What's in a Brand?

Podcast Clip here :

Welcome everybody to another episode of the marketing and digital podcast. I'm your host Kenneth from RGF executive search and every week we'll be inviting a senior marketing or digital leader. Share more about your career journey and some of the trends within the specific function. Today, we have with us Miss Cheryl Lim from Manulife Singapore.

Cheryl Heads up the Brand & Marketing Communications functions for Manulife Singapore and has worked with some of the top Global Financial Institutions such as HSBC & AXA throughout her career.

Q. You & the team at Manulife did a fantastic job last year winning the “Marketer of the Year “award with 7 Gold, 2 Silver and 4 Bronze awards becoming the 1st Insurer in SG to win that award. Could you share more about some of those campaigns that you and the team launched in 2019?

Cheryl: 2019 was a good year for us. We had several big campaigns, notably we had Mrs Fortune teller, which was a sort of April fools prank/joke. That was more to get engagement with our fans on social. We followed shortly with the statues campaign, which focused on protection featuring different statues with missing limbs, having that whole video focusing on engagement, as well as getting the right conversion and leads from the topic of discussion in terms of engagement, filtering it all the way down to leads.

That was our game plan last year, to make sure that we continue our vision and our purpose for us to make sure that Manulife comes across as a very relevant brand, insurance or not, as something that people could relate to locally, as well as something that people could respond to, whether it's humour, whether it's something that's different or unique, that was always something that we were going for rather than having a very one dimensional persona of the brand.

We wanted to keep it fluid in terms of what was happening in the market, as long as it's locally relevant and engaging. We were happy with it. So that was our run for last year.

Q. I personally enjoyed the “Adulting” campaign as well as another Ad which you guys shot in Mandarin that was quite touching.. Those really took 2 totally different directions though.

Cheryl: Adulting was done very late of 2018 going into 2019. That was a very different tonality because we wanted specifically to speak to the millennials to get them thinking about retirement in the way that they're comfortable with. So we wanted to speak to them like a friend would not like a brand would. So that's why adulting thing came into play, where we had the Auntie Video, as well as the clubbing scene with the guy and everything, talking to millennials to think about retirement because adulting happens all the time, well, for me, I’ve adulted as well. That took off very, very well with the intended target audience. The people in the age group of the twenties, the young and up and coming ones. We wanted to get them to sit up and realize that retirement is something that is not just an old person’s thoughts, but it could be and, should be relevant in their age as well.

For the Chinese speaking one, you mentioned that was something that was also very close to my heart. So that was a totally different target audience and objective that was speaking to people who are in a slightly older age group then obviously the millennials. Critical illness was something that was a very sensitive topic. We wanted to be very relevant. That's why we went with Chinese to speak the language and have the emotional richness over there. So you see on one hand you have adulting, and on the other hand you have the emotional Chinese speaking campaign, which is on opposite ends of the spectrum, if you will, because of the diverse types of target audience, we are reaching out to and hence we had to pivot in terms of the tonality in terms of the mediums and the messaging, so that the right target audience are spoken to at their level.

Q. Some products/brands/industries are perceived as sexier than others. E.g. Gadgets, Luxury Automotives, While others which are a necessity might not be as sexy on the surface. E.g. Industrial products & Services. As a marketer, what’s your advice on choosing a company/product that you would like to market & how would you showcase the appeal of a product?

Cheryl: Step one would be to know yourself well, in terms of what motivates you, what makes you want to do certain things and what their strengths and weaknesses. Once you know yourself, the next natural step is to be authentic to say which type of industries would give me that level of meaning/excitement/ money or any other aspects. Once you have that mapped out, you know that these are industries that would appeal to what I'm looking for deep down and not what society expects me to do.

For myself naturally as a marketer, when you're young, everybody would think of FMCG big brands, now you have your content providers that are up and coming, very exciting, very interesting and very modern. But when I looked deep inside many years ago, I knew that the kind of industry that I’d be interested in is very meaningful industry, meaningful in terms of helping in one form or the other someone to make a decision.

