Booking.com – Bangkok Booking Bus

Booking.com – Thailand
CASE STUDY

Daikin – Vietnam
CASE STUDY

Nok Air – Social Media Marketing
CASE STUDY

Jetts Fitness: Lead Generation Campaign
CASE STUDY

Dell – Branding and Content Marketing
CASE STUDY

Creating a story that your audience will actually care about is never easy. However, a professor from Columbia University’s School of Journalism named James G. Robinson has something to offer. He wrote about a concept called “sense of audience,” which is all about constantly considering the audience’s needs and shaping the story accordingly throughout the writing process to ensure that the story will resonate with its readers.

This idea of being audience-focused isn’t just for writers, but for every type of content creator—content marketers, influencers, filmmakers and even speakers. It’s easy to forget who the content is for when you’re too focused on the topic at hand, branding, SEO, clicks or even yourself as the content creator. When this happens, you become the biggest obstacle to your content’s potential.

Here’s how putting the audience first impacts storytelling.

It brings real value to your audience 

Being audience-focused isn’t new. The term “sense of audience” has been mentioned in books published in as early as the 1820s, meaning people have realized the importance of understanding their audience’s needs even before the age of internet metrics and audience insights dashboards.   

Let’s see how this impacts content marketing. One of the secrets to developing a successful content marketing campaign is using the audience-first approach, which entails painstakingly crafting the strategy with a good understanding of the audience’s needs and putting those first right from the get-go.  

 Part of the process is investigating people’s pain points. And while metrics and digital tools are very helpful in identifying the needs and pain points of today’s modern audience, a lot of it still has to do with empathy. I like how Linda Boff, Chief Marketing Officer of GE, puts it: “We never want to come across as corporate. We want to come across as human.” 

When done right, people walk away from good content marketing with something useful, helpful and valuable. They bring with them an unforgettable lesson, a fix, a new perspective or inspiration. 

I personally like the recipe videos from Tasty, especially during its early days. The problem with written recipes is that they leave much of the process to the reader’s imagination, and many times they’re intimidating and confusing. I think Tasty understood this and, turning to visual content, created eye-catching instructional videos that are mobile-first, grabbing the attention even of those who are not interested in cooking at all. In this way, the platform has made recipes (and maybe even cooking) not only less intimidating but also enticing. 

It keeps your audience at the edge of their seat 

Have you ever wondered what makes thriller movies, well, thrilling? Film producer and author Dr. Kenneth Atchity, who’s known for his thriller movies, with the most recent being The Meg, said that dramatic order is all that matters in screenwriting. He said, “That’s all the audience cares about. If you hook us properly, it doesn’t matter where we go in the story after that hook because we will figure it out. We will be so hooked that we’ll figure it out.”   

The opposite, however, would kill the thrill and make the audience tune out and leave. Atchity emphasized that great directors know how to please the audience because they know well what the audience is waiting for. People who don’t understand this would approach a story in a completely different way, and this is why we sometimes have movies or TV shows that are bland, boring and utterly predictable.  

I love Gone Girl—I think it’s one of the best thriller movies of all time! There are a lot of unknowns in the story that literally keep viewers at the edge of their seat as they beg for answers. There are also several elements that make it very gripping—discontentment, marital discord, cheating, a disappearance, psychopathy and, of course, murder—unfolding one after another throughout the story. 

It gives them something to experience 

Developing content with sense of audience transports people into an experience. It takes them on a journey. 

In the past year, I’ve signed up to lessons on publishing community Reedsy. One of my favorites is about the Show, Don’t Tell principle where I learned that storytelling should be a sensory experience. Apparently, that’s how a writer can effectively draw readers in and keep them engaged. Writers do it by using dialogues to reveal personalities, describing a setting or moment as the character feels it, using body language to show emotions and omitting details to imply something. For example, instead of simply writing, “The room was really dark,” try making comparisons or exploring how the darkness feels or what memories it gives. 

