ImageCrowd sees market gap for Asian stock photography marketplace

Source: ImageCrowd. From left, the ImageCrowd team: Ou Shiwei, Waverijn,
Jiang, and Wilson.

ImageCrowd, a multilingual platform, aims to crowdsource Asian photography by connecting international buyers to Asian photographers in their native language. Through ImageCrowd, buyers can make specific requests and ImageCrowd will crowdsource matching photos. Photographers, be they professional or amateur, can submit their photographs for the buyers’ consideration. Any unbought photos will be collated into a stock photography database.

"The latest trend to programmatic and targeted visual campaigns increase the demand for images more than tenfold. Content driven marketing is rapidly rising, which requires fast, authentic (not staged) and raw photos from real life,” comments Gijs Waverijn, CEO of ImageCrowd.

Overcoming language and copyright issues

Acquiring a common database of images from Asia has been inhibited by two key issues. The first is that local photographers may not speak the languages that buyers speak. The other issue is that of licensing. Local image users rarely respect the photographer’s copyrights, which has resulted in a reluctance by photographers to work as stock photographers, contributing to the lack of quality local photos in Asia.

Danny Wilson, co-founder and CTO for ImageCrowd says, “ImageCrowd seeks to overcome these issues with a language matrix and licensing agreements that are imbedded in the software and processes. In fact, our innovative approach to the language matrix design has been recognised by a grant for innovation, which awarded us funds to further develop the technology.”

The idea for the matrix came from Jiang Ting, co-founder of ImageCrowd and who also founded Bridge86, a multilingual advertising and marketing agency that specialises in copywriting and translation for Asia Pacific (APAC) markets.

"The matrix overcomes language barriers by automatically mapping keywords and tags associated with the images, which means that we can present accurately tagged content to the reader in their native language. The photos are therefore accessible to any buyer, irrespective of their native language,” Jiang said.

The market for photos is huge and growing. Xerox says that coloured visuals increase people's willingness to read a piece of content by 80%. Waverijn said, "Our research tells us that in 2016 content creators are prioritising creating more engaging content, especially visual content*. Visual assets, including photos, are core to how a brand story is communicated. If supported by relevant images, the content is read, whereas without relevant images, the same content is not read**.

*Four in 10 (39%) of marketers believe that more of their budget should be allocated to the acquisition or creation of compelling visual assets (CMO Council); 73% of content creators plan to prioritise creating more engaging content in 2016, and 55% plan to prioritise creating visual content (Content Marketing Institute)

**Two thirds (65%) of senior marketing executives believe that visual assets (photos, video, illustrations and infographics) are core to how their brand story is communicated (CMO Council); Content with relevant images gets 94% more views than content without relevant images (Kissmetrics)

Savour Asian flavours in Santan, Philippines AirAsia's new menu concept

Source: AirAsia. Santan is Philippines AirAsia's new
inflight menu concept.

Philippines AirAsia has begun serving hot meals from its newest inflight menu concept, Santan. Santan replaces AirAsia Café as part of the airline’s latest offerings to enhance customer experience while flying. The name refers to an essential ingredient in Malay cooking, the liquid obtained from pressing shredded coconut meat. Santan is thick, creamy and often use as a substitute for butter, cream or soup stock in ASEAN cooking.

New items include bangus sisig, a Filipino dish made of chunks of boneless milkfish sautéed in onions seasoned with salt, pepper and spices; buffalo chicken strips and barbeque cola beef, grilled meat with smoky sauce paired with tomato rice or roasted potatoes; and the low-calorie vegetarian chickpea curry and classic Maan’s pasta arabiata. The dishes are available for onboard and prebooked purchases on all Philippines AirAsia flights to/from Manila, Kalibo/Boracay, Palawan, Bohol, Cebu, Davao, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Macau and South Korea.

Other dishes on the menu also pay tribute to ASEAN flavours. These include nasi lemak, chicken rice, beef caldereta and adobo. Guests can also choose from sweets such as lemon torte, banoffee cake, sinful chocolate cake and chocolate chip cookies from as low as P80 for onboard purchase.

Philippines AirAsia Commercial Head, Gerard Peñaflor said, “We value customer experience at all points of the journey – from the purchase of the ticket to leaving the airport, on board, and onto the destination. This latest enhancement in our inflight menu makes flying with us also a delightful dining experience.”

Interested?

AirAsia guests are encouraged to prebook their meals to save up to 20% as compared to purchasing their meals on board, with a guarantee that their preferred meals are available during their flights. Guests who have booked their flights without meals, meanwhile, can easily add them in via the ‘Manage My Booking’ option after logging in to www.airasia.com.

Kitaab starts first crowdfunding campaign

Source: Kitaab website.

