Amidst current economic headwinds and geopolitical tensions, brand growth has become the paramount priority for marketers, signalling a proactive resolve to drive their brands forward. A post-event survey conducted at the inaugural OM Forward Singapore conference organised by Omnicom Media (OM), an Omnicom Connected Capability, revealed that 49% of clients selected brand growth as their top business objective for the coming year, significantly outpacing customer acquisition/retention (24%) and measurement and effectiveness (14%).
This focus translates directly into the strategic priorities marketers are identifying. Clients in Singapore expect data-driven decision-making and activation (41%) to have the greatest impact on their brand growth and business performance over the next 12 months. Complementing this, AI-powered automation (16%) and purpose-driven branding (16%) were also identified as critical priorities for achieving brand growth.
The survey results underscore the need for brands to transform their capabilities to maintain a granular understanding of consumer behaviours and effectively target and shape their decision-making habits. This data-driven, future-focused approach is even more critical in today’s AI-powered world, where consumers interact with brands across a growing list of touchpoints.
However, unlocking the full potential of these strategies involves addressing various transformation challenges as clients strive to keep pace with evolving market conditions. These challenges, as highlighted by the post-event survey, include data infrastructure and integration, attribution complexities, budget constraints, ROI measurement, and the lack of resources, all of which can impede effective brand influence.
Furthermore, while AI-powered automation is identified as a key priority for growth, its effective implementation requires navigating its own set of transformation challenges. With AI becoming so ingrained in consumers’ lives today, brands need to strategically weave it into their processes to maintain relevance, connect with consumers, and shape their behaviour.
Reflecting these challenges and the imperative for AI integration, 51% of respondents said they are in the experimentation stage of AI adoption, mainly using it to run small-scale projects, proof-of-concepts, and experiments. Others are either scaling their AI adoption (18%) by deploying it in specific departments or for particular use cases, while a handful already have AI as a core part of their strategy (7%). Meanwhile, the remainder are either still exploring AI adoption or have not started (24%).
Building on these insights into AI adoption, the post-event survey further revealed the top five areas where AI is expected to have the biggest impact: content creation, audience targeting and segmentation, campaign optimisation and performance analysis, data analysis and reporting, and competitive analysis. The majority of the respondents are CMOs, Heads of Marketing, Brand Managers, and Digital Marketing Leads.
Three actionable takeaways for brands
- Scale AI beyond pilots: Identify which AI initiatives have delivered measurable ROI, then establish a clear governance structure to scale them across the organisation and across key areas, including content creation, audience targeting, campaign optimisation, competitive analysis, and data reporting. Brands could also consider setting a six-month timeline to move at least one AI application from experimentation to production.
- Strengthen data infrastructure as your foundation: Brands need to build a solid data foundation. Before investing in additional martech platforms or AI solutions, establish a single source of truth for customer data that can feed both AI systems and attribution models.
- Redefine ROI measurement for a multi-touchpoint world: Last-click models do not reflect how consumers behave today or how AI influences decisions. Define what ROI means in an AI-powered world, from conversion and influence, to consideration and brand equity. Brands that do so can effectively justify investment and optimise spend.
Chloe Neo, CEO, Omnicom Media Singapore, said, “The insights from our post-event survey clearly demonstrate that the media landscape has fundamentally evolved. The challenges brands face today, from data complexities to the rapid integration of AI, are indicators of a new era where brand influence is earned through agility, relevance, and trust. OM Forward Singapore was specifically designed to equip our clients with the strategies and tools needed to navigate this dynamic environment, transforming these challenges into opportunities to build stronger, more influential brands.”