For me personally I like the industry that I'm working for to be something that is meaningful financially, and it's my job to make the explanation and the marketing very simplistic, very exciting, very sexy. So I love brands and industries that are meaningful, that's the first thing I go for, whether it's financial, whether it's medical, whether it's CSR, or even any other product as long as it has a meaning and purpose and not just yet another product. That doesn't work for me. So for me, I find meaning in the industry that I’m in, and then it's my job to make it sexy. So I like that challenge personally, because it's difficult. It's much more challenging than a product that is naturally organically, already sexy, naturally organically exciting. For me, it's the other way around. I like to find meaning in what I do and it's my job.

How do I make it exciting, sexy to the target audience? Because ultimately I am helping in their lives in one form or the other. So that works for me. And in terms of messaging, what's important is to know your target audience very well, whether it's surveys, whether it's data, whether it's speaking to certain people you know, off the cuff or in a formal setting, it's important to know what your target audience are like, what do they think? What do they feel? What do they not know what they know? And from there, put yourself in their shoes and wear the hat of that consumer. So having the right empathy, putting yourself in their shoes after, you know, what they're thinking of and, and worrying about, put yourself in their shoes, what kind of messages do you want them to be receiving from you?

Q. With the current COVID situation, OOH advertising and Events have been put on hold and digital media consumption is on an all-time high with consumers having more screen time than before. As a marketer what’s your thoughts on this & do you see any pockets of opportunity for marketing during this period?

Cheryl: For COVID specifically, I am sure every marketer out there will agree with me that all their beautiful plans in January or February for the year would have been out the window and the need to make sense of everything from budgets to processes to what customer needs and with the restrictions we have on COVID would have affected the new 2020 plan, whenever it's constructed, the need to pivot very quickly to know what to do with all the changes that are so fluid. That was something that I'm sure a lot of marketers will agree with me that we had to grapple with making sense of where the business was standing. What were some of the businesses objectives that we needed to change and meet with this whole situation? More importantly, the change in distribution with stores closed and no face to face interaction in the Circuit Breaker period, especially during Phase 1.

It definitely forced our backs against the wall to make decisions and changes to our plans. So obviously when it came to media, such as outdoor, you have, you know, all the media agencies which are outdoor specifically. That was a sad situation because there were very few people that were on the go for advertisers like us to make sense to purchase them because the audience wasn't even there in its full glory. There were people out there, but they were tiny pockets. So most of the people because of the COVID situation were naturally working from home or spending a lot of time on digital, even if they were not working. Naturally marketers are where the audience are. So if the audience are mainly on digital, definitely the natural step would be to gravitate and change the media mix to be much more digital because that's where the consumers are, but digital is a whole world by itself.

It's a very big fragmented area as well. Digital consists of whether it's a news platform where people are consuming the news on your phone, whether it's on social, people are consuming it on the go/at home. This could be via their laptop/mobile. So there's many different aspects of digital as well, but at least people were concentrated unfortunately at home on digital. So that was where more of the budgets were reallocated to because that's where the audience was.

In fact, that is still where the audience is for now, where we see we're now in Phase 2 in July, people are definitely out and about a little bit more, not like the original volume. So I do think there's opportunities for outdoor media whether it's now or whether it's in Q3 and Q4, depending on how the Covid situation unveils

So I think that the call to whether we use digital only and/or outdoor mix right now in Phase 2, depends on a lot of factors. The business itself at hand, the objectives and way audiences are that is the most crucial, which is where your audience are.

Q. Do you see the digitally savvy consumer as a trend that's here to stay, or do you predict that consumers would revert to their old patterns and habits once this whole lockdown period is over?