Here’s an excerpt from Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel, Little Women, which demonstrates how the Show, Don’t Tell principle allows readers to feel the overall mood of the scene as well as the characters’ emotions as they speak: 

Something in his resolute tone made Jo look up quickly to find him looking down at her with an expression that assured her the dreaded moment had come, and made her put out her hand with an imploring, “No, Teddy, please, don’t!” 

“I will and you must hear me. It’s no use, Jo, we’ve got to have it out, and the sooner the better for both of us,” he answered, getting flushed and excited all at once. 

“Say what you like, then. I’ll listen,” said Jo, with a desperate sort of patience. 

Laurie was a young lover, but he was in earnest, and meant to “have it out,” if he died in the attempt, so he plunged into the subject with characteristic impetuosity, saying in a voice that would get choky now and then, in spite of manful efforts to keep it steady— 

“I’ve loved you ever since I’ve known you, Jo, couldn’t help it, you’ve been so good to me. I’ve tried to show it, but you wouldn’t let me; now I’m going to make you hear, and give me an answer, for I can’t go on so any longer.” 

 If you’ve realized you needed to put your audience first the next time you develop content, ask yourself these questions: “What do I want to achieve with this content? What is the purpose?”, “Am I using language that my audience could easily understand?”, “Am I reaching them through the right platform?”, “Will my content help my audience in any way?” or “Why would people care about this story?” 

The relationship between storytelling and the audience is a huge topic, and we’ve only just scratched the surface here. But just remember: When you care about your audience, you’d have a better chance of truly connecting with them. 

TikTok. TikTok. TikTok. There’s no doubt that it’s super easy to lose track of time when you’re on the app browsing through awesome dance challenges, hilarious clips and mind boggling videos. Now with over 800 million monthly active users, TikTok is climbing up the ranks and shows no signs of slowing down as an engaging social platform.

If you’re looking for ways to reach a younger audience, you should definitely be thinking about advertising on TikTok, especially if you are selling consumer products.

In early 2019, TikTok launched a beta version of its ad offering, and now its ad platform is already available in key regions in Southeast Asia including India, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and Singapore among others. If you are already familiar with the Facebook Business Manager, the TikTok ad platform is fairly similar with features like lookalike audiences, custom audiences, a tracking pixel, and a three-part ad structure:

Campaigns > Ad Groups > Ads

The key differences are the ad types available with TikTok.

Before we dive into ins and outs of running TikTok ad campaigns, let’s first get to know why you should run ads on TikTok in the first place.

• With 800 million monthly active users, TikTok beats LinkedIn (660+ million), Reddit (430+ million), Snapchat (218+ million), Twitter (340+ million), and Pinterest (322+ million).
• Apple and Google Play users have downloaded the TikTok app over 1.5 billion times.
• TikTok is the sixth most popular app globally based on the number of monthly active users.
• TikTok users span 150 countries worldwide.

Source

TikTok Ad Types

Below are the TikTok ad types that work best for brands:

In-feed ads

An in-feed ad appears as a full-screen native video and is embedded within the ‘For You’ feed. It has the sound automatically played and allows users to comment, share, like, etc., directly from the feed.

Using in-feed ads is a great way to drive traffic to internal pages (like hashtags or challenges) or external landing pages (like websites).  

Brand takeover

A brand takeover ad is a full-screen ad that pops up when a user first logs into TikTok. It lives on the first screen they see when opening TikTok. Simply tap the ad, and they’ll be directed to the brand’s website. 

A brand takeover ad can be an image or a 3-5 second GIF/video. 

Top view

A top view ad showcases your brand as soon as users open TikTok, which helps reach and engage audiences in a visually impactful way. It’s a version of the brand takeover ad unit that fades into an in-feed video ad, lasting 15 seconds in total. 

Branded hashtag challenges

Branded hashtag challenges help you maximize engagement by tapping into user-generated content. You can choose a branded hashtag, create a challenge, and encourage users to join your challenge as well as include your branded hashtag into their post. 

