The CMO Asia Podcast

We have Heather Osgood joining us as our special guest for our first ever Facebook Live stream episode over the weekend. We asked Heather:

- How the Covid-19 situation is currently affecting her?

- What she is seeing, how she is acting as a business owner, is doing anything differently right now than she were doing 2 weeks ago?

- What are her views on limiting media consumption, how important is that for her and her well being right now?

- What is her 15min rule mindset - which states that you can't worry about anything if it isn't going to happen in the next 15 minutes - that has helped her and also will help our listeners to manage anxieties but also make transformational change with our business and life

- What is her career, business and entrepreneurial journey that got her to where she is right now; What exactly her company true native media agency does?

- What are the things business can embark on during these challenging times? Her views that for some companies, this is a great time to experiment or pivot and even try podcast advertising

- Why companies consider podcast advertising, online channels opposed to offline channels? Why advertisers decided to invest in podcast and not just for the sake of diversifying marketing spend?

- How to leverage on the power of podcast advertising? How to pick a variety of podcasts? What is baked in or embedded podcast ads? What are dynamic ad insertions?

- How advertisers approach to podcast ad buying? How does she classify podcast ad buyers?

- Why advertisers may like that my podcast show has repeat advertisers or repeat sponsors and find it valuable in targeting the same demographic and segments or niche?

- What is her hot take on tactics adopted by podcast advertisers such as using embedded URL and post checkout survey to track how consumers heard of them or their products and get a sense of whether podcast advertising and campaign result is successful

- Which companies she thinks have a chance of succeeding more in podcast ads than others do? Is the landscape changing from pure B2C to B2B play? Would she recommend B2B companies who have never done podcast adverting to do podcast ads, how would she advice them on strategy?

- What is her hot take on diversifying influencer marketing, the correct mix of marketing dollar spend on core proven shows, ie those mid to small with loyal dedicated following to drive consistent performance and test shows, varying in size ie larger shows til they prove themselves


#covid19 #mentalhealth #influencermarketing #podcastadvertising #business #entrepreneurship #perspective #patience #innovation

Enjoy this episode - Stay safe , stay fun, we can get through this #pandemic #turbulenttimes together!

We have all seen the headlines and followed the rising numbers of COVID-19 infections. The disruption to work patterns is unprecedented for markets like Hong Kong and Singapore. Will this be the new normal? What will this mean for business leaders, CEOs, CMOS, facilities managers and developers as they consider the need for business continuity, the impact on productivity and employee safety?

As the world tackles COVID-19, our 35,000 community listeners from The CMO Asia Podcast listeners are very interested to hear deeper insights on how this is an opportunity or a threat to businesses, specifically the flexible workspace sector. We have already seen companies and organisations using flexible workspace as an alternative to work from home policies or other Business Continuity Planning. For those who are not sure how this works, hear from David Wong, Co-Founder and CEO of BOOQED, explain in this latest episode (recorded on 11 March 2020) on how this #BCP option is a good way to have redundancy in the form of multiple locations in the event one location or office is impacted by COVID-19. David also shared with us:

- Why he decided to help businesses by announcing waiver of fees for companies booking flexi spaces during these challenging times

- What’s the future like for flexi workspace?

- Why he is really proud of his team’s dedication to ensuring a great client experience; The fact that all of Booqed’s corporate clients to-date are repeat users is the best testimonial

- Why he would advice companies to make sure they explore all options, from traditional office leases to flexible workspaces, to make the best decision for their company, beyond just cost?

- How flexible work options promote productivity and engagement among employees

- How BOOQED can help companies create the best work environments for their employees, while empowering them to have the work-life balance they deserve

- What’s his hot take on WeWork and what gaps will Booqed fill that WeWork struggle at

- Why disruption is the new normal

- What was his biggest takeaway and what did he learn after successfully started-up and grown new businesses including two successful exits of previous ventures

About David:

- He brings 20 years’ executive experience in blue-chip and start-up companies such as AT&T, Mobile Media AS and UK-based entertainment rights group Galleon Entertainment. He was a co-founder of the AT&T Global Clearinghouse, a pioneering service offering financial settlement and clearing for carrier-based IP telephony services globally. He also co-founded what grew to be one of the largest independent providers of mobile entertainment content in Europe.

