More and more visitors visiting China every year, as the country eases visa requirements to boost tourism. In 2018, 30.5 million international visitors have been welcomed, an increase of 4.7 percent from the year before, according to government data. These tourists were spending already a total of US$73.1 billion last year. Alipay is China's most popular digital payment service, according to market researcher Statista, with 87% of survey respondents in the country aged between 18 and 69 reporting that they use Alipay for their digital financial needs.

Vue.ai is an inference engine for the retail industry that gives, with its AI retail teams across the globe, access to a central brain that extracts critical data from products and customer behavior.

Retail teams can automate key functions and deliver personalized experiences to each shopper, increasing ROI on every function in the organization, by pulling the power of AI in the hands of every team member across merchandising, buying, styling, cataloging, marketing and more.

Since most consumers want to be recognized as individuals today, who generally expect personalization in marketing campaigns, Artificial Intelligence (AI) gets amazingly to work amazingly by ensuring the delivery of an effective brand experience.

Companies increasingly focus on automation in customer service and after-sales, meaning that past actions by users can be machine-evaluated in order to derive probabilities for future actions, since they must be resource-saving and, above all, can no longer process the huge amount of service requests personally that are coming from different devices of the customers. Depending on the complexity, individual measures can be triggered automatically: e.g. the chat window opens at the right time, emails arrive at the right moment with the appropriate content - or customer care picks up the listener personally if the customer has a problem. Certainly, personal conversations remain indispensable. The process behind it leverages predictive analytics and, through its use, enables the creation of a good customer relationship, as available capacity

Qualtrics launched CoreXM, its industry-leading insight solution and foundation of experience management (XM). CoreXM encapsulates all the innovative capabilities previously found in Qualtrics Research Core while adding ground-breaking functionality to help experience management professionals listen to their customers and employees, understand their experiences, and take real-time action.

In ever shorter intervals, digitization brings new trends to light that overwhelms us humans both at work and at home. IT businesses and media companies bombard us with phrases like Industry 4.0, Internet of Things (IoT), Smart Homes, Autonomous Driving, Artificial Intelligence (AI) – well-known synonyms that pitch new feel-good technologies nowadays that intend to make hard routine work easier and more convenient.

The key to a personalized and targeted customer approach is a good understanding of your customers. Sounds simple, but what exactly should you know about your customers?

Read on to find out our top 7 recommendations for better understanding your customers:

1. Who are my top customers? Top customers are the proportion of customers who regularly generate high sales. These can be identified by the so-called RFM analysis. To do this, ask the following questions:

• Recency: How long since their last purchase?
• Frequency: How often do they buy?
• Monetary: How much revenue was generated?

The top customers can then be determined from the intersection of these three groups.

2. Where are my customers located? The geographical location of customers can be important for marketers, as it can have a decisive influence on customers’ preferences if their purchases are geographically based – for example, which airport to book flights from, or which venue to attend a live event at. Geo-analysis uses spatial information such as postcodes for visualizations and selections. This enables new perspectives on market penetration, the identification of new market potential and the dispatch of regional offers and/or teams.

3. What do my customers buy? Which customer bought which product? This is a fairly important question. Not only does it inform you about your current customers, but it also allows you to identify customers with a similar profile who have not yet purchased this product. This enables the realization of untapped potential. Customer profiles can be defined based on demographic, psychographic, geographic or behavioral characteristics.

4. What turnover do my customers generate? Knowing which customer group generates what turnover is crucial for the distribution of your marketing budget. For example, customers can be identified in order to receive loyalty rewards or higher quality communications. Often referred to as Customer Lifetime Value (CLT), this metric represents the total revenue that a customer generates during a company's life cycle.

5. When and how often do my customers buy? When and how often customers buy is essential information, especially in retail, in order to optimize orders and inventory accordingly. In addition, this information can be used to identify the best possible time for advertising or campaign contact, and customers at risk of churn. The prerequisite for this is the transaction history of the customers. This can be mapped, for example, in a CRM system.

