Roundtable review: ‘Science of Shares: Quantifying Video’s Digital Future’

Nikki Wicks, Campaign Asia-Pacific’s Southeast Asia editor, moderated the roundtable, which was hosted in partnership with marketing-technology company Unruly. The converstion centred around how brands are using video online, what platforms they prefer, measurement metrics and brand safety and viewability with programmatic.

Here are some notable quotes from the two-hour session:

Content shock: cutting through all that content

Shamini Nair, digital head of APAC, McDonalds: 

The contextual headwinds are enormous. Reach alone is incredibly difficult. The other issue is the number of people creating content. It’s not just brands—consumers and entertainers are putting it out there. So the real issue is cutting through the creative. In this environment, we’re having to go back to basics.

Phil Townend, MD APAC Unruly Media:

We’re beginning to see the use of micro content. Brands are embracing this because it is more genuine, allows them to have an always on conversations and audiences respond really well to it.

Adam Marshall, head of trading APAC, Mindshare:

Hero content still has relevance. If you’re going to cut through the noise, you’re going to have to do something big. The content doesn’t have to always come from the brand, there’s an abundance of consumers sharing their experiences.

Facebook or YouTube: which platforms?

Chiradeep Gupta, global media innovation manager, Unilever:

Video is the platform of choice. It is a better canvas and how we use it varies across brands. The format and platform lends itself to better storytelling.

Herve Bullot, senior director, global strategic insights, Asia Pacific, Johnson & Johnson:

We need to treat consumers like we would our spouse. For me, there isn’t one platform that is better than the other. We see how each platform is going to help build the relationship. In fact, we’re moving away from platforms and formats. The path to purchase is paramount and we only think of media touchpoints at the end because we want to be media agnostic.

Brand safety

Jonathan Mackenzie, head of programmatic (Accuen), APAC, OMG:

Programmatic will drive a fundamental change. Clients haven’t been pushing for greater accountability than click-through rates and that’s driving market conditions. It has to be a collective effort. Programmatic is opening our eyes to fraud and brand safety. As awareness grows, there will be a demand for higher quality inventory and that will force competition and increase pricing.

Garland Mak, deputy general manager, international marketing division, Nikon:

We position our products as more luxury than consumer goods and as such media placement is key. We can’t simply do programmatic, so we’re not moving there until we have better control and transparency. Right now there’s still not enough on that.

Saurabh Dangwal, head of digital - APAC, team P&G, MediaCom:

The ecosystem is getting complex. IPTV is quite big with 1 million VPN accounts in Singapore. Thailand has eight million. Mobile is also exploding. We’re seeing a lot of players and sources of inventory emerge.

Full list of attendees include:

Mark Harland, marketing director, General Motors
Vaasu Gavasran, head – Digital Marketing,  Axa
Jamshed Wadia, head of social media Asia Pacific and Japan, Intel
Chiradeep, Gupta, global media innovation manager, Unilever
Herve Bullot, senior director, global strategic insights, Asia Pacific,  Johnson & Johnson
Jonathan Mackenzie, head of programmatic (Accuen), APAC
Adam Marshall, head of trading APAC, Mindshare
Saurabh Dangwal, Head of Digital - APAC, Team P&G, MediaCom
Shamini Nair, Digital Head APAC, McDonalds
Dominique Touchaud, Associate Director Brand Building, P&G
Julien Chiavassa, Asia Pacific Digital and Ecommerce Head, Clarins
Phil Townend, Managing Director, APAC, Unruly Media
Garland Mak - deputy general manager, international marketing division, Nikon
Scott Button, founder and group CEO, Unruly

For a full report on the event and a look at how brands can maximise their social and online video, check out the next issue of Campaign Asia-Pacific.