- With a thorough understanding of contemporary technology and business models in digital media, telecoms and mobile, David has successfully started-up and grown new businesses in international markets with a particular focus on Asia, including two successful exits of previous ventures.

About Booqed:

- a digital marketplace for tenants and landlords to find or monetize short-term, unused space. Tenants and landlords lack options to find or monetize unused space. Lack of transparency and hidden costs create trust issues between landlord/tenant. BOOQED reduces rental expense of tenants by providing flexible, short-term space options while increasing revenue for landlords and suppliers by monetizing unused space. BOOQED servces clients in Hong Kong, Singapore and Shenzhen for everything from meeting rooms to coworking and offices to event venues

This episode is brought to you by The CMO Asia Podcast and our working partner Bebop.

The CMO Asia Podcast was recently invited to attend the National Retail Federation 2020 #nrf2020 in New York, the mecca of retail. It is the place to be for all retail companies. If you couldn’t be there, here is a podcast recording we made at the event with Pascal Malotti, Strategy Director at Valtech France, where we deep dive into key topics that are sure to revolutionise retail over the next decade, including:

- Why Valtech is attending #NRF2020

- Why venturing outside the convention centre to find out how leading retailers in New York are transforming consumer in-store experiences is a good idea, beyond just taking a look at what retailers and vendors are up to within the convention halls

- Why Valtech’s goal is to help brands and consumers connect like never before

- How the team at Valtech is dedicated to delivering a disruptive blend of physical digital experiences for some of the world’s most prestigious brands, merging real world with digital, designing future of stores and reinventing retail

- Why his top 3 stores in New York are at 5th avenue ie. Nike, Amazon Go, Chanel; the lessons learnt from visiting these stores ie. not to pack retail spaces with technology for technology’s sake, key is finding the right space and value for tech to create relationship with customer, with the purpose of no longer just selling, but to engage customers and creating profiles

- Why brands need to renew experiences often

- Why your store is also your story, and the importance of finding a purpose to the business, and meaning at the heart of the product

- What the next decade is likely to change or bring

- Why influencers have their place in the world, their ability to strike emotions for their audiences , understand their audiences and engage with them means traditional Brands have to master and manage not just to achieve the same impact but also compete with influencers who are building their own Brands especially in fitness, beauty, sports, and health verticals

I had a great time with the most respected man in Australia, especially if you love fine wine, spirits and rock & roll - Andrew Roper, Founder of Wines To The Stars. Amazing facts that we uncovered during The CMO Asia Podcast recording include:

- how he took care of Rock stars like Maynard James Keenan of Tool, who was gobsmacked by his fine wine recommendations and later went into the Caduceus Cellars business, and David Bowie, two of the most famous Rock Musicians ever

- how Wines To The Stars provides a unique marketing platform as a "Fine Wine and Spirit Communicator"

- how his elite clients including musicians from Tool, Queens of The Stone Age, Kiss, Snow Patrol, Alice Cooper demand the very best of what life produces, and are supplied only the best when touring Australia and the globe;

- how he takes pride in taking them on private winery visits, supplying unique and super-premium products backstage, at their after show, crew dinners, and to their hotel rooms

- how his world-renowned "BackStage Cellar Door" service bring wine lovers touring Australia and NZ his amazing wines & spirits directly to the backstage artist area for enjoyment by all

- what are his thoughts regarding the fiery start to a new decade with #bushfires #coronavirus #firestorms impacting #worldofwine here in Australia, and his trips for 2020 and the next decade

- how Wines To The Stars is a unique marketing bridge between the Wine Industry and the Entertainment Industry

- what are some of the band tours stories, including Gene Simmons of Kiss, that he could only reveal in more details next time on our follow up episode

- why I’m excited to be seeing him again this weekend during both Tool shows in Melbourne and our shoutouts to Chris J "The Only CEO With a Mohawk" Reed - Global Rock Star Keynote Speaker and John Dykes for connecting us!

