Check out all the highlights from Campaign's Game Changers 2023

Campaign’s third annual Game Changers event is taking place today (October 18, 2023) at The Westin Singapore. The event—featuring high-profile brand marketers, agency and technology leaders—will cover topics including the best uses of generative AI, how extended reality is changing digital interaction, new means and methods of attracting video attention and bridging digital and physical worlds. 

Peek the day’s agenda here. Speakers include Chiradeep Gupta, global VP for media and digital, Unilever Personal Care; Devendra Shivhare, Asia-Pacific director of marketing technology, The Coca-Cola Company; Sok Hoon Koo, head of marketing communications, BMW Asia; Yvonne Tey, Central Asia Pacific consumer marketing lead, Lenovo;Gaurav Virkar, global future-X media leader, SK-II and Akshay Brijkrishnan, Southeast Asia digital consumer experience lead, Mondelez.

Follow along for the Campaign’s editorial team's live coverage.

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HOW TO MAKE BRANDS POP AMID MEDIA CLUTTER 

On navigating the media fragmentation and hype cycles with brands in media: 

"We have an iconic portfolio of brands in leading positions in markets in leading categories. Now if you want to drive brand growth for some of these, you've got to find a way of looking at your brand and embedding it and making it part of pop culture. For me, embedding brands in pop culture is the shift that brands have to make to navigate these changes hitting all of us."

"I think five things you know to navigate this world of convergence, fragmentation and hype is to think culture, think creators, think communities,think collaborations and think code as an amplifier. And I think if there's one message from an overall perspective, it’s about being more human In the world of AI. It’s about using AI as an enabler or as an amplifier, but at the end of the day being more human and rooting everything in culture."  

-Chiradeep Gupta, global VP for media and digital, Unilever Personal Care

THE METAVERSE MAZE: IS THE HYPE OVER?

“The Metaverse—in its original form—is dead. But it needed to be dead, because it’s a constantly evolving concept and this is how it will move forward."

Gaurav Virkar, global Future-X media leader, SK-II, P&G

Three key ways to navigate the next chapter of the Metaverse as a brand marketer:

• Do not jump to the front-line: There’s no need to rush to experiment. Wait and see, then build and learn. Front-line experimentation requires investment, and ROI takes time to generate. Instead, diversify your capital and don’t focus solely on expansion in the Metaverse alone whilst neglecting above-the-line and below-the-line spend.
   
• Look at the short-term versus long-term ROIs of exploring: Be strategic about how to converge your entire marketing, consumer, and brand ecosystems towards instead of silo-ing the Metaverse as a separate offering.
   
• Treat the virtual and physical as one seamless customer experience: Whilst technology enablers such as AI are no longer a choice, their integration into the consumer journey in an authentic and meaningful way is still the responsibility of the brand. Consumers won’t differentiate between online and offline, so treat their journey as one follow-through path regardless of platform.

FIVE KEY PRINCIPLES TO HELP MARKTERS SPOT ENDURING SHIFTS IN TECHNOLOGY

“Potentially groundbreaking technologies are emerging faster than before. They often arrive with great hype and fanfare: but fade with barely a whimper. As marketers and as agency folks alike, it can be difficult to understand which of the baskets you want to put your eggs into to ensure that you're not wasting your time, headspace, resources, and energy.”

- James Honda-Pinder, head of strategy, We Are Social Singapore

• Does it fade into the background?: The most powerful technologies often don’t feel like technology. When assessing new technology ask yourself if it feels too complex. How far away are we from this being a frictionless experience?
   
• Does it improve existing ways of connection? Our most deep-rooted desire is to connect with other people. When judging a new technology ask if it is connecting like-minded people in an enhanced way.
   
• Does it amplify self-expression? People like to be seen, heard and validated for their opinions. Consider the self-expressive benefit of an innovation and how it helps recognise people as individuals.
   
• To what extent is it backed by research, data and investment? We would encourage marketers to look beyond the hype and social chatter to how stable are the intellectual and commercial foundations propping up a technology?
   
• What will make it tip? The key to success isn't of much use, until one discovers the right lock. Reaching a tipping point for new technology is rarely a spontaneous occurrence. It requires complex web of interdependent factors to come together to reach that pivotal moment. What are the factors that need to come together for a technology to tip? And within those hurdles, is there one that is more important than the other?

YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE

This session sponsored by Digital Turbine looks at which media formats earn the strongest user attention and why. 

“In current video benchmarks the average ad audio length is only 2.3 seconds right now. The screen real estate it occupies is only 12%, so basically just the bottom part of your screen, so most of the time the advertising gets missed. And the completion rate is on average 15%. These metrics make sense if you're selling something to a goldfish, but when it comes to human beings, you know you need more.”

-Jayesh Shivdasani, country director, SEA, Digital Turbine 

Television delivers great attention, Shivdasani says, because it delivers good storytelling in audible formats during down time compared to digital video ads that either cater too much to advertisers or consumers in skippable formats with less audible audio. But there is another format that performs even much better: in-app gaming. 

