Day: March 30, 2020

In the world of hyper-speed, dramatic scale-ups and connectivity, social media can now be categorised as a mature marketing channel. Although the popular belief is that organic is dead, there are still ample opportunities, especially for brands that do not rely only on paid approach and prefer conversation over the interruption.

However, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are largely focused on driving short-term campaigns. This leads to a temporary boost in numbers and often comes at the cost of revenue. In the long run, these campaigns have minimal effect on actually growing the brand.

With all the latest research supporting the impact of emotionally driven, personalised campaign strategies, there is a steady rise of private channels or messenger apps such as WhatsApp.

These channels make your audience be themselves and comfortably share recommendations, opinions on product or service with a closed group of individuals, which in other circumstances they would not have gone public with.

When a pandemic strikes and the world leaders and analysts forecast the crisis will have a long-term financial after-effect globally cause of the unabated spread of the virus, what role does a brand marketer play?

Also Read: Why every startup needs to embrace video marketing in 2020

The economy of marketing

The major advantage of digital marketing, besides the fact that it does not require face-to-face interaction and thus in tandem with social distancing practices, is that it is measurable. Marketers can obtain which of their activities generate the highest quality leads and at what expense, in other words, they know the ROI.

Let’s look at a few activities happening around brands and digital media now as we speak:

• Airlines and cruise industry have either reduced, postponed, or paused their advertising campaigns given the current climate. Does it make sense to pay for traffic if consumers aren’t buying travel … eh?

• With the “act of going outside” heavily discouraged, any advertiser driving traffic for brick-and-mortar locations is likely seeing a decline in effort.

• If the economic downturn as forecasted realises along with widespread fear of health, pharma, healthcare, and vices (i.e. alcohol) will thrive and grow.

• An uptick for e-commerce, especially for CPG is definite, although, that would have a big impact on digital marketers as they compete for the purchases of not-so-frequent online shoppers.

• Supply chain and logistics will be stressed with delivery windows stretched back to pre-Prime days of five to seven-days. In some cases, the new releases – be it movies or new product lines, will have to wait it out.

• With several tradeshows getting cancelled, businesses that saw a surge in leads and activities during events participation are diverting their spending into digital media to make up for the missed opportunities.

• Remote work policies are fuelling investments in work-flow automation or project management tools such as Slack and Trello, e-learning platform subscriptions and telecommuting tools such as Zoom, Skype, etc.

Also Read: I tried TikTok out and now I get why it is the future of digital marketing

Being responsible and not an opportunist

As grim as it looks, in times of crisis, people look towards their leaders and institutions for information, reassurance, and guidance.

Increasingly, they also look to brands, thus making it the primary duty as marketers to take ownership and channel communication.

Let’s start by reinforcing the sentiment of Alex Josephson, global head of Twitter Next and Eimear Lambe, director of Twitter Next’s thought that “this is not a ‘marketing opportunity’ to capitalise on, and we do not recommend brands opportunistically linking themselves to a health scare.”

Trying times do highlight gaps. Now is the time to move the efforts online and dig potential opportunities in the business’s sales and marketing channels.

Start with these four insightful questions to map out your next marketing action plan:

What are the current offline marketing channels you have?

Repurposing a number of outdoor advertising billboards, swiftly issuing messages of support, donations for medical supplies and engaging in community building activities to interact with consumers are some of the prompt recalibration done by the luxury brands around the world during this crisis situation.

How can you port your offline channels to the online space effectively?

Increasingly, marketers will need to be sure to target and optimise their content so that heavy-lifting ATL awareness campaigns, some of which are already in play, run at the same time as easy-to-share digital content, which consumers will then be free to use and discuss in their own time.

Also Read: Branding is fundamental to digital marketing, and here are 7 rules to live by

While having great customer service and e-commerce experience is imperative, the alignment of sales and marketing teams to successfully execute virtual events and digital engagement will be the difference-maker in maintaining growth rates.

Which online platform reaches out to your most relevant target audience and how to improve company’s visibility and promotion strategy?

