Effectively Navigating Southeast Asia’s Complexity

Jacob loves generating game-changing insights and has spent the last seven years challenging himself in South-East Asia’s multicultural societies. He has led consumer research from the slums of Soweto and remote Shan Highlands to the penthouse suites of Shenzhen millionaires. He helped brands across the full category spectrum to develop insight-led strategies, innovations, communications, and user experiences.

It is a rare opportunity to learn some of his experiences in the most vibrant part of Asia.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

 

Colin Wong: Hello, Jacob. It’s been a while.

 

Jacob Harbord: Yeah. How are you doing?

 

Colin Wong: Good. Thank you. Good to meet you again. I hope everything is well in Singapore and you guys are staying safe.

 

Jacob Harbord: Yeah. As best we can.

 

Colin Wong: Despite a few cases popping up lately. So do take care and stay safe.

 

Jacob Harbord: 

 

Colin Wong: And first of all, thank you very much for taking the time to come on board.

 

Jacob Harbord: My pleasure.

 

Colin Wong: Doing this interview. I thought maybe we should give the audience a bit of introduction about this session and then maybe give you a few minutes to introduce yourself. So GreenBook decided to come to Asia-Pacific to do a specific portal, which is the Expert Channel, which we are on at the moment, called Disruptive Insights in Asia-Pacific.

Basically, it is actually to house information such as innovations, technologies, insights, technologies, market research providers, case studies, and methodologies. So people can basically go to one place and be able to search for information and interact with other insights industries within the Asia-Pacific region.

And that’s really what we wanted to do at this site, what we are providing in the US and in Europe, where we view a whole huge content library. Anybody can access that library and find the information they need to help themselves or help others. This is what really it’s all about. It’s sharing that knowledge, sharing the information within the region itself.

So before we actually get into our discussion today, which is really on effectively navigating South East Asia’s complexity, I thought to give our audience a little bit of a background of who you are, what you do. You’ll be great, probably spend the next few minutes to give us a brief rundown on yourself.

 

Jacob Harbord: Cool. Thanks, Collin. Yeah. It’s great to be here. Thanks for inviting me to join the call. My name is Jacob Harbord. I’m currently working at the new Grab Singtel Digibank in Singapore. And as a kind of a caveat before we get started, obviously, Grab is now listing in the US. And it goes into what’s called the quiet period, which is when you’re not allowed to talk about the business publicly and stuff like that.

So I can’t comment on my role at Grab or the business to comply with the SEC rules. But I have worked in Singapore for six years doing regional work in all the countries here. So I can talk generally about that and give some tips and tricks for both researchers and marketers to operate effectively and efficiently within the region. Yeah.

 

Colin Wong: Great. So how do you manage diversity when it comes to research, specifically in South East Asia where you have been spending time in the last six or seven years? South-East Asia is so diverse. It’s like, you practically have, most of the race actually congregated in one area. Yeah.

 

Jacob Harbord: Yeah. So how do we make sure we represent those groups and manage that diversity? So I think we have a background of both Kuala Lumpur research, that, with a Kuala Lumpur perspective. I think quantitatively, in terms of managing that diversity, it’s very important to bring in, make sure you represent those key groups.

And to do that you need to really understand who is in which market, and how those markets are structured demographically, geographically, whatever it might be to make sure you’re capturing the key differences in those markets.

 

So for example in Malaysia, for example, a pretty ethnically diverse region, you have a split between the Malaysian Malays and the Chinese. And they’re very culturally distinct. And essentially, they need to both be captured if you’re doing any kind of research there.

And in terms of demographics, the Malay side of the population is about 60%, with the Chinese being at 40%. But because the Chinese people is slightly more affluent, the actual market size is about 50-50.

So in that case, you can between those two groups and effectively just double your sample size. You’re doing research in Malaysia, you know, making sure you represent both of those key groups. So in Malaysia, it’s that dynamic.

In another country, it’s different. So in Vietnam, it’s key to represent the geographic split between North and South. So obviously, they’re very different histories, because of the occupation, of communism, and all that kind of stuff. So in the North, it’s American culture. In the South, very different history, very different background.

