Interview: Marketer Lisa Leung on how to drive customer conversion in the modern era

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE is proud to present Content 360 – Hong Kong: Content that captivates, a conference about content marketing, content trends and storytelling in a year amidst the return of live events, cookie deprecation, the integration of AI in marketing, new devices, global sporting events and weekend shopping trips to mainland China.

Taking place on 26 June at Hong Kong Ocean Park Marriott Hotel, our 28 speakers will share with us their insights and experiences on content strategy for topics such as integration of content with commerce, cross-border marketing and the use of AI in content creation. 

Joining us on the panel on how marketers leverage new-age experiences to connect and convert the customer is Lisa Leung (pictured), director, marketing and brand partnerships of Starbucks Asia Pacific. She leads marketing and partnerships for 15 Asia Pacific markets spearheading communication, marketing transformation, digital marketing and innovations, partnerships and regional brand management efforts.

In a conversation with MARKETING-INTERACTIVE, Leung said while laughter is a universal language that brings people together, it is also one of the key components for campaigns to capture attention and go viral, such as its previous STARBUCKS STARLIGHT NFT programme, which aimed at establishing a closer connection with its member community. 

She believed that those who are captivated by the offbeat humour of a campaign will always associate the brand with a positive image, hence resulting in a lasting memory of the brand's campaign. 

Despite the possibilities of changing media channels, marketing mediums, and tactics, Leung believed that the essential ingredients that captivate customers always remain the same.

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE: Can you tell us more about the STARBUCKS STARLIGHT NFT Eco-Project? Do you feel it was an effective way to connect with your customers in Korea? What were the challenges and learnings from that project? 

STARBUCKS STARLIGHT was a pilot NFT programme we ran in Korea with a goal of elevating our digital third place and fostering a closer connection with the Starbucks rewards member community. The campaign was created to surprise and delight our members, reinforce our members’ stickiness with our brand through ownership of rights to Starbucks’ creative community, and strengthen our company mission on people and planet initiatives. 

The campaign mechanism was simple. Starbucks Rewards members had to go through an “X-day challenge” to earn tokens to get access to our NFT marketplace via Starbucks Korea mobile app. NFTs offered were on limited edition and were used as a medium to habituate a new routine of choosing reusables over disposables. This was our first Web3 project in the Asia Pacific and hence we had to trailblaze through tech implementation challenges, it was hugely successful with double-digit growth on the month’s reusable cup usage.

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE: Given how you manage marketing and partnerships across 15 Asia Pacific markets, you must have witnessed several “new-age experiences” - which marketing campaigns in recent years have impressed you the most? Why?   

Too many to list just a few, but I’m particularly impressed by the creative concepts that speak authentically through the lens and language of our end customers. The best marketing campaigns are always the ones that speak to our hearts – those heart-tugging, tear-jerking, smile-inducing moments that make us reflect on our deeper values insides.  

I do believe that emotion is the secret ingredient that elevates campaigns from ordinary to extraordinary, and I still remember the activations from Dove / Adidas about female empowerment launched long ago. Those campaigns struck a chord with millions of people through evolving a sense of empowerment, acceptance, and self-love – the deeper values of humanity. It’s a symbol of a broader movement. 

As a fan of comedy and light-hearted soaps, I believe laughter is another key component to campaigns going viral. It's a universal language that brings people together. When it comes to marketing, humour is an extremely powerful tool to capture attention.

Those who are captivated by the offbeat humour will always associate the brand with a positive image, and the emotional bond will make your campaign memorable for a very long time.

I do not believe the winning formula(s) of successful marketing campaigns i.e. the ingredients that capture the hearts and minds of customers would ever change, the changes would mostly just be the channels, the marketing mediums, the tactics.

MARKETING-INTERACTIVE: Do you expect the frontier of “content” to be stretched further? What types of content do you think people should be looking forward to in the coming years? 

The components or ingredients of content may not have changed drastically over the years, but forms of content have evolved. For instance, the audience who consumed longer form TVC ads 10 years ago may now prefer Tiktok UGC content. They would not have the patience for anything longer than 15 seconds when they scroll their mobile devices on the road. 

With the increasing number of channels, distractions, and types of digital entertainment deeply weaved into our everyday lives, it’s becoming harder to capture the mindshare of customers, and I’m seeing brands approaching marketing differently with multiple, frequent prompts of content nuggets via various marketing channels for higher ROIs.

Join us this coming 26 June for Content360 Hong Kong, a one-day-two-streams extravaganza under the theme of "Content that captivates". Get together with our fellow marketers to learn about AI in content creation, integration of content with commerce and cross-border targeting, and find the recipe for success within the content marketing world!

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