Digital Slayers, Soothsayers and the `Marketing Reality’

New Growth Avenues on the Digital Highway
In MARKETING’s mid-March 2018 issue, we reached out to a few industry captains, marketing heads to find out what are they doing with that insistent buzz of ‘digital transformation’ ringing in their ears; how are they dealing with talent and hiring issues amidst the tsunami of tech and data skill-sets, and lastly drew them into the creative space of ‘what are those campaigns that ignite a spark or bring back good old familiarity of advertising story-telling?’ for them.

Amit Dawn, COO Ginvera Marketing Enterprise Sdn Bhd, put it succinctly for us, “Digital is no longer a disruption, it is part of the game. The key to succeeding in this environment is to spend time understanding trends as well as keeping a close watch on changing technologies, formats and metrics.”
Etika Holdings’ VP of Marketing, Santharuban, too is unfazed. “Digital disruption is not new. Media disruption is also not new. The idea is to be at the forefront of it. to be the one that disrupts, as opposed to being the one that follows the disruption.”
Abdul Sani Abdul Murad, Group Chief Marketing Officer, RHB, welcomes “such disruptions as it creates healthy competition amongst the players in the market.” The RHB brand is choosing to surf on these “waves of disruptions by building and scaling up its own digital capabilities,” said Sani. He added, “Ultimately it raises the quality benchmark in the industry to better serve our customers, which I’m sure people would welcome with open arms. We strive to be part of the catalyst group to disrupt the market rather than be the one that risks being disrupted. When we do well in this position, it will certainly have a great impact on branding too.”
CIMB is embracing change too and poised for reinventing. Mohammad Adam Wee Abdullah, Group Chief Marketing Officer of CIMB, has a mantra: ‘Brands must not fall into the complacency of continuing to do the wrong things right.’
When asked how is CIMB facing the digital distraction, Adam said, “For most brands, there is a downward pressure on marketing expenditure driven by margin compressions. Iterative deployment of campaigns is important in addressing this challenge. In fact, the digitalization wave has generated fragmentation of media at a rate much higher than how ad spend can grow.”
Mudah.my is Malaysia’s go-to digital marketplace for all kinds of goods. Andrew Pinto, Head of Marketing at Mudah.my, shares that Mudah has succeeded by delivering remarkable user experiences. “As a digital business, we need to be agile and prepare to embrace disruptions as part on the norm,” said Andrew.
One of the well-known start-ups in Malaysia, Grab, a data-driven tech-based company known as a disruptor, is embracing challenges as part
of its DNA. “We are definitely sure there will be challenges awaiting us in 2018,’ said Iris Chang, Country Marketing Head, Grab.
Mohd Razaleigh bin Zainal, Vice President, Corporate Affairs, MDEC, said, “While awareness of disruption by digital technologies is increasing, we still find that the real impact has not really been generally understood – of how analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things, and other emerging technologies will dramatically alter traditional roles and ways of life.”
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24 SENIOR MARKETERS.
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APPIES Malaysia is an annual 2-day Marketing Congress and Awards Festival showcasing, sharing and celebrating the country’s best marketing campaigns. Shortlisted entries will be judged by 24  leaders in the marketing industry who will put the presenters’ knowledge to the test in a unique Live Presentation environment.
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