ADMS Interview:Arlene Ang, CEO of OMD China,Brands are spending more on programmatic in China

ADMS: Hi Arlene, thanks for accepting the interview, Please introduce yourself and your work in the digital marketing realm.

Arlene: I am Arlene Ang, CEO of OMD China. In 1999, I started my own digital marketing firm called AD Explorer in Singapore. Subsequently, we extended the business to seven other cities. We sold the company to a VC in 2004, and eventually to another company. In addition, I also built up digital agencies for large agency networks such as the Publicis Groupe.

ADMS: In your opinion, what are some of the most significant digital marketing tools or technology for digital marketers today?

Arlene: Every digital marketing tool has its own role and function. None are more important than others I think, they are all important. The internet realm is developing rapidly, and there are many types of digital tools. The key issue is how you use them, and how to provide clients with better service and strategy. This is the most important aspect.

ADMS: Do you think the current amount of digital marketing investment from brands is justified as digital marketing technologies in China continue to develop at a rapid pace? What do you think are some of the factors that contribute to this level of investment?

Arlene: Every publisher and even vendors tell me investment in digital is not enough. But how do we know which level of spending is enough and which is the most ideal? I believe one significant factor that has led to increased spending towards online media is the growth of OTV. To build a multi-screen strategy, advertisers have shifted their budgets from TV to OTV. In comparison, media spending on banners, portal or even social media is much less substantial when compared to the rapid growth of OTV. Some might ask if this trend has reached a bottleneck, but I don’t think it has yet. If consumers are still shifting towards OTV, then more advertising budget will continue to be allocated to this market stream.

ADMS: What do you think would help further drive spending from brand advertisers in digital in China?

Arlene: I think all clients ultimately want results, whether you are driving to e-commerce or brand engagement, or to increase a brand’s awareness or preference amongst consumers, these are all key metrics. If we can tell clients what they will get out of their advertising spend and prove to them that it will help their branding and sales, this will be key – because when you are investing in media, ultimately what you want is more sales.

ADMS: What do you think of the current growth of programmatic buying for brands and branding purposes in China?

Arlene: Programmatic buying has developed rapidly in China in the last two years. In 2012, our programmatic team Accuen only had one employee, and that was in April of 2012, while it has grown to a team of 20 people at present. In fact, we already saw the potential of this market two years ago and invested a great deal in it: this includes our people, our DMP and relationships with different DSPs, as well as in terms of training, it is clear that our return on investment from programmatic buying has been very satisfactory, and we can also prove this to our clients with clear results. In light of this, many clients have adopted programmatic buying as a long-term investment and an investment that is always on.

ADMS: What do you think of the current tools and standards for measuring the performance of programmatic buying, as well as to ascertain the authenticity of programmatic buying data?

Arlene: Data management platforms are crucial to programmatic buying. With DMPs, we can implement targeting and re-targeting, but it still depends on our objective finally. Do we want to achieve click optimization, or to register or sell – so this really depends on our KPI goals, which are the key measures? In terms of tools, we have ad serving and DMPs, while our DMPs are linked to different DSPs. So these are some of the key tools for programmatic buying.

ADMS: Please provide some examples of new programmatic buying case studies from brands or clients that you deem as particularly innovative and/or effective.

Arlene: We have been running our programmatic buying business for about two years now. Some of our campaigns are only for specific brands, and some are run together with SEM. We have discovered that when we execute our ad placements with our programmatic team Accuen and our SEM team Resolution together, the result was even better. So our cookies, or when we do targeting or retargeting is to drive e-commerce for our clients. But when we implement both at the same time, we can see that cost-per-sale and number of orders perform much better, so my advice is to use programmatic and SEM together for improved results.

ADMS: What are your expectations and wishes for the Asia Digital Marketing Summit in December this year?

Arlene: I want to take this opportunity to wish China’s digital marketing industry a prosperous future, while digital marketing tools become more varied and sophisticated, and clients to increase their spending in digital. Finally, I wish that our work in digital, whether strategic or case studies, will become more innovative and brilliant!

ADMS: Arlene, we have noticed that you are launching a new fund, named OMD Innovation Fund, would you please make a brief introduction to the OMD Innovation Fund?

Arlene: The OMD Innovation Fund (OIF) is a project we initiated this year. The reason for this project is because the internet market changes rapidly, and both agencies and clients typically base their strategies and cases around certain key media. We know that if we do not remain innovative, we might become obsolete quite quickly. The objective of OIF is to support every one of our employees who might have a dream or wants to start a business, with capital from this fund. Our rationale is: instead of a few of us contemplating what the “next big thing” is, why not facilitate all 750 of our workforce to come up with better ideas? We will have open presentations in the middle of September for anyone interested in presenting a business plan, while these presentations will be judged by a panel of judges – comprising OMD management personnel and external members that are experienced in start-up capital – to select the top three ideas, and subsequently pick out the final and best business idea, which will be supported by the fund to build a prototype. This prototype will be shared with our clients, in the hope that many of our clients will use it for their digital marketing. Our principle for this project is centered on cultivating innovation, whether it is the development of a new application or social media, or other technologies. If this business idea eventually becomes profitable, we will help bring in VC capital to make it into a long-term business, and at this time, our employee will be able to run this start-up business full-time.