TNS Asia Pacific Marketing Monitor 2015

The Asia Pacific
Marketing
Monitor 2015
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© TNS 2015

2Marketing Monitor 2015
In a rapidly evolving, digitally driven world,
what do marketers really feel about new
platforms, new data sources and new
expectations of their role?

Marketing Monitor is a study from TNS
that surveys more than 2,700 marketers
from across Asia Pacific to track the key
issues dominating their agenda.
We talk to marketers from Australia, China, India, Indonesia,
Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand, discussing
their approach to digital platforms, the changing metrics used
to measure their success, the challenges of Big Data and their
hopes and concerns about their own careers.
Marketers are under increasing pressure to make more
complicated decisions, and to do so faster and more frequently.
This is a time of challenge, but opportunities are also emerging
to help them meet those challenges and deliver new standards
of effectiveness.
In this report, we reveal the key themes to emerge
from this edition of the Monitor:
■■ Marketing’s need for speed
■■ Dealing with the data flood
■■ Managing the entire customer experience
■■ Playing catch up with metrics
■■ Mobilising marketing thinking

“The role of the marketer has changed
enormously over the past few years,
especially around the speed of decision-
making. Reputations can be lost due to
delayed action or poor judgement.”
Marketing’s need
for speed
Vipul Chawla
Managing Director of Pizza Hut Asia Franchise Business Unit

As marketing moves from a campaign-based model to an
‘always-on’ approach, thinking and planning time are in
increasingly short supply. Whereas once marketers could analyse
the performance of one campaign in depth before moving on
to planning the next, they must now make both strategic and
tactical decisions on a rolling basis – and in shorter and shorter
timeframes. They know that both the success of their brands
and their own career prospects depend upon this agility – but
many are not being served the actionable data and insights they
need to keep pace with a real-time world.
Being able to make the right decisions in a smaller timeframe
is a key concern for one in three (32%) marketers across
the region, and 42% rate becoming more efficient as the
development they most need to make to progress their
careers. Faster decision-making requires timely, actionable
insights from market research However, for many marketers,
research is failing to deliver.
When they were asked about their current frustrations with
market research, 66% of respondents said that it was too slow,
with 34% expressing strong frustration about insights that
arrive too late to help with their decision-making.
In a real-time world, marketers can’t afford to wait two months
to learn about changes in their brand equity, or about an aspect
of customer experience that could be undermining loyalty. And
they cannot afford to wait until a campaign has been running
for months before finding out if it is working or not. Predictive
approaches that can synthesise search and social data into
real-time brand equity scores and campaign measurement are
essential if marketers are to satisfy the need for speed.
TNS has proven that search and social data can be used to provide
valuable insight about brand performance and sales up to two
months in advance. And we’ve also explored how the immediate
social media footprint of a campaign can reveal a great deal about
the longer term brand benefits that campaign will generate.
Marketing’s need for speed

In focus
Marketers in China and Indonesia are most frustrated by a lack of speed and actionable insights. In China, 36% were very
frustrated by a lack of actionable data and 39% by research that was too slow. In Indonesia, these frustrations were more
common still: felt by 42% and 44% respectively.
Marketer’s concerns for the future
Becoming more
efficient
Making the right
decision in smaller
timeframes
Not keeping up
with changing
consumer habits
Reputational risk
from social media
Reduced
marketing budgets
42% 32% 33% 30% 30%
Marketing’s need for speed

Dealing with the
data flood

Big data is another theme looming large in marketers’ concerns.
Not only must they deal with more data than ever before, but
they must deal with more varied sources of data, all arriving on a
continual basis. The increasing availability of data ought to enable
better decision-making, but many are frustrated by the difficulties
of integrating different types. As a result, the data flood threatens
to seriously impair their ability to think strategically.
One in three marketers (34%) is dealing with real-time feedback
on a daily basis and yet 70% say that they don’t have the
integrated view of this data that they need. The experience of
many marketers across Asia seems to involve watching data
dashboards change in real-time, without ever being given the
contextual insight that will enable them to make use of the data
they are seeing.
The new sources of data available to marketers can only enable
better real-time decision making when they are fused with a
contextual understanding of how different data streams relate
to one another. Marketers demand that their research agencies
provide such understanding – and use it to translate real-time
information into actionable insight.
Dealing with the data flood

In focus
Marketers in Indonesia (39%), Thailand (38%) and India
(37%) are most likely to receive data in real-time.
Marketers managing real time feedback
APAC average 34%
Australia 32%
China 31%
India 37%
Indonesia 39%
Malaysia 34%
South Korea 27%
Singapore 29%
Thailand 38%
Dealing with the data flood

