Talkwalker launches Singapore office, brings best-in-class social listening to Asia

Located right in Singapore’s central business district, the new APAC office is primed to support Talkwalker’s growth across the region and help global and local businesses take their social strategy to the next level. The launch event was packed, where friends from the industry and community joined in celebrating Talkwalker’s official launch in Singapore.

“This is an incredible time for Talkwalker. With a growing base of brands and agencies across the region, we’re very excited to be on the ground, creating brand impact and results for our customers,” shared Ben Soubies, Talkwalker Head of APAC.

Talkwalker Head of APAC Ben Soubies welcoming attendees at the Talkwalker office opening event.

The Talkwalker team was also joined by guest speakers Dennis Owen, GM for Branding and Social Media for Hong Kong Airlines, and Emily Lim, Chief Digital Officer for Lion & Lion who shared inspiring stories of how they overcame business challenges and turned social listening insights to winning brand strategies.

Creating brand impact

The digital world never sleeps and conversations about brands happen 24/7 all around the world.

In the case of Hong Kong Airlines, the conversations spread like wildfire when the airlines accidentally released cheap business fares from LA to HK. A clear PR nightmare in the making.

Dennis Owen, GM for Branding and Social Media for Hong Kong Airlines.

“As a brand, you can’t always stop bad things from happening but you can turn things around if you respond the right way. You can’t respond effectively unless you have social listening tools to help you see things quickly,” explained Dennis.

Instead of cancelling these accidental fares, which could sound like the solution that makes more business sense, the Hong Kong Airlines team decided to take a different route. The airlines decided to honor the fare turning the PR crisis into a PR win with overwhelming positive sentiments pouring in. Get the full story of how Hong Kong Airlines turned this crisis into a soaring success.

Download HK Airlines case study

Fare crisis aside, Dennis noted that in general a lot of things could happen to an airline company and how easily these get shared online. Since people spend a lot of time onboard an aircraft, if something happens, they take it to social media where conversations are public can go viral.

An example is a YouTube video of a passenger sharing his review about Hong Kong Airlines, which was generally positive except for one thing — the onboard TV screen wasn’t working. Because Dennis picked it up through social media listening, they were able to respond, apologize, and fix the problem within an hour after the plane landed.

“When they put these reviews out, it’s not just about him [the passenger]. It’s about everyone that’s seeing that video. The video stays there forever, I can’t stop that. But what people see is the brand’s response and that we care and that we did something about it. It goes back to my point that if you can’t stop negative things, then it becomes about how you respond.”

Panel discussion with Dennis Owen (Hong Kong Airlines) and Emily Lim (Lion & Lion), moderated by Ben Soubies (Talkwalker).

In this social media-dominated world, brands can leverage social media analytics for different purposes such as protecting a brand's reputation as we’ve seen with Hong Kong Airlines or gaining consumer insights as in the case of Lion and Lion with the re-entry of (their client) Rimmel London in a highly competitive market. With a myriad of makeup brands already thriving in the market, the challenge was for Lion & Lion to build Rimmel’s brand in such a way that it resonates with the market yet is differentiated from the competition.

With the help of social insights that the Lion & Lion team gathered using the Talkwalker social listening tool, they came up with the 'Makeup Your Own Rules' campaign, which successfully gained the attention and ‘brand love’ from their target audience. See how Lion & Lion helped British Cosmetics brand Rimmel in a competitive Asian market.

Get the Lion & Lion Rimmel case study

Emily Lim, Chief Digital Officer for Lion & Lion.

“When it comes to KPI, we track multiple metrics. One of them [is something] we call brand love,” shared Emily.

According to Emily, they measure brand love using 3 different metrics:

• Reach: how good and how far the campaign has gone, with or without media money;

• Engagement: whether the sentiments generated from the engagement are positive or negative. In this case, the share of positive mentions helps determine the share of voice.

• Branded search: this typically comes after the campaign has created an impact on the social mentions and is most representative of market share and sales.

Ultimately, creating brand impact starts with implementing campaigns that our audience can resonate with and as a brand, we can connect better with our audience when we listen to them. 

From left to right: Hong Kong Airlines Dennis Owen, Talkwalker Ben Soubies, Lion & Lion Emily Lim after the panel discussion.

Thanks again to everyone who joined the discussion and celebrated Talkwalker’s arrival in Singapore. If you missed it and you want to visit us at our new office or you’re interested in learning how to start listening to what consumers are saying about your brand online, feel free to reach out.