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Is the usual big budget TVC or full-page newspaper ad you’ve been

running for years not doing the trick? It’s time to try something different.
John Davidson nominates five out-of-the box marketing strategies that
will help you stand out from the crowd and work wonders for your brand.

When marketers stumble into the
area of digital marketing it can
be overwhelming, confusing and
downright intimidating. But if you’re
looking to create real engagement with your
target audience then one simple solution is
rich media, and rich media that involves video.
According to Ross McNabb, sales director in
Asia Pacific for Eyeblaster, online advertising
with video is most powerful with users and
marketers need to change the way they think
about online, as its not just standard banner
ads. Natalie Ng, senior executive at Starcom’s
digital influence group, agrees and says “more
and more advertisers are using rich media”. Ng
says rich media with video is less intrusive and
it “enhances brand engagement”. “Clicks and
impressions no longer suffice digital media,”
she says. “It’s what they [users] do after [they
view the ad].” Anyone who has watched the
campaign that Australian agency Soap Cre-
ative did for the 20th Century Fox film Jumper
in 2008 recognizes the awesome power that
rich media possesses. The film featured char-
acters who have the ability to teleport them-
selves to different places, and the campaign
featured an ad for the film through a rich video
execution that interacted with the website’s
page elements. Characters for Jumper literally

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appeared to be taking over the website and
jumping across different tabs as they battling
it out in front of the viewer’s eyes. This cam-
paign, unsurprisingly, won a raft of awards.
Another in a similar very-effective vein was the
rich media ad for the new Nintendo Wii game
Wario Land: Shake It by Goodby, Silverstein &
Partners in the US. In a partnership with You-
Tube, the video on the channel plays while the
page around it starts to shake and crumble,
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and eventually the page is completely de-
stroyed and users can play with the wreckage
at the end. Ng says this kind of rich media is
a “bit more expensive”, but brand recall and
brand loyalty is very high after experiencing
these ads. That’s no surprise, as the viewer
is virtually immersed and interacting with the
content in a very entertaining manner. Rich
media may not be exactly new in Asia, but its
set for a big growth curve.
Scent might not be something
that immediately comes to mind
when you are creating a brand,
but increasingly it can play a
powerful role in delivering a memorable
brand experience. That’s something Simon
Faure-Field, CEO of Equal Strategy, certainly
recognizes, as his company specializes in
delivering customer experiences for busi-
Octob er 2 009 MARKE TI N G 33

