Ian McKee, CEO of Vuulr, discusses how brands can differentiate themselves with content in a crowded and competitive market. Now that entertainment is an internet-delivered product, the brands that deliver it need to play by the internet’s rules.

The foundation is differentiation

In the endless sea of choices available to the audience today, one burning question for every brand is how to stand out. Such that audiences find you, stay, and then invite their friends.

The only answer is by not playing it safe. As Seth Godin (the marketing author) says in Purple Cow,  in today’s cluttered landscape, playing it safe means you are, like many other brands out there, forgettable — condemning you to pay the advertising tax to keep reminding your audience that you exist.

The alternative is to be remarkable and differentiated in a way that is valuable to the audience so that audiences make and repeat remarks about you to their network— which, in turn, reduces your cost of acquisition and retention. Think of the buzz around Squid Game.

The winds began to perceptibly shift in 2020 when Parasite and Bong Joon-ho won Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director.

Beyond the validation those awards meant to a relatively unknown South Korean filmmaker and the value of diversity in storytelling, there was this revelation: Parasite, acclaimed by critics and hailed as the first foreign-language film to win the top prize in the Oscars’ 92-year history, was also wildly popular in the key market of the United States.

Also Read: How Singaporean startup Xctuality helps creators, brands accelerate into metaverse

A year later, we witnessed the same phenomenon in the streaming space when Squid Game captured viewers’ attention on Netflix.

Squid Game was made by Siren Pictures, a Korean-based outfit that had earlier made three films prior, none of which had gained traction outside of Korea.

It was made with a production budget of US$21 million for ten episodes. Contrast the average US$2 million per episode of Squid Games with Stranger Things, with its US$12 million-per-episode budget.

Still, this was a risky bet. And, clearly, it paid off— only Netflix knows the absolute numbers in terms of acquisition and retention, but from a marketing perspective, it was a huge hit, with the title and Netflix shaping the global zeitgeist for weeks.

The signals are now undeniable: audiences have become receptive to excellent storytelling and quality content, whether or not it comes with subtitles and recognisable faces.

As the leader in the streaming-entertainment space, Netflix might have been tempted to rest on its success and hedge against its risk. Instead, in an industry that too often reacts slowly to change, the company understood the importance of bold, swift action.

Sticking with a proven formula is easy. It is comfortable. It requires no internal justification.

But it’s the wrong thing to do in today’s fierce battle for audiences.

Test and learn

Not every title will be a hit— nor should it be. If it is, then you’re not taking enough risks!

Acquisition teams should move out of their comfort zones and search for content that may not even have US distribution.

By the time it has, it is no longer as remarkable as it needs to be. Your competitors are just as able to pick it up as you are, so you gain no competitive advantage.

New, upcoming sources of production— Korea, Turkey, India, Nigeria (Nollywood) and, now, almost every other producer country— are where hidden gems are to be found.

Also Read: Podcast platform SoundOn gets strategic investment from Taiwan Mobile

For those without the infrastructure or scale of a Netflix, how can they go about sourcing and discovering content globally?

Digital solutions platforms help

Online content marketplaces have aggregated massive catalogues of content globally. They now provide the convenience to buyers of a single destination to easily search for content, no matter where it originates. This allows acquisitions teams to look further than what has distribution locally.

With standardised metadata, in English, with trailers and screeners instantly available, online content marketplaces allow acquisition teams to quickly search for and evaluate titles to find those remarkable titles that will differentiate your platform.

Once you’ve acquired a piece of content, you can push it out and learn how it performs. If it moves the needle, turn up the marketing machine (as Netflix did for “Squid Game.”) Unique, objectively interesting content gets people talking. And word of mouth can be a powerful, organic promotional tool.

New pricing models, e.g. per viewer, per minute (or, if yours is an ad-funded platform, a percentage share of ad revenue), means that taking these more adventurous acquisition choices does not mean having to pay a flat rate and the platform taking all the risk.

