I wrote the vision statement for @AdAsia: “My mission is to connect with 12 million Asian Americans on Twitter.”

So as I began my endeavor to connect with 12 million Asian Americans, I found many talented and exciting Asian Americans twittering every day. Some Asian Americans are leading the conversation about the future direction of Social Media. @GuyKawasaki with 180,000 followers, @jowyang with 50,000, @peterkim with 10,000, are setting the new trend as the leaders of the social networking front. Then there are bloggers who discuss Asian American topics: @AngryAsianMan, for example, keeps track of racism against Asian Americans and @disgrasian who is not afraid to poke some fun at other fellow Asian Americans. Then there are many Asian online magazines such as @asiance, @koream and @koreanbeacon trying to increase traffic to their websites. I also met Asian politicians like @JohnCLiu and @KevinDKim19, aggressively reaching out to the Asian Community for support. There are entertainers like @Heatherpark and @Davidchoimusic building up their fan base. Of course, I cannot forget to mention a few others, out of the 600 other friends I met; @Sheenalara, the lady with the axe, @wonderfulcow, searching for Asian actors and actresses, @lovingpho promoting Vietnamese noodles, and even @nguyenduong who works at one of the competing ad agencies, but willing to congratulate our venture into the social networking sphere.

This endeavor promises to be a long journey and Twitter certainly has made it easier for AdAsia to connect with Asian Americans. Although I have no idea how it might bring benefits to our business bottom line, I am convinced that the possibilities are unlimited.

The launch of AdAsia Communications’ Asian American Segment Blog.

2009-09-23T11:23:00.004-04:00

By Michael Hong, EVP Strategic Services. AdAsia Communications.

I am very excited to announce the launch of AdAsia Communications’ Asian American Segment Blog.

When I first joined AdAsia Communications, Kevin Lee, CEO, told me that we needed to develop a new website for the company. I quickly created a website strategy based on who the target is, what the target wants and what we want to say. I also looked at websites of other ad agencies and found that they all used relatively similar types of content formats. Perhaps what sets apart a nice site from a poor one, is how much fancy multi-media tools are incorporated in the message delivery. I saw one ad agency using a flash based, 3D navigation tool that awarded a jaw-dropping experience for average web visitors. While there is no doubt that such websites speak loud and clear about their advanced web development and creative capability, I question how they plan to edit the site and respond to the fast changing market dynamic? There is no doubt these extravagant sites require an army of people to maintain it and that certainly is not an option, in my opinion, for a resource limited ad agency.

Today, websites are evolving into community sites, as Social Networking Media plays a bigger role in our culture. More and more websites are incorporating company blogs, designed not only to connect with visitors, but start new trends and cultures through communal relationships. Unfortunately most of these sites do not have a dedicated community manager or managing group who can represent your brand properly. Furthermore, for those companies who have community managers, they do not know if they are effectively impacting the business bottom line. Starting a company blog is a big commitment. You must have clear goals and objectives and clear strategies and tactics that will ultimately build a community that promotes the bottom lines of your business.

While the ultimate objective for this blog is to increase awareness of Adasia Communications as the leading marketing agency for the Asian American segment, I also would like to develop a community where Asian Americans can discuss things that are relevant and important to the community at large.

So here are some of the topics that I will discuss in the future, but in the meantime, please let me know if you have any topics that you would like to discuss as well. I am going to organize the discussion topics for two audience groups in mind: the consumer and the marketer.

For Marketers:
· Target profiles, insights and trends
· Explore Market and Marketing opportunities
· Case stories (Success and Failure)
· Marketing strategy (Multicultural and Asian)
· Media strategy
· Creative reviews

For Consumers:
· Why corporate America should care about me
· What I need to know about the brands I use
· Your Product Experiences (Your Voice to the brand)
· Information on Events and Sponsorships

By Michael Hong
EVP Strategic Services
AdAsia Communications