“Marketers need the ability to join the dots – not just
between customers and the brand, but between all of
the other factors that affect brand experience. Consumer
trends, the external environment, stakeholders - these all
have an impact on your consumers.
The challenge today is that everyone is an individual. The
question is how we reach each and every person in a way
that gives them a tailored and customised experience.”
Managing the entire
customer experience
Connie Ang
Managing Director of Danone Dumex Malaysia

The role of a marketer is rapidly evolving from creating and
managing campaigns to creating and managing customer
experiences. When asked about the most important areas for
them to develop, 42% of marketers chose customer experience,
more than any other aspect of their role. This is across all
touchpoints, both online and offline. Brands can provide
an excellent online experience, but if the in-store set-up is
unsatisfactory, this hard work goes to waste.
The rise of social media intensifies the need to constantly deliver,
and means that customer experiences must be managed across
a broad range of platforms. Marketers must strive for greater
responsiveness whilst staying alive to the reputational risks that
this can involve. And they must seek to create and manage a
consistent brand persona that applies across all experiences –
both digital and physical. Total experience management requires
everything from awareness building and demand generation,
to a great in-store experience and or eCommerce platform, to
on-going customer engagement, wherever the consumer is
choosing to connect with the brand.
With social media playing such a critical role, more than half of
marketers (53%) list social media marketing and advertising as
a key focus of their media spend in the next year, far exceeding
the numbers earmarking budget for other areas. Of the 79%
who think they should be doing more on digital media, 56% list
talking to customers on social as a key priority. And yet, despite
the desire to leverage social more effectively, 30% express
concern from the reputational risks that could result from
getting things wrong on these platforms.
Marketers need insight services that can support this growing
role as total experience manager: a means of monitoring social
media conversations, identifying those that will impact their
brand’s reputation, and identifying the appropriate response in
each case. They need a way to make sense of the huge range of
customer feedback on social channels, marry this with reports
from in-store behaviour and use it to identify where issues exist
in delivering effective customer service.
As social takes an ever-growing slice of media spend in the next
12 months, marketers need access to such services quickly, in
order to safeguard the investment they are making. TNS has
already developed models that can translate the noisy customer
activity on social media into clear signals about the actions that
can maintain brand loyalty and drive future growth.
Managing the entire customer experience

In focus
62% of marketers in Thailand say that social media is a top focus area for media spend this year, the most of all markets studied.
India (46%) has the lowest proportion of marketers currently prioritising social spend, but it still has more budget earmarked for
social than any other channel.
Strategic priorities for marketers
Communicating with
customers on social media
Using mobile
effectively
Being more innovative
than the competition
Leveraging online
targeted advertising
56% 47% 47% 45%
Managing the entire customer experience

Playing catch up
with metrics

Marketers’ focus may be shifting to total experience
management on social and mobile platforms but the metrics
they use to measure campaign success are struggling to keep
pace. Despite the emphasis on on-going social engagement
and staying innovative, measures of marketing success are still
dominated by the sales uplifts and shifts in share that activity
eventually delivers. With campaigns now including so many
integrated elements, blunt measures like this fail to provide
actionable insights on which touchpoints and experiences are
making a difference. They leave marketers seeking a more
sophisticated view that is relevant to all of their objectives and
can enable them to optimise on a continual basis.
Sales uplifts during a campaign are the single most commonly
used measure of campaign performance, named by over half
(52%) of marketers, with market share uplifts used by exactly
half. Despite their importance, these metrics are retrospective and
do not empower businesses to track the ongoing reception of
campaigns, react to live issues and make the changes that could
nudge their marketing activity in a more favourable direction.
What’s more, many marketers feel they are not getting the
guidance they need from their market research either, with over
two thirds (68%) saying it isn’t actionable enough.
Because of this reliance on slow and outdated evaluation
information, many marketers are pushed into a corner when it
comes to forward-looking campaign planning. Thanks to time
pressures and in lieu of sales tracking data, many are forced
to rely on the most recent data they have to hand – raw social
media monitoring – when making immediate decisions about
the future. The trouble is, this simple monitoring provides a
snapshot, but no wider context.
Social media monitoring data in isolation is failing to deliver the
predictive and actionable insights that marketers need. Instead,
marketers need means to link the range of experiences they
seek to create for consumers to the sales and share uplifts that
are the ultimate measure of their performance. They know that
realtime social media monitoring can help unlock this, but they
need solutions that can put this data into context and translate
it into meaningful predictions of future sales and share uplifts.
Playing catch up with metrics

In focus
Social media monitoring has less of a role to play for marketers in China, where only 31% use it to assess marketing effectiveness
and only 30% base planning decisions on social data. In Singapore, by contrast, 55% base their planning on social.
Sales uplift Too slow
Market share uplift Not predictive enough
Brand and ad tracking Insights not actionable enough
Social media monitoring Not accurate enough
Digital metrics Difficult integrating multiple data sources
Top 5 ways of measuring campaign effectiveness: Marketer’s main frustrations with market research:
1
2
3
4
5
Playing catch up with metrics