Saving commute time? Take this opportunity to fine-tune your digital assets:

• Website content – Ensure that it contains the right marketing messages with the right call to action.
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Check your current website organic search rankings. Benchmark with competitors. Optimise for search engines to improve the quality and quantity of your web traffic.
• Content marketing – Generate ideas for new blog posts, video storyboard and start writing the next newsletter for your customers. Build marketing material that can be part of social conversation and is easily shareable.
• Press releases and articles – Build topics you can inform the media and your clients about e.g. measures in place to fight the current situation.
• Social media engagement – Exploring social and search channels such as Facebook, Instagram, Google Adwords, LinkedIn and strategising how you can improve engagement.

What is a comfortable budget to test when advertising on each medium?

Start small, experiment a lot, optimise, analyse and plan your next move. Whatever is your budget, you should always be able to extract value out of it.

Also Read: 10 digital marketing strategies for startups

Having said that, at the start of business, with little to no money, you can only get creative and partake in guerrilla techniques of using word of mouth, organic social media and key networks to sell your product or service. It’s time to get back into that mentality.

SEO is ongoing while keeping your momentum at it, be more creative with respect to your marketing expenses and look for ways to use marketing tactics that don’t have a significant cost.

Co-existing with COVID

Once the precautions are in place, do your best to maintain a “business as usual” stance. Survival matters more than market domination at this point. Let’s keep calm, be tenacious, support other businesses in any way possible and take the necessary steps so that you come out of this disruption stronger than ever.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post. We are discussing inclusivity at work and women all of March. Share your thoughts, tips and best practices on how we can make the startup ecosystem more inclusive, gender and culture diverse.

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The post Surviving COVID-19: How to adapt your digital marketing strategy amidst a global crisis appeared first on e27.

As of March 18, daily confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Korea have dropped from highs of over 900 to manageable levels of around 90.

More encouraging is that the death rate has dropped to less than a per cent. Korea is winning the battle and it is largely thanks to fast action and the use of technology, including smart city technologies that have been in development for years.

Smart city technology is not just a way to realise the gleaming metropolises of science fiction dreams. It can also be mustered in the fight against new and dynamic threats to urban society.

Smart City curbs COVID-19

Last week two Korean government ministries announced that they would use smart city technology to support epidemiological investigations in a bid to contain South Korea’s COVID-19 outbreak.

Though the KCDC (Korea Center for Disease Control & Prevention) has been trying to track outbreaks and trace transmission paths, its agents find themselves overwhelmed in areas with mass outbreaks such as the southwestern city of Daegu and the surrounding North Gyeongsang Province, the epicentre of the disease in South Korea.

To help, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport developed a system to support epidemiological investigations using the “Smart City Data Hub,” a tool to analyse urban data the ministry has been co-developing with the Ministry of Science and ICT since 2018. 

Using the data hub, epidemiological investigators can request, obtain and confirm data about coronavirus cases and people they have come into contact with, through a single platform. This has greatly simplified what had been a tedious and time-consuming process.

The new system went into operation on a trial basis from Monday, March 16. 

Also Read: Smarter Cities will help, but not solve, global pollution crisis

In the last week, daily confirmed cases of coronavirus have dropped from highs of more than 900 to manageable levels of around 90 per day in Korea. That was without the need for city-wide lockdowns, blanket travel bans or widespread self-isolation tactics that are now being implemented elsewhere in the world to curb the spread of COVID-19.

‘Smart City Data Hub’  is a dramatic example of how the so-called “smart city” technology is improving the lives of South Koreans.

Promoted by the South Korean government as a key sector of the brewing Fourth Industrial Revolution, smart cities use cutting-edge information technology such as artificial intelligence and IoT to make urban administration more efficient and give residents more fine-tuned control over their lives.

Smart cities are also providing government entities, big corporations, and startups alike a new space in which to innovate. They may even offer a path for inter-Korean reconciliation.

Government fosters innovation

In 2017, South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in organised a special committee to develop a set of recommendations to help propel the nation forward in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Spanning multiple ministries and 13 sectors of industry, the initiative largely focuses on how technological progress and innovation can be fostered in different industries.

One of the key projects is a “smart city growth engine” which will kickstart the process of incorporating a variety of technological enhancements across multiple Korean cities, including (among others) Seoul and Busan, turning them into smart cities.

The project identifies a ‘smart city’ as one that is deeply connected via a wide range of telecommunications and information technology working in synergy, bringing many benefits to all citizens who live, work or travel there.