According to TikTok Ads, “the branded hashtag challenge is a new and unique way to engage users. It taps into users’ passion for creation and expression by inviting them to join in on a collective movement. Over 50% of creators have participated in a hashtag challenge with an average engagement rate of 8.5%, generating huge brand buzz and affinity.”

Understanding TikTok’s Advertisement Goals

There are 4 different advertisement goals (bidding methods) based on what your campaign anticipated results are. Using CPC (cost-per-click) goals will enable you to get more clicks or any of the view objectives to increase awareness and gain more ad impressions.

CPC (cost-per-click)

Pay for clicks. Acquiring more clicks will serve as the optimization goal.

oCPC (optimized cost-per-click)

Pay for clicks that lead to conversions. The system optimizes delivery to get more conversions (e.g. app download, purchase, or sign-up).

CPM (cost-per-mille)

Reach and thousand impressions are the optimization goal.

CPV (cost-per-view)

Pay for every 6-second video viewed. 6-second video views will serve as the optimization goal. 

How much do TikTok ads cost?

If you’re looking to gain the most visibility amongst TikTok users, be prepared to invest and pay a premium in your TikTik advertising campaign.

Brand Takeover: $50,000 per day.

Hashtag Challenge: $150,000 for six days.

For those with access to the self-service TikTok ads platform, advertisers are able to set daily or all-time budget caps for in-feed ads. TikTok sets a minimum budget of $500 at the campaign level and $50 at the ad group level. This minimum spend is meant to ensure that your ad has enough budget to spend to reach your ad objectives.

Advertisers with smaller budgets should wait to see if the cost of advertising on TikTok will decrease. This has happened on other social networks as more advertisers join the platform.

Visit the TikTok For Business site to register an account and start deploying ads on a brand new highly engaging platform. For a step by step guide on how to register click here, and for inspiration of ads that brands are running across the region click here

* TikTok has engaged Vero in Thailand, Vietnam, and Myanmar

In this difficult period of transition into a new normal, it is fascinating to see how brands and corporations in Southeast Asia are responding. With that in mind, we want to take some time to highlight those in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Myanmar who have chosen to support those most affected by the crisis despite facing difficult circumstances themselves. So many companies are doing great things to help us all get through this. Below is a sampling of their efforts.

ASEAN-wide 

The Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Foundation  is donating medical supplies – including masks, COVID-19 test kits, and pieces of protective clothing – to 14 countries in Asia to help the global fight against COVID-19, overcoming logistics with their Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP), which is designed to allow SMEs to more easily participate in global trade.* 

Vietnam

Vietnamese companies have donated large amounts to Coronavirus relief efforts, exceeding 125 billion VND (5.27 million USD) in a single day (March 24). VinGroup, Toyota Vietnam, Vietnam Social Security, and Hung Tuy furniture were among the largest donors. 

An online art auction from March 23 to 23 was organized to raise funds for the fight against the pandemic. It featured 100 paintings by 60 Vietnamese and Singaporean artists, and half of the proceeds went to the Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee, which is handling relief efforts. 

HCMC Real Estate company Khang Dien alone has contributed 20 billion to fundraising to control the virus.

In addition to large companies, popular Vietnamese singers including Ha Anh Tuan, Chi Pu, and Min have spent tens of thousands from their personal savings on supplies to fight the outbreak. 

A Hanoi pizza restaurant installed a disinfection chamber for customers, but is now allowing passers-by to use it for free.  

Beervana, a supplier of imported craft beer for bars and restaurants in Ho Chi Minh City, has launched a delivery service which helps support venues which have been closed due to the virus. The bar posts a discount code, the buyer inputs it in the Beervana site during their purchase, and the bar gets a cut of profits while the buyer gets 10% off. 

On February 10, early in the crisis, Lifebuoy, a Vietnamese hand soap company, set up public handwashing stations in 3 cities.  

On February 15, Honda Vietnam called on their Honda Winner Clubs across the country to travel to schools and industrial parks outside major cities carrying 200,000 face masks to students and workers.  

Coca-Cola Vietnam is suspending all advertising and donating its full advertising budget to the Vietnam Red Cross.  