And you basically need to repeat the research in the North and the South. You split your sample like that. So from a corporate perspective, it’s all about understanding what the key differences are and what you need to include to represent the sample.

But from a qualitative perspective, it’s different. So in that case, it’s just about making sure you represent every voice, but make sure you bring in the most relevant voices to the table. So it’s not about who you’re excluding, it’s about who you include and being very conscious about who you’re bringing in.

So in that case, it’s less about, OK, I need people from the North or the South. We’re doing this product. Do we need to speak to either all sides or one and /or the other? And it’s being a bit, thinking it through and picking and choosing the right people for the session. Yeah

 

Colin Wong: Yeah. OK. Right. So what can a brand do to ensure that the campaign resonates with everyone? And what will be your suggestion to achieve brand consistency with this localization?

 

Jacob Harbord: Yeah. That’s a great question. So I think that’s something a lot of marketers I’ve been working with struggle with. You work with a very diverse region. And yeah, it’s a question of how do we, ideally, you want your brand and your campaigns and your products to be as consistent as possible because essentially, it’s cheaper, less effort to have a single product than do a campaign for the whole region.

But because of that, it’s so diverse, and there’s a lot of complexity and a lot of new ones to take on board, it can be challenging to do that. So I think, I would always recommend that brands try their best to find as much common ground across the region as possible.

So during a campaign, you might want to look at common aspirations across countries or shared cultural values such as educating children, taking care of family, striving hard to improve life. Those would be common themes we see in communications across South East Asia.

And once you develop this kind of consistent platform across the region, then it’s about checking you’re not alienating any groups and making sure that it works across every country. And then there’s no failing, and bomb anywhere.

So an example would be, I was working with a brand, an FMCG brand, that was rebranding their laundry products and targeting millennials. They had a very innovative, exciting campaign targeting urban millennials. But at the same time, they wanted to make sure that it’s not going to alienate the older consumers, the more traditional consumer base.

So we did testing to make sure it doesn’t; it resonates strongly with that core group but it doesn’t alienate, it doesn’t turn off, those you want your key target. The same applies to different countries. And so across the region, you might typically see that the same campaign can work in Malaysia, Singapore.

But Thailand, for example, has a very different kind of narrative and visual culture, same as Vietnam. And in that case, you might want to look at those countries in particular and develop a more like, strategy for where you feel you might need it.

 

Colin Wong: Yeah. You touched on a little bit about targeting the millennials, so if we can maybe spend the next few minutes on that, I would love to get an understanding, your thoughts. And often we see when targeting millennials, marketing campaigns often change from your traditional to non-traditional because they’re just a very different group of people. So what would a brand, I mean how would a brand target this consumer more effectively, I suppose?

 

Jacob Harbord: Yeah. It’s also something the brands think a lot about, how do you target specific groups, and how do you, which channels do you pick to target those groups. When you mentioned traditional and non-traditional media, I think it’s interesting to spend a bit of time on that distinction, what it means in South East Asia.

So if we look at traditional media, we might typically assume and say, in Western markets, that’s the TV, print media, or stuff like that. But actually, there can be other channels that are relevant in South East Asia.

So for example, the Philippines is one of them, is I think the top billboard advertising market. If you have been to Manila, you see when you drive down the highways, it’s all billboards or advertising like that. So that’s a key channel that would count as traditional there.

Similarly, I have spent time in Myanmar. And people, you see these vendors walk around with their little carts. And they have a megaphone. And they call out.

 

Colin Wong: Good old days.

 

Jacob Harbord: Yeah. The good old days. You can always call it that. I think that things like that, are traditional media in a sense. And I think it’s important not to discount that and not to say, OK, not to throw that away, just as we wouldn’t throw away television or magazine or print advertising in Western markets.

So I mean, the first thing is you have to understand what are the traditional channels is important. And say, is my target engagement with those. So millennials, typically, will be driving. So they might still see the billboards, that kind of stuff in the Philippines even though they are using smartphones and stuff. So that’s the first point.