Also Read: COVID-19 is a serious wake up call for sustainable innovation

This is not Korea’s first attempt to build a smart city. The nation is credited with the construction of the world’s first smart city, Songdo, south of Incheon. The new city was built to be energy-smart with a lower cost of living and ICT connectivity throughout. Construction completed in 2015, and while the city’s population is still only 100,000 — a small town by Korean standards — it is growing.

Nearly US$93 million will be invested to build a 4,237 km ‘self-communication network’ that will provide free public wifi to 300 terminals in public facilities, a huge wifi network in 24 large parks comprising over 100,000 square meters, as well as supplying Wi-Fi to all 7,400 city buses and 1,499 village buses operating in and from the city.

“It is the first project in the world to establish a public telecommunications network in a big city like Seoul without having to borrow from its previously established network or the commercial telecommunications network of a mobile carrier,” said Seoul Information and Communication Officer Wan-Gip Kim. “Through this, we will provide public Wi-Fi service throughout Seoul, and further expand to various services by applying real-time data.”

Startups bringing in innovation

While the Korean government is doing a good job organising public projects, it is the startups that are cashing in by bringing their technological innovations to bear.

With one of the biggest benefits of living in a smart city is the connected home environment, IoT companies are in a prime position to reach a wider audience with President Moon’s four-year initiative.

One such company is N.thing, which brings internet connection to your home garden with sensors for plant monitoring. Another example is Luple, who uses AI to identify the link between lighting and human behaviour for better control of reactive lighting.

They are by no means alone.

Also Read: How Vietnam’s e-commerce firm Tiki is tiding over Covid-19 crisis

Founded in 2016 by former employees of the local software firm ToBeSoft, Gractor specialises in AIoT platforms, that is to say, IoT platforms that integrate artificial intelligence.

Its smart city platform collects, analyses, applies and shares all sorts of city-data. Its platform also links the police, fire department and other government agencies with one another and existing devices to provide better, more stable services.

A startup that operates the on-demand valet service Itcha, is taking part in the Seoul suburb of Bucheon’s smart city project to resolve a parking shortage in the city’s old downtown.

Many smart city projects entrust startups to handle the management of residential spaces. One such startup is APTNER, which automates tasks between apartment residents and managers and offers digital services related to apartment management, including payments, community reservations, repair applications, electronic voting, vehicle entry control, and real-time notifications.

South Korean startups have been especially active in developing technology for self-driving automobiles, a key smart city project. Bitsensing, a radar technology startup for smart city and autonomous driving, can not only replace the traditional method for speed and red-light enforcement but also through its ability to collect real-time traffic data to resolve urban congestion issues.

Also Read: COVID-19 is a serious wake-up call for sustainable innovation

Another startup, SOS Lab, is one of the world’s leading developers of LiDAR sensors that function as the eyes of autonomous vehicles. It recently signed an MoU with US-based semiconductor supplier ON Semiconductor to develop and commercialise LiDAR technology for automobiles and smart factories.

Smart city technology might even open a path to permanent peace on the divided Korean Peninsula. KAIST professor Jeong Jae-seung, the master planner of the Sejong City smart city project, said smart city projects could be a win-win for the two Koreas. He said, “We will be able to achieve great synergy if we cooperate.”

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post. We are discussing inclusivity at work and women all of March. Share your thoughts, tips and best practices on how we can make the startup ecosystem more inclusive, gender and culture diverse.

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The recent COVID-19 outbreak has exposed one of the most integral elements of modern society – the schooling system. UNESCO reports that at least 290.5 million students’ educations have been thrown into disarray due to the outbreak.

Parties most vulnerable to this shock would be those suffering from inadequate schooling systems in the first place – a segment that much of Southeast Asia unmistakably belongs to. As students are forced to stay home, schools have started to experiment with alternative education delivery methods, largely spearheaded by the region’s startups.

We must first address the elephant in the room: the poor quality of education in Southeast Asia. Take the Indonesian government, which has made education central to its agenda. Indonesia boasts an impressive 93 per cent net enrolment rate for schooling, yet 55 per cent of Indonesians who complete school are functionally illiterate.

This can be attributed to factors including overcrowded schools, inefficient teaching methods, and the mismanagement of public schools. The COVID-19 outbreak did not induce any new failures in the education system – it simply provided the trigger for other parties to step in and provide meaningful and innovative alternatives for learning.

