Asia-Pacific Power List 2021: Siew Ting Foo, HP

Siew Ting Foo

CMO, Greater Asia
HP
Singapore
Member since 2018

Siew Ting Foo’s challenge has been to keep a legacy brand that relies on family household and business spending relevant in Asia-Pacific in a time when offices went quiet due to the pandemic, schools were shuttered, and working from home became the norm.

To cater to this home-bound audience, HP’s CMO for Greater Asia pivoted her marketing focus to help her customers adapt to this new way of life, while shifting the marketing strategy for businesses around data for marketing effectiveness and better digital experience.  To help do this, Foo developed a MAGIC (mastery of brand, agility, growth mindset, integration, customer journey) framework internally to guide team efforts.   

During the early days of the lockdown, HP launched educational campaigns with Foo and her team such as ‘Family with Kids’ globally and ‘Print, Play, Learn’ in Asia Pacific to give parents fun learning activities for kids being schooled at home. In Australia, HP partnered with illustrator James Gulliver Hancock to bring to life Aussie kids’ visions of what it takes to be a superhero in an effort to help kids learn where self-confidence comes from and gain strength to face today’s world.

Noticing the rise in gaming during the pandemic, HP refocused products and services to help gamers build a community and become better players. Inventive marketing appealed to gamers attraction to a non-judgmental environment. 

In each APAC market, Foo has launched new campaigns to keep brand HP relevant to increasingly picky consumers. In China, for example, In China, the Print, Play and Learn campaign, aimed to associate content and printing with a better home learning experience saw over 85 million impressions and four million clicks, backed up with 60.9 million social media reads, 3.9 million video views, 94,000 new users on their We Chat mini program and a 448% increase in orders for a range of printers on JD.com. Foo has also led the introduction of a subscription model in the region too. 

Well-recognised at industry events, Foo has served on Campaign Asia’s Women Leading Change jury, was chief of jury at 2020 Asia WARC Marketing Strategy Awards and also judged the Effies. 

As a marketer who is a votary of DEI within HP and across the industry, Foo has used her position to launch brand campaigns to promote this cause at HP.  For example, in Japan,  she worked with two local activists Japanese creators: Momona, who is managing a zero waste center in Kamikatsu town, and Kento, who developed a job support platform for the Japanese LGBTQ community. 

Foo has held several roles in her time at HP. In February 2021, she was promoted to CMO for Greater Asia for HP from her previous role as vice president and global head of Marketing Strategy and Planning, Print Category, her third role in four years at the tech giant.