SINGAPORE – Dentsu, in partnership with Facebook, is pleased to announce the launch of ‘Open for Business’. Spanning 14 markets in APAC, it is a one-of-its-kind development programme for dentsu Commerce from Facebook’s subject matter experts, allowing for deep product understanding,buildingof expertise on new products like Facebook Shops and joint solutioning of go-to-market commerce strategies for clients.
Commerce has evolved over the years with the proliferation of technology and access to internet and smartphones. And in recent times, has been catalysed by the pandemic that fundamentally changed the way consumers shop and consequently how businesses connect with consumers. According to Facebook’s recently launched report ‘Digital Consumers of Tomorrow, Here Today’, the growth of digital consumers in Southeast Asia is expected to reach around 310 million by the end of 2020, with millions more expected to join in the coming years. This growth was originally forecasted for 2025, in the 2019 study, indicating a five year acceleration within 2020 alone. This means that almost 70% of Southeast Asian consumers will go digital by the end of the year.
On the back of that, dentsu launched the dentsu Commerce global practice – a framework to help clients establish and extend the maturity of their commerce capabilities, through which the group envisages to help clients achieve competitive and compelling commerce offerings by building an all encompassing relationship with consumers to own the omnichannel commerce experience.
“Commerce is business priority for us and we want to be partners who add meaningful progress for our clients,” said Sunil Naryani, VP Commercials & Partnerships at dentsu APAC. “Our strategic partnership with Facebook has grown from strength to strength and this APAC-first commerce programme for our teams is a result of that. We are pleased that over 100 of our top commerce experts in the region participated in this extensive learning programme and are now equipped on Facebook commerce products and solutions to better solve our clients’ challenges.”
“At dentsu, we recognise the untapped opportunity to help clients navigate the dynamic commerce ecosystem – starting with a holistic commerce strategy which leads into media, creative and tech implementation. This commerce bootcamp is a step in that direction and has already shown a positive impact in driving improved campaign results for our commerce clients. With brilliant basics now in place, we want to keep the momentum as we progress into more strategic conversations involving future-proofing our client’s commerce business using advanced tech solutions paired with creative agility,” Sunil added.
The report also found that the average spend per consumer in 2020 has more than tripled since 2018, also exceeding previous 2025 forecasts – with spending patterns between Tier 1 and 2 cities narrowing. Additionally, latest research by Adobe suggests ecommerce adoption has been accelerated by four to six years, largely driven by a forced change in consumer behaviour because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In May alone, total online spending was $82.5B, up 77% year-over-year and the online purchasing trend is expected to be permanent (Forbes, 2020). As a result, higher spending power and a heightened preference for contactless transactions will continue to drive the exponential growth of the digital economy.
Facebook as a platform is one of the main enablers for social-commerce in these times. With a multitude of social-commerce solutions ranging from Facebook Marketplace, Facebook Shops to conversational commerce and Collaborative ads, Facebook provides businesses of all sizes a platform to connect with the consumers either within their platform or outside. With this commoditised access, it has also become essential for brands to work with trusted and capable partners who not only understand the complex consumer journeys, but also have pronounced commerce capabilities to deliver the needed return on investments.
We’re committed to helping businesses, agencies and communities across the region grow and stay ahead of trends. We aim to do this by investing in features across our apps that inspire people to shop and make buying and selling online easier. We’re also investing in initiatives, like this partnership with Denstu, that help equip our key agency partners with the most up to date digital skills and insights. Dentsu saw this as a huge opportunity and moved fast with such a scaled program to ensure they are well placed to guide their clients.” said Neil Stewart, Agency Director, APAC at Facebook.
Dentsu has a strong, multi-dimensional historical partnership with Facebook, ranging from building market-leading expertise on platform to joint solutions and development of proprietary products. This shared vision between dentsu and Facebook has enabled both to work closely and address clients’ challenges and pain points.