#cmoasia

#podcast

#finewine

#episode

#australia

#winemakers

#winestothestars

The CMO Asia Podcast are excited to be a part of #Fashinnovation #nyfw #newyorkfashionweek event in #nyc last week, a platform that’s showcasing the coolest innovations in retail, fashion technology, eCommerce, supply chain, logistics, marketing and more.

Say hello to North Atlantic Director of Marketing Jason Robinson at UPS, that wants to help shippers and brands make their supply chain more sustainable - from carbon offsets, environmentally sustainable packaging, to going green with innovative, fully #electrictrucks #ups #deliveries

On this electric! episode - our most green 🌿 , supply chain and logistics-focused📦 episode yet, hear Jason talk about:

- What it means to be sustainable and how UPS deliveries are going green with innovative electric trucks

- How he would summarise the agenda he covered at Fashinnovation panel held in NYC last week ie. “Fashion is Logistics via Sustainable Practices”

- How UPS technology, partners and solutions can help with returns, wastage and sustainability

- Why it is important for every eCommerce or retailer to include a sustainability component in their business; the creative ways UPS adopt to drive results for their business partners and the risks in marketing this message

- How he started at UPS delivering boxes part time, rose through the ranks over the years, never left and is now leading the marketing team at North Atlantic division

- How the function of leadership is to produce more leaders not more followers

This week, Hamlet Batista, CEO of Ranksense fills our hotseat to chat about:

- What is going on in his business and entrepreneurial life

- What was it that made him to decide venturing out on his own and doing what he love

- Why SEO is a very valuable marketing channel, and his take on what we saw during the recent Super Bowl with the likes of VaynerMedia putting out campaign ads for their clients which drove a lot people to google “ Baby Nut” online but no one could find the new site on Google because it does not show up - Why he thinks this is a common SEO issue and perhaps affecting Revenue issue too

- Why he highly recommends that every business or brand’s digital initiatives especially those that will be seen by millions of people should be run through an SEO dept or agency

- Why he and RankSense's mission is to accelerate SEO results to 6 weeks using artificial intelligence and automation and how they achieve this?

- Why he and Paul Shapiro started New York Python for SEOs Group and movement

- Why Learn Python? Why not R?

- What is the minimum programming knowledge that marketers need?

- Why he thinks most CMOs or marketers who are at least familiar with working with Google spreadsheets are also able to learn Python

- What powerful ideas were shared on his recent post “Weekly Wisdom with Hamlet Batista: Python and JavaScript for Marketers” on the SEMRush blog

- How CMOs or Marketer’s can Automate a typical marketing workflow eg. comparing competitors SERP (Search Engine Result Page)

- His best advice for people who started learning Python and what they should learn first

- Why he thinks Google Collab is the best Python Installation Set-Up

- What are the best posts he has read about Python for SEO

- What are the best 5 Python for SEO resources and who he would recommend following

Useful links:

Weekly Wisdom with Hamlet Batista: Python and JavaScript for Marketers

https://www.semrush.com/blog/weekly-wisdom-hamlet-batista-python-javascript-marketers/

