Vayner Media and Marketing in Asia Pacific with Jeff Nicholson

Jeff Nicholson, chief media officer of Vayner Media joined us in a conversation on the expansion of their business footprint in Asia Pacific and discuss the major trends in marketing and advertising across Asia Pacific, splitting between China and the rest of Asia. Jeff discuss the customer centric focus of Vayner Media and how they are working with international brands in Asia Pacific and regional brands on digital marketing. We discuss the effects of the new tri-factor of Google, Facebook and Amazon in advertising and aggregation, and the rise of Tik Tok in international markets.

Here are the interesting show notes and links to the discussion (with time-stamps included):

• Jeffrey Nicholson, Chief Media Officer of Vayner Media (@jnicholson, LinkedIn) [0:55]
  • How did you start your career? [1:46]
  • How did you eventually end up in Vayner Media? [3:19]
  • In your career journey, what are some interesting career lessons learnt?
• Vayner Media in Asia Pacific [4:08]
  • • Can you briefly introduce VaynerMedia in Asia and what is her current vision and mission? [5:26]
    • As you’ve started to  enter into the market, have you found the challenges/needs of the clients in Asia Pacific any different from the clients in the West? [6:28]
    • Do the needs of the global customers driven by localization efforts? [7:47]
    • What are the expectations of Asian brands when it comes to digital marketing and branding? [8:30]
    • Are there any regional examples or case studies which you can talk about? [9:40]
    • How do you cope with customers who have attained an advanced stage in their digital marketing efforts and what is your value add from there? [10:40]
    • What are the dos and don’ts when it comes to educate your clients on digital marketing and branding? [12:00]
    • Suppose you have the media architecture, will the message be important when you deploy them for marketing? [13:25]
    • Due to the costs associated, are traditional companies moving towards bringing their digital media teams in-house? [14:06]
    • What do you think are the key challenges and opportunities currently facing the media industry? [15:09]
    • How does Vayner Media deal with brand safety and deal with controversy? [18:44]
    • What about the relationship between the brands and advertisers with the duopoly: Google and Facebook or maybe adding Amazon when it comes to distribution? [20:34]
    • Given that China and the rest of Asia are two separate media ecosystems, how do you balance your social portfolio across these markets? [22:06]
    • What’s your opinion on Bytedance’s Douyin (or Tik Tok) app? [23:11]
  • What do you think the future could hold for the media industry? [24:15]
• Closing [25:08]
  • Can you recommend a book or movie or podcast or anything which recently made an impact to your work and personal life? [25:10]
    • Jeff’s recommendations: Reviews of products and services for brands from public websites such as Amazon.
  • How do my audience find you? [26:32]

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The show is hosted by Bernard Leong (@bernardleong & weibo) and are sponsored by Ideal Workspace (Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn) with their new Altizen Desk (Twitter, Facebook, Medium). Sound credits for the intro music: Taro Iwashiro, “The Beginning” from Red Cliff Soundtrack and this episode is edited by Carol Yin, and co-produced by Carol Yin and Bernard Leong.