We’ve won the awards, now it’s time to help grow the GDP!

And why not, says Prashant Kumar, the founder of an unstoppable phenomenon called ENTROPIA. 

That was all Prashant, head honcho of ENTROPIA, had on his mind when I tried to shift the interview from GDP to marketing communications.

He had framed brand development into a larger context than I had expected.

So I decided to write this story in the first person to bring my readers the kind of in-your-face clarity they have come to expect from the WEEKENDER. Prashant continues….

… We believe the new generation of category disruptions will originate from native industry 4.0 players, and our vision is for our clients to anticipate and lead that future decisively, rather than be reactive when it hits…

After all that talk about capabilities, talent and machines where does it all lead us? 

I believe it should allow us to create happiness: delighting  customers, helping caring marketers, elevate trustworthy brands and make possible a sustainable future for all of us.

Otherwise, it is all quite pointless, isn’t it?

This has become our reason for being; to seek a higher purpose and help grow Malaysia’s GDP. Brand growth is part of a nation’s growth 

Now that I’ve said it, let’s unpack this…. 

Politics and Growth

Politics in Malaysia is expected to blunt economic growth for the next decade according to financial analyst Fitch Solutions.

It’s interesting and entertaining to see how “experts” predict our GDP growth to be at just 3.4% over the next 10 years compared to 6.4% over the past decade. 

I disagree.

… People are already living a great deal of their lives through media, so high quality anticipatory intelligence based on machine learning will help them pack so much more life in a given day…

Industry 4.0 is changing the world of business like never before. A lot of the industry 4.0 technologies such as AR/VR, Machine learning/AI, IoT and Blockchain, etc. are going to change everything.

People are already living a great deal of their lives through media, so high quality anticipatory intelligence based on machine learning will help them pack so much more life in a given day.

IoT is set to redefine customer value propositions via real time data and personalisation. And Blockchain is set to pervade the basic infrastructure of living via distributed and automated controls and compliance mechanisms.

Over the last two years, we have launched service offerings into many of these areas, becoming the first industry 4.0 ready consultancy or agency in the country.

Today, we have end-to-end services in the areas of Extended Reality – the entire spectrum of AR and VR technologies with a full-fledged in-house studio called EXR, and within the last year we have won more than a dozen clients in this area.

Chaos, culture, clients, COVID…

Moving forward, the challenges of chaos will become more tricky.

Even last week’s Cabinet meeting has been cancelled because some ministers were still under quarantine after returning from Sabah…

COVID is not disappearing anytime soon, the virus is here and with it comes an altered future. It has played out ten years’ worth of this change in the last six months.

At the same time, the everyday life experiences of people are going to be enhanced with rich new layers of relevant and highly immersive content, thus heightening our learning, working, shopping, socialising and entertainment.

COVID has actually defined our purpose with a larger focus.

As millennials grow older, we usher in the Gen Zs who “don’t want to rule the world” but want to live in it with a clear respect for purpose, people, profits and planet. 

That’s also why my job is to keep my staff healthy and happy so they are all heart.

… The quantum leap in the processing power of mobile phones and the mass availability of them, has made the deployment of such experiences more cost-effective than ever before…

Marketers may never understand the full scale of our capabilities and resources, and that’s ok. They don’t need to. With so much on their mind they can’t be worrying about everything.

We just want to hold that lift door for them till they need us.

Even when they have stepped in, we will ask them which floor should we press (provided they are wearing a mask), as every marketer’s needs are different.  

Integration, Innovation and Inspiration

Rama, who leads Integration and Extended Reality at ENTROPIA, has lost 10kg over the last three months, and is getting on with the business of business….

Extended Reality is bringing competitive advantage to brands across the marketing funnel, right from Discovery, Interest, Engagement, and finally, Transaction.

We are working on XR applications beyond marketing, especially in areas of training and education, where we have seen tremendous interest.

…Marketers may never understand the full scale of our capabilities and resources, and that’s ok. They don’t need to. With so much on their mind they can’t be worrying about everything…

For example, a real estate developer may want to showcase what the balcony view from the 30th floor of their new project would look like in 2022. They can show this to their prospective customer via a VR headset in their showroom, or use webAR to engage with customers who are not able to come to the gallery.

Sourabh Agrawal, who helms the Customer Experience and Commerce portfolio, shares that the availability of huge volumes of data allows brands to personalise customer experiences, delivering relevant products, mitigating risk and fraud, etc. And using predictive analytics lets you identify hidden patterns in data that you didn’t even know existed.

…Datafication and digitalisation are the catalysts for the future of work. Organisations will need to plan and make workplaces, processes and products smarter…

We deployed our proprietary customer journey mapping tool – ELON for one of the growing F&B clients, collecting data across online orders, call center, in-store WIFI, contests, social media listening and creating a unique customer profile and clusters based on behaviours, taste graph and motivations.

An AI-led prediction engine is helping us predict not just the sales and channel preferences for future orders, but also manpower gaps for delivery business based on historical data.

We are using another proprietary predictive tool, Prescient, for one of the largest beverage delivery startups in Malaysia, utilising location data to optimise delivery footprints, and simulations in media allocations to drive marketing effectiveness and ROI.

… An AI-led prediction engine is helping us predict not just the sales…

For more inspiration, click and enjoy these amazing case studies: UMW Galeriku, Goodday Selebraya, BMW X5 WebAR Showroom, WONDA Gap-puchino, Systane Eye-dration AR Test, UMW + Rolls Royce Soar Into The Sky and Medici.

This article first appeared in WEEKENDER.

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The full-day Malaysian Media Conference on October 23 showcases 20 speakers and panelists and will be held at the Sime Darby Convention, which adheres to the highest COVID-19 protocol standards. REGISTER HERE: https://marketingmagazine.com.my/event/malaysian-media-conference-2020/