The ever-evolving digital transformation

AI-integrated activities are moving tech groups to utilise specialised staff

Nearly 30 years ago, the World Wide Web made the digital world accessible for all. Fast forward to 2020, the total time that humans have spent on the internet globally reached 1.3 billion years, with 4.2 billion social network users. Digital transformation is no longer a supplementary tool, but it has been and will continue to be a key element in changing people’s lives in every aspect.

Last year marked a major leap when the offline-to-online business model became a trend as an effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the Vietnam E-commerce and Digital Economy Agency from the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the e-commerce market in Vietnam has grown by 18 per cent, reaching $11.8 billion with just over half of the population engaging in online shopping. Most Vietnamese consumers have quickly adopted this shift to the online environment.

Facing the changes in consumer behaviour, Nguyen Thi My Hien, creative director at T&A Ogilvy stated, “Customer data and consumer behaviours are business strengths. Updating, analysing, and creatively leveraging that database have become essential, especially when AI has developed and appeared in every aspect of our lives. This is a great opportunity for businesses to take a leap since they own the potential to grasp the technological key.”

The role of AI as a game-changer to help businesses gain more understanding about their customers is undeniable. With its almost limitless memory and expeditious processing speed, AI can automate the process of managing and analysing a significant amount of data.

For example, based on the daily interactions of each person, AI will provide behavioural prediction models, thereby deliver instant and personalised experiences. In fact, AI can also handle other complex tasks, such as medical diagnoses and natural language processing. State-of-the-art applications like Spotify or TikTok are testaments to the power of AI in attracting and retaining customers with brilliant experiences.

Digital transformation, especially AI, has ignited the “domino game” of the century, leading all commercial activities to transform with technology. Undoubtedly, the communication and advertising industry is also a part of this movement.

In accordance with analysis by McKinsey and Harvard Business Review, AI applications appear in all functional areas – particularly, supply chain management/production and marketing/sales are two categories of AI’s greatest impact.

With an objective to create a purposeful campaign, marketers must face the challenge of harmonising data insights and consumers’ emotions. Once operations optimisation and data processing are solved by technology, creativity will trigger consumers’ emotions at each touchpoint.

In the US, Chase Bank has used machine learning tools to generate automatic content. Meanwhile, eBay’s ShopBot virtual assistant has tripled the number of customers who conduct research about the product.

In Vietnam, the partnership between Clear and T&A Ogilvy in their AI Toc Tien project has marked a momentous impact of MarTech. T&A Ogilvy has applied machine learning and deep learning to create the “virtual” Toc Tien with the ability to fluently deliver a natural-sounding conversation and self-generate trendy content.

AI Toc Tien helped the Clear Cool Head campaign come to the finish line with 100 per cent sentiment score, more than 1.1 million interactions, and increased Clear’s market share by 3.3 per cent.

The success of AI-integrated advertising campaigns has forced communications giants to quickly improve their specialised staff to research and utilise AI in innovative solutions. In which, the operating model of creative technologist at agencies around the world has begun to penetrate Vietnam.

As an expert in catching up with the trends, T&A Ogilvy has built its own team of creative technologists to continuously monitor the fluctuations from both the market and consumers, thereby providing practical services for partners.

“For T&A Ogilvy and the creative technologist team in particular, technology is our advanced method of implementing innovative ideas”, said Do Thi Minh Chau, a member of the creative technologist team. “We want to take advantage of AI to not only deliver cost-optimised campaigns which help brands to best communicate with their consumers, but also imbue brand image deeply in audiences’ mind.”

Dealing with the arrival of AI, brands must expand the scope of technology use, especially utilising the power of AI to provide digital solutions that meet the advancing needs of Vietnamese consumers, thus boosting businesses’ efficiency.