PETALING JAYA: The hostile economic climate exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic has set economies spinning.
With disruptions to physical stores and supply chains, lockdowns limiting movement, rising costs affecting distribution, job losses affecting consumer spends and a highly competitive retail space, the game for brands was a focus on short-term return on investment.
Amidst this, Initiative, the media agency under the IPG Mediabrands network, looked within to question the disruption.
Darren Yuen, CEO of Initiative Malaysia talks about how the agency challenged itself to build for positive disruption, bring back the purpose of building brilliant brands, drive cultural momentum underpinned by data, and prove the value of the marketing dollar.
As a result, while agencies struggled to counter a negative economy, Initiative was recently ranked number one on research company Recma’s qualitative rankings, the only agency to score a dominant profile and improve scores for the year.
This improvement of scores is in part related to agency structure improvements in relation to clients and business exposure, as well as a healthy new business balance, with Initiative bringing in new clients Vivo, Paynet, Lotus’s and Astro Go Shop over the course of the year.
Here, Initiative’s comeback journey is tracked, showing how the agency reinvented itself to grow to the number one position amidst a year filled with disruptions.
Before looking out, you need to look within “‘Look within to find the answer’ is often said. And Initiative did just that. Internally, ways of working were relooked to challenge existing marketing frameworks and category preconceptions.
“The ways of brands and business had changed, and internal processes and methodologies needed to change too.
Internally, talents were trained in Velocity Planning – a high intensity modular workshop that is the solution to delivering brand messages using cultural data signals to embody culture and cultural relevance.
“Through these, internal plans were translated, becoming the backbone of solutions for use with clients and new business pitches, with the conversation focused on effectiveness and growing audiences,” he said.
Putting disruptive profit models to the test Yuen said the need of the hour for Initiative was generating a bigger impact for clients, and this led to the introduction of new data and martech services to expand Initiative’s offering to clients.
Marketing technology (also known as martech) describes the systems and tools that help marketers better engage with customers.
With clients shifting spends to digital and moving at lightning speed to adopt ecommerce, he said the agency simultaneously rolled out Customer Data Platforms (CDP) and data management capabilities to help clients understand how best to use their data to make predictive analysis and forecasts.
CDP is a marketer-managed system that creates a persistent, unified customer database that is accessible to other systems. This invaluable first party data stack can then be utilised to draw relevant and direct insights to curate audiences for media targeting.
This is done by connecting data from different sources (brand website, emails and data bases, and bringing the data into a consistent place to govern it. This data is then synthesised into a single view that the agency can act across for advertising and customer relationship management while being platform agnostic.
The concept of “platform agnostic” refers to a set of specific design attributes and philosophies normally associated with software products. An agnostic type of software would in fact be free from any ties to a specific platform or system and run equally well across more than one platform.
He said the agency positions this as the future of digital planning, and a proactive step in a cookieless world.
Yuen said: “By accurately engaging with leads and creating more lookalike audiences for growth, clients will continue to stay relevant with their communications with culture at the core. Alongside this, Initiative launched a new unit – Initiative Studio – a content and creative department that sits alongside the media offering, sharing the same DNA of Culture and Velocity Planning.
“This major step in business direction was in direct response to the pressing need of clients for a more integrated approach that allows better agility and responsiveness to changes in the market.
“By expanding these services and becoming cultural creators for brands, Initiative Studio covers the gaps for clients to build on quick unconventional storytelling with cultural expressions within media led by data,” he said A catalyst of change With these new capabilities in place, he said the agency set up to continue to do good work through culture steeped in data. With each client conversation, each idea brought to the table and each solution presented, culture was front and centre, with data at its very backbone.
This was demonstrated through Carlsberg Adopt-a-keg, a digital push to drive awareness and show Malaysians how they can help sustain Malaysia’s bars and pubs. Not only did it drive sales, but it also fuelled a sense of community spirit of Malaysians helping a favourite brand through the pandemic.
Similarly, other firsts were introduced through the pandemic. To speak to the digital-savvy target audience, U Mobile gamified augmented reality technology on mobile. By connecting with the audience in a highly immersive and interactive way, the brand was able to generate high conversions and engagement, he said.
And for client Hada Labo, a partnership with Astro allowed a first of its kind cross-country live stream with Hong Kong to gain market share while tapping into the growing men’s grooming category.
With this integration of offerings across ecommerce, data, content and creative, despite a space of market contraction, Initiative has grown as business consultants – offering innovative solutions to meet the most pressing needs of clients.
Think big, build trust “In a time of uncertainty and distrust through the pace of change, Initiative’s main priority was to solidify relationships with clients. For the bigger, more established brands, the focus was on the big picture to further fuel growth. For smaller clients, the priority was to help build the right structure so these brands could thrive for the long term,” he said.
Most importantly, the senior leadership team, right down to the most junior member, was equipped with the right knowledge base to build trust and maintain strong client relationships. This took the form of regular meetings, client updates on new innovations and trends, new tools and analytics, and any ammunition that helped clients move the needle on business objectives.
Numbers don’t mean anything without people Cultural velocity is a passion for Initiative, he said. But it is a passion that lies in the people. To stoke the passion for the work done, Yuen said it has been equally important to look after the well-being of talents. The industry is a highly competitive one, with high turnover, and burnouts not uncommon.
Cultural Velocity focuses on how brands can create breakthrough ideas by decoding patterns from the most successful and culturally relevant campaigns from across the world.
“Yet in the spirit of togetherness, the Initiative team prioritises mental health and well-being activities over the course of the year – virtual movie nights, care packages sent to one another, mental health days to switch off from work and fun virtual activities such as cooking and coffee appreciation,” he noted.
Disruption can be positive Initiative has but one goal – to have their clients feel the same infectiousness and passion for cultural velocity that they do. While the pandemic has proved a major disruptor, it has blazed the path for new ambitions. And with a strong talent commitment towards the 4Ds – Digital, Data, Design and Disruption, it has given Initiative positive momentum in 2021. A momentum that has bridged culture and data to springboard its clients’ businesses ahead of the game.