Eastspring Investments and BaM win silver for 'Think Asia. Think Active'

This post is sponsored by BaM.

Eastspring Investments (“Eastspring”), a leading Asia-based asset manager with over 30 years of investment experience in Asia, and part of Prudential, has won silver in the Excellence in Multilingual Marketing category at MARKETING-INTERACTIVE’s 15th Marketing Excellence Awards for its regional brand platform, "Think Asia. Think Active.", developed in partnership with independent branding and marketing agency BaM.

The campaign was also recognised as a finalist in the Excellence in AI-Powered Storytelling and Tech-Driven Marketing categories. 

The Multilingual Marketing award recognised Eastspring’s innovative approach to building a single regional brand across diverse Asian markets. By combining a clear investment proposition, a scalable creative framework, and AI-enabled execution, the platform delivered consistent messaging while remaining locally relevant across multiple audiences, languages, and markets.

For Eastspring, "Think Asia. Think Active." represents more than a marketing campaign. It has evolved into a strategic expression of the firm’s brand, investment expertise, and local market perspectives across the region.

Asia remains one of the world’s most compelling investment regions, yet its opportunities are often oversimplified. Eastspring saw an opportunity to challenge that perception by creating a platform rooted in a simple belief: investing in Asia requires deep research and active management.

Built around the proposition "Think Asia. Think Active.", the platform was designed to strengthen Eastspring’s position as a leading Asia-based asset manager. It combines a clear brand narrative with investment-led storytelling, helping clients understand that unlocking opportunities in Asia requires insight, discipline, and active management.

Building one regional brand from many local realities

“Asia remains one of the most compelling regions for investors, but its opportunities are rarely captured by a single narrative or approach,” said Christian Fleischer, head of brand, marketing, and communications at Eastspring Investments.

“Investors cannot afford to think about Asia as one story. Different markets are being shaped by different economic, demographic, and technological forces. As an Asia-based asset manager, we wanted a platform that reflected the diversity, complexity, and opportunities we see across the region every day."

“The challenge was not simply to launch another regional campaign. It was to create an enduring platform capable of expressing both our brand and our investment expertise across different markets, audiences, and business priorities. 'Think Asia. Think Active.' works because it is rooted in a genuine investment belief. It enables us to establish a common investment belief across the region while giving markets the flexibility to incorporate local opportunities and propositions to life.”

That philosophy was embedded into the platform’s creative framework. Working closely with Eastspring, BaM reimagined the firm’s iconic chevron as a dynamic storytelling device rather than a fixed visual asset. AI-assisted creative processes transformed the chevron into different cultural, economic, and investment-inspired visual expressions, enabling the platform to adapt to local market contexts while maintaining a consistent regional identity. 

The result was a flexible brand system capable of scaling across multiple languages, markets, and channels while remaining unmistakably Eastspring.

Delivering regional scale and business impact

The platform evolved into an integrated regional marketing programme spanning out-of-home advertising, premium publisher partnerships, programmatic media, social media, connected TV, online video, thought leadership content, and eDMs.

Beyond awareness, the platform strengthened Eastspring's digital visibility, increased engagement with investment content, and reinforced brand consideration among target audiences across key markets.

Across the region, the platform generated:

• 60 million digital impressions.
• 20 million out-of-home impressions.
• 9.7 million video views.
• More than 200,000 clicks.

The platform also contributed to:

• An 89% increase in website traffic.
• A 25% increase in branded and organic search activity.
• Improved reputation and net promoter score indicators.
• Increased brand consideration among target audiences.
• Positive business and commercial momentum across key markets.

Reimagining regional marketing at scale

The platform reflects a broader shift in how Eastspring approaches regional marketing in an increasingly fragmented and fast-moving environment.

AI was incorporated into the platform’s creative framework, enabling Eastspring to scale and adapt a single regional brand idea across multiple markets, languages, and investment themes while maintaining consistency. Rather than replacing creative thinking, technology helped accelerate the development of relevant market expressions built around a shared strategic foundation.

“Technology has made powerful tools available to everyone,” Fleischer said.

“That makes strategic thinking, creative judgement, and deep market understanding even more valuable. AI can help organisations scale ideas faster, but it cannot replace the quality of the underlying insight. Ultimately, the strength of the idea remains the differentiator.”

Kiran Veeramallu, head of central marketing services at Eastspring Investments, added: “Regional marketing has traditionally involved trade-offs between efficiency, consistency, and local relevance. Our objective was to remove those trade-offs."

“'Think Asia. Think Active.' gave us a framework that markets could adapt to their own realities while staying anchored to a single regional idea. That balance has allowed the platform to scale across Asia while remaining relevant to local audiences."

“What started as a campaign has become one of the primary ways we express the Eastspring brand across Asia, and even beyond in Europe and the Americas. The platform connects investment expertise, market insights, and client opportunities through a consistent regional narrative. But most of all, it gives us a scalable platform that can evolve across markets and business priorities.”

Building brands that evolve

For BaM, the collaboration with Eastspring reflected a broader belief of how branding, marketing, and technology can work together to solve complex regional challenges.

“We shared an ambition to think differently about regional marketing,” said Ian Bickerton, CEO of BaM.

“We wanted to create a strong brand system that could scale across Asia, and beyond, while remaining relevant to different markets and cultures. AI gave us the opportunity to bring that ambition to life, combining the consistency of a unified brand with the flexibility to adapt and evolve.”

Nicholas Lim, executive creative director of BaM, added: “The tools may be the same, but it’s how we use them that makes the difference. It’s about applying creative thinking to achieve something more ambitious, building a brand platform that can scale across markets, adapt to different cultures and audiences, while remaining distinctive and recognisable.”

As AI becomes increasingly accessible across the industry, Eastspring believes competitive advantages will come less from technology itself and more from the strength of the ideas behind it.

The positive reception and success of "Think Asia. Think Active." demonstrates that a strong investment belief, expressed through a flexible regional platform, can travel across markets, cultures, and audiences without losing its intended meaning. In an increasingly fragmented world, the strongest brands may not be those that say the same thing everywhere, but those that remain recognisable wherever they appear.