Singles' Day: From University Tradition to Asia's Biggest Shopping Festival

In an era where shopping festivals dominate the retail calendar, Singles' Day stands out as a remarkable phenomenon in Asia that transformed from a quirky university celebration into Asia's largest shopping event. Let's explore how this cultural phenomenon evolved and its impact on modern retail.

 The Origins: An Inclusive Celebration of Singlehood

Singles' Day began in 1993 at Nanjing University in China when four male students decided to create an anti-Valentine's Day celebration. They chose November 11 (11/11) because the number "1" resembles a "bare stick" – Chinese slang for an unmarried individual. What started as a light-hearted response to couple-centric celebrations quickly spread across universities and evolved into a broader cultural phenomenon celebrating self-love, independence and empowerment.

 The Retail Revolution: Alibaba's Game-Changing Move

The transformation of Singles' Day into a shopping extravaganza began in 2009 when Alibaba's CEO, Daniel Zhang, saw its commercial potential. What started with just 27 merchants has grown into the world's largest shopping event, surpassing both Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined, particularly in Southeast Asia and China.

Alibaba's innovative approach included:

• Celebrity-driven promotional events featuring global stars

• Large-scale televised galas

• Integration of online and offline shopping experiences

• Advanced logistics capabilities handling hundreds of thousands of transactions per second

 How Brands Maximize Singles' Day Sales

Today's successful brands employ sophisticated strategies that blend commercial success with the festival's cultural essence:

1.       Early Preparation

-          Launch teaser campaigns weeks in advance
-          Create urgency and sense of FOMO (fear of missing out) through flash sales and limited-time offers
-          Design "self-gifting" packages that celebrate personal milestones and self-love

2.       Cultural Integration

-          Develop campaigns that celebrate independence and self-empowerment
-          Partner with Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) or social influencers who embody confident, single lifestyle
-          Create content that resonates with the modern definition of singlehood
-          Leverage local social media platforms with targeted messaging

3.       Enhanced Shopping Experiences

-          Host interactive livestreaming events featuring singles' lifestyle content
-          Implement gamification elements that celebrate individual achievements
-          Design "treat yourself" promotions that align with self-care themes
-          Create virtual try-on experiences for solo shoppers

 4.       Community Building

-          Organize virtual social events for singles to connect
-          Create exclusive shopping groups for single professionals
-          Develop reward programs that celebrate personal independence
-          Host digital workshops on self-development and lifestyle enhancement

 5.       Strategic Messaging

-          Frame products as investments in personal growth
-          Create bundles that complement solo living
-          Develop marketing narratives around self-love and empowerment
-          Design exclusive "singles-first" product launches

 6.       Digital Innovation

-          Implement AI-powered personal shopping assistants
-          Create virtual shopping companions
-          Develop social shopping features for singles to share recommendations
-          Optimize mobile shopping experiences for one-handed browsing

 Popular Product Categories Across Asia

Singles' Day 2023 saw remarkable sales across various categories, with notable regional differences:

Greater China:

- Health & Beauty (417% growth)
- Home & Garden (326% growth)
- Luggage & Bags (311% growth)
- Toys & Games

 Southeast Asia:

- Baby & Toddler Products (407% growth)
- Health & Beauty (352% growth)
- Furniture (277% growth)
- Electronics and Appliances

 2023's Most Successful Brand Campaigns

Several brands stood out with their innovative approaches and impressive results:

1. Apple

- Exclusive Tmall partnerships
- 40% sales increase from 2022
- Rapid sellout of popular devices
- Marketing focused on personal tech empowerment

2. L'Oréal

- Exclusive beauty bundles emphasizing self-care
- Engaging livestream tutorials for individual beauty routines
- 60% sales growth
- Campaigns celebrating personal beauty standards

3. Adidas

- 40% discounts on popular items
- Focus on sustainable products
- 35% year-on-year growth
- Marketing themes around individual athletic achievement

4. Huawei

- Early-bird discounts up to 47%
- Interactive virtual events celebrating tech independence
- 50% sales increase
- Solo-user-focused product features

5. Estée Lauder

- Exclusive luxury beauty sets for self-indulgence
- Virtual try-on technology for confident solo shopping
- 45% sales growth
- Campaigns focusing on personal luxury experiences

Standing Out During Single’s Day

As Singles' Day continues to evolve, setting new benchmarks for online retail success. Its transformation from a celebration of singlehood to a shopping phenomenon demonstrates how brands can authentically connect cultural meaning with commercial opportunity. As we look ahead, successful brands will be those that maintain this delicate balance – celebrating individual empowerment while creating compelling shopping experiences.

The festival's success shows that when cultural understanding meets technological innovation and strategic marketing, the result is more than just sales – it's a celebration of individual choice and personal freedom that resonates across Asia and beyond.

It would be good to see more of that kind of holistic messaging tagged to the campaigns rather than just playing on tactics like discounts, price points and freebies (e.g. 11% off, $11 promotions) that makes the brand look like they are just latching onto a commercial bandwagon, and single’s day losing its original meaning.

Mad About Marketing Consulting

Advisor for C-Suites to work with you and your teams to maximize your marketing potential with strategic transformation for better business and marketing outcomes.

Citations:

-         https://www.new-rebels.com/en/blogs/new-rebels/singles-day-and-the-rise-of-new-rebels-a-deep-dive/
-         https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/singles-day.asp
-         https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/singles-day/
-         https://studycli.org/chinese-holidays/singles-day/
-         https://www.businessinsider.com/8-crazy-facts-about-singles-day-in-china-2015-11?IR=T
-         https://www.digitalcrew.com.au/blogs-and-insights/10-singles-day-marketing-ideas-to-increase-your-sales/
-         https://www.contentgrip.com/singles-day-criteo-insights/
-         https://www.mastroke.com/blog/digital-marketing/7-brands-that-nailed-it-on-singles-day/
-         https://www.warroominc.com/institute-library/blog/marketing-tips-for-singles-day/
-         https://www.worldfirst.com/sg/online-sellers/singles-day-ecommerce-guide/
-         https://retailasia.com/e-commerce/news/singles-day-top-shopping-season-139-sales-growth
-         https://www.criteo.com/blog/double-dates-2023-spotlight-on-singles-day/
-         http://martechasia.net/news/over-50-of-singles-day-new-shoppers-return-for-more/
-         https://technode.com/2020/11/12/chinas-singles-day-sales-top-rmb-332-billion-across-platforms/
-         https://www.businessinsider.com/8-crazy-facts-about-singles-day-in-china-2015-11?IR=T
-         https://blog.dot.vu/singles-day-marketing/

From Brand Love to Brand Relevance: A New Paradigm in Brand Building

In the evolving landscape of brand marketing, we often hear about the pursuit of "brand love" – that magical connection where consumers don't just buy your product but fall in love with your brand. But what if we're asking the wrong question? What if the goal isn't to be loved, but to be genuinely understood and valued?

 
The Paradigm Shift: From Love to Relevance

The truth is, your brand isn't about making customers love you. It's about understanding what they need from you and delivering it consistently. Success isn't measured by how many hearts your brand can capture, but by being top-of-mind when your customers have a need, want, or aspiration.

 This shift from pursuing brand love to building brand relevance isn't just semantic – it's strategic. Here's why it matters and how to make this transition effectively.

 
The Three Pillars of Brand Relevance

1. Define Your Value Proposition

Start with your "Why, What, and How." This isn't just about crafting a clever mission statement – it's about crystallizing the value you bring to your target customers. What problems are you solving? Why should they choose you? Your value proposition should answer these questions clearly and convincingly.

 2. Embrace Your Specific Audience

One of the biggest mistakes brands make is trying to be everything to everyone. Remember: You can't – and shouldn't – try to appeal to everyone. Your brand's strength isn't measured by universal appeal but by its resonance with those who matter most to your business. Are you building a brand that demands attention, or one that earns it through consistent value delivery?

 3. Foster Organic Brand Presence

Think about brands like Panadol, Pampers, or Coca-Cola. When people have a headache, need diapers, or want a cola, these brands come to mind automatically. Why? Because they've established themselves not just through advertising, but through consistent delivery of value. It's what customers say about you when you're not advertising that truly defines your brand.