Cheryl: I think this whole pandemic crisis is not going to go away anytime soon. And it's not a very short event where it’s just one week, one month or two months. We’re talking about a prolonged period and looking at human psychology and consumer habits. I do think a large part of the behaviour that's changed is here to stay even going into next year, not just this year. I think the whole landscape has changed and people have and are trying to accept the new, normal way of doing things, including how they consume media as well. That has definitely changed. So I think their behavioural patterns during and Post Covid is going to be here to stay for a long while, simply because this is not going away anytime soon.

I do think the old ways of doing marketing and media has evolved, and it's not going to a hundred percent going back to how we use to consume media. And hence that's not how ever it does. Is it going to chase media because that's where we are, where the consumers are, where the audience is. I do think most of the behaviours are here to stay for a very long while.

Q. As a leader who’s managing a large team yourself, what were some of the challenges you faced as we enter into the new way of working?

Cheryl: I suppose, at the start of working from home in the marketing team, there's so many different components in what we do, and there’s very different personalities in the team. You have brand, product marketing, internal communications, external communications, PR, content, social, CSR and sponsorships. It's a very broad spectrum across the team and the people have different objectives and have different personalities.

At the start naturally, everybody's not used to it, and there's a little bit of disconnectedness between the synergy between the teams, because of what we do in our work. There needs to be very tight synergy between for example, comms and marketing, for example, brand and CSR, so and so forth. So at the start, there was a little bit of disconnect because people were not used to having virtual calls, texting, calling on the phone.

Back at work, you just turn the chair around. We dive into a quick discussion in 10 minutes, we're done making a decision we move on. So at the start there wasn't that level of familiarity yet where people were not used to the new way of working, including myself, because we're all humans, but you'll find that humans are such amazing creatures. We just adapt. We just get by. We make sense of what we have. We do the best with what we have. So people are they're very fast and then things improve along the way.

Then the next level of problems pop up after we've been adapting to this, which is, How do we get that interaction and that level of comfort that we had when we were seeing each other F2F?

So I started hosting virtual lunches with the team, and we're virtualized our team lunches. We see each other and we're talking as though we're lunching together. So these are small things that we can do as a team even if we’re working from home, just to bring a level of normality to what we’re doing. That has worked relatively well with me and the team.

Q. What advice would you give to other managers who are trying to adapt their style of management to this new style of working?

•  Listen to the team - Be open to feedback to see how you can creatively engage the team with the constraints in place
• Transparent Communication – Explain the truth of what is happening and why we're doing what we're doing, how we're doing, what we're doing When you do this in a very sensible way, it promotes understanding and empathy when pivoting in a different direction.

Q. As a marketer yourself, what advice would you give to other marketers who are looking for their first job or looking to change a career into a totally different industry?

Cheryl: I would like to answer the question in two parts from the employer's perspective and the employee/jobseekers perspective. From a business/employer perspective, I think a lot of managers, myself included, we tend to hire based on experience, e.g.

·       How much experience this new candidate brings on board?

·       How much of what I want in this role that this candidate already have?

We don't really look at the potential of the candidate. We always look for a very safe track record and experience. When that happens, you will find that you may lose a few superstars in the making

We should look at the potential of candidates in terms of attitude, aptitude, potential to really be the next superstar in the making, and not just a ready hire based on historical data and track record.

From the candidates point of view, if you’re looking for a job/ want to change industry. I think the biggest advice I can give would be connections. Hopefully this is, and has been done over the years and not just over the last month, because people can smell when you're inauthentic, when you want to build connections only for a certain agenda.

On that note, I, I feel that continuous, nurturing of relationships with different people in and out of company is very important, because when you're looking for a job the competition is very high for any role in a well-known company, having the right connections to put you to the right people, having insider tips on the company's culture and values can make all the difference.

Go with the right frame of mind, to just build connections and relationships and friendships. When it happens organically, people would want to help you. Don’t just network because there's an agenda that's on the table. That would be my advice for people who are looking to switch.

Thanks for your sharing Cheryl! Really enjoyed our discussion.