Festival of Media promises a Festival of Agile Content

Francis Belin, Senior VP Consumer Goods Greater China at Swarovski will be on a panel with Wei Gu, Wall Street Journal Editor of China Wealth and Luxury. The panel is likely to be around the topic of China maturing along with the Chinese consumers. Francis will talk more specifically about the shift from premium to access luxury and the more prominent role that the middle class will be playing in the future. Being at the forefront of marketing a luxury brand in China Francis will share some helpful insights on which strategies are more likely to be successful to tap into this growing potential.

Andy Baker, CEO of Smartlife, will be talking about the next stage in the connected "ME”. Take Smartlife for example, it has simple garments such as T-shirts, Bra’s and Shorts that can automatically read key information given off from the body such as heart and respiratory rates, mixing this key data with GPS and mobile and app data into our placement decision engines for example. In addition for the first time your clothing will know what it is doing and where retailers can track you from store, into daily life and then tailor the offers to suit you.

Andy illustrates this by giving an example, “If you have been cycling 60 times in the last 3 months, the retailer knows it is time to return and see the offers on cycle wear and clothing and the discount is X. This now moves garments onto a credit card model of acquiring to retaining the customer as you know the personal habits and key data. This allows the key marketing messages to be changed from acquiring and to retaining, which has much lower price points throughout media.”

Scott Lamb, VP International at BuzzFeed, will be talking about the myths we tell ourselves about digital media, and how we can transcend them in 2014. Scott says that, “there is a lot of received wisdom about how online media works i.e. that shorter is always better, that social media is just a form of PR, that content is always beholden to platform”. Scott believes we'd be wise to reconsider this year, and in doing so do better work that reaches more people. He’ll be talking about how BuzzFeed has been tackling some of these myths and what they've learned so far.

Jason Hill, Director, Advertising, Growth Markets, GE Corporate, Global Brand Marketing will be telling GE’s story moving from advertiser to publisher and embracing their stories of technology to become a true “content factory.” “GE harness these stories to produce compelling content that is seeded throughout there owned and paid channels—the goal is to pull back the curtain on GE innovation and invite people to understand how GE works” Jason says.

Jason will spotlight a case study of their custom content program with The Economist called “Look ahead,” which is an industry-first tie-up between brand and publisher to deliver great, brainy content to business-decision makers who read The Economist and appreciate an authentic and informative brand voice. It’s “native” but hopefully also endemic to The Economist’s ecosystem; rather than just coming across as display advertising, it is being viewed as valuable thought leadership.

Damien Cummings, newly appointed CMO and VP of Marketing for Philips in ASEAN and Pacific will be giving us his views on how brands can create relevant, real-time content to engage with empowered digital consumers who expect the brands and businesses they interact with to always be relevant and 'always on'.

Rita Nguyen, co-founder & CEO, SQUAR, the leading social media brand in Myanmar will be joining a panel about the Asia-Pacific region having the largest social network base and discussing how Asians are using social networks and the opportunities for brands who want to reach previously untapped consumers.

Vipul Chawla, newly promoted MD, Yum! Asia will be speaking about how Yum Brands Asia has turned KFC & Pizza Hut into agile lifestyle brands by mirroring the lives of its consumers with retail outlets that are open 24 hours a day and becoming a brand that is entrenched in social and mobile.