As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to reshape the business landscape, 84% of executives in Asia Pacific consider generative AI will help develop latest lines of business inside the following three years, in keeping with PwC’s 2024 Digital Trust Insights.
This overwhelming confidence in AI’s potential marks a pivotal moment in the evolution of digital product marketing as organisations race to integrate intelligent technologies into their marketing strategies.
Leading this transformation on the Asia Pacific arm of multinational skilled services network, PwC, is Hilary Chiu, regional digital product go-to-market lead. She has witnessed first-hand the journey from traditional marketing approaches to AI-driven customer experiences.
“When I first joined PwC seven years ago, there was still quite a little bit of traditional marketing,” Chiu reveals in an interview with MarketingTech. “We’re seeing rather more demand for digital-related communications, driven by increased technology adoption and changing customer expectations.”
Chiu, who transformed from an editorial background to digital business expertise, provides a singular perspective on the internet’s evolution. She explains that easy search engine interactions characterised Web 1.0, while Web 2.0 introduced social media engagement and user-generated content.
However, the present Web 3.0 era represents a major departure where users have unprecedented control over content creation and distribution.
Charting the digital product marketing evolution: from Web 1.0 to AI-driven experiences
“In Web 3.0, users change into their micro-influencers, generating and owning content,” Chiu explains. “They’re not only passive consumers but lively participants who infuse their purpose and thoughts into trending content, ultimately informing purchase decisions.”
The rise of AI and generative AI has emerged as a key challenge and opportunity for regional businesses. While these technologies can assist with initial content creation and campaign planning, Chiu emphasises that they’re not a whole solution.
“GenAI will help draft communications and supply foundation-level campaign planning, nevertheless it often produces shallow results that require human expertise to refine and contextualise,” she notes.
One of essentially the most significant challenges in Asia Pacific’s digital product marketing landscape is the necessity for hyper-personalisation and localisation. Chiu highlights how cultural nuances can significantly impact marketing effectiveness, saying: “The same English or Chinese content could also be well-received in mainland China but won’t resonate with Chinese-speaking audiences in Taiwan or Southeast Asia attributable to cultural differences.”
This complexity is further compounded by the technical challenges faced by traditional businesses. Many established corporations operate with legacy systems connecting multiple databases, making implementing modern solutions like dynamic pricing or hyper-personalised promoting difficult.
“Some businesses have been running systems for the reason that Sixties and Nineteen Seventies, connecting 10, 20, or 30 different systems,” Chiu explains. “This complexity can slow their ability to adopt AI solutions effectively.”
Navigating future challenges: localisation and technology integration
Chiu identifies experiential reality technologies as a major trend shaping digital product marketing in the following 18-24 months. “We’re seeing more adoptions of AR, VR, and XR technologies to enable services in the market,” she explains.
“In healthcare, these technologies are helping with training simulations and improving patient care, particularly in psychological treatment where virtual environments provide controlled therapeutic settings.”
PwC’s approach to implementing these technologies is distinctive, considering customer and worker perspectives. “When implementing digital solutions, whether AR/VR, GenAI, or blockchain, businesses often forget one crucial aspect: training staff to be well-versed in these solutions,” Chiu notes.
“At PwC, we take a human experience approach, ensuring each customers and employees are at the identical level of literacy with latest technologies.”
Essential skills for digital product marketers in APAC
The evolution of B2B digital product marketing in skilled services has also seen significant changes. “Five to 10 years ago, corporations relied heavily on offline events and traditional white papers,” Chiu recalls. “There’s increasing demand for quick insights and digital-first content, though still maintaining the depth expected in skilled services.”
Chiu emphasises two crucial skills: analytical capabilities and communication expertise for marketers seeking to succeed in this rapidly evolving landscape. “In the digital world, the whole lot might be tracked, but it’s good to know what to trace and interpret it,” she explains.
“Equally necessary is the flexibility to speak advantages effectively quite than simply listing features – even with GPT, messages still need human refinement to resonate with goal audiences.”
Then, there’s the pace of change in digital product marketing, which continues to speed up. Thanks to latest technologies, what took two years to launch can now be achieved in six months. However, Chiu stresses that this increased speed makes it crucial for marketers to remain closely connected to market dynamics and be prepared to pivot quickly.
“Marketing campaigns must be more agile now,” she concludes. “You have to be ready to vary messaging and content at any time to remain relevant, especially when trending topics emerge that align along with your market.”
Chiu emphasises two fundamental skills for marketers aiming to thrive in this dynamic landscape. “First, analytical capabilities are crucial in the digital world. Everything might be tracked, but it’s good to know what to trace and interpret it on your marketing campaigns,” she explains.
This becomes particularly necessary when justifying marketing investments and demonstrating ROI to management. Equally critical is the flexibility to speak effectively. “It’s very easy to inform your script of the product,” Chiu notes, “but in case your audience doesn’t resonate with it, they’ll ask ‘what does it matter to me?’”
She stresses the importance of moving beyond feature listing to communicating advantages that resonate with goal audiences, even in an age of AI-generated content. As businesses proceed to navigate the digit evolution of digital product marketing Pacific, Chiu’s insights underscore the importance of balancing technological innovation with human expertise, cultural understanding, and market responsiveness.
Success in this rapidly evolving landscape requires technological adoption, the agility to adapt to vary, and the human touch to make meaningful connections with audiences.
See also: Snowflake: AI is revolutionising the marketing landscape
Interested in hearing leading global brands discuss subjects like this in person? Find out more about Digital Marketing World Forum (#DMWF) Europe, London, North America, and Singapore.
Read the complete article here
