Joe Nguyen, VP-SEA & India, comScore.

Erik Johnson

This presentation was followed up with stage interview between Ken Mandel and Erik Johnson, Vice President of APAC for Facebook. Johnson made some useful observations on advertising. In his view, in the old days the advertising in magazines and on TV were entertaining and he thinks we still have to ensure the ads are entertaining when we move into the digital media. He also said marketers need to be more aware that we cannot just move the same advertising from the big screen to the mobile screen. Johnson said many people these days watch TV while accessing Facebook and felt agencies were missing an opportunity to interact across both media.

Facebook, he said moved swiftly with changes and this applied to advertising programmes and partnership deals.

Mandel mentioned the big disconnect between ad spend on main media and the spend on digital media. Johnson said it was a question of time and education.

IAB Singapore are holding another conference ‘Cross Media Synergies in a Digital World’ on Thursday 31 May, again at The Fullerton Hotel. James Galpin of Millward brown and Kerry Brown of Nielsen will be presenting with David Jeffs of Yahoo! as the host.

President Clinton will deliver a keynote address entitled ‘How Advertising Can Help Build a Better World’. His foundation has already done much foster global health and strengthen economies. Grupo ABC sponsored the Clinton Global Initiative, which convenes global leaders to create and implement innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges.

Terry Savage, Chairman of Cannes Lions, remarks, “As has been proven by the superb response to the Cannes Chimera partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, our industry is passionate about uniting together and using its unique skills to make the world a better place. President Clinton’s presence at Cannes Lions reinforces the enormous power this industry has to do good. We are honoured to welcome him to the event.”

Viki now has a huge worldwide audience which is what has attracted BBC Worldwide to partner using the BBC’s advertising sales team. The partnership offers top brands the opportunity to reach out to the young audience across Asia, Europe and the Americas.

Earlier this year, Viki ran successful campaigns for several leading CPG brands in Southeast Asia. The brand video ads are intermixed with the shows like regular short TV commercials.

The site was founded by Harvard and Stanford graduate students in 2008. The founders were Jiwon Moon, Changseong Ho and Razmig Hovaghimian, who is now the CEO.

The content providers gain revenue from the shows. Viki has deals distribution deals with Hulu, Netflix, Yahoo, MSN as well as content agreements with NBC, A&E, BBC Worldwide, TVB in Hong Kong and others.

The site is proving popular and growing visitors by the millions which should make the BBC sales team’s job easy.

We now have 68% of Asian netizens accessing videos online at least once a week. Up from 63% in 2010.

Kerry Brown, Nielsen’s APMEA Region Cross-Platform Audience Measurement Director suggests this growing popularity is the result of increasing internet penetration and ownership of connected devices.

The unpleasant surprise is to learn that consumers did not trust messages via online video advertisements. Only 33% had that trust. When it came to searching for product information only 36% thought they had any relevance.

Brown observed, “Online video advertising is the new frontier for agencies and advertisers. The platform provides a unique opportunity to engage with consumers, but the message needs to be relevant and capture web browsers’ attention.”

There was a 500% increase in attendances at this 5th annual Mobile Marketing Forum organised by the Mobile Marketing Association. Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director, Asia Pacific of MMA set the tone in his opening remarks by saying that the mobile industry must have a consumer centric strategy and away from the devices and technology. This theme was repeated throughout the conference.

Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director, Mobile Marketing Association APAC and Michael Yap, Deputy CEO at Media Development Authority (MDA).

This did not however, stop intense discussions between carriers, media owners, media buyers, technologists and manufacturers during the coffee breaks.

Michael Yap, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Media Development Authority in Singapore painted an impressive picture of the investment that the government was making in developing the industry by, for example, funding 200 start-ups, inviting foreign teams to work in Singapore for short periods and creating alliances with overseas universities to encourage research into the digital field.

Mr Yap was rather let down by the quality of his presentation slides. He was not the only one either! Fortunately, the guys from the media agencies balanced it by showing some really neat ones.

Marcel Fenez, Global Leader Entertainment & Media at Pricewaterhouse Coopers, gave an excellent presentation full of memorable bites like, “1 in 5 minutes online are now spent on social networks” and “50% of online ads in the near future will have video content, according to Google”.