And I think the second point on channel choice, and we look at non-traditional media, specifically, smartphones, social media, stuff like that. I think it’s important to think about the dynamics in these markets are like inverses versus the West. So you might say countries are mobile-first countries, particularly somewhere like Myanmar, where the price of a Sim card went from $100 US to like $1 overnight, basically, when they opened up the market.

So yeah. It is really rapid uptake of that technology and a very different relationship with it. You know, in other countries, in Myanmar, again, for example, we talk about non-traditional media. You’re really talking about Facebook because Facebook is the internet in Myanmar.

What you’re really talking about is the relationship and the dynamics that people have with channels is important. So I just went on on this topic. But I’m basically saying, if you look at traditional versus non-traditional, it is important to define those, understand what they mean in that market, and then think about how your segments are engaging with those.

And again, not to discount traditional media because millennials are still driving cars, are still listening to people pulling out into the freeway, whatever. So it might still be relevant. It might still be interesting to renew some of those.

 

Colin Wong:  So with that all in mind and working in the regional markets, usually, we talk about a few markets together. So it means that when you want a research project, you probably will do it about four or five or six markets at the same time.

What would you consider three key most important components that a researcher must consider accessing and collecting the relevant, and how to reach data, especially for projects that have a very high opportunity of this happening? Yeah.

 

Jacob Harbord: OK. Three things that a researcher needs to know to work across those countries, particularly to get hard-to-reach consumers Yeah. I mean, it’s a good thing to know. I mean, I think having tips to reach those hard-to-reach people is always a bonus in advance. And clients do appreciate it when you can do that.

I would break it down. If you took my three things, I would kind of break it down into, first of all, we need really strong contacts and relationships in each market. And that’s just as a regional researcher, that’s really crucial.

Outside of the region, it’s really crucial to have people on the ground in each country. You know it really well. You obviously have operations there and are experts in that country. And that’s obviously important for doing the research. But it’s also important for getting tips and tricks and understanding what’s going on.

So as an outsider, you never have that same depth of knowledge. So if you’re going in this to reach this particular group, a hard-to-reach group, they can give you the tips and the tricks to reach them and find them and knowing exactly how you can do that. So that’s the first one, having those relationships in the market.

The second one would be really trying your best to develop your own understanding of the market, both in terms of, ideally, getting on the ground experience and doing research there and getting a number of projects under your belt so that you know what’s going on, but also applying a cross-cultural framework so that you can situate that market in relation to others.

And that’s really important because it helps your general understanding and getting the most insight out of the work you do in that particular market. In terms of hard-to-reach consumers, once you have that on-the-ground experience, you can then start developing strategies, your own strategies, for reaching those groups. So I’ve done a large amount of research in Indonesia on I’m aware of the local neighborhood, the social structure in Indonesia. So there are, you know…

 

Colin Wong: The villages. Yeah.

 

Jacob Harbord: The villages, yes. There’s the war room which is the store. There are the health care workers. It’s usually someone who leads that block, and it’s a local leader. So once you know some of those people that are key in the social structure, then you can start thinking, OK, I want to look at, for example, how to reach consumers. Sometimes you can’t reach them.

But actually, if you want to then take an indirect approach, then the touchpoints you can go to talk about a sensitive topic on healthcare. I know that in Indonesia there are these community health care workers that we can go and talk to. And that could be one of what they’re doing. And so yeah, personal relationships in this market, develop your own understanding of the market.

I think the third thing that’s really important is also understanding your client’s operations in the market and their understanding of the market. So having that empathy for your clients, and what they know about the market, what they’re doing over there. So that’s generally useful as a researcher because you know how to frame your insights, recommendations, and findings in a way that’s useful for them.

So if they’re working in a new market, for the sake of argument, in Myanmar, you say, okay, this part of Myanmar culture is like Indonesia. Or this category is operating similar to the Philippines. And you know, you can use that to frame what’s going on.

And also their operations can help you find hard-to-reach people, the classic thing. We’re us is when I was on the agency side, was to find high net worth individuals, which is obviously very, very difficult.

But if you’re working with wealth management clients or something like that, they probably have the contacts. And they have those operations on the ground. So that kind of thing can help as well. Yeah.