Hands-on with Python for SEOs

https://www.meetup.com/New-York-Python-for-SEO-Meetup-Group/events/268533535/

My obsession with VaynerX companies continues, and with one of the coolest creative minds, Aaron Kovan, Chief Production Officer of VaynerMedia New York and VaynermediaProductions coming on The CMO Asia Podcast new episode, I’ve found my favorite one yet. It was recorded nearly a fortnight ago during my first ever visit to his Long Island City office (where all their recent sweep at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and trophies are proudly displayed) located just 15 minutes via the subway from Manhattan. Aaron’s career as a producer started 13 years ago in Austin, Texas at GSD&M, before stints at Crispin Porter & Bogusky and McCann Worldgroup where he started its in-house production company Craft. He has always been a maker, producing content of his own since his teenage skateboarding years. We chatted about why Gary Vaynerchuk is both good at “predicting” things when it comes to marketing and consumer behavior as well as reacting quickly to trends, what the capabilities of VaynerProductions are, why beyond TV his fingers are always on the pulse of social media platforms such as Instagram Stories and TikTok, what it really takes to make an impactful video on social for small medium businesses, how it leads to social media buzz for businesses and lead to results, how risks took by his team including the Dwyane Wade jersey swap stunt uplifted a few percentage points for their Budweiser client, why it is an achievement for his team at Vaynermedia to have not one but THREE! Super Bowl commercials during the big game that will be watched by hundreds of millions from Tokyo to Singapore to New York in a week’s time, and which latest Drake music video caught his eye recently. This podcast episode is made possible by my kind sponsors Web Analytics Consultants Association. Podcast links in comments. Enjoy!

In this episode, James shared with us:

- How Gary Vaynerchuk’s desire to create a company to service small and medium-sized businesses resulted in the formation of The Sasha Group over a year ago

- Why The Sasha Group is the most “Gary-centric” offering in the VaynerX world

- Why he likes the idea of “getting the team out in the world more seeing clients in person; why business travel is a great teacher

- Why the goal of #SashaSaturdays is to continue to open doors and build connections for small businesses and the people who run and believe in them

- Why he often refer to The Sasha Group as a “Start Right” rather than “Startup”

- How speed and value has become The Sasha Group’s best selling proposition

- What the process of building this firm foundation is like ie. from recruitment of 7 key personnels to developing them and achieving goals and moved from a predominantly “Scope of Work” service to productivized offerings

- Why The Sasha Group is a place for small and medium size businesses who want to unlock explosive growth, where their clients will be serviced by an A-team of talent with Fortune 500 client experience and entrepreneurial infused DNA, and a consultancy whose foundation is rooted in empathy

- Why their upcoming AMA, together with Aaron Kovan, Chief Production Officer at Vayner Productions, is something all CMOs don’t want to miss

In this part one of a two-part interview series, Thomas sat down with Wayne and shared with us:

- How his career journey in e-commerce retail began 12 years ago at Amazon UK

- What it was like early on spending 7 years at Amazon UK building Marketplace at a time when nobody wants to buy shoes from Amazon, in the early days before Amazon had fulfilment, advertising and payments; how he then moved on to British retail giant Tesco

- How his present startup company Pricesearcher is taking on e-commerce giants Google and Amazon

- How Pricesearcher emulates (late 90s era) Google to index world’s prices all in one place and reach out to merchants to ensure it is not just a paid for environment* for past 3 years

- How they started with just 6 test retailers in UK 3 years ago and grew it to 10,000 retailers now on their side

- What a day in his startup life looks like ie. starting with conversations with people, ranging from big thinkers to smaller sellers and retailers

How their tightly knit team of 25 people in London punched above their weight and status as the “underdog” search engine ; how they are always judged and compared to trillion-dollar businesses Google and Amazon

- What resonates with him most of the time are the “underdog” mom and pop shop businesses eg. businesses selling DVDs; what types of businesses inspired him nowadays are people who sell nothing but door handles and are special in what they do eg. offering 100,000 types of door handles; Why he loves giving those guys equal footing with the biggest retailers, with no commercials appearing next on their site**

- Why he thinks his best self is free from restrictions and being comfortable in his own skin, sticking up for underdogs and thinking the best of people; more rewarding to think that most people are ok and give them a platform to do the best they can; a layer of thinking that we tend to judge people from their actions whereas we judge ourselves by our intention

- Why he thinks his beard and tattoos are also some of the best compliments he has ever received