Edutech startups are not new, nor are they few and far between; in Vietnam alone there are at least 87 different edutech startups. Indonesia’s Zenius and Vietnam’s Topica Group are among the older edutech startups, being founded in 2007 and 2008 respectively.

However, the two received large funding rounds only very recently, with Zenius raising US$20 million in 2019 and Topica Group raising US$50 million in 2018, largely fundraising on the back of improving digital infrastructure and high internet and smartphone penetration rates.

Also Read: Edtech requires certain distinct help that’s different from other verticals: StormBreaker’s Pat Thitipattakul

On the policy front, Indonesia has started to forge ahead in terms of devising new policies to address these developments, as evident by the founder and CEO of Indonesian edutech behemoth Ruangguru being recruited by the President of Indonesia to serve as one of his Special Staff. In an attempt to leverage technology to better collate student data, the Ministry of Education has introduced the e-rapor, a system of collecting and disbursing end-of-semester report cards digitally instead of printing out hard copies.

The concept of live streaming a class is by no means a new concept. However, the outbreak has turned distance learning into a popular topic of discourse, as students are forced to attend classes online from their homes. Teachers thusly turn to startups such as Malaysia’s FrogAsia, which takes the classroom to the cloud, bringing online distance learning into reality.

A convenient side effect of this is that teachers are now free to teach without the constraint of a packed classroom, giving them the ability to reach larger cohorts. This unique advantage addresses issues that are fundamental to the region’s education system –  the glaring shortage of teachers and classrooms.

Given a generation that is increasingly digital-savvy and willing to adopt new technologies, entrepreneurs are progressively identifying addressable pain points and developing new and creative methods for students to receive their education.

With the closing down of schools, a centuries-old education system has been thrust into what could be a new normal – the mandate of social distancing forces teachers to be creative with how they deliver their lessons, whilst making sure the experience seamless and efficient.

Also Read: These Indonesian edutech startups are helping students cope and thrive during the COVID-19 crisis

The environment surrounding the education system in Southeast Asia has been long overdue for disruption, and with governments largely being inactive, we believe it is up to entrepreneurs to step in and pick up the slack. The Southeast Asian edutech scene is largely at its early stages, so expect the COVID-19 outbreak to be the tipping point of the industry’s break out.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post. We are discussing inclusivity at work and women all of March. Share your thoughts, tips and best practices on how we can make the startup ecosystem more inclusive, gender and culture diverse.

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The post How the Coronavirus is teaching edutech startups a much-needed lesson appeared first on e27.

The coronavirus outbreak has already caused a plethora of issues around the globe and forced public and private companies to rethink their operations and switch to remote work in an attempt to stop the pandemic.

This does make sense and can indeed help to stop the spread of the deadly virus offline, but are millions of people who now have to work from home prepared to face online viruses and threats?

How many companies have adapted to the new environment by strengthening their perimeter which now includes employees’ home devices? For long or not, the world has clearly entered a whole new realm, which requires reassessing the approach to securing corporate digital space.

Fighting cybercrime for nearly 17 years now, and studying hackers’ tactics, tools, and attack vectors, we can clearly see that they are making most of the current situation, using all available methods from social engineering to attacks on VPNs.

We predict an increase in the number of cyberattacks on computers, equipment (routers, video cameras), and unprotected home networks used by employees who have switched to remote work due to the spread of COVID-19.

Employees of financial institutions, telecom operators, and IT companies are, particularly at risk. We believe that the goal of cyberattacks will be the theft of money or personal data.

Our digital forensics specialists have been engaged in several incident response cases, in which an employee working remotely was an initial point of compromise. For example, in 2017, cybercriminals compromised a bank by attacking a system administrator who accessed banking servers from a home computer.

Also Read: Singapore-based Group-IB opens inaugural CyberCrimeCon to public for the first time

With the home office now becoming a new norm, rather than an exception, we have decided to look at just a handful of scenarios for security teams tasked with establishing remote work capabilities to consider. 

Amid this difficult time, cybercriminals capitalise on coronavirus fears and panic. We detect hundreds of corona-related phishing emails masked as alerts, advisories, and guidelines sent out by “international organisations”, “local authorities” etcetera. Not long ago, ESET warned about phishing emails purporting to be from the World Health Organisation (WHO). The recipients were prompted to click on malicious links to receive “extremely important information about the virus”.

