The MarTech Summit made a successful return to Bangkok on 29 and 30 October 2024, hosted for the first time at the elegant Hotel Nikko Bangkok. This year’s event gathered over 200 senior marketers, featured more than 40 influential speakers, and showcased 10 leading MarTech exhibitors. Attendees were treated to a series of engaging discussions and insightful sessions, making it a memorable experience for all.
We were thrilled to host marketing leaders from distinguished organisations such as Minor Hotels, Unilever, Bangkok Bank, Sansiri, Samsung Electronics, Big C Supermarket, Central Retail Group, Osotspa, dtac, AIA, SCB, Lazada, CHANEL, Agoda, Pruksa Holding, among others. The summit united MarTech professionals from top brands and organisations, creating an environment for valuable connections and the exchange of innovative ideas.
It’s a pleasure to report that a significant majority—over 75%—of our attendees were senior leaders. Additionally, more than 60% came from large organisations with workforces exceeding 1,000 employees. .
This year’s agenda spanned two immersive days, with Day 1 centred on Culture, People, and CX Personalisation, and Day 2 dedicated to AI Innovations in MarTech. The event tackled trending topics such as Hyper-Personalisation, Phygital Experiences, Localised Marketing Campaigns, Content Automation, GenAI & LLMs, and Data Monetisation.
Sessions were delivered through a mix of panels, fireside chats, keynote talks, and roundtable discussions. The enthusiasm of our attendees was evident, with over 100 thought-provoking questions that enriched the discussions and enhanced the collaborative spirit of the summit.
In addition, we coordinated more than 30 pre-scheduled one-on-one meetings on-site for our event sponsors and partners, fostering direct connections and tailored networking opportunities.
Summit Day 1 Highlights – Culture, People, CX Personalisation
Marketing Campaigns & Localisation
A panel on Marketing Campaigns & Localisation – Navigating Cultural Nuances in the Customer Journey has highlighted the importance of localisation and cultural nuances.
Bencharachit Vanichanant, Director, Corporate Marketing Communications at Anantara Vacation Club, concluded that with thoughtful planning and cultural sensitivity, businesses can effectively navigate diverse markets and build strong, lasting connections with their customers.
Ferman Haider Haidery, Head of Marketing, APAC (Veg Seeds) at Syngenta also highlighted that understanding cultural context goes beyond language; it encompasses values, behaviours, and expectations. Marketers who invest in this understanding can foster more meaningful customer relationships and achieve higher conversion rates.
Hyper-Personalisation
We also hosted a panel on Hyper-Personalisation, which opened with a word cloud question: “What does hyper-personalisation mean to you?” Unsurprisingly, “knowing me well” emerged as the most essential factor for delivering truly personalised messages and campaigns.
Panawat Innurak, Head of Personalised Customer Engagement & Experience, ttb Bank, shared a key takeaway from this panel: Hyper-personalisation excels when science and art come together. Leveraging data, customer insights, and algorithms allows us to reach the right customers at the optimal time, while the art of communication—grounded in behavioural science and psychology—encourages engagement and conversion. The combination of both creates a powerful approach, delivering far greater success than relying on one alone
Phygital Experience
We also welcomed Nootprawee Pichayapaiboon, GrabGifts Partnership Lead at GrabForBusiness, to deliver a keynote presentation on Enhancing the Customer Phygital Experience: Rewarding Loyalty.
Nootpraawee presented that in today’s competitive landscape, compelling loyalty programmes are essential as customers continually seek the best deals. Digital rewards have proven highly effective in capturing consumer attention and enhancing the overall customer experience. GrabGifts exemplifies this approach, offering a versatile and customisable digital voucher solution suited to various corporate needs, from boosting employee engagement to attracting and retaining customers.
Summit Day 2 Highlights – AI Innovations in MarTech
Content Automation
On the second day, we kicked off the summit with a fireside chat on Revolutionising Marketing Through Content Automation.
The speakers posed a question to the audience: “What is the biggest challenge when using AI to create content?” The responses highlighted that authenticity, accuracy, and relevance remain the primary challenges.
Faith Benjaathonsirikul, Head of Omnichannel at GSK, concluded the session with a key takeaway: Black Box Thinking – She emphasised the importance of testing and learning, failing fast, and being open to recognising both successes and failures. Each experiment brings us closer to understanding what our customers truly need.
AI in Marketing
Of course, we had a panel discussion to bring AI & marketing on stage.
Tavipat Oparad, Head of Strategy & Business Operations, Digital Media at True Digital Group highlighted that emphasised that AI serves as a companion and thought partner, enriching our lives, easing our workloads, and enabling us to pursue our passions and goals—allowing us to become the humans we aspire to be.
In this session, we also hosted an in-summit roundtable, giving attendees the opportunity to share their pain points and opinions with their table groups following the panel discussion.
Challenges
- Many marketing teams lack AI talent, making it difficult to effectively deploy and maintain AI solutions.
- Selecting the right tools and developing a sound strategy.
Solutions
- Provide internal AI literacy training for marketers and consider partnering with third-party AI consultants. Having AI specialists within marketing teams can also be beneficial.
- Avoid jumping on the bandwagon without purpose. AI is only effective in the right hands, and marketers should not view it as a shortcut.
Future engagement
A huge thank you to all our partners and MarTech enthusiasts who joined us at the summit! Your involvement made for exceptional networking and insightful knowledge-sharing that truly brought the event to life. We can’t wait to see how our partnerships and connections continue to grow from here.
The MarTech Summit Team is delighted to have hosted such an exceptional and interactive community once again. Stay connected with us for future updates by following our social media accounts and joining The MarTech Community on Slack!
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For those who missed the live sessions or wish to revisit them, access the BEETc On-Screen on our learning platform. Let’s continue to connect, learn, and innovate together.
We look forward to welcoming you at future events. To see our upcoming summits in 2025, please visit: https://themartechsummit.com/events/
Stay tuned for updates!
By: Teddy Fung, November 2024
