Publicis Media looks to better connect agency brands to startups

Publicis Media has launched NextTechnow in Singapore. This platform will allow everyone within Publicis Media and agency brands to connect with carefully curated start-up partners to deliver solutions to the C-suite and marketers.Through this initiative, Publicis Media serves as an agnostic connector for the start-up community, to build upon business, marketing opportunities and resolve challenges for Publicis Media’s portfolio of clients. Clients across the four agencies will have access to start-ups that can deliver innovative technologies to re-engineer their customer experience, such as development of artificial intelligence and chat-bots, augmented reality engagements, or providing deep form-level insights for lead-generation campaigns.“We are excited to introduce NextTechnow to Singapore, the third market in the world to officially launch this initiative after London and Shanghai, with clients such as Heineken, Visa, and P&G,” said John Ng, head of innovation and partnerships, business transformation at Publicis Media Asia Pacific.“NextTechnow will bring a new dimension to marketers by providing access to new partners and enable us to conduct collaboration sessions or inspiration tours to lead marketers into the new world that’s constantly evolving and disrupting businesses.”NextTechnow will be plugged into the entire start-up ecosystem offering four key solutions that deliver fast innovation against media and marketing plans, solve business challenges through rapid prototyping, engage innovators and disruptors of businesses to drive innovation needs and uncover market or category insights.In a joint-statement, Ian Loon and Christopher Harrison, co-heads of business transformation, Publicis Media Asia Pacific said: “NextTechnow is a new capability that represents our commitment as Publicis Media to deliver business transformation to business leaders and marketers. This forms a critical base for other solutions and services that we are co-developing alongside our agency leaders to future-proof and unlock further long-term growth for their businesses.”In June this year, Publicis Groupe unveiled its Viva Technology Paris, the leading event devoted to startups and innovation which gathered the world’s digital transformation leaders, start-ups and international companies. There were 300 conferences, 8 stages and 8 themes at Viva Technology which was held at Porte de Versailles in Paris.According to IDC, 60% of Asia Pacific enterprises are expected to undergo digital transformation by the end of 2017 and those who do not transform will be left behind. Given the ballooning start-up scene in Singapore with currently more than US$1.16 billion in funding, the time is now for businesses to latch unto opportunities for collaboration with start-ups to drive their transformation.