On the 5th and 6th of March, I attended IIEX Asia Pacific here in Bangkok. Over the 2-day event, I attended 19 incredibly insightful speaker sessions. I have been itching to share my experiences, but distilling my learnings from this knowledge goldmine was a daunting task.
The result is this video, where I enlist 1-liner takeaways from each session I attended. These 1-liners might not have been the central point that the speakers intended to convey. Instead, think of them as a highlight reel of my personal favorites.
Here we go -
Listening to Tony Bulmer from The Bulmer Group, I learned that each sub-section of a good presentation should drive audiences to definitive endpoints.
Evelyn Hussain from Hotspex emphasized that as consumers, we feel before we think, and that negative emotions can have 3 times more impact on consumer decisions.
George Hartel and Steven McGinnes from Fighting Giants shared that creating ‘psychological safety’ among your team is very important in the Southeast Asian context.
Shibani Philip from QuestionPro demonstrated that technology enables agile market research at scale.
Julie Ng’s anecdotes from the early days of Vase.ai showed me that having a strong support system is critical to entrepreneurial success.
Pravin Shekhar, the Outlier Marketer, shared fascinating campaign case studies to show how storytelling backed by insights can be a game-changer.
Sanchita Ray from Lazada and Lava from Entropik discussed how AI can digest consumer research data to provide pivotal UX strategy insights.
Gerald Choa from Quantum Consumer Solutions gave us a crash course on the global linguistic landscape and showed how the nuances of language can make or break marketing strategies.
Matthew Crabbe from Mintel demonstrated how AI tools make it easier and faster for market researchers to draw meaningful insights from huge amounts of data.
Vikas Tandon explained that beauty trends of sustainability, customization, inclusivity, rapid results, and environment-friendliness are all driven by the industry’s customer-centricity.
Pratt Hetrakul talked about how open-source analytics models like the one championed by Meta democratize the future of consumer analytics.
Smriti Singh Bhatia and Akhil Hari Singh from InQognito explained how understanding system 1 thinking, i.e. the human cognitive function, can help minimize biases in market research.
Nathania Christy from Quantum Consumer Solutions touched upon the importance of cross-category signals for trend analysis, highlighting that real-world consumers don’t live in industry silos that market researchers often put them in.
Panelists, Katherine Mendoza from Haleon, Mai Marcelo from Globe Telecom, and Fitria Sabaruddin from Gojek, and the moderator, Colin Wong from Insights Heroes, all acknowledged that consumer insights lie at the core of innovation in today’s ‘innovate-or-die’ landscape.
Nicha Tanskul from Custom Asia shared metrics to show that while we’re barely scratching the surface of ESG awareness and action, companies and consumers in SEA are walking the talk by being more open to paying the ESG premium.
Rebecca Sheedy and Russel Carter from Dynata shared findings from their research, showing that storytelling tied in with a product was the most impactful approach to marketing creatives.
Paul Spencer from Ampverse talked about gaming having a huge influence on Gen Z consumer identity, especially in Southeast Asia and discussed ways for brands to leverage the gaming ecosystem to reach these audiences in meaningful ways.
Sumit Kumar from Snware Research shared anecdotes to drive home the importance of market research that takes a data-backed approach to customer-centricity.
Given increasingly complex user journeys, Grant Bertoli from Marketbuzzz and Ashok Sethi from Behave Consulting recommended leading with behavioral science to get the most value out of data science.
All-in-all, the event was a knowledge goldmine for those interested in marketing and consumer insights. It also presented an opportunity for me to forge meaningful connections with industry stalwarts and innovators. We’ve got a few interesting announcements coming your way, so make sure to watch this space.
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