Nine in 10 marketing firms consider relocating to Singapore

Singapore’s central location in Asia allows companies to test the market in minimal time.

Nine in 10 firms with largely globally centralised and regionalised marketing organisation functions consider relocating to Singapore, Accenture revealed in a report.

The study’s findings pointed to Singapore as the best global marketing hub in Asia, with 62% of organisations headquartered in Singapore chose the island-state as their current marketing hub because of the access to a diverse range of talent.

Singapore also ranked as the world’s fifth best city for marketing where it shares the spot with Amsterdam but trails behind New York, London, San Francisco and Chicago. The report lauded the city for its strong tech start-up ecosystem, multicultural and multilingual system, robust business environment backed by government support and initiatives, as well as ease of doing business.

However, potential cost pressures could be deterring some firms from setting up base in the city, the report said.

“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.”

Conducted across eight geographies with 250 chief marketing officers, chief innovation officers and chief digital officers, the research aims to evaluate Singapore’s competitiveness as a global marketing hub.