Interview: What HSBC judge Anya Katigbak-Cajucom will be looking out for in Marketing Excellence Awards PH entries

 MARKETING-INTERACTIVE is proud to present our second Marketing Excellence Awards in Philippines this year. The award show is one which is designed to recognise outstanding work in the Philippines’s marketing industry, and the entries are entirely judged by an independent panel of industry leaders and senior marketers.

One such judge for the event is Anya Katigbak-Cajucom, SVP and country head of marketing at HSBC Philippines. Cajucom joined HSBC close to 15 years ago and has over 28 years of banking experience stretching from public relations/communications and foundation work to branch operations to credit card marketing and product development.

She successfully led various acquisition and usage campaigns that drove impressive new-to-bank growth in the digital and social platforms. In a conversation with MARKETING-INTERACTIVE, Cajucom shared that today great marketing should be able to address objectives of the brand through the use of great insights from the customer. 

While much of the conversation in the marketing world today has pivoted towards performance, Cajucom is still a big believer of creativity and the role it plays in marketing. She shares that creative execution should be compelling enough to help any campaign stand out and trigger interest from the target audience. This should then ignite an emotion, which elicits action.

“Creativity, along with disruptive technology, plays a major role in marketing today as it provides the brand with the ability to stand out.  It triggers curiosity from your target audience to participate and experience first-hand innovative executions and encourages conversations,” she said.

Cajucom added that great creativity also opens up the door for conversation with target audiences. 

“We make sure our campaign strategy is always based on insights and voice of customers while working closely with our strategic planners for both creative and media to ensure that our execution and messaging resonates well and is relevant to our target audience,” she shared.

To be a brand that stays with a customer across numerous life cycles, Cajucom says that the messaging needs to be crafted to fit different stages of life, and evolve with the consumers’ needs to remain top of mind, and top of wallet.

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE: What are some trends in marketing you are keeping a watch out for in 2023?

There are quite a lot of trends to look out for, but if you were to ask me, some of the more important trends I am keen to keep a watch on are: 

1. Disruptive tech: VR-based tools and applications similar to how HSBC ventured into the metaverse this year.  Disruptive technology introducing mixed-reality experience for marketing is something brands across industries can look out for.  Imagine being able to try clothes designs without having to leave your house, or being able to experience a home tour of a potential house you would like to buy without physically going to the house! 

2. Agile marketing: We always hear about agile marketing but how it evolves with time where we see real-time iterations depending on the outcome of the initial execution with more focus on customer value/data driven decisions. 

3. Digital executions: Digital executions are becoming more and more important since the pandemic with more innovative approaches being created for brands. Brands must have targeting solutions to tailor-fit their audiences, and programmatic algorithms to remain relevant.

This will allow them to still deliver personalised content especially given Google is set to phase out third-party cookies. So we need to find alternative solutions to keep relevant in this space.  

4. User-generated marketing: We also see the boom of user-generated content especially here in the Philippines where even celebrities/socialites are making use of this execution to build their own brand.

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE: What will you be looking out for in your judging? 

One thing I will be looking out for is how marketing campaigns support the voice of customer, and campaigns derived from insights as well as creative innovation in bringing the message to the target audience. 

Does the question address the objectives set? Does the creative pop and appeal to the target audience? Did it achieve/overachieve projected results?

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE: If you had to give an advice to our entrants for this year, what would it be? 

Make sure your entry addresses all the criteria set for each awards.  Read the criteria thoroughly and make sure you are able to articulate your execution well.  Don’t miss out on all important information needed to bring out the greatness of your campaign – give justice to your campaign by showing how successful it is since it is based on your objectives, insights, innovative out-of-the-box executions that trigger curiosity and attention of target audience driving outcome.

If you’d like to be part of the MARKETING EXCELLENCE AWARDS in the Philippines and have your team’s outstanding work recognised. Check out more details on our event page. We look forward to showcasing your achievements on a regional level.