The Changemakers Impact Conference | Review | Singapore

A Member review of The Marketing Society Singapore Changemakers Conference: Impact, that took place in the TikTok office on November 14 2024.

The Conference featured sessions delivered in various styles solo, duo, trio and quartet with speakers from both brands and agencies, and with a wide range of cases and topics, all reflecting the theme of change and impact. 

Change in the sense of business environment, societal and stakeholder expectations, disruptions from technology and climate, and many more! And the responses from brands and businesses, not only as an adaption to these changes, but more with the intention to make positive impact.

Many cases and examples were shared such as how to leverage insights about culture to change the behavior of customers, the Lucky Iron Fish for Cambodians, how brands progressed with time in making decisions and delivery of sponsorship, from 'chairman's choice' of project to use data and measurement to deliver more value to the customers and businesses.

Here are the three highlights from me:

The first is Unilever’s Vaseline lotion for transgender women in Thailand. It’s more than a new product or a successful launch. What impressed me is the TWO years the team spent in understanding the customers, in this case, some 650,000 transgender women in Thailand. The research was not just about the skin issues, but also the psychological challenges this community has to deal with. With this deep understanding, the team was able to develop a tailor-made product backed with strong scientific R&D support.

The highlight is that the team co-created the launch and communication campaign together with the transgender community! The impact was huge as shown in the post launch measurement with 100% emotional connection! I’m deeply impressed with the Unilever team, their ability to deliver impact with intent and empathy to a very special community!

Second, is the discussion amongst four veteran marketing leaders on whether the era of impact enthusiasm is over. The session was not only lively but also profound.

The consensus was you might not hear a lot of shouting about ‘purpose’ and ‘impact’ from prominent business leaders, sustainability is now an integral part of business delivery for the brands represented at the panel. The ESG KPIs are embedded in business performance through and through. Some businesses might be guilty of ‘confusing’ customers in the past, such as labelling of a product, though the general belief was, businesses, especially marketers, have the superpower to make positive impact. “Who loses when a company wins only?” asked Rupen Desai, a call to take a multiple stakeholders’ approach and not just a focus on shareholders and short-term returns, especially when our HUMANITY KPIs on sustainable development goals, climate adaption and mitigation are falling far behind!

Last and the most talked about session, the keynote speech by Christopher Smith, founder of RockPaperScissors, “Beyond the Expiry Date”, revealed many insights about the silver community, a growing number of global ageing population, a staggering 1.3 billion of 65 years old and above, almost the whole of China’s population of 1.4 billion! They possess 70% of disposable income. The challenge for the marketing profession, and to the society as a whole, is what and how brands can capitalize on this active and healthy ageing community, how to leverage their wisdoms, experiences and willingness to contribute, let alone the wealth and spending power they have.

Anecdotally, I sense checked with a group of younger marketers, most millennial, over drinks post the event, they all said this was the best session, an issue they have not thought or paid much attention before, nonetheless, an issue we will all eventually be faced with.

“The opposite of old is not young. The opposite of old is NEW”, said Christopher who shared his own journey of reinventing himself at the age of 60!

Authored by Xiaowei Liu, The Marketing Society Singapore Board Member and Asia Director, World Energy Council.

Published 27 November 2024