MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Well-prepared marketing or business plan won’t be completely put to waste once a pandemic suddenly tries to ruin everything, but companies will try to pivot and adopt new changes to solve the crisis and stay afloat.
Almost two years in the midst of the pandemic, and with the Philippines being one of the countries with the longest lockdowns, most of the businesses are starting to open again for the market. With the threat of the coronavirus still existing in the country, companies have been shifting to a safer and flexible way of working and marketing their products and services – and that is going digital.
In collaboration with Salesforce, a roundtable discussion was held by adobo Magazine on October 5 and 19, 2021; inviting some of the country’s industry leaders and marketers share their insights on challenges brought by a sudden change and its effects on the company and its audience while being presented with the latest data on State of Marketing.
Salesforce Regional Sales Director for Digital 360 Chris Jordan shared that marketers are now facing new priorities and new challenges. Jordan explained that “top priorities and top challenges tend to be similar to where they were previously, but a lot about innovation. I think we all know that we’ve had to innovate over the last year or two and we’ve got a lot around challenges in innovation as well.”
Opening the roundtable with a question – how equipped is your company now in terms of its digital transformation – McDonald’s Digital Strategy Lead Denise Gamo-Halaguena said “With all the things we’ve done even in a short span of time within the pandemic and since I joined, it’s not really just about what we did recently or in the past few years. I think McDonald’s even as I was servicing the company in my previous life has always been working towards digital readiness and being future-proof since a decade back.”
In the case of the local company CDO Foodsphere, Vice President for Marketing Teresa Chong shared that the company is better-equipped than most local companies. Chong explained “I know we can still do better when it comes to digital and the use of technology. I’m quite optimistic about it because in the past, we were able to make those changes quickly and adapt faster. And while we may not be as savvy probably as other companies, but I am very optimistic about it.”
While some marketers were well-equipped and a few almost ready to shift to new strategies, some companies have really invested to maximize the opportunities brought by going digital.
HSBC Vice President for Marketing, Retail Banking and Wealth Management Lynden Catapang shared that majority of their advertising is now on digital. Lynden explained, “[Before], they make me used to do advertising like print, radio, then there’s also a portion on digital, but ever since the pandemic happened, so it shifted. We have digital ads everywhere so people can easily reach us and we have a social media page [where] customers can go there and then we reply to them, not really real-time but we observe a turnaround time for that.”
In addition, McDonald’s Vice President for Marketing and Channel Leads Oliver Rabatan shared that in terms of advertising, the fast-food giant’s budget for the television-driven type of advertising has been channeled to digital while investing in learning tools needed to help them with the digital transformation.
Talking more about digital transformation, technology-related companies such as Globe and GCash have also been through massive changes to adapt to the current situation. AVP for GInvest, GCash Fatima Javellana shared “When the pandemic hit, there was a big realization that there’s a huge opportunity in terms of payment of using it for financials for customers. And I guess, because of the results of the pandemic, where everyone was just forced to go digital, a big learning for the company was actually held to support that many customers. So there became an intense, a lot of pivots when it came to the platform behind it, and then also understanding the influx of customers already.”
Javellana also added that with the gathered data, the financial technology company GCash was able to create not only offers but also products like GInvest.
Meanwhile, Loyalty and Marketing Manager of Philippine Seven Corporations Deena Santos revealed that they were able to upgrade their Cliqq app with features that would result in a more convenient experience in availing services through 7-eleven stores. Santos explained, “We are among those the ones who are early so we were able to at least put a lot of the things that you do in the store, inside the Cliqq app like apps, or bills payment, well, it’s not completely end-to-end inside the Cliqq app, because you need to go to the store to actually hand over the money to the cashier, [but] in terms of journey, we shortened it for the customer.”
While it seems to be that going digital has been in favor with most of the market leaders today, AVP and Head Advocacy and Marketing of Maynilad Water Services Incorporated Abigail Ho-Torres admitted that the water service provider is ‘getting there’ and needed the management to be on board to it. Maynilad has recently partnered with Tiktok in celebration of Global Handwashing Day.
Wrapping up the discussion, Salesforce Regional Sales Director for Digital 360 Chris Jordan shared his insights on choosing the right marketing technology for businesses, saying that “it’s not just about the technology, it’s about how do I deliver that with the right people and the right processes that ultimately see success and value because that’s what you want to get to.”
To help you with redefining your next marketing strategies and other factors to consider, download the 7th State of Marketing Report here.
Salesforce is always open to marketers like you. Get in touch with Salesforce for a conversation and email Chris Jordan at jordan@salesforce.com or call +6598582956 (Singapore).
