Asia-Pacific Power List 2021: Mary Zhou, Lazada

Mary Zhou 

Chief marketing officer
Lazada
Singapore
Member since 2020

With her platform established as among the biggest ecommerce businesses in southeast Asia, Mary Zhou has used the past year and a half to help the smallest enterprises using the Lazada platform. The company pivoted its operations to focus on supporting SMEs by developing and rolling out stimulus packages across the various markets to help businesses move online. This included onboarding traditional businesses that never had an online presence and new campaigns to help business in different industries.

Lazada launched stimulus packages to support over 150,000 SMEs in the region, which included cash funds to subsidise startup costs, expedite onboarding processes and access resources from Lazada University. 

One way Lazada helped sellers leverage the ecommerce opportunities and engage consumers in more interesting ways was by expanding its Shoppertainment strategy through LazLive. To keep the celebrations of Ramadan and Eid-al-Fitr alive in Indonesia last year, Lazada celebrated the festivities with more than 5,000 hours of content through LazLive’s #BerkahAdadiRumah Shoppertainment livestreaming. 

To help facilitate user participation on LazLive, Lazada also partnered with two of Indonesia’s biggest telecommunication providers, Telkomsel and XL Axiata, to allow subscribers to view content without incurring data charges. In addition, Lazada launched the LazTalent competition in Southeast Asia to encourage aspiring presenters and influencers to feature products and develop their presentation skills. 

Lazada also created a series of films highlighting how its products and services have helped consumers find joy and comfort during national restrictions around the Southeast Asia region. Titled ‘Together, Unlock a Better Life’, one film tells the story of consumers turning to Lazada to find normalcy. Shot on iPhone, the protagonists are featured in three categories—passion, fun entertainment and daily essentials. They share knowledge and tips via Lazada’s livestreaming technology while engaging in hobbies, cooking, beauty rituals, cleaning, organising, exercising and taking part in wellness activities. As part of the series, a B2B film titled ‘Together, Unlock a Better Future’ was created using claymation for Lazada’s seller audience to highlight the ease of setting up a business on the platform. 

Lazada made multiple brand ambassador appointments in each market it operates in and topped it off by appointing South Korean actor and model Lee Min Ho as its first regional brand ambassador. 

For a campaign film, Lee collaborated with local brand ambassadors across Southeast Asia, namely Agnez Monika and Verrel Bramasta in Indonesia, Ayda Jebat in Malaysia, Kathryn Bernardo in the Philippines, Bella Ranee Campen in Thailand and Chi Pu in Vietnam. 

In 2020, Lazada was the only ecommerce platform to win the TikTok Trendsetter Awards, thanks to its running a gamified hashtag challenge. Overall, this resulted in a total of 2 billion video views and 232 million engagements.

As an advocate of DEI within Lazada and the wider marketing industry, Zhou has led the establishment of a gender-neutral panel of interviewers, and she also works with country CMOs to create impactful activations that are unique and relevant to their markets. Some of these campaigns include Lazada Philippines’ #RadioGivesBack charity benefit sessions and Lazada Singapore and Mediacorp’s partnership for 2020’s National Day 8.8 campaign. In conjunction with this year’s International Women’s Day, Lazada launched the inaugural Lazada Forward Women Awards to recognise female entrepreneurs across Southeast Asia.