DMA 2026 podcast: How this eCommerce marketer was convinced of the power of marketing

Puma’s Speedcat sneaker was a hit across most regions, but Vietnam was proving to be a slower burn. The fix, according to Sonal Aggarwal, head of eCommerce for Puma Southeast Asia, was the marriage of offline and online.  

Speaking on Marketing Connected’s podcast, hosted in partnership with Analytic Partners at Digital Marketing Asia Singapore, Sonal tells Nikki Taylor of Analytic Partners how social commerce is pulling eCommerce and brand teams closer together, and why experimentation matters when the customer journey is changing faster than the organisation. 

To listen to the full conversation, click here. 

Taylor:  When did you personally become convinced that brand and eCommerce really worked better together, and can you tell us what happened with Speedcat in Vietnam? It's a great story.  

Sonal: Speedcats are the shoes that I'm wearing for those who can see. These are Puma Speedcat shoes that are doing really, really well. Yep, and they were really high on brand everywhere, except Vietnam. 

We just couldn't figure out why. We had an offline presence, but online presence just wasn't working. And then in one of those rare conversations where the marketing heads are sitting, eCommerce teams are sitting, and we're like, let's do an event. 

Let's do an offline event, but a closed-door event, which will be showcased on TikTok. It's not an offline event for anyone to walk in.  

The first day we had a fashion show, and what we did was to let eCommerce teams do their own live streams before and after the show.  

We realised that the reach that you can get by live streaming it online was not limited to Vietnam. It reached everywhere. Of course, we saw great impressions, we saw great reach. 

But when you look at my sales graph a week to two weeks later, it all went up, and not just online.  
 
My offline went up. My wholesale went up. My eCommerce numbers went. That's the power of social commerce. 

Taylor: One thing we see consistently in analytic partners in our data is that channels influence one another. The channel that appears to have the best ROI on its own may not be the one that's actually creating the overall value. So, brand activity can lift performance of the lower funnel channels and offline media, like you said, can drive online behavior, and the effect of one channel can show up elsewhere entirely.  

That's a great example of what we call channel synergy. I love that. 

You also said that the economies of ecommerce in Southeast Asia are changing, and the marketplace commissions are now around three times what they were five years ago.  

So, how is that changing where brands want the customer relationship to live? Take me through that. 

Sonal: So, in Southeast Asia, you can't be away from marketplaces. They still have a majority of businesses, and that's where consumers still go.  

They're equally important. But given the increased pressure on a P&L’s bottom line and the way the costs are going up, and because they're also competing with each other, there is an equal importance being given to .com and to building the brand .com.  

There are enough discussions again with marketing and eCommerce to see how we can use other channels that we have offline or social channels to drive traffic to Puma.com. 

Taylor: We talked about channel synergy. We know from Analytic Partners that a lot of the time when you're looking at last click, 30% is actually coming from outside of paid search. It's upper funnel, it's the other activities, but it doesn't fit neatly on the dashboard.  

The customer is not thinking [in channels]. So, we need to be more collective in our thoughts and our strategies going forward. 

On that, Sonal, you've spent years thinking marketing was, in your words, a little bit in the air, but now see everything a little bit differently. So. what changed, and what would you tell other commercially minded people, such as yourselves, to think about when they think brand is just a little bit fluffy?  

Sonal: I think it's the fault of living in your own silo, right? You're so used to seeing just your world; you don't see anything else outside. But what has changed for me after the Speedcat event. 

The effort that goes into what marketing is creating is not easy - the creative mindsets that you need, to build that. 

Our Speedcat event in Vietnam wouldn't have done anything if the content wasn't as strong. Ecommerce reach alone can never bring in the kind of impact if that content isn't strong enough to get where it goes.  

I think to anyone building a brand, marketeers are super critical. They know how to tell that story really well. 

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This article is done in collaboration with Analytic Partners.