Indonesia

Grab has introduced a variety of precautionary measures in Indonesia to ensure safe deliveries, including: 

• Body temperature checks for both merchant partners and GrabKitchen staff. 
• A GrabCare package providing financial and medical assistance for any employee who tests positive or is placed in quarantine. 
• 100,000 Masks made available for Grab drivers. 
• Hand sanitizer provided at GrabNow shelters and GrabBike lounges. 
• Contactless delivery for customers practicing self-quarantine. 

Meanwhile, rival ride-sharing and delivery service Gojek is offering: 

• A 14-day stipend and suspended payments for drivers who test positive. 
• Waived food delivery fees in areas near hospitals and vouchers for trips to and from hospitals and testing centers. 
• Bosses are giving up 25% of their annual salaries to assist drivers suffering economic hardship. 

The Indonesian Tech Journalist Forum has arranged a friendly match on FreeFire and Call of Duty Mobile, sponsored by GArena, with 100% of the cash prize donated to help Covid19 victims. The tournaments are open for journalists and ex-journalists, along with the GArena Indonesia General Manager, Pro Players, and gaming influencers.  

PT Paragon Technology and Innovation, which includes beauty companies Wardah, Adaro, Astra, and Barito Pacific, has donated billions of Rupiah to appointed hospitals working with Covid-19 positive patients.  Wardah is also distributing hand sanitizer to public areas.  

Myanmar

Shop, Myanmar’s leading online shopping platform, is working to ensure that customers have access to basic commodities such as rice, flour, noodles, soaps, sanitisers, sugar, tea, coffee, canned goods, surface cleaners, diapers, hand washes, baby formula, and nutrition supplements, while also preventing sellers from taking unfair advantage of the global crisis.  

Shop employees adhere to strict WHO-recommended protective measures; work-from-home is available for most employees, and at Shop’s warehouses, hubs, and offices colleagues have been instructed to refrain from physical contact, practice social distancing, and wash their hands frequently and thoroughly. Their temperatures are checked twice daily. Shop’s delivery agents now operate on a rotating A/B schedule, wear protective masks, and carry hand sanitiser to ensure safe exchanges with sellers, customers, and fellow employees.  

Thailand

Beiersdorf has converted the production sites for NIVEA and Eurerin in Thailand to produce 80% alchohol medical hand sanitizers. The hand sanitizers will not be available for purchase but will be delivered free of charge to more than 1,000 hospitals, various foundations, homes of orphanage and underprivileged children in Thailand with the hope to alleviate the current shortage of hand sanitizers. DHL Thailand has also joined hands with Beiersdoft to support with the distribution of the hand sanitizers across the country. 

To promote the physical and mental well-being of everyone self-isolating and working from home, entertainment conglomerate, BEC-Tero, international fitness chain, Fitness First, and Thailand’s no.1 pasteurized milk brand Meiji have collaboratively launched a series of calorie-torching workout videos including Muay Thai, dance classes, yoga and stretching exercises that will be streamed live from Monday to Friday at 10am. 

Chef Deepanker Khosla and his team at Haoma, a fine dining Indian restaurant in Bangkok, are on a mission to feed large groups of migrant, daily wage workers left without jobs and no source of income, as well as others who cannot afford a meal. The Haoma team are preparing meals and are delivering them to the hardest-hit areas in Bangkok. The fundraising campaign is called #noonehungry and everyone can be part of it. 

Coca-Cola Thailand has also recently announced on their official Facebook page that they will suspend all digital and TV advertising campaigns of all the brands under its umbrella in Thailand and divert all the money to suppor thte fight against Covid-19. 

Hotels in Thailand including The Renaissance Bangkok Ratchaprasong Hotel, Siam@Siam, Pullman Bangkok King Power, SO/ Bangkok, and Holiday Inn have creatively turned on lights during the night to spread the message of love and encouragement during this difficult time. 