In the end, there’s no magic formula or set of data points that can consistently predict which titles will hit and which won’t. Entertainment is a creative industry, and creating content is still principally an art rather than a science.

But by understanding your brand, your audience and precisely what you’re measuring for (retention? watch times? new subscribers?), you’ll have what you need to build a global acquisition strategy and truly differentiate your brand in a crowded, competitive market.

First published on Media Play News on January 21, 2022

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EDP Renewables, the world’s fourth-largest renewable energy producer, has agreed to acquire a 91 per cent stake in Singapore-based distributed solar power operator Sunseap.

This S$1.1 billion (US$815 million) deal will enable the Madrid-based firm to have a wider global reach and diversify its growth sources.

EDP Renewables also stated it plans to invest S$10 billion (US$7.14 billion) by 2030 and create a clean energy hub for the APAC region in Singapore. These investments align with EDPR’s strategy for the Asia Pacific, which accounts for 55 per cent of global capacity additions this decade, with solar representing 65 per cent of the growth.

As per the agreement, Sunseap’s founders will be part of the EDPR team to lead the business. The two firms also will embark on renewable energy projects, specifically solar and wind projects, across the Asia Pacific region. There will also be opportunities for co-operation in energy storage and green hydrogen.

EDP Renewables now has access to markets with growth in renewables of over 120 GW/year, representing approximately 75 per cent of the expected global growth (2020-2030).

Also Read: Transitioning to new energy? Here’re 5 prominent solutions for your business

The transaction will allow EDPR to establish a headquarters for the Asia-Pacific region through Sunseap, with a sizeable portfolio including close to 10 GW of renewable projects at different stages of development and an experienced team of more than 600 employees spread across nine markets.

In Singapore, the push to make renewable energy more accessible to homes and businesses has gained momentum with the unveiling of the Singapore Green Plan 2030 — a nationwide movement committed to a zero-carbon future.

Miguel Stilwell d’Andrade, CEO of EDPR, said: “Sunseap, together with EDPR’s complementary expertise, is now better equipped to drive the energy transition and mitigate climate change for the entire APAC region, fostering sustainability as a key engine for growth and green jobs and contributing to Singapore’s ecosystem of clean energy.”

Pedro Vasconcelos, COO (APAC) EDPR, said: “The Asia Pacific region is a strategic market for us towards EDPR’s global positioning, with both high demand and growth potential in the renewable energy sector. Sunseap will undoubtedly become a key growth lever for EDP, whose presence in the region will, in turn, drive local economic development.”

Frank Phuan, Co-Founder of Sunseap, said: “With EDPR’s financial muscle and expertise in renewables, Sunseap will be able to accelerate growth plans and revolutionise the energy landscape in the region, as well as nurture the next generation of talents in the industry.”

Sunseap Group is a solar energy system developer, owner, and operator in Singapore, with a pipeline of close to 10 GWac of solar energy projects across Asia. Its solar energy systems can be found on more than 3,000 buildings in Singapore, including public housing estates and commercial and industrial buildings.

Sunseap also operates in various territories across the Asia Pacific, including Vietnam, Cambodia, China, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand and Malaysia.

In 2017, Sunseap had raised US$4.8 million funding in the Series C round led by ISOTeam Limited, a Catalist-listed building maintenance and estate upgrading industry player.

EDP Renewables is a leading renewable energy firm with a presence in 26 international markets across Europe, Latin America, North America, and Asia. EDP Renewables is owned by EDP, a global energy company.

Demand for renewable energy in Asia Pacific continues to surge due to a significant increase in new projects in China, India, and Australia. The region’s renewable investments could double to US$1.3 trillion by 2030, according to global energy research and consultancy group Wood Mackenzie.

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Vietnam-based cross-border e-commerce startup OpenCommerce Group (OCG) has received US$7 million in a Series A round of financing.

Local unicorn VNG Corporation led the round, with early-stage VC firm Do Ventures participating.

Headquartered in Hanoi with offices in San Francisco (US) and Shenzhen (China), OpenCommerce Group provides a one-stop service for veteran and zero-experience online sellers “with low risk and low cost”.

