Sixty per cent of Asia's consumers blessed with 4,600 television channels, 9,000 newspapers, 44,600 magazines, 6,400 radio stations, 27,000 cinema screens and 3.1 million outdoor advertising sites, head to social media before making a purchase decision.
Setting the tone with these statistics for a session on media fragmentation at AdAsia 2011 was Mr Bob O'Leary, MD, Head of Global Marketing, Consumer, Citi.
Emerging media landscape
On the emerging media landscape, he said, “It's a challenge for financial services, too. You have to live digitally and think digitally,” said Mr O'Leary adding, “We tell agencies to come up with ideas that can be advertised, and not advertising ideas.”
Citi, he said, had engaged social media as a listening tool. In India, he cited the example of using crowd-sourcing to decide the location of an ATM of the bank. On the need for innovation in the new media landscape, Mr Kelly Clark, Worldwide CEO, Maxus, noted that RoI is a driver of innovation.
“It is impossible not to innovate if you have an intense focus on RoI.”
Mr Mainardo De Nardis, CEO of media agency OMD Worldwide, underlined the power of social media in brand recommendation. “It is more important in Asia than it is in the US or European markets. That makes it critical to integrate it into the marketing plan,” Mr Nardis said.
Best practices from India
Mr Nardis noted that the quality of media work and innovation in the region had improved vastly. He noted, “There was a time when best practices were brought in from the rest of the world. Now it is the exact opposite.”
Mr Clark concurred, “Eighty per cent of the work that I present as our great work across the world today would be from India today.”
Both speakers from media agencies acknowledged that talent was the biggest issue facing the industry today.
“Maxus being a relatively new agency, we have brought in people from different backgrounds - clients, creative people and people from media houses; that has been a reason for our success over the years,” said Mr Clark.