Kitaab, which means “book” in many Asian languages, is moving to the next phase of its evolution with crowdfunding on Indiegogo. The literary project was founded in 2005 to empower and connect Asian writers with readers globally. Since then, it "has filled a major void in the online literary scene in Asia by creating a link-based information storehouse where the most important stories on Asian writers and writing were curated", says Zafar Anjum, its founder and a well-known author.

"Over the years, Kitaab has evolved into a much larger project that encompasses publishing and e-commerce to serve the same community of writers, readers, publishers and agents worldwide. Run by 15 voluntary editors who sit in different parts of the world, Kitaab provides a global writing and publishing platform to emerging and seasoned writers in Asia and abroad," he said. 

Kitaab began publishing in 2013, presenting original/translated contemporary literature in English and Asian languages. It is also getting recognised in the region, most recently as the media partner of the Hyderabad Literary Festival in India. 

"Two of Kitaab's titles were launched at this year's Singapore Literary Festival. Kitaab will publish three books by (Singapore) Cultural Medallion winner Isa Kamari in 2016, including the Malay writer's first novel written in English. Kitaab has also bought the Hindi/Urdu translation rights of Isa Kamari's pathbreaking Malay novel, Intercession," Anjum said. "We will be acquiring more Asian titles for translation." 

Anjum hopes that the crowdfunding campaign will raise up to US$10,000 to help Kitaab to curate better content and provide an improved user experience. "Those who will support Kitaab in this first-ever fundraising campaign will be rewarded with various perks, ranging from thank you notes from editors to signed copies of books to specially designed tote bags and even mentions on the Kitaab website as a patron," he said. 

So far, nearly more than 1,300 people have supported Kitaab’s appeal on Facebook, Anjum said. "We seek your help and cooperation to make our maiden fundraising - our first in ten years - a success," he said. 

Interested?

Contribute to or share the details of the crowdfunding campaign

Read the WorkSmart Asia blog post on Anjum's book Startup Capitals

Business systems in Asia explored

Source: OUP.

The Oxford Handbook of Asian Business Systems, edited by Michael Witt and Gordon Redding, is the first book to explore business systems from India to Japan. 

According to publishers Oxford University Press, much of the existing literature within the "varieties of capitalism" (VOC) and "comparative business systems" fields of research is heavily focused on Europe, Japan, and the Anglo-Saxon nations. This is the first book to produce a detailed empirical picture of the institutional structures of most Asian nations and to explore the extent that existing theory applies to the Asian context.

The Oxford Handbook of Asian Business Systems aims to address this imbalance by exploring the shape and consequences of institutional variations across the political economies of different societies within Asia. 

Drawing on the knowledge of 31 leading experts, this book presents an empirical, comparative institutional analysis of 13 major Asian business systems between India and Japan. To aid comparison, each country chapter follows the same outline. Complementing the country chapters are eleven contributions examining major themes across the region in comparative perspective and linking the empirical picture to existing theory on these themes. A further three chapters provide perspectives on the influence of history and institutional change. The concluding chapters spell out the implications of all these chapters for scholars in the field and for business practitioners in Asia.

Michael A. Witt is a Professor of Asian Business and Comparative Management at the Singapore campus of INSEAD. He is also the General Editor of Asian Business & Management, an SSCI-listed journal on business and management in the Asian context. He is an Associate in Research at the Reischauer Institute at Harvard University, and has written a number of books, including The Future of Chinese Capitalism with Gordon Redding (OUP, 2007), Changing Japanese Capitalism (Cambridge University Press, 2006), and an eight-volume edited compilation of seminal contributions on Asian business and its institutional context, Major Works in Asian Business and Management (SAGE, 2012). 

Gordon Redding is based at INSEAD in Singapore, teaching Asian business. He holds an Emeritus Professorship at the University of Hong Kong where he taught for twenty-four years, and where he founded and directed the business school. He is also Secretary-General of the HEAD Foundation in Singapore, a think-tank devoted to regional issues of social capital and development via higher education. His books include The Working Class Manager (Saxon House), Spirit of Chinese Capitalism (de Gruyter), and The Enterprise and Management in East Asia (Centre of Asian Studies), edited with Stewart Clegg and Dexter Dunphy.

The 752-page paperback (ISBN 978-0-19-874542-6) was launched in April 2015, and costs £30. This book is also available as a hardback or an e-book. 

Other editions of this book have been quoted extensively. View the list on Google Scholar.

PNB Darby Park Executive Suites offers Asian lunch promo

Source: PNB Darby Park Executive Suites website. The 10Binjai Restaurant.

The PNB Darby Park Executive Suites, a 4-star serviced apartment hotel which is popular with business travellers, has a promotion on till March 2015 at its The contemporary 10Binjai Restaurant for casual dining.

The Express Asian Tray is available for lunch on weekdays, with the menu rotating on a regular basis. 10Binjai is open from 6.30 am to 11 pm daily. To make a reservation call +603 7490 3838.