Business

Saturday November 20, 2010

Digital marketing becomes an essential platform


THERE is no doubt that digital marketing is an essential platform in today's advertising world.

Leo Burnett regional digital director for Asia Pacific, Neil Hudspeth, says: Digital now exists in every individual's life; thus we can't really escape it in the advertising world. Clients understand that they need to invest more into digital strategies, the right platforms and the right ways of engagement.

Neil Hudspeth ... ‘Digital now exists in every individual’s life.

He says advertisers have to design the appropriate digital strategies based on their business objectives and be clear of the group they want to engage.

To invest smarter is really about what is the strategy and the digital touch point that needs to be engaged. Brands have the opportunity to engage their customers one to one as long as they use the words that are viable and relevant to the parties they are engaging, he tell StarBizWeek in an interview.

He points out that consumers nowadays are much smarter than 10 years ago and they demand more from brands, particularly more transparency and authenticity.

Advertisers need to be innovative in terms of creativity and technology, to be able to drive consumers to want to engage with them, he says.

Hudspeth says different markets have different levels of maturity, behaviour and technology, which need to be analysed for the creation of strategies.

Japan and Vietnam are totally different. China, with its one-child policy, has also created an online behaviour which is unique in Asia. No one model fits all, he says.

He says social networking and mobile devices are the two biggest areas of engagement where clients need to have the right strategy in place.

Every single brand has to have different strategies for different devices. It is different between devices such as smart phones, phones and iPad, he says.

He says the brand engagement in countries like China, Japan and South Korea is done through mobile phones and Malaysia is seeing growth in this area.

Advertisers should take a bit more risk in terms of investing in the right ideas to reach people through mobile devices. Consumers will adopt it if the idea is strong. However, it is a channel that needs to work with platforms like websites, he says.

For the South-East Asian region, he says digital marketing is becoming fairly mature as clients understand that digital ecosystem is what they need to be considering as their channel.

They are looking through agencies and consultants to help them understand what level of integration they need to achieve when it comes to digital marketing. However, it is really about engagement and should no longer be in isolation in marketing. Engagement could help to build long-term loyalty that is important for advertisers, he says.

He says advertising spending for digital is increasing every year in Malaysia and most of the fast-moving consumer goods brands are allocating between 15% and 20% of their total advertising spending on digital marketing.

Our clients expect to have a digital component in their campaigns, communications and engagement strategies, he says, adding that its clients include Proton, BMW, Sime Darby Foods and Samsung.

He urges advertisers to look at the historic ways of measuring the success in the digital world and reassess the relevance of these criteria as the digital world has evolved and consumers are more mature nowadays.

On the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in South-East Asia, he says they tend to look at digital space as a very efficient way to engage with consumers or clients, adding that they realise that the online world is very practical to reach its audience without spending a huge amount on marketing.

For Leo Burnett, the agency has a digital centre of excellence (COE) existing in each priority market.

The purpose of each COE is to create and deliver world-class creative digital business solutions to client brands, either as an integrated solution or as a focused digital brand solution, depending on client needs.

Its currently has COE in Japan, Singapore/Malaysia, Australia and India, with the largest and broadest capabilities under the Asia-Pacific operation. - By Lee Kian Seong

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