Marcel Fenez, Global Leader Entertainment and Media, Pricewaterhouse Coopers.

Bambos Kaisharis, Head of Consumer Goods, Southeast Asia at Google also dangled some interesting statistics such as 28% of people check into a social network before getting out of bed and in three years tablet sales will exceed that of PC sales. He also mentioned that, unlike mobile phones, tablets are shared between 2.6 people.

Bambos Kaisharis, Head of Consumer Goods, Southeast Asia at Google.

Another fact that was brought up by several speakers was that 79% of advertisers do not have a mobile optimised site. Yet more people access the web by mobile devices than by desktop computers. You can sense the frustration of these mobile missionaries.

Jason Chiu, CEO of Cherrypicks, and Barney Loehnis, Head of Digital, Ogilvy & Mather, Asia Pacific, stood out to AdAsia as perhaps the best presenters.

Jason Chiu, CEO, Cherrypicks.

Left to right: Barney Loehnis Head, Digital, Asia Pacific Ogilvy & Mather and Carl Costa, Regional Director, SongHi Entertainment.

MMA and the Grand Hyatt also managed to offer the delegates wonderful hospitality. The conference room on the Mezzanine floor had an adjoining lounge with non-stop coffee and Buzz City sponsored lunch with a choice of dining at the Straits Kitchen as well as the Mezzanine restaurant.

The MMA Forum offered food for the mind and body and left us with an appetite for more.

This is an industry which knows its time has come. It is now impatient to see the rewards after the slow, lean years.

Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director, Mobile Marketing Association APAC and Anurag Sachdeva, Head-Music (CRBT), Location Based Services & Mobile Advertising, Aircel.

Left to right: Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director, Mobile Marketing Association APAC; Xin Ye, Chief Executive Officer, Casee, A Velti company; Rahul Welde, Vice President, Media, Asia, Africa, Middle East and Turkey, Unilever and Ashutosh Srivastava, Chief Executive Officer, Mindshare Asia.

Left to right: Joseph Lumban Gaol, Chief Executive Officer, m-Stars; Lindayanti Harjono, Senior Vice President, Marketing, Telkomsel; Andi Sadha, Chief Executive Officer, Activate and Tommy Wattimena, Senior Vice President, Marketing, XL Axiata.

Michael Bayle, Senior Vice-President and General Manager, Mobile, ESPN.

Damien Cummings, Online Director, Asia Pacific and Japan, Dell.

Todd Paris, General Manager, Specialist Sales Asia and Americas, Microsoft Advertising.

Nick Seckold, Head of Digital, Asia Pacific, Mindshare Asia.

Victor Fernandez-Lahore, Director, Global Media Innovation, Unilever.

Left to right: Emmanuel Allix, CEO Aditic & Managing Director Sofialys APAC; Heather Wee, Head of New Media Maxis Communication Ltd; Susanna Hasenoehrl, Member of the APAC Education Task Force, Mobile Marketing Association, Joe Nguyen, Vice President, Southeast Asia & India, ComScore Inc.

Left to right: Daphne Loukas, Co-Founder and COO, Out There Media and Kerstin Trikalitis, CEO, Out There Media.

Left to right: Dr. KF Lai, Co-Founder and CEO, Buzzcity; Sonya Madeira-Stamp, Managing Partner, Rice Communications; Colin Miles, Chairman, MEF Asia; Devin Jeyathurai, Account Director, Rice Communications.

Jennifer Fein, Director of Product Solutions at Experian Asia Pacific and Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director, Mobile Marketing Association APAC .

Left to right: Victor Fernandez-Lahore, Director, Global Media Innovation, Unilever; Barney Loehnis, Head, Digital, Asia Pacific Ogilvy & Mather and Trevor Healy, Chief Executive Officer, Amobee.

Round-table panel (from left): Emcee/Moderator Graham Perkins, Allein Moore, Edmund Wee, Ronnie Tan, Theresa Yong and Justin Zhuang.

The 7th April morning kicked off with a round table of design pioneers. Ronnie Tan, founder of Design Objectives; Theresa Yong of Immortal the Design Station; Edmund Wee of Epigram and Allein Moore, the founder of the Designers Association Singapore. Also joining them on stage was Justin Zhuang, the young author of ‘Independence, The History of Graphic Design in Singapore’ which chronicles the development of design on this island. The book was published by The Design Society with a grant from the National Heritage Board.