 The Integration Imperative

When leaders ask me about improving brand perception and scores, they're often asking the wrong question. Instead, ask: "What broke down for our customers?" Because brand relevance requires holistic integration across:

- Sales interactions

- Customer service

- Employee behavior

- Leadership visibility

- Digital presence

 When any of these touchpoints fails, customer trust erodes. Why? Because you're no longer doing right by them. You're not giving them what they want or need. They feel betrayed.

 Building Sustainable Brand Value

1. Maintain Unwavering Consistency

- Across all channels

- Through time

- In messaging and delivery

 2. Align with Your Target Audience

- Speak their language

- Address their specific needs

- Show up where – and when – they need you

Think of it as a relationship where loyalty is as good as your ability to serve their needs.

 3. Demonstrate Value Continuously

Don't fall into the "too big to fail" mindset. Instead:

- Prove your worth through actions

- Deliver meaningful solutions

- Create tangible impact

Remember: It's a perpetual courtship.

 4. Recognize and Reward Loyalty

Too many companies focus on acquiring new customers at the expense of existing ones. Build sustainable value by:

- Rewarding continued engagement

- Building long-term relationships

- Creating organic advocate communities

 The Bottom Line

The question isn't whether your brand is loved – it's whether your brand is relevant. In today's market, relevance beats romance every time. Your brand's strength lies not in universal appeal but in its ability to consistently deliver value to those who matter most.

Are you building a brand that demands attention, or one that earns it through consistent value delivery? The answer to this question might just be the key to your brand's future success.

Mad About Marketing Consulting

Advisor for C-Suites to work with you and your teams to maximize your marketing potential with strategic transformation for better business and marketing outcomes.

Revolutionizing B2C Marketing: 10 Strategic Pillars for Transformative Success

10 Strategic Pillars for Transformative Success

In today's rapidly evolving marketplace, successful B2C marketing isn't just about following trends—it's about creating them. As we navigate 2024, let's explore how to transform your marketing approach through a lens of innovation and deep strategic understanding.

 1. The Art & Science of Brand Building

Think beyond conventional branding. Your brand isn't just a logo or color scheme—it's the emotional resonance you create in your customers' minds. It’s what they think about you when someone mentions your name. Success lies in:

- Crafting a brand identity that transcends visual elements

- Building authentic emotional connections through strategic storytelling

- Empowering customers to become part of your brand narrative through user-generated content

- Creating a distinctive brand personality that stands out in a crowded marketplace

 2. Social Media: Beyond the Basics

Social platforms aren't just channels—they're ecosystems of engagement. Transform your approach by:

- Developing platform-specific strategies that maximizes unique features

- Creating content that sparks positive conversations, not just likes

- Building genuine communities through thoughtful engagement

- Pioneering innovative social commerce experiences

 3. Customer Experience: The New Marketing Frontier

The most powerful marketing tool? An exceptional customer experience. Consider:

- Designing seamless, intuitive purchasing journeys

- Implementing mobile-first strategies that reflect modern consumer behavior

- Creating personalized touchpoints that demonstrate understanding

- Building loyalty through consistent, outstanding service

 4. Content Marketing Reimagined

Content isn't king—valuable, transformative content is. Focus on:

- Creating immersive storytelling experiences

- Developing educational content that empowers your audience

- Showcasing authentic behind-the-scenes moments

- Leveraging customer success stories to inspire and engage

 5. Email Marketing Evolution

Transform your email strategy from broadcasting to conversation:

- Design personalized journeys that anticipate customer needs

- Implement intelligent automation that retains a human touch

- Create value-driven content that subscribers anticipate

- Build relationships through meaningful lifecycle communications that recognizes their relationship with you

 6. Digital Presence & SEO Mastery

Your digital presence should be a testament to innovation:

- Optimize for emerging search behaviors, including voice

- Create seamless mobile experiences that delight users

- Develop content that answers tomorrow's questions

- Build digital environments that convert and retain

 7. Data Intelligence & Analytics

Transform data into actionable insights:

- Analyze patterns to predict future behaviors

- Use testing to continuously optimize experiences

- Measure what matters, not just what's easy

- Turn feedback into strategic advantage

 8. Customer Retention Strategies

Building loyalty requires both art and science:

- Design reward systems that encourage meaningful engagement

- Create exclusive experiences that strengthen relationships

- Develop community-building initiatives that foster a sense of belonging

- Implement personalization that shows you understand their pain points, goals and aspirations

 9. Customer-Centric Promotion

Promotions should create value, not just discounts:

- Design limited-time offers that create excitement

- Build bundling strategies that enhance customer experience and solve their problems

- Create threshold-based incentives that drive larger baskets

- Develop exclusive opportunities that reward loyalty

 10. Visual Storytelling Excellence

In a visual world, stand out through:

- Creating immersive visual experiences

- Tapping on emerging technologies like AR/VR

- Designing visual narratives that resonate with target audience

- Building cohesive visual stories across channels

 Looking Forward

The future of B2C marketing lies not in following best practices, but in transforming them. Success comes from combining deep strategic understanding with innovative approaches that challenge conventional wisdom.

Mad About Marketing Consulting

Advisor for C-Suites to work with you and your teams to maximize your marketing potential with strategic transformation for better business and marketing outcomes.

B2B Marketing Excellence: 8 Pillars for Strategic Transformation

8 Pillars for Strategic Transformation

In today's rapidly evolving B2B landscape, success demands more than just traditional marketing approaches. It requires a strategic transformation that embraces both time-tested approaches and innovative thinking. Let's explore the eight essential pillars that can revolutionize your B2B marketing strategy.

 1. Content Marketing: The Foundation of Thought Leadership

True market leadership isn't claimed—it's earned through valuable insights. By creating data-driven research reports, detailed case studies, and educational content, you're not just marketing—you're elevating industry discourse. The key lies in translating complex insights into actionable approaches that drive real business results.

 2. Lead Generation: An Art Backed by Science

Moving beyond basic lead capture requires a coordinated effort in terms of insightful content, compelling call-to-action and compelling landing pages, intelligent lead scoring, and personalized lead nurturing campaigns. It's about creating a journey that resonates with your prospects' needs while maintaining a clear path to meaningful business conversations.

 3. Digital Presence: Your Virtual Self

Your digital presence isn't just a website—it's your organization's digital personality. In the B2B space, this also means crafting a mobile-responsive experience that speaks directly to your audience's challenges, backed by client testimonials and industry recognition.

4. Account-Based Marketing: Precision at Scale

ABM represents the convergence of strategic thinking and personalized execution. By aligning marketing and sales efforts around high-value accounts, you're not just reaching audiences—you're creating tailored stories that address specific business challenges and opportunities.

 5. Relationship Building: The Human Element

In an increasingly digital world, human connections matter more than ever. From customer advisory boards to strategic partner programs, successful B2B marketing hinges on building and nurturing authentic win-win relationships that transcend traditional business boundaries.

 6. Sales Enablement: Bridging the Gap

 Empower your sales team with more than just collateral—provide them with intelligence. From comprehensive competitor analyses to ROI calculators, sales enablement should focus on tools that facilitate meaningful business discussions and demonstrate clear value propositions.

 7. Analytics & Measurement: The Pulse of Performance

True transformation requires clear visibility. By focusing on metrics that matter—from customer acquisition costs to lifetime value—you create a feedback loop that drives continuous improvement and strategic refinement.

 8. Customer Experience: The Ultimate Differentiator

In B2B, customer experience isn't just about satisfaction—it's about enabling success. From streamlined onboarding to comprehensive education initiatives, every touchpoint should reinforce your commitment to your clients' success for sustainable growth.

 The Path Forward

These pillars don't operate in isolation—they form an interconnected framework for B2B marketing excellence. The key to success lies not just in implementing each pillar, but in orchestrating them harmoniously to create sustainable competitive advantages.

Mad About Marketing Consulting

Advisor for C-Suites to work with you and your teams to maximize your marketing potential with strategic transformation for better business and marketing outcomes.

Much Ado About Labubu: How a Quirky Doll Became Asia's Must-Have Collectible

In the ever-evolving landscape of collectible toys, few items have captured the imagination of Southeast Asian consumers quite like the Labubu doll of late, perhaps almost out beating Action City Be@rBrick toys. Created by artist Kasing Lung in 2015, these impish creatures with their distinctive pointy ears, sharp teeth, and mischievous smiles have transformed from niche collectibles into a cultural phenomenon that's reshaping the luxury toy market starting this year.

