tns asia pacific marketing monitor 2015

The Asia Pacific

Marketing Monitor 2015

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2Marketing Monitor 2015

In a rapidly evolving, digitally driven world, what do marketers really feel about new platforms, new data sources and new expectations of their role?


Marketing Monitor is a study from TNS that surveys more than 2,700 marketers from across Asia Pacific to track the key issues dominating their agenda.

We talk to marketers from Australia, China, India, Indonesia,

Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand, discussing

their approach to digital platforms, the changing metrics used

to measure their success, the challenges of Big Data and their

hopes and concerns about their own careers.

Marketers are under increasing pressure to make more

complicated decisions, and to do so faster and more frequently.

This is a time of challenge, but opportunities are also emerging

to help them meet those challenges and deliver new standards

of effectiveness.

In this report, we reveal the key themes to emerge from this edition of the Monitor:

■ Marketing’s need for speed

■ Dealing with the data flood

■ Managing the entire customer experience

■ Playing catch up with metrics

■ Mobilising marketing thinking

“The role of the marketer has changed enormously over the past few years, especially around the speed of decision-making. Reputations can be lost due to delayed action or poor judgement.”

Marketing’s need for speed

Vipul Chawla Managing Director of Pizza Hut Asia Franchise Business Unit



As marketing moves from a campaign-based model to an

‘always-on’ approach, thinking and planning time are in

increasingly short supply. Whereas once marketers could analyse

the performance of one campaign in depth before moving on

to planning the next, they must now make both strategic and

tactical decisions on a rolling basis – and in shorter and shorter

timeframes. They know that both the success of their brands

and their own career prospects depend upon this agility – but

many are not being served the actionable data and insights they

need to keep pace with a real-time world.

Being able to make the right decisions in a smaller timeframe

is a key concern for one in three (32%) marketers across

the region, and 42% rate becoming more efficient as the

development they most need to make to progress their

careers. Faster decision-making requires timely, actionable

insights from market research However, for many marketers,

research is failing to deliver.

When they were asked about their current frustrations with

market research, 66% of respondents said that it was too slow,

with 34% expressing strong frustration about insights that

arrive too late to help with their decision-making.

In a real-time world, marketers can’t afford to wait two months

to learn about changes in their brand equity, or about an aspect

of customer experience that could be undermining loyalty. And

they cannot afford to wait until a campaign has been running

for months before finding out if it is working or not. Predictive

approaches that can synthesise search and social data into

real-time brand equity scores and campaign measurement are

essential if marketers are to satisfy the need for speed.

TNS has proven that search and social data can be used to provide

valuable insight about brand performance and sales up to two

months in advance. And we’ve also explored how the immediate

social media footprint of a campaign can reveal a great deal about

the longer term brand benefits that campaign will generate.


http://www.tnsglobal.com/brandtracking/early-insights


In focus

Marketers in China and Indonesia are most frustrated by a lack of speed and actionable insights. In China, 36% were very

frustrated by a lack of actionable data and 39% by research that was too slow. In Indonesia, these frustrations were more

common still: felt by 42% and 44% respectively.

Marketer’s concerns for the future

Becoming more

efficient

Making the right

decision in smaller

timeframes

Not keeping up

with changing

consumer habits

Reputational risk

from social media

Reduced

marketing budgets

42% 32% 33% 30% 30%



Dealing with the data flood



Big data is another theme looming large in marketers’ concerns.

Not only must they deal with more data than ever before, but

they must deal with more varied sources of data, all arriving on a

continual basis. The increasing availability of data ought to enable

better decision-making, but many are frustrated by the difficulties

of integrating different types. As a result, the data flood threatens

to seriously impair their ability to think strategically.

One in three marketers (34%) is dealing with real-time feedback

on a daily basis and yet 70% say that they don’t have the

integrated view of this data that they need. The experience of

many marketers across Asia seems to involve watching data

dashboards change in real-time, without ever being given the

contextual insight that will enable them to make use of the data

they are seeing.

The new sources of data available to marketers can only enable

better real-time decision making when they are fused with a

contextual understanding of how different data streams relate

to one another. Marketers demand that their research agencies

provide such understanding – and use it to translate real-time

information into actionable insight.



In focus

Marketers in Indonesia (39%), Thailand (38%) and India

(37%) are most likely to receive data in real-time.

Marketers managing real time feedback

APAC average 34%

Australia 32%

China 31%

India 37%

Indonesia 39%

Malaysia 34%

South Korea 27%

Singapore 29%

Thailand 38%



“Marketers need the ability to join the dots – not just between customers and the brand, but between all of the other factors that affect brand experience. Consumer trends, the external environment, stakeholders - these all have an impact on your consumers.

