A Luncheon with Marketing Experts

On September 26 at the St. Regis Bangkok Hotel, AMCHAM’s September Monthly Luncheon featured a lively panel discussion between experts from major multinationals, home-grown Thai brands, and independent media companies on latest digital marketing trends in influencer and omni-channel marketing.

The luncheon was attended by over 130 guests and began with AMCHAM President, Gregory Bastien presenting the membership with details of the chamber’s activities and future endeavors. This luncheon was particularly important for AMCHAM members as candidates running for the Board of Governors 2020-2021 cycle were announced by Nominations Committee Chair, Tom Sorensen. The next opportunities to meet the candidates will be on October 9 at AMCHAM’s Social Networking Night and October 30 at the Monthly Luncheon: Annual General Meeting.

Once AMCHAM business concluded, Committee Chair & Board Governor, George Hartel, Chief Commercial Officer at Supara Group, discussed the rapid changes in Omnichannel marketing. He highlighted the constant need for brands to adapt and learn on the job in order to stay relevant. With the explosion of e-commerce and e-retail, George emphasized on delivering a seamless and connected offline and online consumer experience and uniqueness for brands to be successful. Using examples of online platforms such as Lazada and Shoppe, that are focusing on gamifying the shopping experience through nano and micro influencers, he highlighted how these consumer brands are managing to retain customers for longer in their digital platforms.

The staggering statistics on the numbers of mobile users in the Kingdom as well as the growth of influencer marketing in the region is re-defining the way businesses market today. Consumers today have moved from traditional media and are increasingly spending time on watching and engaging with authentic storytelling from smaller influencers instead of utilizing well-known actors, as was once the traditional norm. Data reveals that influencer marketing is more cost effective, has a greater ROI, is extremely customizable and allows constant engagement.

Following his speech, George join a panel with two other Communications and Marketing Committee co-chairs: David Norcross, Managing Director of Lexicon, and Louie Morante, who leads Proctor & Gamble Fabric & Home Care reginal brand for Southeast Asia. David moderated the discussion and added examples of his personal experience of using influencers to tell different stories.

In the panel discussion the marketing experts addressed some key questions from attendees. One participant asked: How does one decide on the right influencer for their product or services? Louie Morante spoke from his experience in marketing for Procter & Gamble, that when choosing the right influencer, it is important to know the objective of that business: Is it to drive sales? Penetrate a new market? Or create awareness? Louie stated that thinking through these questions and through market testing data analysis, one can reach the right audience and realize their brand objective.

On questions on big budgets for advertising and how difficult it is for an SME to invest in marketing, both panelists emphasized that one doesn’t always need to invest huge amount of money of hire an agency for marketing. Nano and micro influencer marketing is a growing trend and coming to light in a different way with low investments and greater ROI. If there is strong storytelling in the content created and you are able to pay attention to identifying friction points in your 020-marketing cycle, even small brands and SMEs can see successful marketing results.

The next AMCHAM Monthly Luncheon will be combined with the Annual General Meeting and will be held on October 30. For more information and registration please click here.

AMCHAM would like to thank David’s team at Lexicon, video production agency in Bangkok, for recording the event.