Berlin-based startup, TechBehemoths 2022 Awards selected 21 companies across 13 disciplines helped hundreds of businesses from our platform to get media coverage and attract new clientele throughout the year. Go International Group Dotcom Sdn Bhd was among the winners – read more. It is important to mention that all the awards and rankings on the platform are based exclusively on meritocracy. No one can buy or manipulate an award. The ranking is calculated based on several complex metrics including users’ interaction with a business profile, the number of events it gets or messages received.
Marketing Communication
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[ View newsletter: GIG News | December 2021 ] We’re GIG ready! We closed the chapter to 2021 and embarked on a new kind of normalcy in 2022. During the lockdowns, in our limited capacity, we got creative and have created a simple platform inviting creative freelancers to register. Innovation has always been our strength, and we have pivoted our business to be nimble and adapt to market changes. We are OPEN FOR BUSINESS and welcome requests for proposals. Speak to us today if you have a project that needs management, or if you require media, technology, marketing and communication solutions. GIG Academy / GIG Creative Community After 15 years of mentoring over 100 students from Technical and Vocational Educational & Training institutions and universities from Malaysia, Australia, France and La Reunion, we have kickstarted the year with a distance mentoring program for university students from Chosun University, South Korea. Students undergo a month-long media and communication training program with our media team at AsiaFitnessToday.com. We revealed GIG Creative Community – a register of creative freelancers. If you are someone looking to hire someone to produce creative work, visit www.GoInternationalGroup.net and register as a Freelancer or Find a Freelancer. Entrepreneurs who Pivot, Stay Alive! Our podcast producers are looking for entrepreneurs who have pivoted their business as a result of the pandemic. Do you know someone with a story to share? Tell us 2021 Highlights And so, it’s a wrap! A shout-out to the amazing people who appeared on AFT Podcasts and shared so many insights on their personal stories, crossing live between Kuala Lumpur and Sydney. It was year that combined all of the human emotions; simple joys, pains in the quiet of lockdowns and some triumphs too. In that hope of the silver lining of what’s to come, we send you our best wishes for an enriching and productive 2022! Happy listening and a happy new year!
We share this announcement in honour of all economists, with utmost respect for the winners of the 2021 Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. A decade ago, we had the honour of serving Sweden Embassy of Kuala Lumpur for the Sweden Malaysia Innovation Days exhibition and forum, as well as a Nobel inspired Dinner attended by over 600 dignitaries and VIP guests at the Hilton Sentral Kuala Lumpur. That experience led us to Sweden on a media trip to understand what drives Nordic innovation. After a whirlwind tour visiting Swedish companies like Volvo, Ericsson, BAE Bofors, IKEA, Uppsala University, green city Hamarby Sjostad and Nobel Museum from Stockholm to Goteburg, Karlskoga to Älmhult (Ikea’s founding city), we left truly inspired for many years to come. Jasmine Low, co-founder GIG: gointernationalgroup.com On 11 October 2021 in Oslo, Norway, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2021 with one half to David Card of University of California, Berkeley, USA “for his empirical contributions to labour economics” and the other half jointly to Joshua D. Angrist of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA and Guido W. Imbens of Stanford University, USA “for their methodological contributions to the analysis of causal relationships”. Natural experiments help answer important questions for society This year’s Laureates – David Card, Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens – have provided us with new insights about the labour market and shown what conclusions about cause and effect can be drawn from natural experiments. Their approach has spread to other fields and revolutionised empirical research. Many of the big questions in the social sciences deal with cause and effect. How does immigration affect pay and employment levels? How does a longer education affect someone’s future income? These questions are difficult to answer because we have nothing to