In this case study, I would like to share some insights around the phenomenal rise to fame of the Labubu toy.

The Power of Celebrity Influence

The Labubu craze reached new heights in early 2024 when BLACKPINK's Lisa shared photos of herself with Labubu plushies on social media. This single action triggered a dramatic chain reaction across Southeast Asia, particularly in Thailand, where the dolls quickly became must-have accessories. The impact was immediate and substantial—prices soared from their original THB 550 (USD 16.3) to an astounding THB 10,000 (USD 296.3) in resale markets.

More Than Just a Toy. It’s a Cultural Statement

What makes Labubu's success particularly fascinating is its evolution from what seems like a simple toy to a multifaceted cultural icon. Today, Labubu dolls serve several distinct purposes:

• Fashion Statement

  • Commonly seen adorning luxury bags like Birkins and Kellys; lending a somewhat quirky touch

  • Used as sophisticated accessories by fashion influencers

  • Integrated into personal style statements that consumers consider as being representative of their personality

• Status Symbol

  • Limited editions create exclusivity, which in turn create demand

  • Rare pieces command premium prices similar to luxury bags

  • Ownership signals cultural awareness and sophistication of a different level

• Investment Asset

  • Collectors view certain editions as investment opportunities, perhaps no different from say a Louis Vuitton Vivienne Doll

  • Limited releases drive speculative purchasing

  • Secondary market values continue to appreciate due to scarcity

Labubu Rise to fame across of SEA

The spread of Labubu fever across Southeast Asia reveals interesting market dynamics:

• Thailand

  • The first Labubu-themed store in Bangkok generated USD 1.4 million on opening day

  • This was backed by strong celebrity and influencer adoption

  • Plus clever integration with tourism promotion initiatives 

• Singapore

  • Successfully localized through special editions (e.g., Merlion Labubu keychain)

  • Backed by strong retail presence

  • Supported by high engagement among young professionals, where it was reported someone spent as much as $10,000 a month on the dolls!

• Malaysia and Indonesia

  • Seeing growing market penetration

  • Especially rising popularity among 18-35 consumers

  • Backed by increasing presence through pop-up stores and online platforms

The Psychology Behind the Phenomenon

The unprecedented success of Labubu can be attributed to several psychological factors:

• Emotional Connection

  • It bears design elements that trigger protective instincts

  • Its features appeal to both childlike wonder and adult sophistication

  • All this invoke strong nostalgic elements

• Community Building

  • Active online collector communities encourage its spread and rise to fame

  • Rampant online sharing of experiences and increase in trading platforms

  • Driven by active social media engagement

• Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) Effect

  • Limited releases create sense of urgency

  • Blind box format adds to excitement and mystery

  • Exclusive collaborations with other brands and artists further drive demand

Business Strategy Insights

The Labubu phenomenon offers valuable lessons in product marketing and brand building:

• Successful Elements:

  • Strategic use of scarcity

  • Effective celebrity partnerships

  • Strong social media presence

  • Local market adaptation

  • Quality control and authentic design

What’s Next Labubu?

As Labubu continues to capture hearts and wallets across Asia, several trends are worth watching:

• Market Expansion

  • Growing presence in new regional markets outside of SEA

  • Potential for global reach

  • Diversification of product lines

•  Cultural Impact

  • Integration into local fashion scenes, including luxury fashion

  • Influence on collector culture, including more cross-collaborations

  • Evolution of luxury toy market

• Brand Development

  • New collaborations and partnerships with other prominent influencers, designers and artists

  • Product line expansions for more Labubu merchandise

  • Digital presence enhancement, including Labubu games or metaverse

Key Takeaways

The Labubu phenomenon demonstrates how a well-designed product, combined with strategic marketing and cultural relevance, can transcend its original purpose to become a cultural touchstone, if it addresses a customer’s emotive need or desire. Not just that, when the opportunity strikes, as in the case of the organic endorsement by BLACKPINK's Lisa, the brand cleverly capitalizes on that burst of fame to quickly take the market by storm.

 Its success offers valuable insights for brands looking to create similar impact:

• Authenticity in design matters

• Celebrity endorsements can catalyze growth and often, organic endorsements are becoming even more powerful than paid ones

• Local market adaptation is crucial (e.g. merlion Labubu)

• Community building drives sustained engagement

• Scarcity can create value due to FOMO when managed and timed properly

As the collectible market and social media landscape continues to evolve, Labubu stands as a testament to the power of combining artistic vision with strategic market development, powered by clever use of social. Its journey from a simple toy to a cultural phenomenon provides a fascinating case study in modern brand building and consumer behavior.

Mad About Marketing Consulting

Advisor for C-Suites to work with you and your teams to maximize your marketing potential with strategic transformation for better business and marketing outcomes.

Citations:

[1] https://www.tatlerasia.com/lifestyle/entertainment/the-rise-of-labubu-plush-toy-trend

[2] https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2024/10/21/labubu-doll-craze-drives-enthusiasts-to-spend-thousands

[3] https://says.com/my/lifestyle/what-is-labubu

[4] https://www.prestigeonline.com/th/lifestyle/art-plus-design/what-is-labubu-faq-where-to-buy-origins-price-kasing-lung-lalisa-manobal/

[5] https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/trending/things-know-about-labubu-pop-mart-409246

[6] https://www.tatlerasia.com/lifestyle/entertainment/celebrities-labubu-collection

[7] https://www.reddit.com/r/askSingapore/comments/1ftj7mt/whats_with_the_labubu_craze/

[8] https://novelship.com/news/8-fun-facts-about-labubu-the-toy-that-stole-hearts-worldwide/

[9] https://kr-asia.com/southeast-asia-is-the-next-playground-for-trendy-toys-and-brands-are-cashing-in

[10] https://e.vnexpress.net/news/business/companies/vietnamese-spend-big-on-limited-art-toy-labubu-4779257.html

The Curious Case of Moo Deng

If you are living in Southeast Asia and haven’t already caught the hype of the adorable pygmy hippo, Moo Deng, you might be living under a rock! In fact, she’s potentially trending as much as Taylor Swift in some markets!

Born on July 10, 2024, Moo Deng's name means "bouncy pig" in Thai. Since her birth, she has drawn considerable online attention, resulting in a substantial increase in zoo attendance and merchandise sales. The Khao Kheow Open Zoo reported a remarkable rise in visitors, with weekend attendance skyrocketing from a few hundred to over 10,000 shortly after her arrival.

Given that Moo Deng is not the only pygmy hippo though they are very much endangered, what makes her such a stand-out pygmy hippo celebrity? Why didn’t other pygmy hippos in other zoos and animal parks alike achieve the same level of fame?

Below is a deep dive into the curious case of Moo Deng’s fame.

1. Social Media Influence

Moo Deng first went viral after her caretake uploaded a video of her playful antics online and she shot to fame. Moo Deng's fame is largely driven by platforms like TikTok and Instagram, where clips of her playful behavior have attracted millions of views. The zoo's dedicated TikTok account has gained over 2.5 million followers, featuring Moo Deng's daily adventures. This combination of cuteness and viral potential has propelled her into the public eye globally and encourage other zoos around the world to start showcasing their own pygmy hippos! However, none have propelled to fame at the same scale as Moo Deng.

Moo Deng’s zoo has been keeping up the daily content posts and a live 24 hour video stream of her to ensure followers are kept entertained. They also created a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out) with photos of the huge crowd all flocking to see her in person.

2. Psychological Appeal

Some observers think it’s also largely due to the "baby schema" theory, which explains much of Moo Deng's allure. Her large eyes and round body evoke nurturing instincts in humans, making her appear endearingly cute. Research shows that such features activate pleasure and care-related emotional centers in the brain, heightening her appeal. However, she is not the only pygmy hippo that has such features, so what so special about Moo Deng then?

I personally think it’s also due to her distinctive personality where she’s literally bouncing around unpredictably in a comical manner, playfully biting her caretaker and just having her own quirks that perhaps weren’t captured or reflected in her fellow pygmy hippos.

3. Strategic Marketing

Several brands have quickly latched onto Moo Deng's popularity through engaging marketing campaigns.