“[In-app gaming] ads are not just appearing randomly out there. It's an ad placement spot with videos usually providing rewards and more of a value exchange between brand and users. So post video interactivity grabs much higher attention. The ad or video is playing in full screen, it's audible, there's storytelling and and it’s grabbing the consumer in their down time, not in between when they are reading or browsing other content, so it's non-interruptive," Shivdasani adds.

FORGET AR. FORGET VR. IT'S TIME FOR XR

On moving from traditional sports marketing and experiential models to embracing Extended Reality (XR):

"For us, it's how do you integrate traditional sport with technology. And it’s not just about the games themselves. It’s our role as a federation to bring people together, to give athletes the space to shine, to compete, and to ensure we bring the audiences along. With social media everywhere now, the youth are definitely there. Social media definitely is a big platform for us to engage with them. People are interested to be part of a community and are always looking for a way to be involved and engaged. It’s up to us to give them a platform that can both entertain and provide a chance for connection to not just to the sport, but with technology as well.”

Gabriel Q. Chan, director of communications, global eSports Federation

On the next evolution from XR onwards and the dissonance between being first-to-market or waiting to follow:

"The key question is do you want to be a mover or an adopter? For us, we know we're okay to follow and adopt because of two factors: The ease of the hardware and the volatility of the software. The second one being more challenging because of cost. So, either we have to develop the software by ourselves or engage someone to do it for us, and therein lies the problem."

Andreas Kurz, global head of Transformation, Alfagomma Group

SHAPING THE DIGITAL FUTURE: ELEVATING CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES WITH METAVERSE AND AI ADVANCEMENTS

"What is the Reddit community's perspective on NFTs? They don't refer to them as NFTs but rather as 'collectible avatars'. When they changed the terminology, a community that previously disliked NFTs became its largest buyer. It's a marketing strategy that often goes unmentioned. The fact that more people are getting involved in the NFT space than any other project shows that while the technology is impressive, its branding could be improved."

- George Wong, head of Singapore at The Sandbox

CULTURE MEETS CREATIVITY: THE FUTURE FRONTIER OF GAME-CHANGING BRANDS

The 'phygital' (digital and physical) worlds are colliding. From coveted collectibles such as Kaws, pop-culture and viral shows seeping into offline and virtual reality experiences like Singapore's latest Stranger Things activation to BMW becoming the first car creator to enter Fornite's gaming experience under their new city experience of Hyponopolis, the time for elevating customer experience and taking it to the future frontier is here. But with each innovation, comes a game-changing opportunity.

On the challenge of reaching the 'right' consumer when targeting ads in industries such as automotive with multiple purchase decision makers:

"In today's world there are really a lot of things we can do to reach the 'right' customer. There's pixel implementation, there's insights, there's AI targeting etc. A car is really a big ticket purchase item, so in that [purchase] process, it doesn't involve one person, there are maybe other people in the home. So, it's really a household decision. Many times, the person who may be doing the research may not be the person making the purchase. Then despite the ads we serve, how do we ensure we're getting the ad to the right person's eyes? And consequentially, how does it drive the final purchase? There could be some mismatch. But ultimately, if you look at the sales process, see the conversion and can justify it [the ad spend], then we're doing our jobs."

Sok Hoon Koo, head of Marketing Communications, BMW Asia

On putting the customer at the centre, even with an unlimited market budget:

"A lot of the designs we build today are top-down. So, I'd love to do more of a kickstarter platform where the crowd decides, and if something gets enough backers, then that could be interesting. Our buyers are human, not AI, so doing what the people want is ultimately what we would want to do." 

Darryl Tan, head of Meta, Mighty Jaxx

THE AI GOLD RUSH

On the real beneficiaries of the gold rush in AI

"The technology providers are benefiting from it. Any company in the creative or content space now has 'AI' as a keyword on its website. Everybody is trying to experiment: to create or optimise content, or generate it more efficiently with less human intervention, or using it for marketing, digital and media operations. They also try to sell it to the brands and big enterprises. 

In marketing, there are simple use cases—when you send email and see that the open rate is quite low. How do you optimise the content and the subject line to be more attractive so you get more engagement from EDMs? The marketing community is also benefitting on an immediate basis. Other than that, there's a skill gap right now, in the industry and a lot of marketers and technologists are trying to fill that gap by leveraging AI."

- Devendra Shivhare, director of marketing technology, Asia-Pacific, The Coca-Cola Company

On the risk of Gen AI resulting in similar creative output across brands

"It could have been a risk maybe a couple of months ago, but I think everybody is now aware that what Gen AI or Chat GPT gives you is not the gospel truth. The inputs and context that go into these platforms is very nuanced.

It is not a problem in the case of ad hoc jobs. In those cases, duplication is not a problem — having the same same subject line in an e-mail for example is not a big deal. It is good for polishing or getting feedback on content. But the creative aspect is not something that we're compromising on."

- Akshay Brijkrishan, digital consumer experience lead - Southeast Asia, Mondelez