Awards
Gold for Excellence in Programmatic Marketing at Marketing Interactive’s Marketing Excellence Awards 2021
Challenge
2020 was a massive year of disruption that gave way to new consumer behaviours and demands. Limited physical mobility, and the birth of WFH, gave rise to a consumer base that spends more time online than ever before.
The surge of online activity presented an opportunity for businesses to reach out to the many engaged users instantly, and allowed recovery through pivoting to digital ads and services.
With 98% of Singapore’s population connected to a mobile network, it is no surprise major telco player StarHub faced immense competition from competitors during this time, in an already competitive and saturated market. The recent entry of mobile virtual network operators had made opportunities to tap into the new demand for products and services more challenging than before, amid struggles to maintain a sustainable profit margin that would ensure consistent and cost-effective ROI and ROAS.
StarHub’s primary objective was to overcome its challenges by tapping into new opportunities in a rapidly changing environment which would drive conversions and online purchases for its mobile plans and phones by reaching and enticing as many non-StarHub subscribers as possible, as well as individuals who keep up to date with fresh mobile releases.
Second, StarHub would work to sustain continued engagement with its target audience in mind, building on touch-points through offers that would keep the brand relevant and top-of-mind.
Solution
Working with its media agency Carat, and Yahoo, StarHub sought to address its first objective to deliver to the right person the right message at the right place and time, and measure results transparently and in real-time to determine and optimise conversions and costs accurately.
Amid issues such as privacy and content trustworthiness, the campaign objective was to inform users about StarHub’s mobile phones and plans in a clear and straightforward manner that would drive active participation by leading users to engage with StarHub’s online store to browse its range of mobile phone products and plans.
For this particular strategy, StarHub opted for a combination of programmatic advertising and AI, the former of which has seen great success in SEA. With this combination, StarHub would be able to leverage first-party data to create a hyper-segmented and specified audience for a wide reach at scale by programmatically using Yahoo’s DSP inventory.
To ensure cost-effectiveness, StarHub made sure to not deliver any ads to existing StarHub mobile subscribers, but looked to target users in need of a phone/plan upgrade. This involved highly precise targeting that was made possible through Yahoo’s 200 billion cross-screen data points which looks at search, mail, content and more, of StarHub’s first-party CRM data to create a complete picture of its ideal audience.
Apart from identifying the right target audience, this strategy also leveraged data and programmatic tools to identify where and when the audience was consuming content, down to the minute details such as the timings when they were most likely to purchase.
Most important was message delivery. In order to provide a seamless experience that would boost and maximise conversion, StarHub utilised short and clear creatives with simple C2A’s to ensure users’ positive response to the targeted advertising. Persistency was also key, where the campaign employed re-targeting users who have indicated interest, but had not followed through with their purchase.
Results
Despite the challenges presented by both Singapore’s oversaturated telco market and the rapidly changing economic climate, StarHub’s highly strategic campaign, which combined AI, programmatic and creative range, succeeded in maintaining costs, as well as producing successful results that surpassed initial targets and goals.
Leveraging Yahoo’s full suite of DSP capabilities that focused on delivering to the right person, at the right place and time, with the right message, and delivering useful ad experiences in premium trusted environments, the campaign was able to successfully take advantage of growing consumer digital confidence and behaviour.
Consistent delivery of KPIs, and the surpassing of targets, led to renewals and extensions that saw the campaign shift from a tactical short-term promotion to an extended strategy for StarHub. The campaign was able to reach StarHub’s ideal audience through its targeted measures, driving conversion as well as amplifying StarHub’s brand awareness and value.
StarHub, with its media agency Carat and Yahoo, have proven how a programmatic-powered campaign that employs the right strategy and approach offers tremendous capabilities to drive purchases and to resonate among consumers in both the short and long term.
DENTSU CREATIVE Malaysia & Carat: Pizza Hut's Cheese Codes
Cheese Codes showcases an innovative use of media channels and tactics to connect with a new audience and drive commercial success. The campaign used a gamified ordering experience within mobile...
Merkle Singapore: Delivering Unified Customer Experiences...