- What is the best mindset for business or career or life eg. stuff doesn’t have to be polarising in whatever role in business; the only way to perform the role well is to be as honest as possible, as long as intent is right and people don’t keep making same mistake, and empathise what they want to achieve and enable that

- What the biggest challenge for Pricesearcher is eg. get judged with the big boys with trillion dollar businesses

- What the state of the industry is and how Pricesearcher benefit buyers and consumers who want to see every product and not just the Top 10 bestsellers; consumers may not just want to see the cheapest offer that is most popular but a brand that they trust or they prefer a retailer that offers immediate pickups closer to their home locations; how Pricesearcher stood out in an industry where price comparison website existed since relics of internet, with some sites offering 30 million products, compared to Pricesearcher’s 2.4 billion products, from door knobs to Gucci handbags, with commercial element removed, and achieving these remarkable results in less than 3 years, now operating in 24 counties

*not just a paid for environment - pls refer to episode part 2 for latest updates on this strategy

**with no commercials appearing next on their site** - pls refer to episode part 2 for latest updates on this strategy

In this episode recorded in December 2019 at JW Marriott Hotel Shenzhen, China, Allen Qu sat down with Wayne for a deep dive conversation and shared: * How they started out Marketing Ranking Awards and the back story of its beginning as an industry conference 9 years ago

* Who their conference target audience are eg. top brands who want to do better marketing, partners, media companies like Baidu and LinkedIn

* How the conference is growing in terms of attendance nos.

* How the speakers were selected eg. Senior Marketers, CEOs who did well in their field

* How the future edition will focus more on 5G and its impact on industry, best practices and studies, and recognising top performing brands

* How their Shenzhen event is unique and feature domestic market and cross border market players from USA, Russia and how they look forward to more Singapore brands participating in the future

* How marketing has changed in China since the first edition of Marketing Ranking Awards - Search was previously the dominant player especially Baidu; China Marketing Awards has incorporated with the latest trends such as mini video content marketing topics; rise of popular apps such as Douyin (Tik Tok), Quaishou; e-commerce retail (Tmall, JD) now dominating online shopping; social media becoming the main communication and payment transaction platform (WeChat)

* How they leverage innovative strategies to give optimal value to their clients especially top brands in their niche; using cartoon characters in marketing materials; adopting robot tech placement in locations such as office spaces; implementing speech, visual recognition and AI technologies for real time interaction, using data, enhancing user engagement and personalised customer experience * Why conferences are still the best lead generator for his company in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen which are held annually, and attending global conferences to speak to audiences 30-50 times a year through content and value sharing (rather than hard sell) gain more trust and opportunities

* Where he grew up, his family background and as kid, how photography, computers and Bill Gates inspired him to take up programming before moving to Japan, Australia and then New Zealand for his computer studies and marketing knowledge university studies

* How his first job ie. building running an e-commerce store for electronic products from scratch; implementing infrastructure design, marketing and customer service structures, started him on this entrepreneurial path

* How a conference organiser invited him to do a speech to audience and meeting his friend Charles sparked off the idea of moving back to develop his business in China in October (at a time when Chinese internet business was still at its infancy)

* How he would advice a marketer newbie to join a decent company to experience the opportunity to work with real brands with real marketing dollars before encouraging them to be entrepreneurial in the niche that they love when they are ready to move on

* Why starting his own company is not to become rich but to fulfil lifelong dreams of building something that belongs to him

* Why improving internal efficiency is something he would like to change for his present company

* What the challenging moments were especially during the early days of setting up his company eg. Chinese New Year clientele payment delays and having to pay employees bonuses up front and how he overcame these challenges

* Why he thinks entrepreneurs who have no safety net, an unshakeable belief and hard work ethic will more likely become successful * Where and when next edition of Marketing Ranking Awards will be held ie. Nov ‪2020, Intercontinental Hotel, Shanlitun, Beijing‬