Integrate and measure digital marketing reach for better productivity

• Bates launches series of workshops to mark 25th anniversary 

By Darshana Abayasingha 

Integrate marketing communications agency, Bates Strategic Alliance & Strategic Alliance PR, hosted a workshop in Colombo last week for its key clients on ‘The Strategic Route to Digital Campaigns’, featuring engaging sessions with Zaheer Nooruddin and Albert Pereira, two leading digital marketing specialists in Asia. 

The forum highlighted several examples from local and regional campaigns, as presenters and participants discussed the transition of advertising from traditional mainstream media into the digital sphere. Nooruddin and Pereira drew from their experience in advanced markets like China, Hong Kong and India and detailed the greater benefits of enhanced online presence and the different levels of engagement and feedback they derive from consumers. Though digital mediums present the future on consumer reach, they lamented that in comparison to their Western counterparts most Asian companies have been slow to fully exploit and even foray seriously into the digital sphere. It is essential to understand the true concept and capability of digital marketing that extends far beyond the conventional facebook banner, post or EDM and consider the added benefits of measurement and analysis of instant consumer feedback that is available with online they added. 

Speaking to the Daily FT, Pereira drew examples from his work in China, India and the region. “There is a great deal of analysis and measurement of consumer feedback and data in China based on online campaigns. It’s not the same in markets like India, where there is still some work to be done on that aspect. In reality, probably only 20% are doing some aspect of it, whereas the other 80% haven’t even begun digital marketing in its true form. It goes far beyond the amplification of a mainline campaign online. Most multinationals mandated local companies to spend at least 10% on digital and those teams are the most advanced at the moment. Five years ago, most companies in the subcontinent spent 5% of their budgets on digital, now its heading towards 20%. Digital mediums work very well with on-ground campaigns – it’s a smart way to look at it. In the west, companies are spending close to 50% of advertising budgets on digital; it brings ten-times the engagement,” Pereira says. 

The forum was an initiation for Bates’ 25th Anniversary which falls on 9 April next year, and its Chairman and CEO Nimal Gunewardena adds that this forum was an early kick off to the celebrations. Leading up to April, Bates will host a number of more workshops and events to celebrate its silver jubilee. “We thought we will start with digital since we see that as our future, and a huge portion of what we do today will move into the digital sphere.” Gunewadena says, reflecting on Bates which begun as a 10-man operation has grown into a much larger agency with innovation and diversity. 

Touching on the theme of the forum and its underlying importance for integrated communications campaigns as also stated by Nooruddin and Pereira, the Bates CEO stressed on the advantages for clients to work with integrated communications agencies for marketing – encompassing advertising, digital and PR – as that would offer greater efficiencies and reach. “What happened in the past is that all these disciplines split up and sometimes to different agencies. In that situation, the integrator was the brand manager, which placed a lot of onus on that person to get everyone on one page to work on a single idea. This is difficult unless everybody is exposed to one brief and concept, where different agencies need to come together over an idea that may have come from another agency. This can be difficult at most times. The better option is to choose one and I think that is the way forward,” he says.

Digital is changing so fast it is up to marketers, brand managers and agencies to catch on and drive it. The two eminent trainers at the forum, Nooruddin and Pereira, were formerly attached to Burson-Marsteller, and are now attached to Shiseido, Hong Kong as Regional Head of Digital Innovation and Chief Strategy Officer of MIO in India respectively.