Case Study Interview: Cheetah Digital x Bigbeat Inc.

Cheetah Digital supports marketers with its company philosophy, “Dedicated to Marketers”, providing marketing solutions to the Japan market and all over the world.
Mikoto Kato, Vice President and CMO, and Hiroyuki Sakai, Field Marketing Manager, met with us to talk about their new solution’s launch event, ‘NEW Cheetah Digital Japan Opening Event,’ which took place at the Shibuya Stream Hall (Tokyo). What was distinctive about the event? And what was their focus?

Mikoto Kato, Vice President and CMO (left), Hiroyuki Sakai, Field Marketing Manager, Marketing (right).

Kato:
We had two missions for the ‘NEW Cheetah Digital Japan Opening Event;’ the announcement of our new product, and the introduction of our new management structure to people outside the company. The new product, ‘Customer Engagement Suite,’ had already been launched in the US, but it is now available in the Japanese market. As for the management structure, followed by last year’s divisionalization, the new management, including myself, has been participating more and concentrating on our philosophy, ‘Dedicated to Marketers.’ We wanted everyone to know the all new Cheetah Digital.

Sakai:
There was also internal reasons for the event. Only a few members of the Japan office were able to attend Cheetah Digital’s US launch event. — Kato and myself were among those few. We were at the scene of the event and felt the exciting atmosphere, the thrill of it, so we wanted to share that with our colleagues in Japan.
Another point of concern was, although many members of our Japanese branch understand the platform will be renewed by the new product, they did not have a clear understanding on the new structure of management. There were some expectations, but anxiety. So, management from the US headquarters and Japan office would each came up to talk directly about the future of Cheetah Digital, in part to raise internal morale.

Kato:
Simply speaking, I want the attendees to get the 'impression of a brand new launch.’

Common issues for Japanese marketers have been ‘acquisition of new clients in a declining population’ and the ‘regulations on acquisition of personal information.’ This event was our opportunity to introduce our ideas to solve these local issues, as well as our new product and supportive system as specific solutions. Instead of a mere replication of the US launch event, we wanted our Japanese visitors to link the following 3 relevant points; public concerns, marketers’ concerns, and the new product’s capabilities, and use them as a basis for consideration.

Of course, we set a quantitative goal for acquiring new business, but we were more concerned with the ‘influence after the event.’ Our qualitative goal was visitor satisfaction of the event content and spread of the event through word of mouth.

Sakai:
We have started doing business with Bigbeat about two years ago, and we have already worked on several projects together, especially with our representative at the company who we have built quite a trusting relationship with. However, this event required Bigbeat involvement starting from the initial planning phase. This was the first time we required this.
As for myself, I had less experience in introducing new concepts and solutions such as our ‘Zero-Party Data’ and ‘Loyalty Marketing,’ which were not widely known in the Japanese market. At the start of the project, there were no clear prospects of what to introduce and how to do it. We were so constrained by ‘how to explain of the newness of it.’ The primary plan Bigbeat submitted were well designed but I was not completely sold on it because it was too focused on presentations showing just the ‘newness.’

Then we went back to the basics, our philosophy ‘Dedicated to Marketers’, and started over. We focused on bringing a presentation that would bring both the ‘newness’ and ‘our philosophy’— from there on, our discussions became very efficient. Bigbeat’s positive participation in these meetings and their effort to comprehend our products resulted in very tight communications and we gradually came to share the same understanding.

For the actual direction of the event, we staged it like a live music show as the venue Shibuya Stream Hall had characteristics of a live music house. This is quite unusual for a B2B event. Bigbeat suggested the ‘How’ of creating this scene, such as the use of smoke machines as speakers came on the stage or using the opening video and stage lighting in more entertaining ways.

Kato:
Many of our guests were new to us, so we set up demo booths to show our products and where people could come up to ask questions in casual ways. We wanted the party to be a place for communication and networking for our guests. We were concerned that the venue was rather empty and bland looking. But Bigbeat, here again, came up with some more ideas to liven the venue up.

Bigbeat Inc.:
The intention was not only to make a decorative and gorgeous stage, but to enhance the visitors’ excitement with speeches revealing the future and to sustain their expectations of Cheetah Digital. We didn’t want to just create a nice-looking venue and stage. our proposal was to turn the venue in the ‘World of Cheetah Digital.’
For example, the exposed-concrete walls of the venue needed to be brightened up by lighting and flowers, but instead of using showy garish colors, we made sure to only use Cheetah Digital brand color. For catering, we chose pinchos so that guests could focus more on communication. Brand logos were printed on food menus and on little flags on pinchos skewers so that guests could find Cheetah Digital in all different places.

Kato:
Bigbeat worked for us like a marketer from our company throughout the entire event. They did not just due the bare minimum amount of work, but tackled it like their own project. And that is why I could seriously consider and respond to their proposals.

Kato:
The largest change I felt after the event was the response from our own people. Their reaction during the talks about the product launch has changed so much since the event. It seems they have become more confident about the company’s direction because of their experience at the event and the response from the media. The media shows they have more trust in what we have to say.

Sakai:
After the event, we were given opportunities to propose our new products and services to our guests from the event, who agreed with our thoughts and direction. Articles of the event were published in a number of media outlets, the earliest being posted on Adver Times only a few hours after the event. It was a very newsworthy event.

Kato:
As always, we will continue pursuing our company philosophy, ‘Dedicated to Marketers.’ We will re-define the successes of marketers and support them until we feel our philosophy has truly been realized and to cope with the fast-changing external environment. We believe that Cheetah Digital will be able to achieve our goals and we will keep pursuing them from now on.

Sakai:
Advisory Board and Community will be starting soon, and this will boost us up even more. This all is to pursue our philosophy — we will keep pursuing it step by step.

Thank you for your story.