New York and London ranked the world’s best cities for marketing as Singapore leads APAC
New York and London took the top and second spots in a report by Accenture into the world’s best cities for marketers, while Singapore took the top spot in the Asia Pacific region.
New York and London ranked the world’s best cities for marketing as Singapore leads APAC
The report, which was the result of a partnership with the Singapore government's Economic Development Board (EDB), sought to establish Singapore’s current offering for marketers, as well as what future marketers will need from the cities they are based in.
The top 10 cities were New York (8.60 points), London (8.05 points), San Francisco (7.73 points), Chicago (7.47 points), Amsterdam (6.91 points), Singapore (6.91 points), Sydney (6.77 points), Hong Kong (6.53 points), Tokyo (6.16 points) and Shanghai (5.4 points).
Over 250 marketers were polled and of those headquartered in Singapore, 62% chose the island-state as their current marketing hub because of the access to a diverse range of talent. Some 92% of respondents with ‘largely globally centralized and regionalized marketing organization functions’ would consider relocating to Singapore.
“For big brands, Singapore makes sense as a key testing hub, as its melting pot of diverse cultures and people allows products to be tested quickly and efficiently across different sections of their customer base,” said Nils Michaelis, a managing director at Accenture and innovation lead for its products operating group in Asia Pacific, Africa, Middle East and Turkey.
“The country’s central location in the region also means that companies can launch, test, figure out, and quickly relaunch to market with small tweaks in minimal time.”
The research also asked chief marketing officers about the challenges they face in being able to meet targets and objectives over the coming years. The research found that the majority were confident about hitting these, with just 1% answering that they were not prepared to deliver on objectives.
Nonetheless, Accenture offered advice to chief marketing officers, which was to prioritize talent and diverse teams, to invest in technology and, finally, to regionalize strategic thinking.
“Today’s world runs on rapid and perpetual change and as a result of this, the role of the chief marketing officers is evolving. They are now spending more time managing disruptive growth, and also see themselves as visionaries charting the business of tomorrow," said Teo Lay Lim, country managing director for Singapore.
"The future of work in marketing requires different skillsets but also entirely new ways of working. chief marketing officers will have to look at hiring new people, upskilling existing staff, and even harnessing emerging technologies such as automation, analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to augment roles."
To find out more about the changing role of the future marketer, visit The Drum’s Marketer of the Future hub.