Myanmar is going through a digital transformation. AdsMy, a local marketing tech platform, have produced a trends deck covering digital marketing and consumer behaviour for Myanmar in 2018. Programmatic, mobile, video, native and digital advertising are all highlighted as growth areas.
Myanmar is extremely hot with VC investment right now, built on the amazing speed of consumer growth in mobile and app usage.
![[Photo] Jaede Tan, Regional Director, App Annie](https://digitalinasia.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/photo-jaede-tan-regional-director-app-annie.jpg?w=203&h=228)
It is apparent that the evolution of mobile apps have transformed the everyday lives of people, and users continuously expect their favourite apps to be improved. There are several aspects of an app which users expect to be improved, but convenience is a core theme that underlies many of our predictions as we look to 2018.
1. Worldwide Gross Consumer App Store Spend Blows Past the $100 Billion Mark
The continued evolution of markets across the globe has led app monetization to continuously grow at an outstanding rate. Apart from games, which traditionally account for the majority of overall spend, we foresee spending in e-commerce apps such as Alibaba and Amazon to drive worldwide consumer spend – which is expected to grow about 30% year on year to exceed $110 billion in 2018. In APAC, consumer spend on apps hit $17.1 billion in H1 2017 alone.
2. App Store Curation Drives Higher Overall IAP Revenue and Expands Opportunity for Independent Publishers
In June 2017, both Apple and Google announced updates to the iOS App Store and Google Play aimed to alleviate this issue through app curation and editorial content. We predict that these updates will have a significant impact on apps in 2018, in particular apps that help people occupy their leisure time. These types of apps, which tend to be entertainment-centric, are most likely to connect with consumers when they are casually browsing through the app stores. Conversely, “needs-based” apps such as UberEats or DBS PayLah! are far more likely to be downloaded based on word of mouth recommendations or focused searches when a user encounters a particular need.
3. Broader Adoption of AR Apps
Pokémon GO and Snapchat sparked huge interest in augmented reality (AR) among the masses, and we foresee that AR will take another significant step forward towards realizing its massive potential in 2018.
Facebook, Google and Apple have taken the lead at their developer conferences in 2017, and together with the Chinese powerhouses Alibaba , Baidu and Tencent , have set the foundation for AR-related initiatives. These initiatives will accelerate the space by making it easier and faster for publishers to develop AR apps, while also stoking consumer interest. For example, in Japan, starting in May 2017, there has been a significant increase in iPhone app downloads for the top ranking apps by “Augmented Reality” app store search in Japan, and other APAC countries.
4. Fragmentation of the Video Streaming Space Accelerates
It is now not an uncommon sight to see people catching up on their favourite Netflix series or Hollywood movies while on the move. 2017 has been another extraordinary year for video streaming services and total time spent in Video and Entertainment apps tripled to almost 40 billion hours in APAC alone.
Between H1 2015 and H1 2017, time spent in the Video Players and Entertainment categories on Android phones in APAC has tripled to reach close to 40 billion hours – almost half of the worldwide total.
Year to date through October 31, 2017, these apps have driven significant growth of worldwide consumer spend for the Entertainment category on both iOS and Google Play. However, as some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry and app economy — including Netflix , Apple , Google , Facebook , Snap and Disney — have announced huge plans to expand their footprints in variety of ways, we expect that 2018 to mark the beginning of an inflection point for this space, in terms of fragmentation. In fact, our research shows that Android users in South Korea who use video streaming apps are significantly more likely than average to be accessing other video and related entertainment services.
Overall, this space will continue to see steady growth in terms of revenue and engagement, but in the years that follow, consumers may start to rationalize how they spend their time and money among a dizzying array of choices, resulting in some players succumbing to profit pressures as they get crowded out of this competitive space.
5. Mobile Pushes Towards the Center of the Retail Customer Journey
Analysts and experts have pronounced the retail apocalypse in recent times, and we see apps as a way to reinvigorate consumers’ retail experience. Brick-and-mortar retailers have already embraced apps and shoppers are now very engaged; results are telling from the Great Singapore Sale 2017 , which saw an increase in sales thanks to the GoSpree app. In Indonesia, which has a population of 261 million and a burgeoning middle class, users spend an average of just over 90 minutes per month in Shopping apps, placing it at #2 after South Korea. On 11 November 2017, dubbed Single’s Day, Alibaba generated a record breaking $25.3 billion in sales, with mobile users accounting for 90% of sales. These numbers are only the beginning of what is a rapidly evolving retail experience for consumers.