use as a comparison. We do not know what would have happened if there had been less immigration or if that person had not continued studying. However, this year’s Laureates have shown that it is possible to answer these and similar questions using natural experiments. The key is to use situations in which chance events or policy changes result in groups of people being treated differently, in a way that resembles clinical trials in medicine. Using natural experiments, David Card has analysed the labour market effects of minimum wages, immigration and education. His studies from the early 1990s challenged conventional wisdom, leading to new analyses and additional insights. The results showed, among other things, that increasing the minimum wage does not necessarily lead to fewer jobs. We now know that the incomes of people who were born in a country can benefit from new immigration, while people who immigrated at an earlier time risk being negatively affected. We have also realised that resources in schools are far more important for students’ future labour market success than was previously thought. Data from a natural experiment are difficult to interpret, however. For example, extending compulsory education by a year for one group of students (but not another) will not affect everyone in that group in the same way. Some students would have kept studying anyway and, for them, the value of education is often not representative of the entire group. So, is it even possible to draw any conclusions about the effect of an extra year in school? In the mid-1990s, Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens solved this methodological problem, demonstrating how precise conclusions about cause and effect can be drawn from natural experiments. “Card’s studies of core questions for society and Angrist and Imbens’ methodological contributions have shown that natural experiments are a rich source of knowledge. Their research has substantially improved our ability to answer key causal questions, which has been of great benefit to society,” says Peter Fredriksson, chair of the Economic Sciences Prize Committee. Illustrations ”© Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences” Illustration: Association between education and income (pdf)Illustration: Years of education (pdf)Illustration: Effect of increasing the minimum wage (pdf)Illustration: Local average treatment effect (pdf) Read more about this year’s prize Popular science background: Natural experiments help answer important questions (pdf)Scientific Background: Answering causal questions using observational data (pdf) David Card, born 1956 in Guelph, Canada. Ph.D. 1983 from PrincetonUniversity, USA. Class of 1950 Professor of Economics, University ofCalifornia, Berkeley, USA. Joshua D. Angrist, born 1960 in Columbus, Ohio, USA. Ph.D. 1989 fromPrinceton University, USA. Ford Professor of Economics, MassachusettsInstitute of Technology, Cambridge, USA. Guido W. Imbens, born 1963 in Netherlands. Ph.D. 1991 fromBrown University, Providence, USA. The Applied Econometrics Professorand Professor of Economics, Stanford University, USA. Prize amount: 10 million Swedish kronor, with one half to David Card and the other half jointly to Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens.Further information: www.kva.se and www.nobelprize.org The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, founded in 1739, is an independent organisation whose overall objective is to promote the sciences and strengthen their influence in society. The Academy takes special responsibility for the natural sciences and mathematics, but endeavours to promote the exchange of ideas between various disciplines. Nobel Prize® is a registered trademark of the Nobel Foundation. Citation MLA style: Press release: The Prize in Economic Sciences 2021. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2021. Tue. 12 Oct 2021.