New Balance taps into its heritage in Beijing.
34 M AR K ET I N G O cto b er 2 009
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nesses such as hotels, retailers and banks.
Equal Strategy uses music and recorded tele-
phone messages on hold to deliver customer
experiences but it is the area of fragrance, or
scent marketing, where the company is re-
ally making strides. It is the only outfit in Asia
that works with world-class perfume houses
to create unique scents for its clients. When
the boutique Singapore hotel Naumi opened
its doors in 2007, it wanted to stand out from
the pack and enlisted Equal Strategy to cre-
ate a distinct lime and green scent which is
pumped through its hotel. Adeline Quek,
director of marketing at Naumi, says the fra-
grance has helped differentiate Naumi as a
product. “It’s had a big impact on creating an
impression – it forms a lasting experience,”
she says. “I believe in psychological market-
ing.” Equal Strategy operates across Asia and
has worked with clients in Japan, Indonesia,
Dubai and in Singapore with brands such as
Pan Pacific, Starwood, Raffles, Daimler Benz
and Changi Airport. Recently it worked with
New Balance on the launch of its flagship
concept store in Bejing, which celebrates the
sporting giant’s 100-year history. The store
has a nostalgic feel to invoke memories of the
1950s and 60s, complete with 50s style mu-
sic and a unique woody vanilla scent which
harks to the old New Balance shops of the
past. “This sort of sensory branding has fast
become the brave new world of retail,” Faure-
Field says. “It’s no longer simply enough to
present your products or services in a strong-
ly branded visual context; the brand needs to
connect with all five senses of the customer in
order to create resonance and establish long-
term loyalty”. Scent marketing is not exactly a
new idea – it has been around for the past 10-
15 years after being started in the US. Westin
Hotels was one of the first brands to employ
scent marketing on a global scale. But in Asia
its potential is still relatively under utilized.
Faure-Field says scent marketing is best em-
ployed in an integrated strategy, combined
with the right product and good service, but
when it is done so it can be extremely power-
ful. “It’s about creating an environment that’s
appealing to consumers,” he says. “Creating
long-term loyalty. [It helps] make your brand
more sustainable, more powerful and more
profitable.”
It’s one of the biggest clichés
in the industry. Content is king.
Content is all powerful. And we hear it so
much because it’s true. Today’s consum-
ers respond so much better to entertaining
content than they do to standard advertising.
That’s why we all spend so much time watch-
ing TV and movies, reading newspapers and
magazines, and visiting websites. We are
constant devours of content. And branded
content is one very effective way of packaging
advertising and content together in a prop-
erty that can influence consumers, if it’s done
right. Branded content has been around for
a while but it is becoming more popular with
marketers in Asia. Rajesh Mahtani, Starcom
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Singapore’s strategy director, says branded or experiential. “Online is one the areas where from scratch, as HP and SingTel have done,
content is a very attractive strategy for brands branded content works well,” he says. “It’s or add on to a property that already exists.
simply because “people want to consume cheap while TV is more expensive.” Mahtani Castrol has done this by replacing Nokia as
content, they don’t want to consumer adver- cited Tourism Queensland’s much celebrated the title sponsor of ESPN Star Sports’ Football
tising”. Mahtani believes branded content is “Best Job in the World” campaign as an Crazy programme. In addition to commercials
about getting “better cut-through, and to have example of a piece of that is partly branded and on-air branding, Castrol gets customized
better engagement”, and says it is “already content, through its use of user-generated content on the show through special seg-
very popular” in this part of the world. Cer- content. There are two ways for marketers to ments, all while building the brand’s associa-
tainly in the past 12 months there have been get into branded content – create something tion with football as part of its sponsorship
a number of high-profile branded content ex-
amples launched into the market. HP and Star
teamed together to launch HP Space, a new
reality TV show which is broadcast on Star
across the region and encourages creativity
in Asia. The programme promotes creative
innovation through the use of technology and
follows a team of contestants who work with
creative professionals in the fields of design,
film, music, art and advertising. It ties in per-
fectly with HP’s brand promise of trying to
creative meaningful experiences for its users.
There’s also SingTel Grid Girls, a TV show on
MediaCorp which smartly leverages SingTel’s
sponsorship of the Singapore F1 race. For
many when they think of branded content TV
comes straight to mind, but branded content
can be anything. Mahtani says “it’s beyond
just TV” and can be any medium – print, radio Castrol pumps up the football mania.

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 cover story

of the 2010 World Cup. While there are tons

of examples of branded content in Asia Pa-
cific – from Berjaya Hotels & Resorts’ ‘Love
Me Do’ competition to Fisherman’s Friend’s
social media and film partnership with actor
Afdlin Shauki, and Virgin Mobile’s creation of
the V music festival in Australia – finding the
right formula to make it a success is not easy.
Mahtani says its about finding the right bal-
ance for a brand in terms of control over the
content. “You have to let go of some of the
control to be more authentic”.

We’ve all heard the mantra over

the past few years. Mobile mar-
keting is the future. It’s the next
big thing. It’s growth will explode
in the next few years etc etc. But for the most
part, there has been a lot of talk and little ac-
tion around mobile marketing. But next year
a piece of technology will launch in Singapore
that is guaranteed to shake up the industry’s
involvement in marketing in the mobile space.
Digital security company Gemalto is launch-
ing its Near Field Communications (NFC) ser-
vice in Singapore next year, an offering that
will allow consumers with new mobile phones
to receive information and make payments
Gemalto’s Near Field Communications service.
digitally through interacting with a variety of
different sources. Essentially, a consumer
with an NFC-enabled phone will be able to
download coupons, be pushed to a website
or make a purchase by waving their phone
across a poster that is embedded with NFC
tags. For example, a user could walk past a
digital poster for the new Harry Potter film and
watch a video trailer, read a review, download
the wallpaper or buy tickets to the film all
on its phone by digitally interacting with the
poster. Another scenario could see a person
watching a Starbucks ad on a TV screen in a
lift and then, by interacting with the screen,
automatically receive a voucher for a dis-
counted coffee or a map showing the nearest