• Sephora Thailand released makeup products inspired by her rosy cheeks.

• Local bakeries created Moo Deng themed pastries, which are seeing high demand.

• Merchandise such as shirts, cushions and flip-flops featuring Moo Deng has been introduced quickly.

• Other content creators started creating memes of Moo Deng, giving her even more air time and further adding onto her perceived unique personality

These initiatives not only boost brand visibility but further enhance Moo Deng's presence and appeal across various consumer markets.

4. Format of Moo Deng’s Content

Kudos to Moo Deng’s caretaker for creating such an engaging format to publicize Moo Deng and promote her antics. If you follow other zoos who have since started posting their own pygmy hippos, you will notice most are static photos that don’t quite have the same allure or impact.

You also don’t see as much interactions between those hippos and their caretakers, which I believe created another level of emotive content that brings her story to life.

Impact of Moo Deng’s Fame:

Moo Deng's rising popularity has brought significant financial benefits to Khao Kheow Open Zoo. Between September 1 and 25, ticket sales reached approximately 19.2 million baht (around $587,000). However, this fame has raised concerns about animal welfare, with reports of visitors disturbing Moo Deng by throwing objects into her enclosure. In response, the zoo has implemented measures such as limiting viewing times and installing CCTV to monitor her interactions with visitors.

Moo Deng’s fame has brought much needed attention to the plight of her endangered relatives and other animal species, which is an overall win (albeit it might not be forever) for the animals in general.

Moo Deng's viral success illustrates the intersection of social media combined with emotive content, the inherent appeal of cute animals playing into the human psychology, and opportunistic marketing. As her fame continues to grow, her story serves as a case study on the ability of modern digital culture to transform an animal into a celebrity while underscoring the responsibilities associated with such visibility.

For the lack of any other possible reason, I also think that in this current, somewhat turbulent time of conflicts and disputes, Moo Deng might be a solemn reminder of the importance of hope, innocence and simple joy to help us navigate life’s uncertainties and unpleasantries.

Mad About Marketing Consulting

Advisor for C-Suites to work with you and your teams to maximize your marketing potential with strategic transformation for better business and marketing outcomes.

Citations:

[1] https://midas-pr.com/unpacking-the-hype-how-moo-deng-broke-the-internet/

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy848292dr4o

[3] https://www.nationthailand.com/blogs/life/entertainment/40041811

[4] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/baby-pygmy-hippo-moo-deng-wobbles-her-way-to-global-stardom/articleshow/113328689.cms

[5] https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/lifestyle-culture/article/3280818/thailand-zoo-defends-viral-baby-hippo-moo-deng-against-petas-captivity-claims

[6] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blocksite.cms

[7] https://www.forbes.com/sites/amandakooser/2024/10/04/what-our-moo-deng-baby-hippo-obsession-says-about-humanity/

[8] https://www.khaosodenglish.com/life/socialmedia/2024/09/30/moo-deng-decoding-a-viral-sensation-the-rise-of-a-hippo-celebrity/

Solving The People, Platform and Process Conundrum

When it comes to transformation of any sort, especially digital ones, many business and marketing leaders tend to focus mainly on the packaging, pricing, platform and sometimes people side of things.

Based on my decades of experience working in global corporates, including professional services and consultancies, I have come to observe that the dependency on the 3Ps (People, Platforms, Process) is inherent everywhere I help with transformation, including marketing and organization-wide transformation to upskill, digitalize and restructure the function to be fit for the intended vision of the organization.

However, I have also observed that many don’t fully understand the true potential and are not maximizing the true potential of the marketing function, often treating them as a communication, creative, events or worse, a corporate gifts department.

Due to this lack of understanding and appreciation of how marketing can and should work, they often try to force new technologies, new platforms or restructure the function in such a way that it leaves no room for progress, upward mobility or innovation in the way they think, plan and execute.

This in turn affects their ability to help you actualize your business value proposition to your customers as they can only do a redesigning of your product or service offerings with a nicer tagline and/or visual year after year or come up with gimmicky promotions to entice the customers.

This then affects your overall growth and profitability as you are not addressing the true needs of your customer and in turn, you look to cut the marketing budget and worse, headcount as you see them as a cost centre and not much else. Being short on resources on all fronts, your marketing team begins to churn or go back to doing the same things in trying to cope with all the business demand and the vicious cycle repeats itself.

However, often times we should be looking at transformation in totality to include process as well to check if 1) your existing process is supportive or conducive for the transformation you need to make and 2) what changes or enhancements do you need to make or 3) what new processes you need to create to incorporate the transformation needed.

Take for example, you wish to introduce automated A/B testing within your MarTech capabilities to improve on efficiency and speed to market. There are a few things you need to consider from a process perspective.

This includes:

• What is the current process your team has to go through to create content and offers to enable the A/B testing even if it’s a manual one?

• Will that process change with an automated tool or will there be an additional layer of process needed to enable the testing? This can be approval of the A/B testing logic set-up in addition to the content and offer mechanics for example.

• Are there regulatory restrictions to adhere to from a customer fairness perspective? How about the customer targeting set-up logic needed? Can you use your existing set-up framework and customer targeting attributes or do you need a new one?

• Is there any security risk in terms of data transference leakage or concerns by incorporating the new A/B testing tool onto your existing MarTech stack?

The above is just a rough example of the process and platform side of things to consider when it comes to even a simple implementation of a seemingly harmless tool. Just barely scratching the surface and not even getting into the deep end of transformation.

This is why I founded Mad About Marketing Consulting, to bridge the gap between business and marketing, having helmed transformative roles for several global MNCs, including EY, JLL, Kantar, State Street and most recently, Citibank. I work with your business and marketing teams, creative, brand, media and even business management agencies to bring across that insider perspective of how marketing can and should work as a business enabler. This is to ensure nothing falls through the cracks as you go about your organization wide transformation.

Simply said, no one understands marketing pain points and potential as well as a marketer who has been at the forefront of change, built teams from scratch and nurtured inherited and mature teams.

Check out my credentials here.

Mad About Marketing Consulting

Ally for C-Suites to work with you and your teams to maximize your marketing potential with strategic transformation for better business and marketing outcomes.

Demystifying Digital and Data

I cringe and roll my eyes internally whenever I hear companies talk about how digitally mature they are because they have a nice looking website, are on all the latest social channels and have adopted a dozen of MarTech tools but not entirely sure how they are measuring success or what they are truly trying to achieve.

Being digital goes beyond just a nice looking website, be on all the latest social channels and buying all the fancy MarTech tools so you look like you are at the forefront of digital adoption. It’s also to avoid creating a data and digital dumpster.

Yes, there is such a thing as too much data and digital tools.

On the flipside, there is also such a thing as over reliance on one single platform/tool, person or process to try and help you make sense of the data you have or enable your business.

“Wait a minute”, I hear you say. “What am I supposed to do if both scenarios are not ideal?.”

I was recently inspired to write something about this after attending a few forums speaking about digitalization, data analytics, Gen AI and MarTech.

It depends on a few factors:

• what are your objectives for using this tool or platform?

• what are you trying to achieve and what insights are you trying to gather with the data collected?

• how does the tool and data help you achieve your objectives?

• what are you current processes like that will either hinder or enable you to fully utilize the tool and data collected?

• what are the current skillsets and mindsets of your people that again will either hinder or enable you to maximize the tool and data?

• what matters most when it comes to choosing the right tool?

• what matters most when it comes to analyzing the data collected?

• have you tested other tools serving a similar nature and what are the test steps you have used?

• how are you collecting your data, storing, managing and analyzing it? What do you do with the insights gathered?

• understand the pros and cons of multiple tools/platforms versus single tool/platform and their impact on your objectives and desired outcomes.

Some companies have chosen to stick to certain tools because they have invested a lot of time, money and effort on it despite it not meeting their needs. Some companies have chosen to over rely on just one or two people to be their so-called power users and are almost at the mercy of these folks.

Both scenarios create what we call bad behavior almost like a bad relationship where you know deep down it’s not quite right but you are so entrenched it feels like you need to live with it. What happens then is they abandon the tools bought or underutilize it (especially in the first scenario) and buy yet another tool without first understanding what is it that is not working well.

