#MarketingExcellenceAwards spills: How OOm is advising clients to take on the unknown future

 Taking home the silver for excellence in search marketing  and excellence in data-driven marketing for clients Rentokil is agency OOm. OOm has been in the market for over 14 years, first starting up in 2006 and has stealthily made a name as one of the leading digital marketing agencies in Singapore. Currently it also has a presence in Philippines, China and Hong Kong to accommodate the growing local and regional demands in digital marketing.

Speaking to MARKETING-INTERACTIVE is Ian Cheow, CEO & co-founder of OOm. 

This interview is done as part of MARKETING-INTERACTIVE’s winners and finalists’ interview series for Marketing Excellence Awards 2020. To find out more about the awards, click here.

What are some of the expectations your clients now have for your agency?

Cheow: As a digital performance-marketing agency, our role has always been to deliver results for our clients by achieving their marketing goals - from increasing attainment of sales and generation of leads to reducing cost per acquisition - through digital marketing strategies. This is the standard that we hold true since the agency was founded 14 years ago.

With more players in the industry, the expectations of clients have definitely increased. To stand out among the competitions, we have to constantly challenge the norm and come up with innovative ways to optimise and generate results for our clients through digital marketing.

How has your marketing/your clients marketing plans shifted this year?

Cheow: In view of the pandemic, we realise that clients are now looking for ways to maximise marketing dollars by investing more prudently. Depending on the clients’ business models and objectives, they can either invest in channels that provide the best Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) or have a good mix of organic and paid strategy.

We notice an increase in demand for content creation, especially video content, as they are more engaging. Compared to traditional television advertisements, online video content has a much wider reach and lower cost per view.

We also received an influx of ecommerce website setup requests, especially during the circuit breaker period in Singapore when many brick and mortar stores had to close down temporarily. Even after the circuit breaker lifted and many retailers can open their physical stores again, the requests for ecommerce website setups did not seem to decline. We foresee that this is a trend that is here to stay for the next few years as business owners are starting to see the benefits of having an ecommerce store.

What are some of the trends you see carrying on post-pandemic, and how are you readying your workforce to be ready with these trends?

Cheow: We foresee that alternating between working remotely and in the office space is here to stay. Rather than being averse to change, we embrace it as we believe that it is an opportunity for growth. We are thankful for an agile team that is able to pivot quickly to the collaborative tools that we have introduced internally, so as to close the communication gap between internal teams and clients.

Other than providing clients with our digital marketing services, we are expanding our creative team - which consists of designers, writers and video producers. We strive to be a one-stop hub for all of our clients’ digital marketing needs to provide integrated 360 campaigns.

What do you think makes for great marketing these days?

Cheow: The exciting thing about marketing is its volatility, there will always be emerging trends and technologies, but the ultimate goal of marketing is the generation of Return On Interests (ROI). Great marketing is more than creating visually-appealing and interesting-piquing campaigns, it is the results speaking for themselves.

How are you planning for 2021?

Cheow: Content consumption has been on the rise and we foresee that it will continue to increase next year. Gone are the days when customers were interested in businesses promoting the benefits of their products to them directly, customers are now interested in content that educates and intrigues them. In this current day and age of short attention spans and instant gratification, we see an increase in video content consumption as it has the ability to summarise and simplify information in an animated visual format that is engaging.

Content marketing, coupled with performance marketing, will be the ideal combination for a creative and effective digital marketing campaign.