Skills Shortage Surging among Marketers in Hong Kong

Since the industrial revolution in the 19th century, there has been a rising threat of machines replacing human labor. Similar sentiments are reflected by marketers in Hong Kong who view Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Assistants as potential threats that could replace the human labor in the country.
A good majority of the people who find opportunistic benefits in data analytics and automation are quick to recognize that some aspects of marketing would soon become completely automated due to the advent of latest technology. However, the others are more apprehensive of the effects it would have on the human labor, who are thought to suffer at the hands of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Intelligent Assistants or Chatbots.
Of the technologies that have been selling as hot cakes in APAC, data analytics, marketing automation and programming ad buying reserve the top tier. However, merely 16 percent of the marketers in Hong Kong and Singapore envision AR/VR emerging as the latest trend in the present year.
As per the report, APAC advertisers are enthusiastic about their plans to develop their teams and ventures for the present year. At the same time, approximately 75% of advertisers in Hong Kong are intending to develop their teams, and almost 90% of them are expanding their plans for increasing the budgets in marketing. The areas that have gained special attention are content marketing which will see a 59% of increase in investment, SERO/SEM a whopping 61%, big data analytics and marketing automation with considerable 58% and 56% respectively.
There has been the growing need to develop a wider range of skill set in 2018. With a greater need for cognitive skills that incorporates strategy, CX, problem-solving and critical thinking, the present trend reflect it with a growing demand for soft skills over technical ones.
New contracts will likewise be separated in view of their ownership of abilities, for example, system and basic reasoning, and in addition their qualities in relationship building and correspondence. The report demonstrates that CMOs will drive worldwide showcasing innovation spending to US$32.3 billion by 2018.