The other possibility is to hire an expert to either train your users or join your company and end up being at their mercy especially if you as the function or business owner doesn’t have a clue as to what you are trying to achieve, what the tool is capable of and its limitations, and how you intend to sustain the use of the tool if your needs change.

The way I prefer to work and advise my clients have always been to really deep dive into their pain points, current processes, people capabilities, business and marketing objectives , outcomes they want to achieve and how they want to measure success.

If I know for sure that there is a more effective platform or tool to help them achieve what they need, I will not hesitate to advise them to bite the bullet and consider another tool. Likewise, if I know the issue is not the tool but their current lack of knowledge or a gap in their processes, then I will work with them on addressing that gap instead.

A critical part of change management is mindset and behavioral change, and enablement of the people with the right skillset, supportive processes and therefore cultivating a supportive mindset to adapt to the change.

There is no one-size fits all, so what matters more is to be open to learn about different options available out there, not just what you are comfortable with or what others are using.

Psst - For data analytics, there are - tableau, amazon quicksight, power bi, looker, qilk, apache spark just to name a few commonly used ones. I have my personal favorites but it depends again on the factors I mentioned above.

About the Author

Mad About Marketing Consulting

Ally and Advisor for CMOs, Heads of Marketing and C-Suites to work with you and your teams to maximize your marketing potential with strategic transformation for better business and marketing outcomes.

Two Seminars, Key Lessons Learnt

August and September were two monumental months for me as a business owner, where after more than two decades in high flying corporate roles, I found myself somewhat vulnerable at times during the events!

It’s not so much as trying to prove myself again as I learnt recently speaking to someone with eons of experience managing their own business. It’s more re-building a different brand than my own personal brand.

Marketing our own company’s brand is sometimes seen as more difficult than marketing another company’s brand. That is because we usually won’t have huge amount of resources, be it time or funds. What we have are usually huge doses of self doubt, especially when we face rejections.

Rejections were aplenty, especially when I was hosting my own exhibition booth at The Business Show Asia and it works both ways - I rejected others and others rejected me! On hindsight now, I see it as more misalignment in objectives and expectations aka the wrong fit. On that, I have learnt to qualify early and quality better.

I relieved the days where I was in a more junior position, setting up events from scratch, pulling up banners, packing gifts to printing tags. But I did it with way more pride now than before because I am now at a place where I truly appreciate the value all the little things can help to contribute to the eventual success of an event. If you don’t take pride in it, it will certainly be apparent to your customers!

Overseeing the planning by myself versus working with others to co-organize are also valuable experiences. Though working collaboratively as a team is nothing new to me and people who have worked with me before often tell me that they appreciate the trust I placed on them. I believe in walking the talk as a leader - we are all in it together and if the going gets tough, we face it together but ultimately, if I can provide the air cover as their leader, I certainly will and should! On this, lessons are aligning expectations to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Preparing for the worse and seeing the rainbow at the end -that’s another valuable lesson learnt as things can and often will go wrong in many ways. What we can do are to manage well what we can predict and make the best of what we cannot control.

All that said, I have thoroughly enjoyed myself and learnt a lot from both events. The highlights are always the interactions with people in person; that’s irreplaceable! The insights exchanged also inspired new ideas and perceptions. It also made me realized that we all don’t need to be absolute experts in every topic that we bring to the seminars - everyone is still learning, exploring, listening and forming their own enhanced observations through the sharing by others.

Next - I’m looking forward to October and November’s series of speaking events - Singapore > Bangkok > Singapore > Dubai > Singapore - Bring it on!

If you’re interested to watch key highlights and takeaways of the panel discussions held during these events, check here and follow our YouTube Channel!

About the Author

Mad About Marketing Consulting

Ally and Advisor for CMOs, Heads of Marketing and C-Suites to work with you and your marketing teams to maximize your marketing potential with strategic transformation for better business and marketing outcomes.

Communications Made Complex by Colleagues?

In my years of managing and navigating various corporate structures, be it leading organizational transformation or being part of a cog in the wheel of change, I have learnt that:

• changes are often made more complicated than usual due to people

• this complication increases even more when these people get caught up in less than ideal processes

• add politics to the fold and you get lots of resistance, inertia, quiet quitters or passive-aggressive behaviour

I have had my fair share of being the wide eye doe, especially during the earlier days of my career when I thought naively that everyone should see the newbie (aka me) as being harmless.

It took me a good five years at least to wise up about a thing or two and not take things to heart when the going gets tough.

That is why I place huge emphasis on internal communications at the following levels when it comes to transformation of any sort:

• organization-wide

• within departments and teams

• between managers and their one-downs

• amongst working peers

• across functional lines, regardless of seniority

The importance of internal communications and internal stakeholder management includes making an effort to strengthen one’s interpersonal skills.

It is not so much about whether one is an extrovert or introvert. Good interpersonal skills comes with being able to connect and communicate with empathy, active listening and having the bigger picture in mind of what you are trying to achieve.

Just always bear in mind that majority of people are innately fearful of change, disruptions to the familiar and protective of what they care about. Thus, when we are the ones responsible for implementing and communicating that change, we should be prepared for resistance, complications, and people going out of the way to make it almost impossible for you to achieve what you want.

Also important to keep in mind - it’s nothing personal; it’s just business. Focus on establishing that position of trust, impartiality and highlighting the benefits to those impacted by the change.

It takes time, patience, conviction and confidence, and resist playing petty politics.

About the Author

Mad About Marketing Consulting

Ally and Advisor for CMOs, Heads of Marketing and C-Suites to work with you and your marketing teams to maximize your marketing potential with strategic transformation for better business and marketing outcomes.

Sorry is the Hardest Word?

Is it pride, ego or just plain cluelessness?

Having managed social and crisis communications for companies that I have worked for previously and now advising clients on their own communications approach, it seems that the word “sorry” is sometimes not found in the companies’ dictionary.

It is in fact often harder to get a company to apologize sincerely to their customers than to win the local lottery.

If statements like “we apologise if this might have caused you any inconvenience” or “we are sorry if you have been inconvenienced” sound familiar, you might have been a victim of gaslighting if you are a customer reading this.

If you are the company responsible for this statement, you have just absolutely gaslighted your customers and possibly caused even more frustration.

The main reason these statements have an issue is the way they are being phrased. By using the words “if”, “might” and “perhaps” suggest that companies are providing an outlet for themselves to excuse their own behavior and misdemeanor.

Take for example a recent case I heard from a friend about an airline misplacing her luggage. She had to buy clothes and other necessities not provided by the hotel the moment she landed as she had everything in her luggage. The airline eventually managed to deliver the luggage to her hotel the next day with the following apology note “we apologise if we might have caused you any inconvenience having misplaced your luggage”.

They might as well say “Though we have misplaced your luggage, whether we think it’s our fault or not depends on whether you have been inconvenienced. We think you might be or you might not, who knows (or cares?)”.

They should have placed themselves in the shoes of their customer and think empathetically before they craft the note and decided on the appropriate actions.

If it’s them, would they not feel frustrated, stressed and absolutely inconvenienced being in another country without their own belongings? Would they be absolutely delighted to have an airline that they entrust to transport them and their belongings from one place to another without fuss - lose their belongings? It’s not rocket science that customers expect the bare minimum of what they paid for when they decide to fly with said airline.

The customer is not even expecting the airline to go the extra mile to send a goodwill token of apology and appreciation for her support when in fact, a self-respecting world class airline should do that.

In contrast, I recall an incident when a driver drove off with my bag accidentally when I was in Japan and was uncontactable because his mobile phone was out of power. He turned up later in the evening and apologized profusely without any “ifs” or ”mays” and the next morning, got me a small token of apology though I was not expecting it at all.

This goes to show that everyone can make that impact and difference in customer centricity; it’s a matter of your core values and if you genuinely care enough to do so or not.

From a communications perspective, it is also better to be more transparent and forthcoming in owning the issue, acknowledging mistakes, and apologizing for them sincerely. No organization is too big or important for an apology when it’s warranted; just as no organization is too big to fall.

So, the next time when a mistake is made, how ready are you to own it sincerely?

About the Author

Mad About Marketing Consulting

Ally and Advisor for CMOs, Heads of Marketing and C-Suites to work with you and your marketing teams to maximize your marketing potential with strategic transformation for better business and marketing outcomes.

