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Content: The H20 of marketing—The Asia Pacific perspective

Maximise the value of digital content by rethinking strategy and streamlining operations.

Overview

Content that clearly resonates with the consumer has the power to bring brands,
products, and services to life, and drive tangible outcomes for businesses.

Accenture’s global survey, Content: The H20 of Marketing, confirms that just like their global counterparts, the majority of marketers in Asia Pacific (APAC) are already well aware of the power of real-time, rapidly available digital content to build customer demand and lock in loyalty.

However, companies in the region still need to do some work to maximize the value of their digital content, from rethinking who owns a company’s content strategy to streamlining day-to-day operations.

DOWNLOAD CONTENT: THE H20 OF MARKETING—THE ASIA PACIFIC PERSPECTIVE [PDF]

DIVERSE AND DIGITALLY SAVVY CONSUMERS

APAC is one of the world’s most attractive markets, where young, dynamic, and increasingly affluent consumers eagerly embrace innovation and change.

Yet, this is an area with extremely diverse multicultural, multilingual systems and divergent economic situations. These create significant challenges to anyone hoping to produce content that’s relevant and applicable right across the region.

Besides the challenge of localizing content, Asian brands are struggling on how to create content that will work on global platforms such as Instagram and Tmall, which involves navigating increasingly complicated digital behaviour.

MEETING BUSINESS OBJECTIVES

In APAC, most (75 percent) organizations have already embraced digital content as a tangible asset, with the majority of large businesses spending more than US$50 million annually on content management alone.

Yet fewer than half of the marketers we surveyed believe that investing in it will actually help them achieve their business objectives.

Less than half of the marketers surveyed (except for Australia) report that they are very confident that their digital content investments will achieve business objectives

Less than half of the marketers surveyed (except for Australia) report that they are very confident that their digital content investments will achieve business objectives

IDENTIFYING ROADBLOCKS

Our research shows that a lack of clarity around the entire process of content production—from creation to delivery—is a common problem. At the same time, when it comes to implementing the digital tools that could make their content production more effective, many enterprises report that their technology is silo-ed and too cumbersome for cross-channel customer experiences.

In fact, an overwhelming majority (83 percent) of respondents feel that their organization’s marketing and IT departments need to be better aligned.

Eighty-three percent of APAC respondents feel the need for better alignment with IT, as marketing today relies more on technology than ever before.


APAC survey respondents recognize the need for direction from the top down when it comes to content, with the vast majority (90 percent) feeling that C-level executives should set the content strategy.

More than 70 percent of APAC companies worry that two years from now, without a clear content strategy, they will need to spend even more time on managing and streamlining their content production processes than they do today.

More than 80 percent predict that two years from now they will spend even more time on operational details than they do today.


APPLYING A CLEAR SOLUTION

Digital content can be optimized if:

  1. Organizations start to view the creation, production, and distribution of content as a key activity in itself—one that requires not only creativity, but discipline.

  2. Coming up with a content lifecycle management approach

This is where solutions to scalability can start to emerge, based on a clearer understanding of where organizations can draw on their diverse, multicultural networks to drive creativity, and where consolidation is essential to drive efficiency. Thereby, creating more possibilities for organizations in this region.

DOWNLOAD CONTENT: THE H20 OF MARKETING—THE ASIA PACIFIC PERSPECTIVE [PDF]

Spokesperson


Irwin Lim

Managing Director, Accenture Interactive