The National Body

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Starbucks outlet. Cyril Annarella, the senior
VP Asia marketing for Gemalto’s telecom
business unit, says the same concept exists in
Japan and Korea at the moment where “more
than one million people there use it every
day”. Annarella says Gemalto is currently ne-
gotiating with the government, telcos, banks,
credit card companies and mobile phone
providers to officially unveil the technology in
Singapore in 2010. Already trials have been
conducted in Singapore, Taiwan and France,
and the verdict from the public, unsurpris-
ingly, is good. “The concept has been very
popular with consumers,” Annarella says.
The benefits for the public with this technol-
ogy are obvious and for marketers, seemingly
endless. “It builds on convenience,” Annarella
says. “Gives more control to the consumer.
It’s another way to do search. It’s a less in-
trusive way to get information. It compliments
mobile internet.” Gemalto is currently waiting
for NFC-enabled handsets to become avail-
able in Singapore and Annarella believes
there are no barriers to the concept, which

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The National Body

for Sales and
Marketing

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 cover story

In-game advertising lets brands play a part in the gamer’s experience.

has proved very popular in Korea and Japan,
taking off here. “The barriers are not con-
sumers,” he says. “Cost won’t be an issue.
Everything fits.” Annarella says some brands
will “want to take a wait-and-see approach”
to the technology but once a few put a toe
in the water the rest will follow. “It’s more of a
matter of time,” he says.
Video gaming in Asia is big busi-
ness. There’s no ignoring that
fact, and it’s a pursuit that’s on
the rise. Every day millions of
people in Asia immerse themselves in their
Xboxs, Wiis, Playstations and on PC games
for hours and hours on end. Imagine you could
reach that audience while its deeply engaged
in playing a game, either through by placing an
ad in the game itself or by contributing deeply
to the content and narrative of the game.
That’s now a growing reality, as the practice
of in-game advertising evolves and grows in
the region. Massive, which is a subsidiary of
Microsoft, is one the world’s largest players in
in-game advertising and it has set its sights
on expanding in Asia Pacific. The four-year
old company set up an office in Korea in 2008
and now has sales staff operating in Australia,
New Zealand and in Hong Kong. Cassandra
Nuttall, global head of Massive Trade Market-
ing, Microsoft Advertising, says the practice
of in-game advertising has changed and so
has the typical audience. “Gaming’s a cen-
tral entertainment theme in this region,” she
says. “It’s growing more and more mature.
It’s changed from pure in-game to fixed
product placement. The audience is diverse
and growing.” Massive has signed some big
brands to run campaigns in its games in the
region. McDonalds in Hong Kong is running
ads in five video games on the PC and Xbox
360 to promote its delivery service. In New
Zealand Frucor has used in-game billboards
and posters in video games to launch its new
energy drink INK, which is targeted at young
men. Massive works with video game makers
and publishers, like EA and Blizzard, so that
brands can not only just place ads in games,
they can create their own games around
their brands and get involved in the storyline.
In-game advertising can also be tweaked to
aim at specific markets and countries, using
geo-targeting, and it can be updated easily
with messages changing throughout the day.
Not many media channels offer that kind of
flexibility. Nuttall says there are many myths
around in-game advertising but these are
being changed slowly by educating agencies
and brands. “People think gaming is too dif-
ficult to do,” she says. “Another myth is that
the audience is too narrow.” But the truth is
that video games are now played by both
men and women, both young and old. “We’ve
gone from the pure dynamic [advertising] to
deep dynamic integration,” Nuttall says. The
opportunities range from virtual billboards
to audio messages, product placement and
integration from video games with online
advertising channels. In-game advertising is
one method that marketers can longer afford
to ignore.

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