Digital Marketing Gets Physical — Again

The pandemic has taken digital customer experience (CX) to new heights. But as Hong Kong enters its post-COVID-19 stage, travelers are back to visit, and customers are returning to the physical stores.

The constant shift between online and offline channels creates new-found challenges for marketers. With the cutback of COVID-19 restrictions and the rise of the metaverse and AI, ensuring a seamless and consistent CX across multiple touchpoints has never been more challenging for marketers.

At the recent Digital CMO Hong Kong Summit, three Hong Kong-based marketers shared their ups and downs in curating an omnichannel CX for the local and global audience in the post-COVID and pre-metaverse new world.

The post-COVID and pre-metaverse world

According to online media monitoring firm Meltwater, 89.9% of the total population in Hong Kong adopts social media, putting the city in the top 8 of social media adoption in the world.

According to Melvin Chng, area director for enterprise and the Greater China region at Meltwater, social media has become an essential channel in the rising cookie-less digital world. “Rising trust in social commerce is projected to account for 16.7% of all e-commerce sales by 2025,” said Chng.

The recent ChatGPT sensation and metaverse mania are also making a mark on the customer journey of different brands. Forrester’s B2C Marketing CMO Pulse Survey 2022 indicated 76% of American B2C marketing executives are eager to explore the metaverse, and Asia has a similar spending pattern.

Meanwhile, opening borders are making physical experiences a priority for many businesses. Chng added in-person experiences are also drawing a bigger social media impact.

“With more social geotargeting features and demand for in-person events, expect offline to start to play a bigger role with influencers,” he said. “For marketers, tangible experiences have the potential for big social media impact.”

Build loyalty with novelty tech

Bridging the digital and physical channels with consistent CX is never easy. But this is incredibly challenging for the hotel and hospitality sector.

With the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions, hotels in Hong Kong are refocusing from local staycation and quarantining guests to travelers again. On top of steering their online channels towards overseas visitors, they also ride on the local staycation customers for their overseas locations. This is precisely what Regal Hotels International is dealing with.

“Omnichannel is key,” said Philip Chau, vice president and group head of marketing at Regal Hotels International. “How to continue to cross-sell between online and offline channels?”

To drive loyalty with its local customers, Chau’s team turned to Web3. It launched Meta Green, a green metropolis in The Sandbox. The initiative aims to drive immersive edutainment experiences for local young, tech-savvy online consumers with offline rewards to drive them back to the physical hotel experiences.

“This loyalty program is one of our new initiatives to elevate the digital footprint of the company, but we also build marketing automation around them to drive results, not only noise,” said Chau.

Driving results with NFT-based marketing

Consumer loan services company UA Finance also turned to Web3 for customer acquisition but used a different approach.

Despite most of its market initiatives being via online channels, Elvis Yan, chief marketing officer at UA Finance, said many customers still handle their loans at the physical branches. This means the company needs to continue expanding its physical outlets but ensure the credit rating and loan approval processes are consistent across all the branches and with the CX online.

“We use different online lead generation tactics,” said Yan. “But providing a straight-through homogeneous offering across different branches with real consistent CX is still challenging.”

As part of the company’s physical finance center expansion plan last year, Yan’s team launched the 3D “UA Arm” NFT series. The design of the NFT series incorporates landmarks of different Hong Kong districts aiming to highlight the company’s multiple physical branches.

“We need to make sure this NFT series aligns with our physical presence and is attractive. After all, it is just a QR code of digital images,” said Yan.

To drive interest for digital-savvy young customers, the digital NFT series is bundled with a physical limited-edition box set of Japanese characters. “The result was phenomenal; the NFT series was fully subscribed in 20 minutes,” he said.

On top of the NFT series, Yan noted the company has also centralized the credit assessment process, aiming to provide a homogenous offering for customers applying for loans online and offline across multiple branches.

Circle of nature and CX

For global fiber company Lenzing Group, its challenges lie in multiple folds.

While being a B2B business — supplying fiber to fashion brands and retailers — Lenzing Group’s relationships extend to B2C by educating the end-consumers about organic and sustainable fabrics. This means the company manages customer journeys for businesses and consumers, with CX spreading across online, supply chain, and retail outlets.

Based in Hong Kong, Lenzing Group’s global head of digital brand marketing Vincent Leung runs the company’s global B2B2C marketing initiatives. To help build a consistent CX for end-consumers, the Lenzing Group recently launched the #MakeitFeelRight initiative—a cross-brand omnichannel global campaign.

Partnering with its B2B fashion brand and retailers, the movement aims to spread awareness of sustainable fashion and the company’s signature fiber brand Tencel. It motivates consumers to find and dress in sustainable fashion items, then post and pledge on social media channels. The company will then plant a tree for each social media pledge.

“This movement brings the physical experiences of the fabric to the online social media communities, then closing the circle by benefiting the physical nature with planting more trees,” said Leung.

The global campaign was activated in nine countries internationally, generated 12 million social engagements, and achieved more than 10,000 social pledges. It involves more than 45 influencers worldwide, including British model Lily Cole and multiple celebrities through their red-carpet appearances.

“It garnered huge reach and engagements with 10,100 trees planted internationally,” observed Leung.

Offline channels remain relevant

Despite the focus on digital channels, these experiences indicate the physical channels remain relevant and critical for the success of a marketing campaign and business.

“From memorable in-store activations to installations and challenges geared for user-generated content (UGC), offline digital content presents an opportunity to differentiate and strengthen your brand,” concluded Chng from Meltwater.

Sheila Lam is the contributing editor of DigitalWorkforceTrends. Covering IT for 20 years as a journalist, she has witnessed the emergence, hype, and maturity of different technologies but is always excited about what's next. You can reach her at [email protected].

Image credit: iStockphoto/gorodenkoff