#MarketingEventsAwards spills: How being agile and resourceful helped Now Comms Asia succeed

Now Comms Asia had a strong showing at the recent Marketing Events Awards, bagging silver for Best Team (Agency) and bronze for Best Use of Hosting Platforms. Since 2008, the team has built a presence in Singapore and a network of over 300 partners with offices in key developing markets across Asia Pacific including Malaysia. 

Although the pandemic this year has made the journey challenging for the agency, Now Comms Asia managed to pivot and adapt its business strategies to adapt to the new normal. In an interview with MARKETING-INTERACTIVE, Andrew McArthur-Edwards, group CEO shares why it is important to remain agile and resourceful and the agency's plans for 2021.

This interview is done as part of MARKETING-INTERACTIVE’s winners and finalists’ interview series for Marketing Events Awards 2020. To find out more about the awards, click here. 

What are some of the expectations your clients have for your brand?

McArthur-Edwards: Over the past decade since we began our operations in Singapore, we have established ourselves as a key player in the digital marketing, communications and events space especially within the tech B2B arena. Our clients have come to expect nothing less than uniquely creative and tailored campaigns and productions from us, with high levels of attention to detail, quality delivery and an unbelievably quick turnaround time to boot.

How did your clients marketing plans shifted this year?

McArthur-Edwards: It’s been quite a year for everyone. I think the beginning can only be described as pandemonium. Naturally, the post-COVID measures and restrictions around public assembly had a profound impact in our industry across the board, particularly where the hosting of live events was concerned. All of the sudden, many of our clients found themselves in unchartered waters, trying their best to salvage what they could with the scheduled activities they had already put in place earlier in the year. They had to figure out the best way forward and started to look to us to help them work around these hurdles and find the best available avenues to ensure they were still working towards their marketing and sales objectives while adhering to the safety protocols in place.

If there’s one thing we’ve learnt in our marketing and events practice, it’s that things don’t always go to plan and by the same token, it is imperative that we be agile and resourceful enough to think on our feet and find the best way to overcome any hurdle we are faced with. We’ve demonstrated this countless times in our profession, finding the best solutions for our clients to address and tackle the unexpected. It’s a core expectation I have from our team, and something they never fail to do. As the industry gradually shifted entirely to the digital sphere, we worked closely with our clients to find a way to bring those same connections they built with client in physical events to an online format.

We seized the opportunity to take the lead within the highly sought-after virtual events space. Since then, we have been providing high-level strategic counsel and impactful execution culminating in successful virtual events for our clients. They have come to appreciate and recognise our creative expertise and know-how in delivering amazing virtual experiences for their audiences.

What are some of the trends you see carrying on post-pandemic, and how are you readying your workforce to be ready with these trends?

McArthur-Edwards: Online, virtual events are here to stay, there is no doubt about that. And now would not be the time to sell your shares in Zoom. On top of that, the base investment in a virtual event comes at a fraction of the cost of a traditional physical one.

Having said that, keeping audiences and stakeholders engaged when they are not in the room with you is easier said than done. They are essentially left to their own devices, literally - not having to silence their phones, or browsing other tabs while on a call. The key is in the content and how to capture their curiosity and imagination. With international travel not set to return anytime soon, the future of live engagements could lie in the hybrid-styled events.

So, our response is we’re gearing up for hybrid delivery and are encouraging a greater spend on production quality and participant collaboration in virtual and hybrid events. It’s possible, as we all as an industry get better at this, we’ll bring the engagement levels closer to what is seen in traditional event marketing. And the combination of a series of connected events, made possible with hybrid tech is going to inspire some really creative solutions that we haven’t even imagined yet.

What do you think makes for great event marketing these days?

McArthur-Edwards: Great content, audience involvement and engagement, it’s not about bums on seats, it’s about making sure the audience keeps returning to their screen.

People want timely responses and the knowledge that they are being noticed and heard. If someone enters help chat on Grab, they expect to be tended to immediately. Likewise, the ability to ask questions to a live speaker during a virtual event, and have that question answered goes a long way in both making an impression and keeping the general audience engaged.

Most importantly of all your presentations and content must be authentic and on topic.

How are you planning for 2021?

McArthur-Edwards: The business has doubled in size over the last nine months and we have launched the Now Events Platform which is quite pivotal for us. We’re going to keep focusing on making our platform better and stronger for users throughout APAC. This includes even better translation options, catering to people in low bandwidth areas and in regulated environments.

We plan to continue to find new innovative ways to help our clients across APAC reach out to their audience in the most creative and meaningful ways. Our customer’s needs will be a driving factor for us as we look to continue expanding our footprint across APAC with the opening of more offices in tandem with the easing of regulations and the anticipated economic recovery. It’s awesome to be able to say we have built Asia’s number one online event platform and will continue to expand our delivery.