Come 2018, apps will continue to cause consumers to change their shopping habits which will in turn redefine the relationship between and even the very nature of existing retail channels (e.g., mobile app, web, brick-and-mortar). China, for instance, is one huge influencer in this area. We are seeing people in western markets increasingly use physical stores as a place to pick up items purchased on mobile. In addition, cash registers’ longstanding role in the checkout and payment process will become reduced, or in some cases replaced, by mobile. For many consumers, mobile will be a core part of the shopping experience regardless of channel.
6. Restaurant Aggregators Drive Mobile Conversion as Delivery-as-a-Service Further Penetrates Premium Markets
As we predicted last year, there was some consolidation in the food delivery space. Looking ahead to next year, we expect that aggregators such as Korea’s Yogiyo will continue to expand the addressable market for this space by opening up under penetrated markets as well as converting users who do not currently use mobile apps from intermediaries to order meals. Meanwhile, delivery as a service (DaaS) providers (e.g., UberEATS , Deliveroo) will gain market share in premium markets where customers are more likely to pay more for higher-end restaurants that don’t have their own delivery fleets. Furthermore, we expect more quick-service restaurants (QSR) to respond to the increased competition from food delivery by partnering with DaaS apps, similar to McDonald’s growing partnership with UberEATS . As with video streaming, this space will face consolidation in later years as it needs to rationalize the fragmentation felt by customers and the profit pressures felt by service providers competing in a crowded space.
7. Finance-Related Apps Poised for Most Significant Transformation in 2018
In 2017 in Asia-Pacific specifically, the growth of downloads in the Finance category outpaced all app categories (non-games) combined, with China leading the way. Person-to-person (P2P) payment apps, like WeChat, AliPay, GoPay, Grab Pay and PayTM have been some of the shining stars in the fintech app revolution. They have transformed how consumers, particularly millennials, exchange money, by displacing the use of cash and checks. In the next year, we expect these services to capitalize on their popularity and broaden their range of services in an effort to expand their revenue potential, fend off increased competition from traditional banks and deepen user engagement. With retailers adopting such apps as an option for customers, we expect P2P payment apps to see increased transaction volume. These initiatives have been well received by users, as they will provide even greater levels of convenience. In addition, this space will see increased activity from successful players in other categories, like messaging and social networking, who are constantly looking for additional ways to serve, monetize and engage their large user bases.
These are just a handful of areas where we expect the app economy to evolve over the near future. Despite how far this space has advanced over its first decade, it is just scratching the surface of its full potential. Users increasingly expect apps to completely transform the very nature of how they accomplish goals and tasks, as well as create brand new experiences not possible on other platforms. We are excited to see how app developers change the world by delivering on these needs over the app economy’s second decade.
iKorea is a column by Soyoon Bach, a Digital Marketing professional in Seoul, covering developments in the Korean digital ecosystem.
Programmatic media buying is a powerful infant. While the technology itself is fairly new, it’s making strides globally. According to eMarketer, the programmatic market in the United States is projected to reach an estimated amount of 26.78 billion USD by the end of this year.
While North America is still by far the biggest programmatic market to date, Asia is quickly catching up and experiencing fast growth rates. Japan, Singapore, and Australia are leading the way as more mature programmatic markets in APAC. Korea is a big digital ad spender – the sixth largest in the world. However, programmatic buying is struggling to get its footing in the nation.
The estimated programmatic spend in Korea as of 2016 was around 141 million USD, which is far behind the billions spent in North America. Also, the definition of “programmatic transactions” is still murky; therefore, it’s unclear how much of that 141 million is truly programmatic. So why is this the case? How could one of the leaders of digital ad spending in Asia have resisted the strong programmatic current taking over the industry?
To understand this phenomenon, it’s important to take a look back through the history of Korea’s digital landscape. Since Yahoo! entered the domestic market in 1997, the digital ecosystem has largely been shaped and influenced by web portals, whereas web portals became fatally disrupted with the introduction of Google in North America. 1999 saw the birth of two web portals that still remain local titans – Daum and Naver. Dozens of other web portals competed for market share but Naver solidified its place at the top in 2003 and has maintained the position ever since. Daum come as a not-so-close second (the Bing to its Google if you may).
Naver is a formidable giant. The key difference between Google and Naver is that Google is a launching-off point. You start on Google and use it as a tool to help you get to where you need to go. Naver is different. It’s its own fully functioning ecosystem, equipped with search functions, blogs, cafes (communities), maps, ask sections, news, shopping, webtoons, music, real estate, finance, etc. You could access a mind-boggling amount of content without ever having to truly leave the platform. The experience is enclosed in comparison to Google’s openness.