The links can install malware, stealing personal data and user credentials. The most recent phishing campaign, detected by our computer emergency response team, was disguised as an app purportedly from UNICEF to track updates about the virus. The app was nothing but a keylogger and RAT designed to spy and steal user data.

So just imagine what happens if an infected user device is connected to a corporate network via an unprotected channel. The email accounts have to be at least protected with two-factor authentication. Moreover, it is required that malware detonation systems are implemented to analyse incoming and outgoing emails.

VPN is a common and generally good practice for establishing a secure connection to a corporate network. True, but only when properly deployed. Even though there are a lot of guidelines on how to install and use VPN, the risks are still high to misconfigure it and end up with a home device, not covered by the organisation’s perimeter security tools, connected to the network’s critical segments – a sweet spot for attackers.

Also Read: On threat hunting and cybercrime: How Group-IB is helping the region in cybercrime prevention

Not only for the financial gain but for espionage purposes as well. Network segmentation and access right differentiation are both required. Not to say that VPNs have to be protected with two-factor authentication.

Finally, banks’ – a prime target for financially-motivated cybercriminals – shift to remote work might result in security teams’ failure to respond promptly and effectively to emerging threats, which, in turn, is likely to lead to the growth of successful attacks on card processing systems, ATM networks, and payment gateways.

As a result of the learnings, Group-IB has just launched the StayCyberSafe campaign to support millions of people who now have to work from home and IT/IS departments. It includes recommendations for employees and security teams on how to organise resilient remote work infrastructure by Group-IB’s experts.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post. We are discussing inclusivity at work and women all of March. Share your thoughts, tips and best practices on how we can make the startup ecosystem more inclusive, gender and culture diverse.

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Image Credit:  Pixabay

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Coronavirus has plunged many global businesses into a paralysis. Most of the labour-intensive businesses such as architecture and interior design firms, manufacturers, aviation operators, and travel agencies are hit the hardest.

Experts are suggesting a resilient approach to ensure longevity and surviving the crisis. This is not the time to use the situation and health hazard as an opportunity.

It is for community building and giving back in any way possible, to ensure, when this all is over, people invest in your brand.

Technology has been the biggest salvage in the given situation. Speaking from personal experience, while the design part of the business can be easily moved online using cloud tools such as Autodesk BIM 360, Graphisoft, BIMcloud, the execution and realisation of the designs in the physical world has come to a standstill for the greater good.

Parallell with mass quarantines and complete lock-downs, the epidemic has re-ignited and amplified the debate over the future of work.

Are we seeing the beginning of the end of the traditional office typology?

The short answer – No!

The virus definitely won’t kill the concept of working in standard office buildings. However, the new normal will have businesses come back with an open mind of alternative spaces for working.

This definitely isn’t the first time in history that structures and buildings will be reimagined or redesigned in response to an increased understanding of the disease.

Also Read: Coworking office spaces are a better investment for startups and entrepreneurs

Right now we are forced to staggering work schedule or working apart; But if virtual working is successful, and we’re in fact more productive, it will fundamentally change the value proposition of shared workspace.

The time and situation will speed innovation in the design industry, and we will see the advent of “deep-work pods”. The concept will be a balance of isolated concentration and productive and meaningful collaboration.

This, together with empathetic policies businesses will see designers advocate the use of antibacterial fabrics and finishes, carbon-neutral flooring and energy-efficient collaborative space for a more holistic form of employee engagement that looks beyond the hours of work and commensurate bonuses.

In addition to all types of touch-less technology—automatic doors, hands-free light switches, voice-activated elevators, and temperature controls, the future workspace will be immersive and put employee well-being and engagement in the forefront.

It sure is a rough start to the new decade, but difficult situations are also opportunities for businesses to go back to basics they may have let slip. So let’s concentre on our core missions, build products and spaces which will be needed and loved, be tenacious, practice good business sense, and most importantly act with empathy towards customers, employees, and community alike.

And beyond the precautionary quarantine, social distancing and pandemic, well, we still have a lot of work to do.

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing contributions from the community. Become a thought leader in the community and share your opinions or ideas and earn a byline by submitting a post. We are discussing inclusivity at work and women all of March. Share your thoughts, tips and best practices on how we can make the startup ecosystem more inclusive, gender and culture diverse.

Join our e27 Telegram group, or like the e27 Facebook page.

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