In the second half, four founders of respected graphic design studios presented their own stories, and challenges as well as showing examples of work created over the years to the mainly young audience. The speakers selected were Yah-Leng Yu, Creative Director Foreign Policy Design Group; Pann Lim, Creative Director of Kinetic Design; Larry Peh, Creative Director of &Larry; and Chris Lee, Creative Director of Asylum.

The size of the audience was impressive and demonstrated the interest that there is in design in Singapore.

1st speaker Yah-Leng Yu, Creative Director, Foreign Policy Design Group

2nd speaker Pann Lim, Creative Director, Kinetic Design

3rd speaker Larry Peh, Creative Director of &Larry

4th speaker Chris Lee, Creative Director of Asylum

Panel Q&A Session (left to right): Graham Perkins, Chris Lee, Pann Lim, Larry Peh and Yah-Leng Yu.

Some of The Design Society Exco members (from left): Jackson Tan, Chris Lee, Larry Peh, Pann Lim, Felix Ng and Hanson Ho with Justin Zhuang, author ofthe Independence Book.

A glimpse of the conference attendees.

Sadly editorial content such as newspaper articles dropped from second to fourth as compared to two years ago. Second place is now held by ‘Owned media’ such a branded websites (74%). Online consumer reviews followed with 68%.

This survey was part of Nielsen’s Global Trust in Advertising Survey which covered 28,000 Internet respondents in 56 countries.

Malaysians confidence in traditional or ‘paid’ media has dropped. Consumers who say they trust ads declined in newspapers (21%), on television and radio (19%), magazines (17%) and billboards (12%) since 2009. However the chart shown below that this traditional media is still trusted by more people than ads on social networks or search engines.

Ads on social networks are trusted by one-third of consumers while 29% find display ads on mobile devices to be credible.

It is interesting that branded websites created by a company rate so highly. It is really worth brand managers paying attention to this area.

Perhaps also the traditional media aided by the ad industry and advertising standards authority should mount a campaign to halt the decline in trust and show that the vast majority of the ads in newspapers and on television are truthful, not only in Malaysia but in most developed markets.

This is a new award launched in January 2012. It is a worldwide competition with marketers being invited to submit a hypothetical digital media plan and creative idea for a brand or non-profit of their choice using Microsoft Advertising’s storytelling platforms. Entries from Southeast Asia and Hong Kong covered a range of brands and non-profits, but the judges felt the winning two stood out for their creative ideas and execution.

Jonny Lang

Jonny Lang from Y&R Singapore proposed a geo-located content and social network for a popular alcohol brand. The campaign creates an online experience for people to discover the best places to meet and drink.

Jeremy Paul

Jeremy Paul from Ignition Factory presented a campaign to raise awareness of the increasing number of cyclist deaths in Singapore. The campaign used ghost bikes and social media to humanise statistics.

In the entrance hall of the event, the D&AD screened the Black Pencil winners from the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and recent years. This reel included wonderful editorial design for Nova and The Sunday Times and some great press ads for the British Army and Benson & Hedges cigarettes.

Watching these two presentation, I could not help but feeling that the advertisements and design produced then, despite the dated typography and poorer production values, were in fact stronger than those I had been watching in the current show.

Is this because I lived and worked in agencies during this era? Perhaps my age is showing and I have caught “It’s not as good as it were in my day, son” syndrome.

Do I need a day playing k-pop and reading manga comics to shift me back into todays world?

Those two days will probably teach you more about marketing than an MBA course. Here is the chance to hear top marketers tell the story behind successful marketing strategies. The selected presenters have a short time in which to give the background and then show a video. There is also time set aside for questions.

Marit Kievit

Chris ter Steege

APPIES 2012 will host special keynote sessions and panel discussions on ‘The Future of Industry’. Marit Kievit, Global Brand Director (Lux) at Unilever and Chris ter Steege, Director (Digital Integration), Integrated Marketing & Communications at Philips Asia Pacific have been announced as keynote speakers.

For the participants it is an exhausting but rewarding two days. If you would like to showcase your work or book a seat than contact IAS at (65) 6220 8382.