R/GA drives creation of Zig app for ComfortDelGro

As we defeat the pandemic, people are ready to resume an out-and-about lifestyle. ComfortDelGro (CDG), the Singapore-based land transport company that operates some 40,000 vehicles across seven countries, hopes that when they do, they'll make use of the company's new app, Zig, which launches today (March 9).

Interpublic Group agency R/GA helped CDG develop the app, which is billed as an online concierge service, aimed especially at Singapore's millennial and Gen Z consumers.

Although the companies don't refer to Zig as a 'super app', it's also much more than a ride-hailing app. Zig connects users to essential mobility lifestyle services, they say, including finding the best route for trips, comparing transport prices, booking and paying for rides, discovering attractions and experiences, making reservations, and finding promotions and deals. 

According to Liew Wei Chee, CEO of CDG Zig, most food delivery and ecommerce apps currently focus on online operators alone. Instead, what Zig and R/GA have been able to do is build "an online-to-offline platform that brings what we are familiar with and use every day—mobility and transport—and make it more seamless through the provision of lifestyle services".

Zig, the new city concierge offering R/GA built for ComfortDelGro

The launch of this digital pivot for a legacy entity providing real-world services also signifies a growing opportunity for R/GA, Dorothy Peng, managing director of R/GA Singapore, told Campaign Asia-Pacific.

"We're makers who understand the power of design and technology and how it influences human behaviours—designing for new business strategies, digital products and services, building lean technology stacks, designing communication and marketing strategies," she said. We've combined the creativity and innovation of studios with the commercial expertise and strategic rigour of management consultants."

Another high-profile recent project: R/GA's work for Mox, the digital banking unit seeded by Standard-Chartered. For this new digital venture, R/GA's team was conscious of creating a virtual bank for a new generation of customers who have different needs and expectations when it comes to banking and their money. "Shifting the focus from income models to attitudes, Mox aims to meet the needs derived from similar attributes and behaviours of its consumers, giving people a digital-first platform to both trust their money, while also making it more fun and accessible," Peng said. 

These are the types of opportunities where R/GA can demonstrate its collaboration process across business, design and technology disciplines. "We move as one collaborative team from start to finish," Peng claims. In the case of Zig, the agency "designed the business  ... based on a consumer behaviour-centric approach and defined the opportunity areas for the business," she added. "Zig was then launched through a mobile app-first platform, built upon a sustainable business model.”

R/GA Singapore also defined a new brand purpose and design identity for Zig. Including its name, look and feel, tone of voice and user experience, as well as an experience language to reflect the platform’s mission of not just moving people from point A to point B, but acting as something of a transportation, routes and experience super-app. 

R/GA has made significant investments into its design and technology teams. It has hired leaders to helm its technology practice in each local market and, as we reported in R/GA's 2020 Agency Report Card, it has established a tech hub in Batam in Indonesia. That team is helping to serve large clients including Google, Unliever, Nike and Toyota. R/GA also hired Ben Miles as the executive creative director of its business transformation practice. The agency's guiding principle, according to its leaders, is to pair technologists with design thinkers to ensure that whatever technology it's bringing to bear works equally well for businesses and for people.

Dorothy Peng, managing director, R/GA Singapore

Besides CDG and Standard Chartered, R/GA also recently helped retool Toyota's ecommerce capabilities for its GR Yaris vehicle, resulting in 250 cars sold in the first 30 minutes of going live—without a single test drive.