When I was a teenager, my favourite yearbook was Space 1999, a British series starring Barbara Bain & Martin Landau (one of the most successful husband and wife teams) and also Catherine Schell as Maya, who could morph into a frog, an insect, or even a rock! It seems those early days of sci-fi series like this, and Star Trek may have also been the crux of inspiration for two men – Jeff Bezos (Blue Origin, USA) and Richard Branson (Virgin Galactic, UK) who have now morphed from A-to-Z-e-commerce entrepreneur (Bezos) and Virgin-everything-until-you’re-not entrepreneur (Branson) into commercial astronauts! Fun facts Martin Landau was Cmdr. John Koenig of Moonbase Alpha, a ship stranded in space with a quest to find its way home while Barbara Bain was Dr. Helena Russell, the cool and professional chief medical officer on the lunar station. Another Space 1999 character was Ziena Merton who played the role of Italian data analyst, Sandra Benes. Merton was born in Brunei, her mother was Burmese, father half English, half French and raised in Singapore, Portugal, Borneo and England. Maya is a character I still have in mind – fans may recall her monobrow! via GIPHY Space tourism Yesterday, on 20 July 2021, Amazon founder’s Blue Origin completed New Shepard ship’s first human flight (after 15 test flights prior to this one) with four civilians onboard; Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark Bezos, 82-year old Wally Funk who’s now the oldest person to fly in space and the 18-year old Dutchman Oliver Daemen whose father bid for the ticket, making him the first person in history as a commercial astronaut and the youngest person to fly in space as they passed the Kármán Line, the internationally recognised boundary of space located 100km from the Earth’s mean sea line. Astronauts were in communicado with ground crew at mission control and the in-cabin voice of Sara Knight was eeriely familiar since my last AirAsia commercial flight in 2019. But her voice also reminded me of Maya! Virgin Galactic’s Sir Richard Branson and his crew of five others (plus two pilots aboard mothership VMS Eve pictured above) on 11th July blasted off just 20KM short of the Karman Line, technically not reaching ‘space’ and yet having the few minutes of ZERO G aboard VSS Unity also made history, with two women aboard, one of whom with Indian heritage. 22 flights were done prior to this one. Read more: https://bit.ly/AFT-VSS-Unity Environmental impact What do the environmental groups say about this? Dr. Stuart Parkinson, ED of Scientists for Global Responsibility whose patrons include the likes of the late Prof. Stephen Hawking, cited a report by the Climate Change Committee where the UK government’s advisory body found that 62% of the necessary measures by society to reduce carbon emissions involve societal and behavour change. Avoiding air travel was one, whereby the carbon footprint of a return flight from London to Hong Kong is 3.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e), similar to a UK citizen’s average car use for over 10 months. In that same article, one space flight results in emissons of at least 330 tCO2e, according to Prof. Mike Berners-Lee of Lancaster University and a renowned spokesperson on carbon footprinting. Parkinson snubs the aim of the journeys, saying “A few minutes of zero-gravity experience and a nice view… environmental vandalism for the super-rich”. Can tax save humanity? As a boutique agency, we can only stand back and watch how billionnaires like Bezos and Branson fulfil their personal dreams. But our question is, was it really just space travel? We all need to pivot and find newsworthy experiences for purposes of building brand equity and while the new frontier is looking fantastic, it seems like it curtails a greater purpose…which in our opinion, in real terms today, is to survive as long as we can on this planet without destroying what’s left of it. While space tourism sounds exciting, a more sustainable option could be donning a 360° viewfinder and experiencing it via VR lens. Or, perhaps there ought to be a hefty carbon tax put onto the space travellers if reason cannot stop them. Just like in Oaxaca in Mexico, their Mayor introduced a soft drink & candy ban for children under 18 in a bid to manage rising health concerns. A sugar tax has been introduced in several countries like Singapore, Norway, Bahrain, Brunei, Finland, India, Ireland, Malaysia, Philippines and Sri Lanka with 2020 Australian of the Year Dr. James Muecke AM proposing it for Australia. The World Health Organisation (WHO) encourages people to take as little sugar as possible because “nutritionally, people do not need any sugar in their diet”. It said that reducing sugar intake to 25g a day would provide health benefits. This is six teaspoons according to the WHO. If they can’t implement a sugar tax globally, will they be able to succeed in implementing a carbon emission tax? That onus falls back onto the policymakers, conscience of the entrepreneur and commercial astronauts themselves. Or perhaps, we just need a really good Netflix series titled Space 2999 while the big boys go in search of a more sustainable and clean fuel!
