Festival of Media Asia sparks dialogue on opportunities in Asia

Digital and social media are making a difference, but creativity and innovation remain at the core

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Delhi | November 16, 2011

Day 2 of the Festival of Media Asia, the first Asian iteration of the acclaimed festival of media creativity and innovation, being held in Singapore, centred on the changing media landscape, beginning with an enthralling keynote by Carolyn Everson, Vice-president, Global Marketing Solutions, Facebook.

Everson previewed Facebook's new Timeline feature, talked through the importance of capitalising on people's social connection as the basis for marketing, and then presented how Facebook could support brands looking to create connections with their consumers.

“Social discovery is the most powerful driver of human behaviour in the world today,” said Everson. “We have always asked our friends for recommendations.”

Rahul Welde, Vice-president – Media, Unilever Asia, Africa, Middle East, Turkey and Russia, took the conference even further by looking at how marketers would have to change their mindsets and reframe themselves. He offered new and different ways to think, including enhancing interaction and experience, as ways for marketers to address the changing ways that people are relating to media, particularly digital and social media.

Explaining his company's decision to put more investment into online video, Maarten L Albarda, Vice-president of Global Connections, Anheuser Busch InBev, underlined the points that previous speakers had made: the media landscape is changing, mainly because digital media is changing the relationship that people have with traditional media.

That theme was the foreground for the rest of the day. Chris Dobson, Executive VP and General Manager, BBC Advertising, BBC Worldwide, Dan Molloy, Global Executive Director, Multimedia Sales Asia-Pacific, Dow Jones, and Peter Bale, VP and General Manager Digital, CNN International, all shared their views on the future of mainstream media, particularly the ways that digital was being integrated into their offerings.

The afternoon saw a discussion on the social angle of the new media revolution. David Bebko, Director, Business Marketing, Asia Pacific, Google, talked about Google+ and the social dimension of the Internet. Lito S German, Marketing Director, BMW Group Asia, explained how BMW is reacting to a general trend of “openness” in marketing, reputation management and product innovation.

Another feature of Day 2 was the Agency CEO tours of media innovation, which took place several times during the day. Leading CEOs took to the stage to showcase and share an innovative or special campaign that had run during the year.

Over the two-day conference, attendees also participated in a showcase theatre led by media companies such as Singapore Press Holdings, Omnicom/Media Group, MPG, MediaMind, LinkedIn and Facebook.

Charlie Crowe, Festival founder and CEO of C Squared, said, “We want to make this an annual event. There is tremendous amount of creativity here, and we're seeing this explosion of originality all over Asia. There is no better time to tap into it than right now.” The Asian region is expected to overtake western Europe as the second largest advertising market in 2012.

The two-day event was held at the Marina Bay Sands Expo and Conference Centre in Singapore.

Info@BestMediaInfo.com

Info@BestMediaInfo.com