6. How many customers do I lose per year? Even though your number of customers may have remained constant over a longer period of time, it’s possible that some customers have churned, and this effect has been offset by new customers. In order to increase the customer base in the long term, however, it’s important to know how many customers churn each year, identify possible causes for this and take appropriate countermeasures. Precisely which customers have churned can be determined by the last transaction date using a CRM system.

7. How many new customers do I gain each year? Based on the number of new customers you can see which marketing communications have been particularly effective to date. This helps to plan your sales forecasts for the coming year and determine which marketing measures should be given more focus. New customers within one year can be recognized in the CRM system based on the creation date of the data master record.

By Apteco

According to Socialbakers, the unified marketing platform for social media marketers, 2019 was the year TikTok exploded and influencer marketing gained traction, especially with marketers in beauty, fashion and e-commerce.

For online retailers, it’s no longer a simple case of bricks vs. clicks anymore. Spoilt for choice these days, consumers are far less loyal to brands and are more likely to try new products. With online retailers facing increasing competition, how can they build brand loyalty and retain customers in today’s marketplace?

With trends expanding from immersive experiences, graphic design, photography, illustration, and more, brands can stay ahead of the mainstream, plan their next campaign, or inspire their biggest project yet.

The integrated communications consulting firm Ruder Finn Asia just announced new leadership appointments in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia and senior-level appointments in the regional Luxury, Automotive and Integrated Marketing practices, strengthening the firm’s capabilities and expertise across Asia-Pacific.

In Hong Kong, Winnie Lai joins as Vice President and General Manager, Ruder Finn Hong Kong. She brings 20 years’ experience in providing award-winning communications counsel to clients in Greater China and Asia-Pacific including Microsoft, GE Healthcare and Jebsen. Most recently VP, Greater China at Waggoner Edstrom, she strengthened revenues and profits, grew the team to 50 executives and established the firm as one of the largest communications consultancies in Hong Kong. Prior to WE, she was Senior Reporter at ComputerWorld and Senior Consultant at Hill & Knowlton.

In Singapore, Brian Witte has been promoted to Deputy General Manager, Ruder Finn Singapore. He is leading the firm’s corporate and technology practice since 2014, representing clients including Visa and DBS. With 15 years’ experience, Witte has been responsible for providing clients with strategic counsel across Asia-Pacific, from integrated strategy and stakeholder engagement to reputation management and internal communications. Prior to Ruder Finn, he held senior positions at Porter Novelli and Burson-Marsteller China.


In Malaysia, Elya Eusoff joins as General Manager, Ruder Finn Malaysia. Eusoff brings more than a decade of experience representing corporate, consumer and technology clients, including Cetaphil, Suntory and Lenovo. In his most recent role as Director of Digital PR at Bonsey Jaden, he focused on designing and implementing tailored, end-to-end, integrated branding campaigns for both local and regional clients. He also led activation work across Malaysia, Asia-Pacific and the United States.


Within Ruder Finn, Gao Ming has been named Senior Vice President, Managing Director, Luxury Practice, Ruder Finn Greater China. This new role will see him expanding the firm’s China luxury stronghold to additional markets. Having led Ruder Finn’s National Luxury Practice in China since 2015, Gao Ming has been instrumental in developing a network of industry-leading clients, including Chaumet, Hermes, Mont Blanc, Longines, Hennessy and Cartier. Before joining Ruder Finn in 2005, he was founder and partner at West Village Agency, a boutique Shanghai-based communications firm.


Long Xi has been promoted to Leader, Integrated Marketing Practice, Ruder Finn Greater China, growing the firm’s focus in consumer digital marketing communications after launching the new practice in China in 2017. Representing clients including Almond Board of California, MHD, and 3M, she has since led the data-driven business unit through a period of double-digit growth, ensuring Ruder Finn delivers a complete arc of strategy, web, digital, online, media, social media and advertising capabilities for clients. Prior to Ruder Finn, Xi previously held senior positions in Michael Kors, Edelman and Giorgio Armani Group.


