Siew Ting Foo, Chief Marketing Officer, Greater Asia, at HP, will be chairing the Best Use of Data category of the 2021 WARC Awards for Media. Here, she tells WARC about her learnings from the past year, the role that data plays in HP’s marketing, and what she hopes to see from this year’s entrants.

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Siew Ting Foo, Chief Marketing Officer, Greater Asia, at HP

Describe your role.

I head up the marketing department in Greater Asia and lead a team of around 60 marketeers across this diverse market. My role is to inspire teams to turn human insights into impactful programmes that win the hearts and minds of customers and drive business and brand impact.

Over a year into the pandemic, what are your biggest learnings? What are the ones that you see yourself continuing to apply in the future?

The pandemic has resulted in quick shifts in consumer behaviour. It has not only changed the way we consume data (more social and digital), the way we interact and shop for brands (direct and online) but also how we lead our lives (hybrid working and the blurring of boundaries between work and private).

Technology has played a tremendous role, but it needs a human input to help us diagnose data signals that lead to actionable outcomes. We must apply empathy to our roles as leaders but also as marketeers. With an empathic mindset, we listen better and uncover more compelling human insights.

As a consequence, I see the below three learnings as something that I will continue to apply in the future.

  1. The importance of applying empathy to team leadership
  2. The role of customer insights as a key element for brands to stay relevant
  3. Digital becoming vital in transforming customer experience and the importance of continuously testing, learning and improving mindset using data as an enabler.
What has been HP's approach to continue to remain relevant to consumers during this time? 

We use a combination of Big “I” insights and real-time data insights, together with data provided by our sales partners. All three sources help us remain relevant to consumers.

In your opinion, what role can data play in effective communications?

Data plays a critical role in driving effective communications. It delivers real-time insights to impact the performance of our marketing campaigns and our work. However, the crux of it is to make sense of the data, and what I see as the role of human insight. This task cannot be carried out by machines or AI and is for our marketing team to achieve while we continuously upskill for better performance.

What do you hope to see in this year's Best Use of Data entrants?

I’m hoping to see work that shines a light on the role of insights and data in generating ideas and impacting campaigns’ outcome.

Do you have some advice for this year's entrants?
  • Keep your pitch story simple
  • Clearly lay out your objectives and KPIs
  • Explain what you learned from the data, especially any insights on the customer behaviour that you wanted to impact
  • Tell us the behaviour changes you initiated and the measurable outcomes you achieved.

The WARC Awards for Media are open for entries. The deadline for submission is 22nd September, 2021.

This free-to-enter, global scheme will reward effective comms planning across four categories: Effective Use of Tech, Best Use of Data, Effective Channel Integration and Effective Use of Partnerships & Sponsorships.

For more info on the competition and to submit your work, visit the Awards website.