 

Colin Wong: That’s really good to know. Within cultural research, I mean, you have been doing this for ages already. So what was your most difficult research project that you have to do or you have done, I suppose? Yeah.

 

Jacob Harbord: I think it depends on how we define difficult. There have obviously been difficult projects that I’ve just gone business of all the challenges. But I think for the sake of our interview, let’s define difficult as maybe the most complex and the most, not intricate but definitely complex and quite a lot to handle.

So I’ll talk you through to that project. So I used to run a series of projects for a CPG brand out of Singapore that started off looking at consumers at the bottom of the pyramid and doing ethnic research among them and bringing, helping, the client understand a group of people that a little about their lives, aspirations, values, and the environment, all that kind of stuff.

And then that grew into just doing general market segmentation through qualitative, ethnic research. So I did the project in Indonesia, South Africa, Turkey, India, and also Myanmar. And Myanmar, I think, was the most challenging in that sense.

And what we actually did there were about 22-23 hour immersions all across the country. As part of our operations, we did urban and rural, split Yangon, Mandalay, Taunggyi, Bagan, and so a lot of material.

And that was one of the key challenges, actually. There’s a lot of material to go through, a lot of very diverse people you are talking to. So I might speak to a small business owner in Yangon, then to someone who lives in a rural area outside of Bagan that’s basically in a wooden house in the rice paddies, and stuff like that. And so it’s challenging to bring all that together into a comprehensive, cohesive, story so your client can understand what’s going on in the market.

And the second hard thing about it is that it’s a big unknown. So obviously, in Myanmar, they recently opened, and we got out in a few years. And that’s not my level of understanding within regional teams. So you’re going in with a blank slate. And you are not really sure or know what to look at. So that was the biggest challenge.

What we actually did was, of course, to do the research. I talked to my tips for analysis that I developed from that and from the other projects. I think the first thing is really to apply when you’re doing this kind of cultural research around this setting, an entire culture like a national culture, it’s to apply the kind of methods and frameworks, classic segmentation, which is really understanding their needs and values and aspirations and looking for commonalities and differences across the population that you’re studying.

Here’s what I tied that back to a wider context. So in the case of Myanmar– sorry I can’t talk about the insights, but I’ll talk generally, in Myanmar that’s the country that, as I said, has undergone a huge amount of change. Overnight basically, you know, they opened up the token market. Same for a lot of other things. There was incredibly rapid change.

And it’s really important to understand how people reacted to that change in the market, the different attitudes, the different ways that that plays out in different contexts. So taking what’s going on generally in the country and applying it to segmentation can help them join the dots between some kind of macro, micro, levels and really help generate some powerful insights.

So the first thing to do to overcome the challenge of that market is really when you work with complex cultural data, I say you apply segmentation tools.

The second is also it’s helpful to apply that in some regional comparative, cross-cultural comparative, contexts. So you might say, these things are changing really rapidly. People are reacting like this.

And we’ve seen something similar, for example, in China, you might look at some of these other countries with really rapid change. And that can help you tell a story that’s relatable, again, your clients and also kind of brings in some thinking from outside.

And I think the third thing is what you’re talking about, segmentation, customer structure frameworks, the whole thing. It’s a bit structured. But actually, it’s also nice to bring out big observations, big cultural ideas, that don’t really sit within the nice framework.

But they’ll say, oh, well, we hadn’t thought about this. This is a big, big idea that’s going to be useful and interesting that can stand alone as some kind of insight. So yeah. That’s some of the thinking that we used to bring all that data together and to really illuminate that market for our client.

 

Colin Wong: How long did it take for you guys to actually go through that process and prepare for it? Or was it a case where you guys sat down and said, okay, here’s a bit of thinking that we have? This is how much we can do.

Before the project start, while the project is actually in view, and after we collected the data, we started looking, to analyze everything,  we might need to switch that thinking a little bit around now because we see different data coming out and basically canceling out the previous thought process. this might not work. And we might have to bring in something new.