*** 

These are just a few examples of what businesses and individuals of all sizes can do to ease the pain of the current crisis. We at Vero firmly believe that when we all contribute, we all benefit, and these positive behaviors signal to customers that the companies care. 

*Alibaba is a current Vero client. 

2019 was a big year for us here at Vero – one in which we made investments that expanded our capabilities considerably, while also putting our energy into a slew of excellent campaigns and building relationships with exciting new clients

We opened new offices in Vietnam and Indonesia, moved to a bigger and better office in Myanmar, rebuilt our website from the ground up, won our second and third regional awards, and added 24 people to our team, for a total of 88.

We also experienced further regionalization of our agency – working with more clients on multimarket PR and digital campaigns than ever before in the large and generally fast-growing markets of Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, and (via agency partners) the Philippines and Malaysia.

Our Shiny New Site

Vero’s website has been completely re-designed to better reflect where we stand as an agency, with a magazine-style “knowledge sharing” approach, digital marketing and influencer focus, content-first organization, and more prominent space for blogs and headshots to give our consultants a place to shine. Besides improved aesthetics and navigation, the site is optimized for SEO and lead-building to make us easier to find. So far it seems to be working: Vero is ranking well across the region, and people are spending 40% more time on the site. We’re still improving the site day-by-day and will be ramping up our insights in 2020.

Vero in Thailand

Vero in Thailand continues to move ahead with our mission of providing great local and global brands with fully-integrated consumer and corporate campaigns, featuring a combination of PR, digital, creative, and influencer marketing.

As always, we seek out highly-skilled and forward-thinking people, and in 2019 we improved our capabilities by bringing in SEO whizzes, in-house motion graphics designers, media relations experts, content creators, client service specialists, and brand journey strategists.

We also added several exciting new clients to our roster, including Under Armour, Electronic Arts, Jetts Fitness, LINE, Intel, Kingston Technologies, and True Corp.

Vero supported Sennheiser in the launch of several new products in Thailand, including soundbars and innovative headphones targeting both lifestyle and gaming consumers. Through the launch of these products at press conferences organized by Vero, 50+ journalists, influencers, and online media attended and provided coverage for Sennheiser. Vero also organized media trips to spark conversations between Sennheiser and key influencers in the tech, lifestyle and travel industries. 

We worked with Jetts Fitness to generate leads for their fast-growing 24/7 gyms around Thailand. The ongoing lead generation campaign has resulted in over 2,000 leads so far, and we are continuing to improve SEO and maintain a solid content marketing strategy for Jetts Fitness’s social media channels in Thailand. 

Gaming computer brand Alienware sought out Vero to tap into new audiences by establishing a campaign in conjunction with multi-label Thai streetwear brand Carnival. This collaboration between a tech and lifestyle brand brought together a diverse and engaged crowd during a launch event which saw the attendance of 60+ media representatives and 20 influencers.

Vero in Myanmar

Prettiest things first: Vero opened a new street-level office in Yangon. This has helped us build local recognition, and made a lot of our employees – including five new hires – even more excited to come to work every day. And they needed to be, since we’ve been busy working with new clients like Heineken, Samsung, Tencent, WD-40, Investing in Women, and Under Armour..

We’ve also done a lot of work with social organizations in Myanmar, including &Proud, a local LGBTQ NGO, which we helped to engage top tier international and local media for their Yangon Pride festival events, organized throughout pride month in February. We arranged PR activities for the three events that we expected to engage journalists the most, which resulted in over 200 clippings and a PR value of USD 300,000.  

In a continuation of our work with Save the Children and Bridge agency, we partnered with StC’s SHIFT platform to support a group of local youths under the name Air Quality Yangon. AQY’s Know What You Breathe campaign used their mascot, Dr. Air Bear, to raise awareness about the dangerous effects of air pollution. We engaged with local media, governments, key stakeholders, and the general public to convince people to speak up and take action about the growing problem of air pollution in urban Myanmar, and the resulting campaign gained a lot of organic interest from journalists and the public.

