Tough 2015, but 2016 set to be dynamic

The past 12 months will go down as some of the toughest yet for the marketing industry in Hong Kong. With sweeping changes taking place in the world of media, and agencies struggling to find a home in this new world of marketing, clients have been left wondering where it’s all heading.

If you think back over the past year, which companies stand out as true innovators, true disruptors and risk takers? Despite a pressing need for innovation and an overwhelming amount of talk from various corners of the industry about change – the list remains surprisingly short.

The reality for marketers today is that real change takes time and is often not something the marketing department alone can achieve.

As Shangri-La CMO Steven Taylor admits, transformation of the Hong Kong hotels group has been a company wide initiative. The digital agenda, he says, does not rest just with the CMO. Digital has become everyone’s agenda.

As the pressure to keep up with fast-moving consumer trends accelerates, digital marketing will become the central hub for a large bulk of business offerings from technology applications to customer experience management and social media engagement. This will require new skills, bigger teams, the ability to track, measure and bring new levels of accountability to marketing.

Agency partners should play a central role in this evolution, but the Hong Kong ad industry has kept one foot firmly entrenched in the traditional ways of doing business.

“Agencies are no longer the go-to points for category disruption,” admitted Sean Rach, the former managing director of OgilvyOne Hong Kong and now CMO at Prudential Corporation Asia.

“The age of the hard sell is dead.”

Speaking at a recent industry event, Rach said it was non-agency models such as SAS and Deloitte doing much of the heavy lifting in this new digital and data-driven world.

The needle has well and truly shifted – not just for CMOs, but the CIO, CTO and the CEO. Saddle up, 2016 looks to be an exciting and dynamic year for the industry.