This is probably the biggest reason why programmatic is stunted in Korea. One of the reasons why programmatic is such a hit is because it makes it so much easier to sell and buy ad inventory. There were an estimated 1.82 billion active websites in the US in April 2017. Imagine advertisers having to shift through that many websites to decide which publisher’s inventory they want to purchase. It also makes it that much harder for publishers to manually sell their inventory. But when you put it into an automated system, such as programmatic media buying, it relieves the pressures of manually selling and buying.
However, Naver never has this problem. Many Koreans go to Naver to start web surfing and usually will stay within the platform for most, if not all, of their internet journey. Thus, advertisers will always go to Naver to buy inventory because they know that it’s guaranteed to be shown to a wide audience. Unlike Google, that has famously refused any form of disruptive ads on its search engine (e.g. banners and pop-ups), Naver allows ads to be shown on a variety of placements all throughout their portal. And it’s always in high demand.
Advertisers have to go through booking processes for most of the inventory, possibly facing hefty penalties for booking cancellations. They also have to adhere to strict rules set by Naver, be satisfied with simplistic reports that don’t reveal much, deal with the strict forbiddance of third-party tracking, etc. For Naver Timeboard, which guarantees your ads will be shown in the spot right under the main search engine for one hour, advertisers can pay up to 30,000 USD. FOR ONE HOUR.
Advertisers grumble and moan but continually go back to Naver because that’s where their customers are. They can’t help but use it the way that most advertisers can’t avoid using Google for their search campaigns. You’re giving up too many impressions when you do. And because there’s such a high demand for their advertising space, sometimes requiring advertisers to book months in advance, they have absolutely no incentive to put their inventory out in a competitive marketplace. Daum has also followed in Naver’s footsteps.
So without Naver and Daum inventory, the marketplace for programmatic media buying just shrunk drastically, to a point where most advertisers don’t see the appeal of even bothering. Even with the appeal of more granular targeting options, more competitive pricing, and the ability to derive great insights about customer behavior, the lack of inventory is a huge barrier to entry.
However, Korea can’t stay this way forever. Global trends push for more transparency, more data, more precision and efficiency. High-tech Korean users are gravitating towards Google products and Korean branches of global agencies continue to feel pressure from abroad to start implementing programmatic practices. Programmatic technology platforms are arriving domestically in bulk. DCM, MediaMath, Adjust, Turn, Criteo, DataXu, and Rocket Fuel are just a couple of the players that are aiming to get in the market early.
It’s only a matter of time before the wall collapses and programmatic infiltrates the domestic market with full force. This leads to interesting questions that cannot yet be answered. How will powerhouses Naver and Daum react to this threat to their dominance? How will this change the Korean digital landscape and its heavy reliance on web portals to direct their internet activity? What strategies will Google utilize to take advantage of this situation? How will this push for transparency and an open web have ripple effects across other industries that have benefited from this enclosed ecosystem?
I think we’ll find out sooner than we think.
With Mobile quickly becoming the go to channel for brands, there is a quiet revolution happening in the world of marketing. Mobile is growing up, and getting serious as it moves front and centre. Here are our top Mobile advertising trends in APAC for the year ahead.
1. Rise of the apps
App use is growing 22% year on year, driven by increased smartphone adoption. Consumers already spend more than 50% of their total digital media time in app. This promises to grow again in 2018.
2. Gaming is the new TV
With 27% of time on mobile devices spent gaming, mobile games are slowly replacing TV as the backdrop to everyday life. One of the biggest opportunities for brands in 2018 is leveraging mobile gaming as a high reach, context neutral environment, just like TV or UGC / Social Media.
3. Mobile video keeps on rolling
Mobile video advertising spend has grown by 63% in over 2017. And with 4 times as many consumers preferring video over static advertising, brands will continue to top up in 2018.
4. Mobile native creativity
As consumers spend a majority of their media time on mobile, expect mobile native interactive and vertical video formats and functionality to move front and centre. Marketers will make more use of mobile capabilities to engage consumers in 2018.
5. Consumer choice and permission based advertising
With the rise of subscription media like Netflix, and increased adoption of ad blockers, consumers have more choice over their exposure to ads. Rewarded ads on mobile get 68% approval ratings from consumers, compared to only 20% who approve of pre-roll.
6. Mobile only consumers
With 65% of consumers in emerging markets already mobile only, and those in developed economies very much mobile first, the next generation may never experience the internet the way we do. Avid voice searchers, and heavy app users who avoid the desktop, they will see the world in a whole new way.
