Content marketing fails, dark social brand tribes, Asian consumer profiles: latest Mumbrella360 Asia sessions

A detailed piece of new research on consumers in Asia, a session on ‘dark social’ and the pitfalls of content marketing are among the latest sessions to be announced for Mumbrella360 Asia. The three-day media and marketing conference will take place at the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore on November 7-9.

The sister event in Australia attracted more than 3,300 people when it was held in Sydney in July and has just been shortlisted again – for the seventh consecutive year – in the ‘Conference of the Year’ category at the Australian Event Awards – having won the award on two occasions in 2016 and 2012.

Unveiling the Asia element of a new piece of research at the event in Singapore, Christian Kurz – Viacom International Media Networks senior vice-president of global consumer insights – will provide a roadmap for marketers looking to reach consumers. His presentation ‘Reaching a distracted but resilient audience in Asia’ promises to be a deep-dive into the motivations of the regional populous.

The new Viacom research follows on from the company’s landmark study five year ago The Next Normal. It offered an unprecedented view of the attitudes of people around the world and their outlooks on life, brands and the efforts of marketers to connect with them.

This year, VIMN carried out another massive study, spanning 28,600 people aged 6-54 in 30 countries – including Asia Pacific markets such as Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand and the Philippines – to see how things have changed.

It is clear that while the economy remains a source of unease, people are more worried about personal safety and terrorism today. And yet they remain as happy as ever. In response to today’s trying times, resilience is on the rise.

Hear from New York-based Kurz, who previously worked at Disney and Warner Bros., in thisViacom-curated session as he crunches the Asia data for the first time to reveal the insights specific to the region. What are the ways people are showing resilience and what are the solutions for creating engaging content that will resonate with the distracted audiences of today? All will be revealed.

Another big industry question of the day and one of our session titles is: ‘When failure is the industry norm, how do you do content marketing well?” For every publisher, agency and brand in the land is looking to harness the power of content marketing as a distribution channel and/or revenue stream but most ideas fall flat and fail to achieve the holy grail of ‘going viral’.

Why is that? Who are the leaders the laggards can learn from? And is in-house better than outsourcing when it comes to content marketing?

This session considers these questions and more besides. Content marketing may well be the future for many in the media and marketing industry, but with Darwinian market forces at work only those that do it well will survive. Make sure you are on the right side of the line by learning from our panel of experts.

They include our moderator Andrea Edwards, The Digital Conversationalist founder and CEO, plus Under Armour marketing director for South East Asia Yvonne Tey, VICE Media Australia general manager of brand partnerships Alex Light, Buzzfeed APAC vice-president of brand strategy David Nemes, Click2View editorial director Jacqueline Shorey and BBC Storyworks APAC head of content Nicola Eliot.

Our final session revealed in this latest batch of content is ‘How to talk to brand tribes on dark social and beyond’. This session curated by RadiumOne will consider the concept of tribes built around a brand. How can marketers achieve this online across the digital ecosystem and offline?

Whether it is health and fitness devotees, new mothers or sports fanatics, in our digitally driven world that often encourages narcissism, disconnection and a lack of authenticity, the deep-seeded need to connect with others through a genuine common interest has become more powerful than ever before.

This presents real opportunities for brands to drive next-level emotional connections with relevant audiences – or ‘top of heart’ engagement. A panel of experts will look at areas such as social media, content sharing, neuroscience, dark social and influencer marketing to name but a few.

Sitting on the panel will be RadiumOne managing director for Australia and New Zealand Adam Furness, Fox Networks Group Asia executive vice-president of sales and content partnerships Mike Rich, Perx CEO Anna Gong, Mediacom APAC regional director Charlotte Goddard, The Monkeys innovation director Jay Morgan – based at the award-wining Australian creative agency in Sydney – and The Egg Carton Project founder and director Alana Saphin-Polchleb from the digital consultant world. 

In addition, some speaker updates can be revealed. First up, the president of the Media Publishers Association of Singapore and CEO of Heart Media, Olivier Burlot, is to join the session titled: ‘The lie detector test: where did my ad dollar go?’.

He will be among the industry leaders undergoing a polygraph test live on stage to find out how well client ad dollars are being spent.

Meanwhile, Chad Stoller – UM Worldwide global chief innovation officer – will replace outgoing Ansible global president Travis Johnson in delivering the presentation: ‘Not another rollercoaster – how VR and other technologies will apply to marketing’. Stoller will step in for his IPG Mediabrands agency colleague, following the announcement last week that Johnson is to leave the New York-based role to return to his Australian homeland.

Finally, E! News host Yvette King has also been announced as a stage moderator and will introduce sessions such as Stoller’s on VR and new marketing tech.

Further content announcements will follow in the coming weeks and months so keep an eye on the website for updates and sign up to our daily newsletter to ensure you are among the first to hear of new speakers and sessions.

For further information on the conference and to take advantage of our earlybird ticket offer – a three-day conference pass for just $940 (including a saving of $195 on the normal ticket price) – go to the Mumbrella360 Asia website here.

And for information on the sponsorship and exhibition opportunities at the event, contact the publisher Dean Carroll on dean@mumbrella.asia or the head of sales Kris Chan on kris@mumbrella.asia.