Income Insurance Limited (Income), established in 1970, currently serves 1.7 million people in Singapore. Before COVID-19, insurance was an industry where offline sales channels were the busines...
DENTSU CREATIVE Hong Kong: Critical Core
DENTSU CREATIVE Hong Kong's brief for Critical Core was to create a tool accessible to children on the autism spectrum to build valuable social skills and at the same time help them connect and ...
DENTSU CREATIVE Indonesia: CurrenShe with OCBC NISP
CurrenShe is an augmented reality that connects womenpreneurs to our financial services using money.
Dentsu Creative India: The Responsible Manhole
Dentsu Creative India created an innovative warning device to make India's streets safer. This low-cost, scalable warning device saves lives and alerts riders to the open manholes scattered thro...
Carat Singapore: E-commerce Campaign with Philips Domesti...
Philips Domestic Appliances (DA) aims to be a digital-first marketer and boost e-commerce sales across business units in ASEAN. In the highly competitive, ever changing, and fragmented marketpla...
Isobar Australia: Disease Dilemmas with The Garvan Instit...
With thousands of disease related charities competing for donations, how do you decide who to help? The Garvan Institute of Medical Research needed a solution to help inform the public of their ...
Merkle Singapore: Live 247 with CapitaStar
The majority of CapitaStar users comprised of early Millennials and Gen Xs, but CapitaStar saw an opportunity in Gen Z shoppers, who are starting to enter the workforce, have increasing purchasi...
dentsu Redder: OvershootDay with CHANGE
Every second, minute, hour of the day, we are pushed to consume more. With the only expectation, to make our life better. Due to this expectation, we consume more than our planet can offer, resu...
dentsu Redder: Tok-Yo Flavors with Perfetti Van Melle
The Chupa Chups Tok-yo flavors campaign introduces, educates and excites Vietnamese tweens about the latest flavour pack that is inspired by Japan.
dentsu Isobar: Cat Streamers with KFC China
A part of the diverse lifestyle that Gen Z values is their strong connection to Chinese culture and heritage. This connection makes brands and products created in China phenomenally popular. To ...
Carat: Programmatic Campaign with StarHub Mobile
StarHub, with its media agency Carat and Yahoo, have proven how a programmatic-powered campaign that employs the right strategy and approach offers tremendous capabilities to drive purchases and...
dentsumcgarrybowen: In Love We Trust with Sinyi Realty 2
Sinyi Realty has backed up the success last year of its ‘In Love We Trust’ brand film (a Cannes Lions Grand Prix winner) with a sequel that has spurred another round of discussion on social issu...
DENTSU CREATIVE India: The Unfiltered History Tour with V...
The Unfiltered History Tour with VICE World News is an unofficial, interactive tour of the Museum’s disputed artefacts. Narrated by people from countries they were taken from. Through immersive ...
Happy Marketer: Single Source of Marketing Truth with TÜV...
TÜV Rheinland is one of the world’s leading testing service providers with more than 20,600 employees worldwide.
Happy Marketer: Future-ready Data-mart with Shopee
Shopee is the leading e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia & Taiwan and aims to equip merchants with innovative marketing and data tools to optimise business performance and serve customers...
Carat: Pandamart, so much more, and more and more
In November 2020, many Malaysians had pandemic fatigue and were looking for ways to escape the boredom of WFH. Countless other grocery delivery services came on the scene. Not yet a household na...
dentsu X: Heroes in the Sky with Disney Marvel Avengers
In 2018, The Avengers: Infinity War promotional campaign saw an iconic Malaysian building transformed into Stark Tower emblazoned with the Avengers logo. It was larger than life and the talk of ...
dentsu X: Malaysia’s First Virtual Street Food Festival w...
At the end of 2020, the third wave of Covid-19 cases surged in Malaysia, resulting in a strict new lockdown. Tiger wanted to bring back the excitement of street food in this ‘new normal’ by usin...
dentsu Webchutney: Voice of Hunger with Swiggy India
Hunger manifests itself in different ways - growling tummies, salivating mouths and people who see food everywhere. That's why, when Instagram launched voice messages, we kinda thought it looked...