7. Mobile brand safety tracking and viewability grows up
Mobile devices are personal, so it’s even more crucial that advertising is delivered in a way that works for both advertisers and customers. Brand safety and viewability measurement will drive increased scrutiny of media investment, and a cleaner advertising experience for consumers.
8. Programmatic growth
Advertising spend is shifting fast to programmatic, and even faster from desktop to mobile. With mobile video set to account for 28% of ALL ad spend by 2019 it’s time to get on the mobile programmatic train.
Aparna Krishnan, Associate Director of Strategic Planning, Mindshare, Malaysia
From the Internet of People (IOP) to Internet of Things (IOT): we are at the cynosure of behavioural change and technology. Asia Pacific known for its heterogeneity is a motley of sub-cultures and mind-sets, yet consumers in the region are unvaryingly relinquishing control and giving authority to technology. The screen bathing Asian consumer is appraising Connected Living as an evolution mandated by reliance on technology and the need for convenience. The numbers say so.
Within the APAC region, the adoption rates for smart technologies/connected objects have been slow yet steady. The most popular connected object being Smart TV, followed by Smart wristbands and then the Smart watch. In terms of appetite of markets towards connected objects – China leads ahead of the curve, followed by Thailand and then Japan.
Source – Global Web Index, Q4 2016
In lieu of the profusion of data and our knowledge on adoption of smart technology, below is a realistic prophecy at APAC’s ‘smart’ future both from a Consumer and Marketer perspective.
The Consumer Perspective
The jarring digital sever at home
With the multitude of solutions that smart objects provide, more and more consumers could fall prey to the Ostrich problem – the tendency to bury their head in sand and intentionally avoid or reject information. Picture this – a family sitting around a smart dinner table not talking to one another in the real world, the parents looking at data records transmitted to the table from the kid’s shoe that monitored how the kid had been holing up and not interacting with friends!
Connected living could be constructing glass walls between individuals who can communicate with each other but instead choose not to. We could be rewiring ourselves to function better online than offline!
Return of TV time!
With Connected living freeing up more time in consumer lives there is bound to be a rise in Couch Culture, this could possibly spell the comeback of TV time in Asia. It might not be linear TV or a streaming service on the TV screen it could be content being rendered on any flat surface in a smart home. This surface agnostic content streaming could be intuitive and customized with input feeds from other smart objects such as their mood info relayed from their smart clothes.
Picture this – In Singapore, an overworked millennial is trying to get some sleep after a long day at work, however brain activity measured predicts that sleep will be induced only 3 hours later thereby turning the ceiling into a screen streaming his favourite TV show that automatically switches off when he dozes off.
Circle of Trust will wear out
Due to the eavesdropping ability of connected objects privacy concerns in consumers will touch an all-time high. Mindfulness of consumers towards the types of data being collected and shared by connected objects will be questioned; they will empower themselves to read the labels (like wash care labels) on smart objects. Because of a chunk of responsible and mindful consumers there will emerge conversations around what kind of data can be shared and stored by smart objects. This could possibly also create room for housekeeping rules related to privacy.
Living in the moment, we are all aware that though data steers the marketing of today, it is the consumer who keeps control. This is explicit from the fact that in spite of exponential growth in mobile penetration advertising is not embraced to the same extent. In such a chaotic context, we marketers cannot be desperate for order and a rulebook – we must avoid being overwhelmed by the data and avoid a fool’s rush in mentality.
The Marketer Perspective
Real time data will deliver immediate insights
There will be a new source for observed behavioural data of consumers that could feed in as inputs enabling faster insights into product performance, consumer trends and purchase behaviour. For example, through connected vending machines, Coca-Cola reports spikes in its beverage consumption on college campuses before certain television shows air, a specific insight that not only leads to better understanding of customer demographics, but one that also presents opportunities for targeted marketing.
Diversity in devices and skills
There will be richer diversity in the ‘devices’ and ‘skills’ that can integrate with AI systems , fuelled by an open source model.
Eg: C by GE is a table lamp that incorporates the Alexa Voice Service, a microphone and a speaker, and consumers can use it without possessing an Echo – or even a smartphone.
Hyundai providing members of its My Hyundai program with the ability to start their vehicle, set the internal temperature and switch on the lights before leaving the house.
Shift in the dynamics of advertising
There will be a transformation in the way low involvement products are being purchased.
