Agility is key in the Year of the Monkey

As one lunar year ends and the Year of the Monkey starts, it’s a perfect time to reflect on past achievements, current challenges and future opportunities. Central to most thoughts for the next year is a focus on succeeding in today’s fast-moving, multi-channel world.

As a new lunar year approaches, we’ve taken a look at some key characteristics of the Monkey in the Chinese Zodiac that we think are important and relevant for brands to embrace in 2016.

AMBITIOUS AND ADVENTUROUS
There are five different monkeys in the Chinese Zodiac and 2016 is a Fire Monkey year. Fire Monkeys are ambitious and adventurous and we feel that 2016 is a year for being just that. There are many challenges – in every sector and every market - but this is not a year for battening down the hatches. Bold, innovative strategies will win through, leaving more conservative types struggling to keep up.

QUICK-WITTED
For brands this means being inherently responsive. The pace at which the world moves is getting faster as we have less time than ever to ponder strategy. Brands have to learn to assess the market in real time and react quickly to information and insight. Consumers’ expectation of the responsiveness of brands is on the rise; so brands must design their business so that they can fulfill and anticipate needs and capitalize on opportunities, whilst addressing risks and avoiding pitfalls.

LIVELY
Consumers are becoming immune to ‘brand speak’ and greater automation processes have enabled faceless touch points that have made the connection less human. How can brands engage with their customers better and in a more human way? 2016 will see a strong focus for brands - particularly in sectors under pressure such as banking and retail - to re-humanise their customer experience so that they can build stronger relationships with their customers. Successful brands will view their customers as people and not as numbers and will look to entertain them and engage them in lively conversation. They will listen and empathise with their customers, weaving in elements of human touch to every aspect of their business to differentiate and curate a unique and great customer experience.

SMART
A one-size-fits-all strategy in most cases will struggle to create cut-through. Brands must develop a relentless attitude into understanding their different customer segments by digging deep into consumer insight to enable them to deliver more relevant and targeted experiences.

From an Asia persepctive, brands in this part of the world must take into account that what works well locally, may not well work elsewhere and vice versa. Additionally Asia, and even China, cannot be treated as a homogenous region. There is a great diversity within the region that needs to be understood. Building brands in a localized way by catering to specific needs of an audience segment will be far more effective than trying to achieve mass appeal.

One unifying theme across these charactertistics is the ability to be AGILE.  We see this as a pressing issue moving to the forefront in 2016. In today’s world change is rapid and the norm. Brands that build this behaviour into their DNA will able to rise and future-proof their strategy by staying relevant to their customers.

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank our clients, friends, creative collaborators, partners and talented team for their support. The Year of the Goat was a successful and eventful year. We are extremely delighted to be working on so many exciting projects with many great brands and we look forward to bringing this momentum forward into the New Year.
 
We wish you a Happy Chinese New Year.

Kung Hei Fat Choi!

祝你猴年前程
一个筋斗十万八千里，
兼七十二变混世才学，
具八十一种创意本领。

This article first appeared on the Start JG website here and is by Kasumi Miyake (content strategist) and Jonathan Cummings (Managing Director, Asia).