 

Jacob Harbord: Yeah. So how do we go about shaping our thinking? I mean, I think that’s a really interesting question, particularly when we talk about ethnography, which is really about going in without– trying to overcome your own preconceived ideas of what’s important and what you should be focusing on.

You know as an outsider, I think we look at this or that. Actually, once you start doing the research, that hopefully, will change. And you’ll start learning new things. And actually, this is what’s important to the people who do research with this is what just– here’s a new idea which you kind of follow that lead.

So I think up front, it’s challenging to do that. I think you need to be prepared to change your mind. So go in as informed as you can. And that’s where briefings with local partners can be really helpful.

So briefing calls, spending a bit of time trying to understand what would they expect to find, what have they learned. And sharing upfront can be helpful to develop your research instruments and your own thinking.

Then during the sessions, obviously, you learn a lot, and things change. I think it’s, important as best you can, to keep some flexibility in your structure. As researchers you know, the way commercial projects work, is that you suddenly do 10 interviews with these people on these days.

And you go in do it. And there’s not much time to recalibrate or to flex with different things. So in that case with the Myanmar study, we were quite lucky that we actually went back twice. So we did one round.

 

Colin Wong: Great.

 

Jacob Harbord: Yeah. So that’s a couple of weeks, then we came back and had a bit of time to digest. Then actually, we went back again and did some additional kind of work. So in that case, you can build on, reshape things a bit on that second round.

But we don’t always have that opportunity. So it’s good to keep things as flexible as possible, keep some time in your schedule to explore things, and to go down rabbit holes and explore and experiment. That’s important.

And then when you’re analyzing, the way I do it is pretty I just sit down with all my data. And I just figure it out. I don’t do too much preparation. That’s kind of raw. I don’t know if that’s always best practice.

You’ve got the framework in your mind and you start applying it to the raw data, figuring things out as you go. And that’s like an organic process, which day one. But things usually work out for the best by the end of the work.

 

Colin Wong: Very good to hear. Very good to hear. Sounds like a really fun experience, going back twice. So you know, places like Myanmar, obviously, the whole country, so if we’re looking at economic development, would you consider them as one of the main drivers for cultural diversity when it comes to consumer goods?

 

Jacob Harbord: It is. But, the way that works, from my perspective, is; I’ll just explain how I feel that works. So obviously, as regions, so I think the key thing, let’s take a step back and say, okay, when we research in South East Asia traditionally, we focus on tier 1, capital cities with the middle class.

That’s largely because that’s where the markets work. That’s where the key markets work. If you’re bringing in relatively expensive products to a country like Myanmar or others, then you want to start usually, typically, you want to start off launching that in your tier 1 capital city and then expanding outwards.

So for that, in that case, the question of cultural diversity is an interesting one. Because you really look at well, a narrow band of people in that country. You may not reflect the entire cultural diversity of that nation. In fact, probably one, it’s a small segment but a valuable one, and one that you want to start off with.

I think as those economies develop, the scope of the market economy and also the people that the market is starting to consider is expanding. For example, we see that really, really coming to the forefront in Indonesia, where again typically, brands are focused on Jakarta and Java, urban centers.

And that’s starting to change now, where the region, rural areas, are becoming more important. Some of the other regions are becoming more important. And those are more culturally diverse than just looking at Java and Jakarta. So each can factor in some of those things there.

And it’s also helpful. And I think it goes both ways. You know, as much as those regions are developing and marked as paying more attention to them. I think within those countries, just in terms of just the overall, for example, media culture, we’re starting to see that getting those diverse cultures getting better representation in this country.

So there’s a lot of films in Indonesia coming out. So now called Illuminate that I worked with, I used to work with often in Indonesia, where I’m writing a blog post about this and talking about some of the movies coming out of rural Indonesia. There’s one called, Tilik, which is all about these rural Indonesian women on a bus journey somewhere. It represents their lives and showing that kind of culture.

And that’s useful again for brands as you see those regions becoming more prominent voices within their own countries, that seems a resource to understand what’s going on there, and understanding of what’s important to these people, for both researchers and brands. Yeah.