Completing the appointments and promotions at Ruder Finn Asia, Will Yuan joins as Leader, Automotive Practice, Ruder Finn China. Yuan has 15 years’ industry experience and was previously General Manager at Genedigi Group and Deputy General Manager at HighTeam Marketing Communications. He will lead market growth strategies for the firm, overseeing clients including Audi, Mercedes Benz, Volkswagen Group China, Lamborghini, and other automotive clients.

The South China Morning Post announced the appointment of Adrian Lee as Senior Vice President of Marketing and Events, who will lead its growth strategies to build SCMP’s global brand.

With SCMP’s exponential international readership growth at over 25 million monthly active users, Lee’s appointment bolsters its focus on market and audience development across Asia and broader global markets. Lee’s responsibilities include raising brand awareness, increasing traffic to SCMP’s digital platforms, overseeing product and digital marketing, as well as driving SCMP’s event’s business.

With a passion for combining data, technology and cultural insights to revolutionize company marketing strategies, Lee has transformed some of the world’s most influential brands for the digital economy. He has worked in executive leadership roles in London and across Asia and was previously Head of Digital Client Solutions at global media agency Wavemaker where he helped lead the Hong Kong agency's direction, growth, profitability and people development as well as directing global marketing campaigns for clients. Prior to that Lee was the Global Digital Strategy and Innovation Director for Vizeum in London, leading innovation across a global network for clients including Burberry and Honda.

Lee also directed digital growth and marketing for multinational companies at MediaCom in Hong Kong.

Lee’s appointment is effective from 2 December 2019 and he will be based at SCMP’s global headquarters in Hong Kong.

LG Electronics Inc. appointed PHD as its Global Media Agency of Record following a competitive market review that included Dentsu, Horizon and Carat. The appointment will see the Omnicom Media Group owned network manage the media planning and buying duties for the full portfolio of LG products in over 50 international markets.

Effective from January 2020, PHD will be tasked with supporting LG’s global growth through media, strategy, technology and data expertise. The assignment will see a global team of strategy leads based in key markets, in addition to a central team managing the business from a global hub in Seoul.

The appointment spans all regions, with Australia, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Spain, UK, USA and Vietnam being amongst the 50+ markets. LG will continue to use Korean agency HS Ad for local activations.

Aqilliz, a blockchain for marketing solutions provider, announced the appointment of Prateek Dayal as Chief Strategy Officer (CSO).

Prior to joining Aqilliz, Prateek held the role of APAC Innovation SVP at HSBC, one of the largest banking and financial services institutions in the world. With over 15 years of wide-ranging international exposure, Prateek previously served as Head of Strategy at Royal Bank of Scotland; VP of Mobile and Digital at Barclays Bank; and McKinsey & Company. Across these roles, Prateek led cross-functional teams to build new, innovative, and commercially viable business lines across payments, mobile and digital.

With a wealth of experience across the financial services sector, Prateek will lead the Aqilliz team in driving the adoption of blockchain and emerging technologies within the marketing sector. Led by Gowthaman Ragothaman, former Global Client Lead at WPP, Aqilliz addresses sector-specific challenges in the field of digital marketing and actively collaborate with various partners in the advertising, data, marketing, technology, and analytics industries.

New functionality for its open and flexible CRM platform Zendesk Sunshine have been launched earlier this month that lets companies connect and understand all their customer data. These capabilities built on Amazon Web Services (AWS) help companies boost agent productivity and personalize customer experiences with a complete view of their customers’ activity across systems.

GroupM, WPP’s media investment management group, recently rolled out its influencer marketing solution called INCA in India. Leveraging GroupM’s unmatched scale, INCA connects brands to trusted publishers and influencers.  It creates and promotes content in social channels and beyond to drive brand engagement across digital platforms, including YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter and TikTok.

MediaMath, acclaimed independent advertising technology company for brands, pledged to clean up the digital media supply chain by committing to a 100% accountable and addressable supply chain by the end of 2020.