For sports apparel company Under Armour, we organized their first ever brand shop launch in Myanmar, overseeing everything from concept creation to execution, with a PR amplification strategy and KOL/influencer management. It was a huge success, with over 70 media houses and 20 influencers showing up unpaid to support the launch.  

Finally, while the campaign took place in 2018, we were very proud to win South East Asia PR Campaign of the Year and Cause-related public awareness Campaign of the Year by Campaign Asia at the PR awards in Hong Kong in May 2019, for our work on the the “6 Months Mother’s Milk Is All You Need” campaign, which we co-created with independent Myanmar agency Bridge for Save The Children, UNICEF and Alive & Thrive.

Vero in Vietnam

2019 was the year that Vero relaunched in Vietnam, starting from zero at the beginning of the year and moving up to an all-new, fully owned street-level office in Ho Chi Minh City’s central District 1, with 15 employees (and counting!) by its end. Our Vietnam office has already landed a lot of excellent new clients – Intel, Air Asia, Leroy Merlin, WeWork – and completed some fantastic campaigns.

For Japanese air conditioner manufacture Daikin, Vero developed an integrated marketing communication strategy to re-establish their brand positioning following the construction of their new state-of-the-art factory in Vietnam. This involved a wide range of communication platforms including Social Media, Influencers, PR, and TV, but the most attention-getting element was the dance video we conceptualized, which took place inside the factory and involved both Japanese and Vietnamese dance teams to symbolize the company’s modern spirit of unity. The campaign gained over 5.8 million combined views more than 40 pieces of media coverage from top-tier publications.

Vero officially introduced Mixed Martial Arts organization ONE Championship, a long-time international partner of ours, to Vietnam, hosting the very first Vietnam media exclusive interview with Chairman & CEO Chatri Sityodtong to spread awareness of the brand entering the country, leading to the publication of 48 pieces, and we handled promotion for ONE’s first event in the country.

Central Group Vietnam, a branch of the Thai real estate and consumer goods giant, came to Vero for our pan-ASEAN focus that allowed us to position their brand as a gateway between the two countries in both business and lifestyle media. With planning assistance from Vero’s Thailand office, we brought Vietnamese journalists to their press conference in Bangkok and arranged exclusive media interviews with brand partners to strengthen the concept. We also organized an online challenge event with Vietnamese influencers in the Bangkok shopping mall where Central Group Vietnam was holding its annual trade show.

To draw some local attention to our new Vietnamese presence, we decided to show off our modern, humorous sensibility and challenge ourselves to create buzz from nothing. Based on our own research into Vietnamese youth trends, we brainstormed and came up with the concept of GetBone, a Tinder-style dating app for pets. From an input of just $5000, we created an accompanying promotional video and received coverage in 18 business publications, shares across 25 Facebook groups, showcases in 12 Facebook business and tech communities, 40 published articles, 300k views, 150,000 engagements, and over 200 applications to become app testers. Of course, we later published articles taking responsibility for the prank.

Onward to the Future

As part of our overall investment in regional expansion, Vero entered the Indonesian market this year with a talented small team in Jakarta. It’s a market with huge potential for us, and we expect big things in the future as the team continues to grow!  We’re excited about the opportunities to invest, build, and serve great brands and companies in Indonesia.   

One of our goals for the coming years is to be recognized among Southeast Asia’s best agencies to work for. We understand that this is a major challenge, and 2020 will certainly be a year of investment on that front. Not only do we want Vero to continue providing great local and regional career opportunities, we also want it to be a place for a forward-thinking work culture to thrive, with burgeoning creativity,ground-breaking ideas, and industry-leading consultants.

We will also continue to invest in thought leadership, as we aim to become a top-of-mind creative innovator and communication consultant throughout ASEAN. Our campaigns and industry-leading culture deserve to be talked about, and we’ll aim to do that more than ever through outlets like industry events and our site blog.

As we think about the year(s) ahead, we continue to be thankful to our clients and the opportunities that Southeast Asia presents.  We believe the ASEAN region offers greater promise and opportunities than any other part of the world today, and it’s hard to imagine a better place to operate.