Mobilising
marketing thinking

The challenges that marketers face in Asia Pacific will
increasingly be met through mobile devices, reflecting the
importance of this device to the consumer. Mobile advertising is
named by 34% as a priority area of media spend for this year.
Next year, 41% will be making it a budget priority, when only
social media has more brands earmarking spend for it. When
you bear in mind that much of the content and advertising
that social media budgets buy will be delivered to consumers
through phones, the role of mobile looks larger still. In all, 47%
of marketers say they should be doing more with mobile.
Mobile will be critical as a delivery channel – but it also holds
the key to giving marketers the more efficient, robust and
responsive insight they seek. Mobile can be used to deliver
shorter, smarter brand tracking surveys that generate more
predictive data in a smaller timeframe. They can trigger surveys
close to the moment when the behaviour being studied actually
occurs, and they can be deployed quickly to generate additional
insight when search and social media monitoring detect
unexpected shifts in brand equity that need explaining. As
marketers seek to meet the challenges ahead, the role of social
and mobile in their thinking is set to grow further still.
Mobilising marketing thinking

In focus
Using mobile more effectively is a particular priority in India and Malaysia, where 55% of marketers
say they should be doing more in this area.
of marketers
across Asia Pacific
think they could
be doing more
47%
Australia
Malaysia
China
South Korea
India
Singapore
Indonesia
Thailand
45%
55%
42%
45%
55%
54%
51%
38%
Mobilising marketing thinking

Conclusion
“Marketers are not used to being
given directions by consumers - they
are accustomed to dictating what and
how people should consume. The rules
of the game are changing rapidly, and
traditional marketing practices no longer
work with these highly active customers.
The challenge is remaining relevant and
part of the conversation.”
“Information is now available to all – this
means there is a level playing field as far as
marketing is concerned. Success lies in how
we interpret data and use it to make game-
changing decisions.”
Manish Makhijani
Head of Consumer Insights, Unilever South Asia
Vipul Chawla
Managing Director of Pizza Hut Asia Franchise Business Unit

New digital and social media platforms are increasing the
pressure on marketers to think, analyse and respond in real-
time. However, they also hold the key to enabling marketers to
do so more effectively.
As the pace of change accelerates across the region, marketers
need to start using data to gaze into the future, not just
measure the here and now. Tracking social and search data
can be used to form the basis of a predictive spine to deliver
insight months ahead of survey data or sales figures. This gives
marketers the power to anticipate changes to brand equity in
time to actually do something about it.
This edition of the Marketing Monitor
shows a growing demand for research
that leverages real-time sources of insight
to keep pace with new challenges and
provides a telescopic view into the future.
Conclusion

Nitin Nishandar
Regional Managing Director,
Brand & Communication,
TNS in Asia Pacific
nitin.nishandar@tnsglobal.com
+65 6597 7387
Nitin Nishandar is Regional Managing Director, Brand & Communication,
for TNS in Asia Pacific. He leads a team of experts across the region as they
advise clients on strengthening their brands, increasing the effectiveness of
communications campaigns and ultimately, driving sales.
Nitin works on diverse group of clients in finance, automotive, technology
and FMCG. He has 20 years research industry experience and has been with
TNS for 14 years, working with clients across a range of markets including
Singapore, China, Egypt, India, Taiwan and Thailand. He has published white
papers on advertising, media and is often quoted in the press on his views on
brands and communications in emerging markets.
Special thanks to Vipul Chawla from Pizza Hut, Connie Ang from Danone
Dumex, and Manish Makhijani from Unilever, for their opinions on the
topics covered in the report.
About the author

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About the study
TNS Marketing Monitor is based on research carried out by On Device and undertaken across all
markets in July 2015. The study draws on the responses from 2,716 marketing professionals across
eight markets in Asia Pacific:
About TNS
TNS advises clients on specific growth strategies around new market entry, innovation, brand
switching and customer and employee relationships, based on long-established expertise and
market-leading solutions. With a presence in over 80 countries, TNS has more conversations
with the world’s consumers than anyone else and understands individual human behaviours and
attitudes across every cultural, economic and political region of the world.
TNS is part of Kantar, the data investment management division of WPP and one of the world’s
largest insight, information and consultancy groups.
Please visit www.tnsglobal.com for more information.
■■ Australia: 177
■■ China: 463
■■ India: 533
■■ Indonesia: 236
■■ Malaysia: 224
■■ South Korea: 319
■■ Singapore: 220
■■ Thailand: 427
Marketing Monitor 2015
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