Firms should combine offline, online media to reach clients, experts advise
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Growing use of mobile Internet key to marketing success
As digital and social media in the Kingdom witness strong growth, companies should combine off- and online strategies to get more deeply involved with target customers, marketing experts suggest.
According to the latest media survey by Nielsen (Thailand), from January to October, advertising spending via the Internet still enjoyed growth, rising 5.46 per cent to Bt772 million from the year-earlier period, while other key media such as television, radio, newspapers, magazines and billboards faced declines.
Meanwhile, e-commerce is also on the rise, up by at least 20 per cent from last year, according to the latest research by Mindshare, a marketing and media-service network.
Suwimol Junperngprakiat, director of business planning at Mindshare Thailand, said two key factors were driving this trend. First, the number of mobile Internet users keeps growing. The second reason is the increasing popularity of social media.
Tom Doctoroff, chief executive officer of JWT Asia Pacific, a marketing-communications firm, suggested that marketers and brands should combine different social network as integrated communication tools to send powerful messages to target audiences.
“In Asia, Thailand is one of the leading countries in terms of using social media,” he said.
Doctoroff said a “multi-channel network” phenomenon was about to begin in the Kingdom. He said this had already been taking place in New York after key influencers in social networks, particularly those who produce their own video clips and air them on YouTube and other video-sharing sites, had formed their own groups or networks relevant to their own interests.
Authentic content generated by such key influencers is crucial for marketers and brands to be involved with, he said.
Yuko Saito, Southeast Asia managing director for Criteo, a “personalised re-targeting” company, said online advertising could do more than just build brand or product awareness. By re-targeting advertisements, companies would be able to convert awareness into purchases.
Saito added that time spent on the mobile Internet continued to increase. This presents opportunities for e-commerce businesses to publicise their adverts via this channel on top of websites catering to personal computers.
To cash in on this trend, Criteo recently launched a cross-device advertising solution, which enables a single view of consumers’ shopping behaviour across all devices to deliver precise, personalised adverts.