If Marketing is A Stock, How Much Would You Value It?

Engage a marketing team for as little as $1,000 monthly.

You don’t need a CMO; you just need to tap on Gen AI to do your marketing for you.

Start-Ups don’t need a CMO or Experienced Marketing Leader; just hire a fresh graduate or a junior marketer since you as a Founder Can Do Everything!

Some horror stories I have been reading from LinkedIn either through people’s comments, posts or articles. I also had stories shared with me recently when I spoke with some junior marketers who are working for start-ups or micro businesses.

Let me turn this around for a moment and see how it makes you feel, if you are say a CEO, COO, CDO or whatever C-suite person who is likely to be a Founder of the next flashy app or platform or business:

Engage an IT team for as little as $1,000 monthly to develop and maintain the app for you.

We don’t need a CEO/COO/CDO; just hire a fresh graduate or junior sales/operations/digital manager to do your job.

It seems marketing is the single most replaceable or redundant job in any given company.

It also seems everybody and anybody can and knows marketing.

It’s the easiest skill to master in the world of business, sales, HR, IT, Data, operations, finance….the list goes on.

Perhaps it’s a bad encounter with a bad marketer. Or perhaps you actually have zero idea of what marketing can and should be doing for your business.

In any case, I feel sorry for you but as the saying goes, pay peanuts and get monkeys.

Companies need to be realistic and cognizant of the fact that the level of contribution and value of that contribution comes with experience in the field. There is no shortcut to it. Similar to any profession, the more experience the person has, especially across their own field, across the same and/or different industries and even across different countries, the more valuable the contribution.

This is different from say someone who has stayed on in their marketing position in the exact same company and same portfolio for decades and hasn’t learnt anything new, achieved anything new or launched anything new. It’s like a chef cooking the exact same dish year on year and not changing the menu at all - stale.

But to have the unrealistic expectations that a junior marketer should be able to think and act like a seasoned marketer, the shame is on you, not them.

In essence, a good and seasoned marketing leader can add value and provide guidance around:

• customer acquisition, retention and sales enablement strategies

• customer experience and lifecycle management

• market and customer research and user testing needs

• omni channel engagement and experience management

• insights that can be gathered from customer data as well as interactions with your channels

• shaping your product and business proposition, including providing opinions on areas for improvement

These are also tenets of core marketing functions and dependent on the exposure the marketer has had over the years of working across different portfolios, companies or industries.

About the Author

Mad About Marketing Consulting

Ally and Advisor for CMOs, Heads of Marketing and C-Suites to work with you and your marketing teams to maximize your marketing potential with strategic transformation for better business and marketing outcomes.

Everyone Loves Some Data But…

The million dollar question is - what exactly do you want to get out of the data?

Everyone has been talking about data for a good decade or so and depending on your level of data maturity, you are either still trying to find where are all of your data sources are located or you are now trying to monetize the insights gathered from your data.

Woe to you if you’re in the former bucket but no surprise many organizations, especially non digital native ones are still sadly in this bucket. Wow to you if you’re in the latter bucket, so what can you do to monetize it?

Customer data platforms, data management platforms and customer relationship management platforms suddenly became the talk of town thanks to Google’s flippant stance on third party cookies, that kept rolling back and back. Companies realized their archaic customer data collection methods and storage methods (often just in excel spreadsheets (horrors!)) are not quite cutting it.

Some are even confusing the whole customer data terminology and what it means when we talk about cookies, first party data, third party data and personal information level data. Some have all but sitting in silos or disconnected platforms that don’t talk to each other while others have none (more horrors!).

Some used to think a good data visualization and analytical tool is the holy grail to get all the answers they need by simply plugging it onto of their so-called data sources. But they soon wonder - how to plug, what to plug, where to plug and why can’t it just be plugged and played?!

Things like:

• is the data clean, updated or accurate?

• is the data in the format that is even retrievable., extractable or readable?

• do you even have the data sitting where you thought is sitting?

• is your data even categorized in the logic, classification and format that is aligned with your decision-making algorithms?

• million dollar question - what exactly do you want to get out of the data? What is the truth that you’re after?

If these were not considered before your so-called plug and play approach, then you get a ton of data yes and a ton of outputs yet but hardly any useful insights. You get more of what we call, data outputs in a format that looks like you just downloaded a gigantic excel spreadsheet or a bunch of fancy looking graphs to make you feel good about some visually appealing data formatted in a presentable manner

E.g. you might see things like:

• xx customer transactions performed over xx period

• xx customer spent over xx period

That is still not data insights, it’s just data outputs telling you how many transactions and spent over a certain period of time. What are you going to do with that without other insights around:

• who are these customers in terms of their interests and life stage needs and what is the co-relation between this and what they are spending versus not spending on?

• what did they exactly spend on and why that might be the case?

• what are their other needs and what is the possibility for that?

• what else have they spent on and why that might be the case?

• are they spending more or less on the same products/period and why that might be the case?

The difference as you can see is in terms of the why and the co-relation between the transactional data and the rationale behind it.

We first need to know what it is that we want to see and how that will help us to better understand our customers’ behavior or potential to engage more with us. It helps to have these in mind, and then work backwards to derive what we then need to have in terms of data types and sources in order to arrive at the desired insights.

It’s equivalent to knowing what is that treasure you’re seeking for so you know which location, treasure map, equipment, skills, knowledge and coordinates to get there.

So, do you know the treasure you’re after?

About the Author

Mad About Marketing Consulting

Ally and Advisor for CMOs, Heads of Marketing and C-Suites to work with you and your marketing teams to maximize your marketing potential with strategic transformation for better business and marketing outcomes.

Are You Selling a Product or a Solution?

Brand purpose and value creation are two things that go hand in hand for a successful and sustainable business. A business does not sustain for long, based purely on the sole purpose of making money, instead of solving problems.

The former can capture a market quickly in the short term to capitalize on a specific trend or lowballing the competition with an attractive pricing or promotional incentive, but the latter will help the business with real customer value creation.

This is easier said than done of course, similar to carving out your brand purpose and why customers should care about you. Actually, they don’t and they don’t have to. They care about themselves and the value you bring to them, which in turn is also why your brand purpose is relevant to their needs and/or wants.

Many brands simply talk too much about themselves and how good they are. This is passe and no one cares, really. Your customers want to know why you are good for them. Period.

Many brands are also simply selling a product and it’s obvious when they just call out the product’s features but not their intrinsic benefits for their customers and how it solves their problems.

E.g. - if you are a tire company:

• if you’re selling a product, you might say things like - we sell tires for your cars. Our tires are made of quality rubber made to last. Buy now for xx% discount for a limited time period.

• If you’re selling a solution, you might say things like - we are the reason mummy and daddy can drive home safe during wet weather or we can save you up to xx% in annual cost since our wheels are made to last.

The above is just a generic example with the second point highlighting potential customer pain points around:

• concerns with road safety and enhanced protection against wet weather road conditions where cars are more likely to skid and get into accidents

• concerns with costs in maintaining their cars and saving them the hassle of having to swap out their tires too often

There could be more pain points thus it’s critical to first understand the problem you are trying to solve for on behalf of your target customers. Selling a product means they are solving your problem instead by lining your coffers but you are simply enticing them for the short term to get a quick purchase. It doesn’t always work for the discerning customer and your competition can easily out-do you with a better discount.

When you move on to think about value creation and solution selling, it changes the narrative and you become 100% focused on addressing your customers’ needs. You start thinking broader as well what else you can add to your slew of products and services that can more holistically address their pain points.

It’s not as simply as bundling a bunch of products and calling it a fancy name as that is ultimately still product pushing; worse, it’s pushing a bunch of products now that might not even be what they want or need.

It involves insights from customers and non customers. It includes consumer trends, their purchasing behaviour, feedback and proactive research to really tease out useful insights. It’s not a bunch of your internal stakeholders sitting down and narrating what they think. It requires empathy as well as a genuine interest in consumer behaviour.

So, are you selling a product or a solution?

About the Author

Mad About Marketing Consulting

Ally and Advisor for CMOs, Heads of Marketing and C-Suites to work with you and your marketing teams to maximize your marketing potential with strategic transformation for better business and marketing outcomes.

