Why is this work relevant for Creative Strategy?

This entry reinvented a single-day, physical B2B marquee event into a six-week client engagement program, that scaled across 6 Southeast Asia markets. At the onset of the pandemic, no one had a perfect playbook on adapting conventional B2B activations to stay current for the new reality. Through understanding client needs, redefining personalisation, optimising resources, and leveraging new technologies, we delivered our first-ever personalised digital experience that pushed the boundaries of digital event execution and client engagement. In the backdrop of the pandemic, our brand ultimately reached more clients this year than ever before, and increased their spending intent.

Background

Each year, our brand organises its flagship event for advertisers in each market, where we share the latest trends, evolving consumer behaviours, and platform advertising opportunities they can tap into. This premium event is aimed at exciting, inspiring, and educating advertisers on how our platform can help reach their target audience and drive business results. With the health and safety of our guests being of top priority this year, the event had to be shifted online for the first time across 6 Southeast Asia markets (Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines, Singapore). Initially, our local marketing teams found it challenging to elevate the show for audiences who are accustomed to attending impressive physical events. Amidst shifting client priorities and waning attention in a plethora of digital webinars, we also had to find a way to keep our audience engaged in a ‘work from home’ setting where attention is often divided.

The Interpretation of the Challenge (30% of vote)

For brands, volatile times mean a greater need for guidance on pivoting their business strategy, and insights on changing customer behaviour and business continuity. During this time, our platform's role has gained even more importance as advertisers looked to digital channels to connect with their audience and grow their brand. The marquee event would serve as avenue where we support advertisers through our content delivered. Concurrently, this event represents a unique opportunity to help advertisers feel more connected to our brand, internalize the excitement consumers feel about our platform, and realize why it needs to be a strategic part of their media plans. Hinging on our brand proposition of “Massively Personal”, we wanted to showcase how our platform has the most expansive content - where users can watch exactly what they want, when they want, instantly. They have the power to choose personally relevant content, delivered in a concise manner.

The Insight / Breakthrough Thinking (30% of vote)

To deliver the most helpful content, we conducted extensive interviews with clients and sales leaders to identify needs for business recovery. First-party and third-party research, as well as data sources were also leveraged to uncover the most salient trends, learnings, and insights. We found that advertisers had varying content interests depending on their vertical and marketing objectives, so instead of recreating a one-size-fits-all event, we sought to provide a personalized experience for every attendee. The one-day offline experience is reimagined and transformed into a six-week, hybrid offline-online client engagement program which comprised three phases. This program would take viewers on a unique, first-of-its-kind experience that would see them become directors of their own adventure to find personally relevant content that they never knew they’d enjoy. These three phases would demonstrate our brand proposition in a way that the audience can experience themselves, showcasing how our platform is undoubtedly, Massively Personal.

The Creative Idea (20% of vote)

Phase 1 centered on pre-show engagement. Clients were invited to build their own show by selecting their favorite creator as their show host, choice of music entertainment, and content interests. They inputted this in a dynamic registration site which would then influence their Phase 2 experience. To pique audiences’ excitement, teasers were amplified through media channels. Phase 2 delivered an immersive, power-packed 30 minutes bespoke show on a website. With 18,535 unique video segments were rendered at scale to generate 3,100 personalised films, viewers felt like the show was made exclusively for them. Personalised viewing kits delivered day-of further added an element of surprise, with each kit printing clients' names and providing curated gifts. For example, music-aficionados got speakers, while cooking-enthusiasts got cookbooks. Phase 3 commenced post-show, where clients accessed on-demand content catered to address their marketing objectives. To help clients resolve specific advertising challenges, deep-dive workshops were also conducted.

The Outcome / Results (20% of vote)

Venturing into a new territory of scaled personalisation applied to a digital event (or six of them) produced incredible results. While an offline event usually attracts 300-500 attendees, the show generated 5K+ marketer site visits. Average watch time landed at 22/30 minutes. More than 60% of viewers watched 100% of the show, and 40% returned to the site to rewatch or catch up on video-on-demand playlists. When hosted on YouTube, these videos garnered 1.3M+ views in total. Post-premiere, we leveraged social, owned and paid media to reach an additional 16.5M industry professionals. Over 100 related stories across 86 media outlets published highlighted how our platform has been integral to people’s lives throughout the pandemic, and how brands used it to deliver sustainable value. These efforts culminated in significant perception lift: 95% agree that our brand inspires them to use digital marketing to grow their business; 7/10 plan to invest more.

Please tell us how the work was designed / adapted for a single country / region / market

Instead of having each local marketing team execute their own virtual event, our marketing teams across six SEA countries joined forces to optimise effort and resources. Ideation and development was done centrally so local resources could focus on localisation and execution. Since each country team did not have to reinvent the wheel, we managed to deliver the event in just two months. By adopting a modular approach to the show and utilising a proprietary video-stitching technology, we enabled six local shows that put personalisation at the heart of it all. This involved programmatically combining various video segments, rendering individual names that appeared 3X on the show, and uploading into YouTube to generate a personalized link for each attendee. The swappable modules allowed us to feature a mix of local insights and regional announcements, making viewers feel the event was 100% local even though we worked across markets and shared content.