Within the two years of the launch, the platform claims to have helped more than 86,700 sellers from 195 countries establish their e-commerce stores internationally, generating US$670 million in GMV.

Also Read: Naver, Sea, Vertex invest in Vietnamese VC firm Do Ventures’s US$50M fund I

The firm’s vision is to provide a tech solution that empowers local entrepreneurs and SMEs to bring Vietnamese products to global consumers. It offers three products — ShopBase, PrintBase, and PlusBase — which make dropshipping and print-on-demand easier and more scalable. These tools equip users with a collection of automated tools to support entrepreneurs with order management, marketing, shipping, payments, and everything required for a flourishing online business.

“We will utilise the new capital for product improvements so that we can better support our existing users and reach out to new customer segments, thus unlocking entrepreneurship opportunities for sellers of all ages and backgrounds. Besides Europe and the US, we will focus on gaining major market share in China as well as expanding to Southeast Asian countries in 2022,” said Quan Truong, Co-Founder and CEO of OCG.

The coronavirus pandemic has presented Vietnam’s economy with unprecedented challenges, causing negative impacts across industries and a high unemployment rate. Meanwhile, there is an increasing opportunity for retailers of all sizes to take advantage of e-commerce’s hyper-growth thanks to the rapid online adoption triggered by COVID-19.
Using OpenCommerce Group’s platforms, users can start dropshipping and print-on-demand businesses, in which they can sell merchandise to customers without holding any physical inventory or operational burdens.

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After a massive success at its maiden demo day, India’s leading accelerator fund 9Unicorns and early stage investor Venture Catalysts have announced the launch of its second Global Demo Day (DDay 2) on March 24, 2022.

The DDay 2 will feature 36 selected early and growth stage startups showcasing their business pitches before marquee global and domestic investors. The event will kick-start with demonstrating 18 shortlisted startups, each from 9Unicorns and Venture Catalysts.

Building robust, scalable, and fundable ventures

The idea of the DDay is to ensure that the startups graduate as robust, scalable, and fundable ventures. Demo Days are becoming a vital part of the Indian startup ecosystem that is home to over 50000 startups and 90 Unicorns — all of which are attracting massive global investments.

2021 witnessed record investments at $36 billion according to various industry reports, which speaks volumes about the ability of Indian startups’ to create large value and multi-billion dollar businesses.

The participating startups come from diverse sectors such as EV, HealthTech, Consumer Internet, Data Analytics, AI, Fintech, AgriTech, and Edtech amongst others.

“We are constantly looking at ways to keep the hustle of the startup founders alive through various initiatives including the D Day. Spread pitching sessions, the DDay helps the startups raise larger rounds. Before culminating the startups at the DDay, we extensively engage with them in further developing their product, team, refining their business model, and scaling them into a high growth business. Our first demo day was a massive success and we want to break our own records with the second one,” said Dr Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Co-founder, 9Unicorns and Venture Catalysts.

Also read: Kristal.AI partners with family offices & wealth managers to drive growth

The D Day, which will be conducted virtually, brings a slew of opportunities, enabling greater access and interactions between the startups, global and domestic venture capital firms, family offices, Unicorn founders, angel investors, and CXOs.

Over 1500 such investors are expected to be a part of the 2nd DDay, up from 900 participating investors in the maiden event that was organised in August last year. The event was immensely successful with 28 out of 32 participating startups raising approximately $126 million in funding. FinTech, E-commerce, and SaaS sectors attracted the maximum funding. About 45% of the participating startups were by second time or serial founders.

Some of the startups that raised bigger rounds (over $10 million) include Klub, a revenue-based finance firm, CoutLoot, a social commerce platform, Evenflow, a Thrasio-style Ecommerce rollup and Rooter (a gaming startup) amongst others.

Support from 9Unicorns and Venture Catalysts

The team at 9Unicorns and Vcats helped the startups with the demo day prep starting right from training the founders to pitch under 60 seconds to business restructuring.