The challenge today is that everyone is an individual. The question is how we reach each and every person in a way that gives them a tailored and customised experience.”

Managing the entire customer experience

Connie Ang Managing Director of Danone Dumex Malaysia



The role of a marketer is rapidly evolving from creating and

managing campaigns to creating and managing customer

experiences. When asked about the most important areas for

them to develop, 42% of marketers chose customer experience,

more than any other aspect of their role. This is across all

touchpoints, both online and offline. Brands can provide

an excellent online experience, but if the in-store set-up is

unsatisfactory, this hard work goes to waste.

The rise of social media intensifies the need to constantly deliver,

and means that customer experiences must be managed across

a broad range of platforms. Marketers must strive for greater

responsiveness whilst staying alive to the reputational risks that

this can involve. And they must seek to create and manage a

consistent brand persona that applies across all experiences –

both digital and physical. Total experience management requires

everything from awareness building and demand generation,

to a great in-store experience and or eCommerce platform, to

on-going customer engagement, wherever the consumer is

choosing to connect with the brand.

With social media playing such a critical role, more than half of

marketers (53%) list social media marketing and advertising as

a key focus of their media spend in the next year, far exceeding

the numbers earmarking budget for other areas. Of the 79%

who think they should be doing more on digital media, 56% list

talking to customers on social as a key priority. And yet, despite

the desire to leverage social more effectively, 30% express

concern from the reputational risks that could result from

getting things wrong on these platforms.

Marketers need insight services that can support this growing

role as total experience manager: a means of monitoring social

media conversations, identifying those that will impact their

brand’s reputation, and identifying the appropriate response in

each case. They need a way to make sense of the huge range of

customer feedback on social channels, marry this with reports

from in-store behaviour and use it to identify where issues exist

in delivering effective customer service.

As social takes an ever-growing slice of media spend in the next

12 months, marketers need access to such services quickly, in

order to safeguard the investment they are making. TNS has

already developed models that can translate the noisy customer

activity on social media into clear signals about the actions that

can maintain brand loyalty and drive future growth.


http://www.tnsglobal.com/brandtracking/avoid-delays

http://www.tnsglobal.com/brandtracking/avoid-delays


In focus

62% of marketers in Thailand say that social media is a top focus area for media spend this year, the most of all markets studied.

India (46%) has the lowest proportion of marketers currently prioritising social spend, but it still has more budget earmarked for

social than any other channel.

Strategic priorities for marketers

Communicating with

customers on social media

Using mobile

effectively

Being more innovative

than the competition

Leveraging online

targeted advertising

56% 47% 47% 45%



Playing catch up with metrics



Marketers’ focus may be shifting to total experience

management on social and mobile platforms but the metrics

they use to measure campaign success are struggling to keep

pace. Despite the emphasis on on-going social engagement

and staying innovative, measures of marketing success are still

dominated by the sales uplifts and shifts in share that activity

eventually delivers. With campaigns now including so many

integrated elements, blunt measures like this fail to provide

actionable insights on which touchpoints and experiences are

making a difference. They leave marketers seeking a more

sophisticated view that is relevant to all of their objectives and

can enable them to optimise on a continual basis.

Sales uplifts during a campaign are the single most commonly

used measure of campaign performance, named by over half

(52%) of marketers, with market share uplifts used by exactly

half. Despite their importance, these metrics are retrospective and

do not empower businesses to track the ongoing reception of

campaigns, react to live issues and make the changes that could

nudge their marketing activity in a more favourable direction.

What’s more, many marketers feel they are not getting the

guidance they need from their market research either, with over

two thirds (68%) saying it isn’t actionable enough.

Because of this reliance on slow and outdated evaluation

information, many marketers are pushed into a corner when it

comes to forward-looking campaign planning. Thanks to time

pressures and in lieu of sales tracking data, many are forced

to rely on the most recent data they have to hand – raw social

media monitoring – when making immediate decisions about

the future. The trouble is, this simple monitoring provides a

snapshot, but no wider context.

Social media monitoring data in isolation is failing to deliver the

predictive and actionable insights that marketers need. Instead,

marketers need means to link the range of experiences they

seek to create for consumers to the sales and share uplifts that

are the ultimate measure of their performance. They know that

realtime social media monitoring can help unlock this, but they

need solutions that can put this data into context and translate

it into meaningful predictions of future sales and share uplifts.



In focus

Social media monitoring has less of a role to play for marketers in China, where only 31% use it to assess marketing effectiveness

and only 30% base planning decisions on social data. In Singapore, by contrast, 55% base their planning on social.