GoInternationalGroup.com is a pioneer cause-marketing agency since 2005. When asked why, co-founder Jasmine Low shared, “I must say I learnt about cause-marketing from my former boss at a PR agency. Shehara Da Silva was a big believer of causes, and worked with children from the 2004 Tsunami using art as therapy. She was also a big supporter of many causes during her time at the agency, taking on at least one non-profit case per year.” It was from there, that GoInternationalGroup.com was established in 2005 to serve and support the under-privileged with cause-related campaign management. We have been doing so since then. Here’s some further information by a veritable organisation – Engage for Good, that was set up in 2002 to pursue “doing well by doing good”. Excerpt from: http://engageforgood.com/stats/ Statistics Every Cause Marketer Should Know If you’re a cause marketer, you undoubtedly need quick access to research to support your daily work. Here are some statistics from 2018 that shed new light on doing well by doing good. Visit their website for more statistics. 2018 Only 42% of employees feel that the values of their employer match their own (and only 14% feel a strong alignment), and only 36% trust business leaders to do what’s right (down from 41% in 2017) World Value Index The following turnover rates were found in a global dataset of more than 2 million employees from 118 companies: Employees that neither donated or volunteered: 28% turnover Employees that only donated money: 18% turnover Employees that only volunteered time: 17% turnover Employees that both donated money and volunteered time: 12% turnover Benevity Engagement Study Expands the consumer base: 88% would buy a product from a Purpose-driven company and 66% would switch from a product they typically buy to a new product from a Purpose-driven company. 2018 Cone/Porter Novelli Purpose Study Builds brand advocates to amplify the brand message: 78% would tell others to buy products from Purpose-driven companies, and 68% are more willing to share content with their social networks over that of traditional companies. 2018 Cone/Porter Novelli Purpose Study Purpose trumps cost and quality: Purpose leads over low-cost or high-quality products in 5 of 8 consumer actions. 2018 Cone/Porter Novelli Purpose Study $1 is the preferred amount of giving when adding on to the bill. The POS Giving: Progressing and Prospering. 96% of consumers feel neutral or more positive about the retailer after donating at point of sale.The POS Giving: Progressing and Prospering. Brands with a high sense of purpose have experienced a brand valuation increase of 175% over the past 12 years, compared to the median growth rate of 86% and the 70% growth rate for brands with a low sense of purpose. Kantar Consulting’s new Purpose 2020 report. Among marketing leaders, 76% think their organization has a defined purpose, but only one in 10 have a corporate purpose statement that’s backed by a meaningful activation plan. Kantar Consulting’s new Purpose 2020 report. Cause sponsorship is predicted to reach $2.14 billion in 2018, a projected increase of 4.4% over 2017. ESP Sponsorship Report 78% of those aged 18-24 are willing to spend more on a product or service that is more ethicalthan a cheaper option. Spotlight on CSR The majority of respondents have never researched the ethical standards of a company before making a purchase. Of the 35% who have, the product categories they were most likely to research were: groceries (48%), personal care/cosmetics (46%), and household goods (41%). Spotlight on CSR Globally, nearly seven in 10 respondents among the general population worry about fake news or false information being used as a weapon. Sixty-three percent agree that the average person does not know how to distinguish good journalism from rumor, and 59% say that it is getting harder to tell if a piece of news was produced by a respected media organization. 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer Sixty-four percent agree that CEOs should take the lead on change rather than waiting for government to impose it. Moreover, the believability of a business’ analysis of an important social issue (46 percent) is nearly on par with that of a major news organization (54 percent). 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer Sixty-six percent of respondents say posts from brands rarely or never influence their opinions on social issues. Rather, respondents believe brands are more effective on social media when they announce donations to specific causes (39%) and encourage followers to take specific steps to support causes (37%), such as participating in events or making their own donations. Spout Social’s ‘Championing Change in the Age of Social Media’ 2018 Consumers say brands are most credible when an issue directly impacts their customers (47%), employees (40%) and business operations (31%). Spout Social’s ‘Championing Change in the Age of Social Media’ 2018 We found this resource very helpful, when designing your own cause-marketing campaign. If you’d like further information about incorporating cause-marketing into your campaigns in Malaysia, email us at KL@gointernationalgroup.com for a chat. Check this out and download the document here: Cause Marketing 101 for Business
Go International Group Dotcom founder and Chief Experience Officer Jasmine Low was invited to share her experiences at a session among Coach & Grow program cohort companies on PR and integrated marketing. She designed a 45-minute talk on “An Insider’s Hack to an Integrated Marketing Communication campaign”. Here’s the deck in slide share, and feel free to reach out to Jasmine with your comments, feedback or questions.