FMCGs being the key Adex contributors in the APAC region could be frontrunners and the biggest beneficiary of Smart living. The replenishment of detergents by the washing machine through e-commerce partnerships, the refrigerator ordering milk for you to pick up on your way back home etc. The categories and brands with loyalty and high frequency of purchase stand to benefit the most. It might even usher in a change in the dynamics of advertising – with marketers having to focus only on brand building efforts.
A breakthrough example of Connected objects used as a marketing tool to deliver sales is the case of Rexona Deodorant in Malaysia. We used Wearables to communicate the Motionsense technology that releases freshness withheld in capsules on moving. This was a great example of media integrating with Smart objects to deliver business results, a 2% increase in penetration!
Undoubtedly, adrenaline times are here!
As marketers in the quest to future proofing businesses in the Connected landscape, we need to win both hearts and minds; the trick is to be User first, technology second and to dwell in the possibilities.
Each year GroupM publishes its overview and speculations on the state of digital marketing and its implications for advertisers. This year’s report – Interaction 2017 predicts that in 2017 digital’s share of ad investment in the developing world will at last have caught up with the developed world, to around 33%.
10 countries have already witnessed digital overtake TV, with a further five expected in 2017, two from APAC; France, Germany, Ireland, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Interaction 2017
In 2017 it’s challenging to discriminate digital marketing from all marketing. Consumers barely separate their digital and analog lives; little media is published in only analog form and enterprises infuse digital processes into every aspect of their organisations.
However, it’s probably true to say that marketing strategy and marketing services remain more siloed than consumer behaviour, and equally true that marketing and sales organisations remain more separated than they should be given the collapse of the purchase funnel.
With Valentine’s Day hot on the heels of Chinese New Year – itself coming about a month after Christmas – there have been and will be great opportunities for retailers to capture the gift-giving market. Yet, it’s been well publicized that the retail industry is flagging, with data showing that the average vacancy rate of suburban malls, has doubled from less than 1 per cent in 2013 to 2.4 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2016.
The problem is that we’re no longer in an era of business as usual. Retailers cannot employ the same tactics which have worked for years and expect customers to come flocking back. In today’s age, customer experience is the new currency. The strategy of leveraging products to gain a competitive advantage is obsolete when you are fighting with “everything stores” like Amazon and Alibaba which offer almost infinite choice and cheaper prices. When everything is available all the time, at any price, experience is the remaining true differentiator
How can retailers generate powerful experiences to capture today’s new customers (and their Valentine’s day gifting dollar)? It’s a journey to get from being a product-based business to an experience-based business. In its recent “Path of Experience” report, Adobe sheds insights on the 5 milestones to experience-driven commerce:
While the journey might sound a bit daunting at the outset, the key is to start small, move forward, and not stagnate. By carefully evaluating their ability to act on the five capabilities described above, retailers should get a better idea of where they need to go. And as they do, the customer experience will surely improve.
For more information, please download the full report here.
The online population of Myanmar is growing at a rapid pace, with Telenor claiming 13.7m subscribers in a recent release. 52% of customers are active data users.
This matches MPT’s 14 million subscribers, and dwarfs Ooredoo’s reported 5 million subscribers.
Myanmar now has at least 33 million active mobile subscriptions in a country with an official population of 53 million. Smartphone usage rate is reported at 80%.
Viber estimates that it has 18 million active users in the country – meaning that almost 1 in 2 of all active cell phones in the country have Viber installed on them.
Myanmar Digital Future – Telenor [Infographic]
Facebook has admitted to misleading advertisers on key metrics for the third time in as many months.
On this occasion it’s a discrepancy between the number of likes and shares Facebook shows for web links, and also issues with the number of likes and reaction emojis that page owners see for their live videos.
In the first case in September it was revealed that the social network had been inflating a key video viewing metric for years.
In the second case, there were multiple errors:
Facebook should be given credit for being upfront about its mistakes and rectifying its errors. But the more measurement errors and corrections it discloses, the more difficult it becomes to trust Facebook’s measurements.
It’s a dilemma that some brands and agencies have been wrestling with for a while, and it’s one that may not subside until Facebook allows independent firms to directly measure these previously faulty stats, rather than relying on Facebook for the raw, corrected data.
If Facebook ends the walled garden then many of these problems go away.
2015 promises to be an exciting year for Digital Marketing and Media in Asia. The core metrics won’t feel that different from 2014, but there will be increased focus in a number of areas, alongside raised expectations as Asia expands and matures from a Digital perspective.
Here are the ten trends that, in DIA’s view, will change how online marketers across the region do business in the year ahead: Continue reading 2015 in Preview: Top 10 APAC Digital Trends 2015