Sales uplift Too slow

Market share uplift Not predictive enough

Brand and ad tracking Insights not actionable enough

Social media monitoring Not accurate enough

Digital metrics Difficult integrating multiple data sources

Top 5 ways of measuring campaign effectiveness: Marketer’s main frustrations with market research:

1

2

3

4

5



Mobilising marketing thinking



The challenges that marketers face in Asia Pacific will

increasingly be met through mobile devices, reflecting the

importance of this device to the consumer. Mobile advertising is

named by 34% as a priority area of media spend for this year.

Next year, 41% will be making it a budget priority, when only

social media has more brands earmarking spend for it. When

you bear in mind that much of the content and advertising

that social media budgets buy will be delivered to consumers

through phones, the role of mobile looks larger still. In all, 47%

of marketers say they should be doing more with mobile.

Mobile will be critical as a delivery channel – but it also holds

the key to giving marketers the more efficient, robust and

responsive insight they seek. Mobile can be used to deliver

shorter, smarter brand tracking surveys that generate more

predictive data in a smaller timeframe. They can trigger surveys

close to the moment when the behaviour being studied actually

occurs, and they can be deployed quickly to generate additional

insight when search and social media monitoring detect

unexpected shifts in brand equity that need explaining. As

marketers seek to meet the challenges ahead, the role of social

and mobile in their thinking is set to grow further still.


http://www.tnsglobal.com/brandtracking/missed-opportunities


In focus

Using mobile more effectively is a particular priority in India and Malaysia, where 55% of marketers

say they should be doing more in this area.

of marketers across Asia Pacific think they could be doing more

47%Australia

Malaysia

China

South Korea

India

Singapore

Indonesia

Thailand

45%

55%

42%

45%

55%

54%

51%

38%



Conclusion

“Marketers are not used to being given directions by consumers - they are accustomed to dictating what and how people should consume. The rules of the game are changing rapidly, and traditional marketing practices no longer work with these highly active customers. The challenge is remaining relevant and part of the conversation.”

“Information is now available to all – this means there is a level playing field as far as marketing is concerned. Success lies in how we interpret data and use it to make game-changing decisions.”

Manish Makhijani Head of Consumer Insights, Unilever South Asia

Vipul Chawla Managing Director of Pizza Hut Asia Franchise Business Unit



New digital and social media platforms are increasing the

pressure on marketers to think, analyse and respond in real-

time. However, they also hold the key to enabling marketers to

do so more effectively.

As the pace of change accelerates across the region, marketers

need to start using data to gaze into the future, not just

measure the here and now. Tracking social and search data

can be used to form the basis of a predictive spine to deliver

insight months ahead of survey data or sales figures. This gives

marketers the power to anticipate changes to brand equity in

time to actually do something about it.

This edition of the Marketing Monitor shows a growing demand for research that leverages real-time sources of insight to keep pace with new challenges and provides a telescopic view into the future.

Conclusion


Nitin Nishandar Regional Managing Director,

Brand & Communication,

TNS in Asia Pacific

[email protected]

+65 6597 7387

Nitin Nishandar is Regional Managing Director, Brand & Communication,

for TNS in Asia Pacific. He leads a team of experts across the region as they

advise clients on strengthening their brands, increasing the effectiveness of

communications campaigns and ultimately, driving sales.

Nitin works on diverse group of clients in finance, automotive, technology

and FMCG. He has 20 years research industry experience and has been with

TNS for 14 years, working with clients across a range of markets including

Singapore, China, Egypt, India, Taiwan and Thailand. He has published white

papers on advertising, media and is often quoted in the press on his views on

brands and communications in emerging markets.

Special thanks to Vipul Chawla from Pizza Hut, Connie Ang from Danone

Dumex, and Manish Makhijani from Unilever, for their opinions on the

topics covered in the report.

About the author

Brand tracking is changing Click here to read more

Why brands need to know their situational equity Click here to read more

Your digital campaign fell flat. Now what? Click here to read more

Marketers: the future is ready for you now Click here to read more

About the study TNS Marketing Monitor is based on research carried out by On Device and undertaken across all

markets in July 2015. The study draws on the responses from 2,716 marketing professionals across

eight markets in Asia Pacific:

About TNS TNS advises clients on specific growth strategies around new market entry, innovation, brand

switching and customer and employee relationships, based on long-established expertise and

market-leading solutions. With a presence in over 80 countries, TNS has more conversations

with the world’s consumers than anyone else and understands individual human behaviours and

attitudes across every cultural, economic and political region of the world.

TNS is part of Kantar, the data investment management division of WPP and one of the world’s

largest insight, information and consultancy groups.

Please visit www.tnsglobal.com for more information.

■ Australia: 177

■ China: 463

■ India: 533

■ Indonesia: 236

■ Malaysia: 224

■ South Korea: 319

■ Singapore: 220

■ Thailand: 427

Marketing Monitor 2015

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