What Authenticity Means in the Corporate World

There is much talk on authenticity and its importance recently, including being our authentic selves. A big part of authenticity is communications and being able to communicate authentically.

Some folks have asked me what it really means, and if it means they can literally just communicate whatever they want and anyhow they want even in a corporate setting.

Being authentic means being our true selves in terms of our identities, core values and to a certain extent, our personalities. However, we are not all angels or have charming and kind personalities. Truth be told, if everyone is so nice, kind and loveable, there wouldn’t be so much courses and writings on ways to navigate corporate politics, petty squabbles and power tussles. Truth also be told, if we bring our true selves to the corporate world, some of us might even get fired for being rude, abrasive or worst verbally abusive.

We are usually our true, authentic selves when we are with our loved ones, our families or simply people we are most comfortable with. These are usually not our colleagues or bosses.

Perhaps an unpopular opinion for some, but to me, being authentic in corporate shouldn’t be overly simplified or generalized that way.

While, we can bring our true identities in terms of say our gender orientation and sexual orientation to workplaces that are open and welcoming of it, it doesn’t mean bringing our true personalities, temperament, personal problems, warts and all to the work place.

I think it’s more important to be empathetic in the delivery of our communications and being authentic in the content we are delivering. The emphasis is on content as that’s what really matters to employees and stakeholders. No one wants a fake message that’s layered with lots of fluff or corporate spiel but when unwrapped, the essence of it either doesn’t mean much, cause more confusion or worse, reeks of lies. Don’t communicate for the sake of saying something.

Empathy in our delivery is critical so we are considerate of people’s feelings, their communications style and situations to tailor the way we deliver the message without changing the gist of the content. Being empathetic doesn’t mean fluffing up the message or lying about the content. It’s balancing the logical with the emotional side of the delivery approach. It’s also how you offer up support thereafter for feedback or questions.

Another way to reference it would be being professionally authentic and empathetic in our communications by putting ourselves in the shoes of the audience, and how you would relate to the intended message.

About the Author

Mad About Marketing Consulting

Ally and Advisor for CMOs, Heads of Marketing and C-Suites to work with you and your marketing teams to maximize your marketing potential with strategic transformation for better business and marketing outcomes

The Choice is Ultimately Yours, Not AI’s.

There is a lot of talk on AI possibilities, promises and expectations. Suddenly we start imagining the worst or the best, depending on which side of the AI fence you sit on. Some are treading water cautiously, others are happily announcing integration into their core systems and the rest are sitting back to learn and observe first.

I like to test out different scenarios and have been doing that as part of my current MIT course on AI implications on organizations. It’s a good way at a personal level as well to validate without being an LLM expert by any means.

The following is the most recent test I conducted, which some might find disturbing but again, I believe in stress testing the worst and best outcomes in all sorts of implementations, so we are clear about the possibilities and limitations alike.

Regardless of where you sit in terms of sensitive topics like firearms ownership and gun control, I do believe some topics should be quite black and white with no areas of grey, but apparently, not to AI…

I asked a simple query on - should children be allowed to own guns and answers as below

• ChatGPT tries to give a balanced view with pros and cons for allowing children to own firearms

• Claude tries to give a neutral perspective and so-called “democratic” view, which I personally also find its positioning somewhat disturbing

• Meta’s Llama gives an absolute no as an answer as well as regulatory restrictions

• Perplexity as well gives an absolute no with disadvantages clearly outlined alongside regulatory restrictions

So, then the question is what forms the basis of the decisioning behind each of these tools, be it the source of data they are pulling from, the decisioning flow when questions are answered and what kind of checks are there to validate as well as mitigate the answers to make sure AI is not crossing the line when it comes to such scenarios?

Other thoughts in mind:

• Do we want AI to be more or less definite when it comes to such questions?

• Should we be concerned with how users are perceiving and interpreting the outputs?

• What kind of ethical boundaries should we have in place if we are incorporating AI into our organizations?

• Do we have a check and balance mechanism in place to determine when the logic should or can be over-ride by humans before it goes out to the customer?

• How do we combine AI intelligence with human intelligence more effectively and sustainably without enabling self sabotaging and unconscious bias behavior and outputs?

• How do we ensure AI is not left to answer moral and ethical questions on their own or worse to perform outcomes that might lead to harm on humans?

Data is the bedrock for AI to work efficiently and effectively as intended to avoid a garbage in, garbage out scenario. Similar to MarTech, it’s not a magical fix-all solution and the companies behind some of the larger LLMs behind Gen AI are all but still fine-tuning their tech as of today.

Before it goes customer live, what do you think is critical to be in place to govern the pre, actual and post implementation of AI? If we don’t have answers to all this, it simply means the organization is not quite ready yet.

About the Author

Mad About Marketing Consulting

Ally and Advisor for CMOs, Heads of Marketing and C-Suites to work with you and your marketing teams to maximize your marketing potential with strategic transformation for better business and marketing outcomes

Welcome Gen AI, Goodbye Marketing and Agencies!

Sorry if I triggered some alarm bells there with my fake news.

Gen AI seems to give the impression of the next best thing since sliced bread and rightfully so in some aspects of how we work and operate our business, target our customers and customize our offerings.

It doesn’t help you with strategic thinking or planning. Yes, if you ask it to write you a marketing plan it can, based on a cookie cutter template of what’s available out there but a plan is more than just a to do list or step by step guide. It requires an understanding of your business, your customers and value proposition.

If you ask it to give you a fanciful visual that you want to use as your key creative for your campaign, sure it can but again, a creative is more than just a visual and image. It’s a narrative of your story and there’s a reason why creative agencies spend time ideating and make an effort to understand the story you’re trying to tell your target audience. Again, it doesn’t replace creative thinking.

While some companies are still facing an uphill task with trying to convince their legal and compliance teams on using Gen AI for such creative work, some are already using it perhaps secretly through their creative agencies. Then, there are also vendors already available that you’re a customer of, like Adobe and Getty, that have incorporated Gen AI into their software and taken on the legal liability for copyrights and licensing use for the output produced from their platforms. This might be a path of less resistance for those with hardnose legal and compliance teams.

What you can also use some of these Gen AI tools out there for, if you get through the line to legal on the copyright dilemma can be around:

• storyboarding flows and ideation flows, be it for key visuals or video productions

• creative adaptations of an original key visual designed from scratch

• editing flows for videos, audios and written content

• editorial adaptations based off an original written key content

Marketing teams and agencies only need to worry if they are guilty of the following:

• handing over strategic thinking to other teams and only executing on command

• doing pure adaptation and production type of work (for agencies)

• doing more executional and somewhat manual work as part of their marketing day-to-day instead of spending time working with the business to help sharpen the offerings and proposition to their customers

• treating marketing planning and briefing as a churning exercise -e.g. marketing simply giving agencies a budget, some KPIs and target customers over email without much value add and agencies simply taking the brief and relying on the AI tool to churn out a visual or copy without much ideation behind it

• marketing teams simply doing functional approval work and not actually reviewing it seriously for fit, purpose and desired outcomes

About the Author

Mad About Marketing Consulting

Ally and Advisor for CMOs, Heads of Marketing and C-Suites to work with you and your marketing teams to maximize your marketing potential with strategic transformation for better business and marketing outcomes

So You have Won an Award But….

Everyone loves awards, especially reputable ones from renowned associations.

Marketers love our awards for sure as it’s something that most of us probably toiled hard for and spent long hours putting together the campaign strategy behind it. But if you ask the business and start flashing the trophy in front of them, they might just go “erm good but where’s the sales?”.

In such a scenario, before you start conjuring up images of Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire saying “show me the money” and depending on what’s the reality of the connect versus disconnect between your campaign outcomes versus business outcomes, try asking yourself the following questions:

What else did I achieve in reality besides marketing outcomes like engagements, interest and conversions based on people who interacted with the campaign?

What did it really look like in terms of sales demand, leads generated for sales and/or sales opportunities, if not actual sales?

If it looks bad, why is there a disconnect between marketing and sales outcomes? Was it a product proposition problem or marketing positioning problem?

The truth is, marketing awards to me, having being a judge for a few different awards now, should be tagged hand in hand to business outcomes.

Marketers shouldn’t be winning awards for their own vanity but rather, the award is the cherry on top of the cake as a reward for a successful campaign that helped to achieve business outcomes. And these business outcomes in turn helped to solve customer problems and address their needs.