“9Unicorns, and the entire team have been super helpful in guiding us through the process of fundraising (both equity & debt), how to think about the structuring and hiring talent as we scale the business. The team is always a call away whenever we need them — be it being a shock absorber during the tough times or an extended family to celebrate the good ones,” said Utsav Agarwal, Cofounder of Evenflow, an e-commerce roll-up, while sharing his experience from the maiden DDay.

Also read: Sagri: Bringing agriculture to the future and sustainability to the forefront with satellite data, AI, and GRID

To this, Anurakt Jain, Cofounder of revenue-based finance firm Klub said, “ We are grateful for the immense support and belief by 9Unicorms in us, since our inception. Their efforts have been instrumental in helping us become India’s leading Revenue Based Financing platform. 9Unicorns have helped build Klub beyond capital and we thank them for having their faith in us, in the past and for the times to come.”

Co-founded by Dr Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, Anil Jain, Anuj Golecha, and Gaurav Jain, the Mumbai-based Venture Catalysts Group is the second-largest early-stage back by the number of deals. In 2021, VCats Group closed 207 deals making it the largest player in India.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by Venture Catalysts

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This pandemic has dragged on longer than we have all anticipated. It is also evident that the most affected are also the most vulnerable.

My colleague, Sameer Khatiwada, has written an insightful report: “A Crisis Like No Other – COVID-19 and Labour Markets in Southeast Asia”. I encourage everyone to read it.

While many people have the luxury of being part of the mass resignation movement, people in developing countries face mass unemployment. And this is precisely Solve Education!’s target audience.

Here are some of my takeaways, and hopefully, it can shed some light on the labour landscape and spark some interest to help!

Youth and women are among the most affected during the pandemic

The report finds that people between 15 to 24 accounted for 45 per cent of job losses, despite representing less than 15 per cent of the workforce during the height of the pandemic in 2020, in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Also, women accounted for 60 per cent of the job losses in the second quarter of 2020 in Thailand. This includes 90 per cent of the job losses in manufacturing.

We need to enable youth and women to empower themselves through education.

The pandemic worsens the inequalities between skilled and unskilled workers

As automation increased, unskilled workers found themselves jobless. The lockdowns and unfavourable economic climate also mean that informal, self-employed, temporary, and migrant workers are vulnerable to losing their livelihoods. We need to think of how to reskill/upskill these people urgently.

Also Read: How can tech help with COVID-19 control and our return to normalcy?

Manufacturing was hit hard across ASEAN

Almost a million jobs are lost in manufacturing in the Philippines, and another million are lost in Indonesia alone.

In Vietnam, this amounts to over 0.5M job losses. In Cambodia, the manufacturing sector has accounted for about 25 per cent of job losses.

Automation is here to stay. How can we empower people to access the knowledge economy?

People who have lost their jobs remained jobless

Among the people who become unemployed during the pandemic, the majority are still unemployed. As many as 91 per cent of them in Vietnam and 86 per cent in Thailand remained jobless.

Any job gains in the second half of 2020 consist of mostly informal jobs or self-employment.

Apart from reskilling, we should also consider equipping people with entrepreneurial skills, especially in cases where the local job market cannot absorb the number of people looking for jobs.

Vaccination rates remain low in most countries

As of Oct 2021, the vaccination rate in Vietnam is at 20 per cent, the Philippines at 22 per cent, Indonesia at 23 per cent, and Thailand at 38 per cent. Without high vaccination rates, borders will remain closed, and economies will struggle to recover.

We need to help our neighbours gain access to vaccines and help drive vaccination awareness.

Will the world become even more unequal post-pandemic?

Sadly, this is highly likely to happen (or is already the current reality). But crazy optimists (like us, at Solve Education!) are working to build a more inclusive and equitable future. Who is with us?

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Editor’s note: e27 aims to foster thought leadership by publishing views from the community. Share your opinion by submitting an article, video, podcast, or infographic

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