 

Colin Wong: That’s actually really interesting. Because one thing that I do notice that is Thailand also does this thing where they create really short videos and use that as a marketing tool. It basically tells a story. And that in the end, it relates back to the frame of how that frame actually relates to that story and people within that story, how they are saved by them.

It’s actually very interesting that they’re creating a marketing campaign based on, really, everyday life, everyday story, which is very different to us, I suppose. If you want to compare a Western campaign with a very specific one, make sure you know, why your TV commercials say, 15 seconds or 30 seconds, that’s it, while these commercials usually go for a few minutes to tell you the whole story.

Yeah. So very, very deep, very rich cultural diversity, rich in that sense. What would you consider a single key consideration when it comes to this sort of research in South East Asia?

 

Jacob Harbord: So I think if you’re looking at diversity in your research, then some of the key things to be mindful of, I think, one of the main things is that it should be quite hard to find that diversity that you might be expecting.

Often as I said, when people do research in South East Asia, they might fly into Jakarta or Manila or Singapore, whatever, and do two days in a focus group and fly back. And you might not be actually seeing that much of the country or that much outside of the table in the capital city. So that’s the first thing.

I think if you’re looking at culture, you might need to work a little hard to find it. It’s not going to be given to you or not on the plane. You, actually, unless you have a 10-minute special, but you might have to work a little hard to find it and to find some of these interesting things that you are looking for.

In the same vein, I’ve done a decent amount of research in rural communities of people at the bottom of the pyramid communities. And I feel like sometimes people don’t necessarily want to display some of that cultural diversity. There can be some harassment around it. There can be some stigma around it such as superstitious beliefs and things like that.

The people, the moderators, might be from that country’s higher economic group and higher socioeconomic group than the people you’re interviewing. And that can produce a set of challenges. So I think in a sense, again, you might not see people talking about traditional beliefs. You might not hear that kind of stuff.

But actually, if you dig a bit deeper, and you take a slightly more indirect route like speaking to experts who work with those communities, you can uncover some of those things that people might not be so happy talking about upfront. Yeah.

 

Colin Wong: Those are usually very interesting information coming up. You mentioned superstition. I think that’s really very much still in the majority of Asian cultures. They are superstitious to a certain degree, whether or not you have a religion-wise. I think that’s something that plays a lot on their mind. Yeah.

Well, Jacob, thank you very much. I think it’s been a great interesting talk having you onboard, learning about the South East Asia research, the complexity in it, and how people should actually go about and they should, AUC started to, wanting to work at South East Asia.

And I think from our conversation, that gives people a lot of information with your years of experience. And I thank you very much. Just lastly, anything else that you would like to add apart from those that we spoke about?

 

Jacob Harbord: That’s pretty much it. I mean, I think that was some of the key dynamics we talked about in terms of how to operate in the region, some of the things to bear in mind, when you’re on the ground and how to make the most out of your data.

I mean, I think what I would say is I think, personally, I find this a fascinating region to work in. It’s extremely diverse, it’s changing really fast. There are always new things going on, products, the people to talk to, and things that are important, new issues.

So that’s pretty exciting. So it’s a great region to kind of be working and well worth the effort and the time that’s taken to understand it and to make the most out of your research and marketing efforts there.

 

Colin Wong: Well, that is great, Jacob. Thank you again for your time. And like I said, please continue to check in with us. I mean this is a new portal. And Green Book, obviously, would love to work with you again in the future to get more of your contribution within the region.

And this is what we’re trying to do as I mentioned earlier at the beginning of our conversation, is that we’re trying to get all the different expertise in the region to basically come on board and discuss and share the experience so that everybody in the region can learn and take away something.

So again, my sincere appreciation for taking your valuable time. I know that you are very busy. So I’m very much looking forward to the next opportunity to work with you and perhaps catch up with you in person soon.

 

Jacob Harbord: Yeah. Fingers crossed.

 

Colin Wong: We are able to do that. Yes. Thank you very much.

 

Jacob Harbord: Great. Thanks very much. Thank you.

 

Colin Wong: Take care and stay in touch.

 

Jacob Harbord: You too. Thank you.

 

Colin Wong: OK. Thank you.