Else, you end up with a flashy trophy but still get hammered for not helping business to create sales demand and opportunities. And guess what, your marketing budget still gets cut at the end of the day as business still sees a disconnect between what marketing does and what business wants. Business would rather spend it on product research and development than marketing awards as such award submissions certainly don’t come cheap!

Marketers should therefore take greater pride in being strategic advisors to the business and work with them to strengthen their product and service proposition. Bring in a neutral perspective of the target customer and make sure it is a proposition that is compelling even to you. Else, no marketing campaign can salvage a bad product proposition.

Then, you can go focus on winning awards and actually take pride in it.

About the Author

Mad About Marketing Consulting

Ally and Advisor for CMOs, Heads of Marketing and C-Suites to work with you and your marketing teams to maximize your marketing potential with strategic transformation for better business and marketing outcomes.

Social Selling is Telling a Good Story

Not sure if anyone remembers the very obvious product placements that took place decades ago in movies and local television shows where the actor/actress will suddenly whip out said placement mid script.

This form of selling gave way to slightly more subtle ones later on though they were still obvious enough as the actor/actress still needed to consciously position it. Else, the camera will pan it close enough for everyone to see what brand it was, even if it’s normally just a very easy to miss item like a watch or ring.

Nowadays, the selling is more experiential based where the bigger brands can curate a “look” tagged to the product, name it after their character in the movie, produce limited editions of it and invite the celebrity to grace their activations for the who-and-who in their social cliques.

When social media flourished, the selling started gradually and is now in full bloom with social influencers selling almost everything on a daily basis. There are a few ways observed in the way they sell currently:

1) invited to launch or preview events and activations in-store to take photos or videos of the products and try them out in person; then post about it on their social channels,

2) given the products to try in their own time and develop content based off key selling points to highlight on their social posts. Some will try to narrate it into a slightly more creative or humorous ways, so it’s almost a part of their day-to-day calendar of activities,

3) pure educational reviews type of content where they will give their so-called “honest” feedback after using the product but often, it comes as once-off and they are seen doing the same for other brands offering similar products.

These examples shared, especially 2) and 3) so far have been largely very obvious as product placements, even if they try to inject humour into the script and create them into everyday scenarios. The humour is quite ‘forced’ usually, including them cracking jokes or some dressing up as certain characters to invoke laughter.

The other observation is that it depends largely on the company that is paying for the influencer, and their own brand of voice, tone of voice and style. While this might be ideal in helping the company stay on brand, it limits the creativity of the influencer and creates a somewhat dystopia state for the influencers as they will be observed to have quite a varied way of selling, which makes it all the more obvious it’s a form of paid sponsorship.

I recently came across one example by an overseas social influencer comedian using a product to prank his partner. I don’t know if it’s intentional product placement at his end but I thought it could be another interesting way to do more subtle product placement but still provide entertainment value that gels with the overall original style of the influencer; making it more natural and not so product pushing.

In that video, which you can watch here, he’s using this brand of butter spread to pretend it’s coming out of his ear and tasting it in front of his partner, who obviously gagged upon seeing it. All I remember then was - 1) the brand looks familiar, 2) I didn’t know they produce butter spread as they are more known for their biscuits, and 3) I googled to validate and check on where I can find the butter spread out of curiosity.

It would be interesting to have companies trial this form of paid sponsorship so it helps the influencer to stay true to his/her style of content, evolved the way they do social selling just as how product placements in movies have evolved too into more subtle selling; sort of like a type of subliminal messaging. It also doesn’t always to be funny but can tap on other emotive style of story-telling, which again is based on the influencer’s unique style.

Perhaps somewhat ironic for me to say this but social selling to me only works if it’s based on my defined needs at that point or if the content is interesting enough for me to check it out. Thereafter, it would of course be down to the product level value proposition and how well it addresses my wants/needs/issues at hand.

How Are you Enabling Your Sales Team - Learnings from Luxury Brands

I confess that I’m not a fan of fast fashion and have a penchant for the finer side of things. Not because I like wearing brands on my sleeve for all to see but more I appreciate the total experience, after sales support provided, exclusivity and quality. I am not a rampant shopper that enjoys window shopping; in fact I’m quite the opposite. I shop decisively and wear the clothes for as long as they fit. I prefer to keep my wardrobe clean and not jam packed with tons and tons of clothes that I will only wear once.

Over time, I have established client relationships with a few client advisors, often by chance as well where we hit it off while chatting. I do know of course that each brand has their own internal tiered loyalty program and playbook where they will invite clients via their advisors to certain seasonal events. It reminds me somewhat of the relationship managers in the banking sector except these advisors give advice on fashion and fitting.

I had the opportunity to attend a few of these events over the last few months, some tagging along on the invite of friends. I just wanted to share a comparison of how each brand conducted their client engagement and how each has made me feel in return.

1) Louis Vuitton

This is a rebound brand for me as I was a fan of their bags in the earlier years of my life but I didn’t really establish much of a connection with them till in recent years when I met my current client advisor by chance while looking to top up my perfume. Since then, she’s been on my whatsapp quite often, keeping me abreast of the latest releases and inviting me to the launches or seasonal previews or sometimes, just client activation events like valentine’s day, lunar new year and recently some bespoke garden animation event.

The events range from being rather salesy in nature where they would lined up rows of their latest clothing at the event space and nudging clients to try on the spot, to being just experience focused where you get to just enjoy the activities lined up. She’s also empowered to do reservations of items on the spot, send gifts for special occasions, arrange for quick turnaround alterations, delivery and more just to ensure total client satisfaction. On this front, I find LV to be quite unbeatable though it is very advisor driven and influenced.

2) Chanel

I used to have a weakness for their shoes and bags, especially the uncommon designs, which are often also more affordable than their classic black pieces. When my favourite client advisor left, there was a gap left by the one who took over from her till recently, when she became more proactive.

It might just have been that the brand on the whole is recently more proactive in engaging their regular clients and introducing more engagement activities to make sure we feel valued? One was a virtual reality/augumented reality performance featuring chanel designed clothing that are actually not available for sale. It was held in partnership with an actual artist and there was zero sales element tagged to it. The other is a movie event also held elsewhere and we could reserve tickets if we RSVP through a link they sent to our phones.

In this case, though it is nice to be invited to such activities without any hard sales pushing, it would be nice to be kept abreast more of their latest designs as the advisor remains hit and miss in terms of her engagement style. The brand though seems to be moving away from relying too much on their advisors as they started sending invites directly to the clients.

3) Hermes

I’m a recent convert for their shoes and bags, which are generally more reasonably priced for the quality and fitting without being overly in your face. The advisor is also pretty proactive and chatty though the brand as a whole is not as aggressive as LV or Dior in terms of creating client engagement activities.

Their activities are also more informal and less grand on the whole, like mini in-store activations and sending their publications to us; quite traditional in approach. In this case, the advisor plays a key role as it’s make or break, based on how well she continues to connect with us as a client.

4) Christian Dior

This is more of an ad hoc brand for me and chance meeting with an ambitious and aspiring client advisor who is forthcoming and the most personable of all the advisors I have to say.

The client engagement is similar to LV’s in that they have larger scale client activation events and preview shows though they do the activations and activities in a slightly more interesting fashion than LV without coming off as being too salesy.

The advisor is also empowered to give gifts to clients, curate their own invite list and arrange for reservations. Overall experience wise, it is close to LV in terms of heavy reliance on the advisors.

Overall lessons based on what I think:

• the importance of a playbook and approach for businesses relying heavily on client advisors or relationship managers to guide them in providing a total experience consistently over time

• providing the right level of empowerment and enablement so they get to make certain decisions on the fly that could make or break certain relationships

• ensuring that you are also engaging your clients on the same scale via other channels, so you’re not overly relying on your advisors; this is where digital channels and engagement are critical

• maintain a good mix of both activities that are purely experiential in nature and more product/services focused so clients have a choice, depending on what they are looking for at different times

About the Author

Mad About Marketing Consulting

Ally and Advisor for CMOs, Heads of Marketing and C-Suites to work with you and your marketing teams to maximize your marketing potential with strategic transformation for better business and marketing outcomes.