2018 Year in Review at Design Prodigy

2018 was an exceptionally special year for us at Design Prodigy.

I've been working on Design Prodigy (A Singapore based digital marketing agency) for 13 years but 2018 was such a standout year for us that I decided to pen our first ever Year in Review to share our story and lessons learnt.

Actually while there were many stories this year, there was only one main story:

We beat out 4 Global agencies to land SAP (Asia Pacific and Japan), a Fortune 500 company, as our key account in 2018.

No words could describe our feelings when we received the news. The journey through the pitching process deserved another story by itself. The always on project was ambitious, cutting edge and complex, and we delivered. It was really awesome to work along side the best of SAP regional marketing team and various marketing units.

The circumstance of the win and the substance of the project was monumental, and it was not possible without a few special people which I like to take this opportunity express my deep gratitude to:

• Zarina, Ivan and the rest of the SAP APJ Selection Panel for believing and trusting Design Prodigy to deliver this project.
• Steve Lucas and TK Kader for your VERY timely help to overcome road bumps so that we can put together the best possible proposal ON TIME.
• Yexi and Qianwei for the opportunity to work along side both you as the DP trident to win and deliver this project. "Cometh the time, Cometh the man." You guys were just extraordinary, through and through, and shall serve as a model (or legend) to current and future Design Prodigy agents, of what a polymath can deliver at the highest level.

And now the 3 lessons we learnt from this story that we like to share.

Lesson learnt number 1: Truly, be a Fearless Marketer.

I cannot recount how many times I've been told, with the best intentions, how certain deals were not meant for us, how we were too theoretical and conceptual, how no large companies in Asia will pay for such US-led data-driven marketing innovation.

I like to share the three beliefs that anchored Design Prodigy to stay on course.

1) Solving marketing challenges and seizing marketing opportunities brought about by massive digital disruption require a new marketing DNA and approach. Imagine the marketing strategy executed with system level knowledge (System thinking and multi-faceted knowledge), guided by customer insight from deep listening and marketing models validated by scientific method. Where data is the fuel, technology is the transmission and engagement logic is the engine. When it comes to really tough challenges, smaller teams having the right talent with the suitable aptitude and attitude CAN take on larger agencies.

2) Our target customers are progressive and inspiring marketing leaders. We know high performing marketing executives do not go for the usual solutions nor be dazzled by the new "blings". It got to make sense in the larger picture, and it should build towards where the organisation aspire to be. More importantly, we have to deliver the hard numbers to prove the returns of investments. High performing CMOs and senior marketing executives pick the solution and team that makes the most sense in their context and environment, and not just the safest solution.

3) We started our cultural transformation over 2 years ago and had completely reinvented our DNA. We wanted to build a team of marketers made up of driven pluripotent polymath knowledge workers. We experimented and carefully curate a work culture that support explosive growth of polymath marketers, whom collectively exhibit high multi-potentialities. We had also developed a solid partnership network of deep technology expertise and capabilities. This meant that we shall have the human capital to rise to all (if not most) occasion, as well as the ability to scale quickly.

These beliefs were our north star, which guided us to go forth as fearless a marketer could be. And it delivered us to our desired destination and more!

Lesson learnt number 2: Excelsior!

Late Stan Lee used this Latin word as his life motto: Excelsior, which means "Upward and onward to greater glory!"

We knew we were pretty good in harmonising MarTech and AdTech to deliver cutting edge digital marketing solution.

But we were still surprised by what happened next.

We realised all these latest technologies became "toys" when it landed in our hands. We developed the knack of inherently knowing the genesis and intent of the technology from their creator's point of view, as if these technology was to bestow super-powers to marketers who were ready. In our mind, there was this marketing universe where marketing heroes could pick up these super-powers and level up in their ranking with practice and insights.

The more we "play" with the ensemble of technologies and with more data coming in, we discovered even more new insights and methods to level up further! The interplay of technologies and marketing threw up new dimensions for us to derive capabilities to squeeze even more marketing value from the technology stack.

In reality, implementing an always on marketing solution was only the beginning, all marketers involved in the journey tasted the power and knew the possibilities. It was just painful for us to go back to "spray and pray" as well as linear customer journeys. The only way is to power forward, "upward and onward to greater glory!" towards moments based engagement marketing!

Lesson learnt number 3: Power needs precision

We needed to master precision in engagement marketing before we could see the full power of always on marketing orchestration.

Some questions that got us thinking:

1. How could we better identify our target segments and reach out to them with the right message at the right time?
2. How could we better segment our anonymous visitors and intelligently serve them the right content at the right time to convert them to known visitors, with permission?
3. How could we better design our engagement logic to improve the lead velocity in the marketing funnel?

Advancements in marketing predictive analytics allowed us to better engage our target audience, and this was great! At the same time, we were aware that standard models could only go so far. Having greater mastery over the data attributes and ability to develop custom models would be the next marketing competitive edge for enterprises. This would level up your marketing system (in terms of end to end funnel targeting and persuasion) with greater effectiveness and efficiency.

We liked this lesson 3, very much.

So much, that Design Prodigy's focus for 2019 shall be: Precision Marketing.

Watch this space.

Thank you for reading our inaugural year in review in full. We love sharing with and learning from fellow fearless marketers. I look forward to hear your thoughts and opinions in the comments below.