Digitisation: ‘The Next Big Thing’

CIM Future Marketer Conference presents a wealth of information on digital marketing

 

By Shabiya Ali Ahlam

The world is entering a rapid and dramatic period of change with the emergence of new digital approaches to business and life. With the phenomenon of digitisation reaching inflection point, forces driving the shift are consumer demand, push for new technologies, and the prospects of greater economic benefits.

To capture the potential and importance of the emerging marketing channels that are seemingly taking over traditional marketing approaches, the CIM student committee 2012/2013 hosted the second CIM Future Marketer Conference, presenting a wealth of information on digital marketing under the theme ‘The Next Big Thing’.

Occupying digital space

With 65% of the working population of the world predicted to be millennial by 2025, Virtusa Senior Vice President and General Manager Madu Ratnayake said it’s time companies start dealing with digitisation.

With 50% of the world’s population being under 30 years of age and 96% of millennials having embraced social media platforms, he shared that 80% of companies across the globe already use social media for recruitments. The world’s top 20 largest brands account for 25% of search results linked to user-generated contents, Ratnayake pointed that, adding that 34% of bloggers post opinions about products and brands in the digital space. “We are nearing the stage where we don’t have to go looking for products and services. Instead, products and services will find us via social media,” he said.

Ratnayake added that with rapid adoption of social and mobile technologies along with the rise of the millennial generation, “confluence of the two trends and how enterprises are managed should be looked into”.

Acknowledging the “herd mentality” of humans, Ratnayake recommended marketers to look at “tribes” and not market segments when designing marketing messages. He elaborated that while organisations should take over gamification by turning business processes to social processes, they should also think of knowledge network and not information channels, be human centric and not company centric, and most importantly they should think of emergent messiness and not hierarchical fixed processes.

Is digitisation just Facebook or Twitter?

Pointing that Sri Lanka has an internet penetration of 11.8%, Google Sri Lanka Country Consultant Rohan Jayaweera said the nation’s digital economy and GDP growth share a close-knit relationship. According to him, due to the prevailing strong mobile infrastructure, the country will skip the PC era and move to the mobile era. However, he opined that while market leaders might face challenges with newly-formed companies and career paths, “there is a serious lack of awareness in Sri Lanka regarding online marketing and its possibilities”.

Stating that social media is changing the world as it has the “power to define and control a brand that is shifting from corporations and institutions to individuals and communities,” Jayaweera highlighted that the total number of Facebook users in Sri Lanka stands at 1,448,160, while it has an online penetration of 81.53%.

Noting that the statistics seem appealing for many companies to leapfrog into the virtual space, he said: “Don’t get too hooked on social media. It’s just one of the many things available online for you and it probably is the least impactful method when considering the nature of your product or service.”

He further added that one should understand and explore the possibilities of going beyond social media by incorporating aspects of search as well to get better results. Stressing that the most important part of online versus offline is measurability, he added, “before you start conceptualising a campaign, make sure the infrastructure is ready to handle the results”.

Change in consumer behaviour due to digital media

Stating that more than 50% of Asian users are influenced to make purchases based on social media usage and review, TRPC Singapore Director Peter Lovelock said: “While consumers simply love social media platforms, organisations seem to hate it.” He shared that the statement is attributed to the fact that social media has enabled the ‘first moment of truth,’ which is the first point where a customer engages with a product or service, to be the ‘zero moment of truth’. With digitisation allowing consumers to provide instant feedback, Lovelock said that companies have to allocate resources to monitor, control, and interact with the contents it makes available online.

With many recognising social media as the biggest and the most valuable tool in digital marketing, “the frontiers between the categories are in continuous flux,” he said. Taking Facebook’s late 2012 acquisition of Instagram as an example to justify the contradictory desire of social media tools to be exclusive and bigger than its competitors, Lovelock stated that the action meant Instagram had to cut off Twitter as a viewing platform, thus making it less valuable for advertisers.

“Scale and scope are important. Unlike far more complex algorithms that drive search engines, certain elements of social media are easy for competitors to replicate,” he said, referring to the building blocks of digital platform often giving rise to innovative applications.

Giving insights into the opportunities prevailing in this regard, Lovelock stressed that opportunities in the Asia Pacific were masked in the dynamics of social: since individuals are likely to consult third party resources in their networks for advice; local: as understanding the local relevancy, its proximity, and context should be embedded in social media platforms; and mobile: since companies and brands are not reacting quickly enough to capture the amount of data changes generated in mobile devices and apps.

Innovations and concepts in digital space: Impact on brands and organisations

On displaying a video that projected Microsoft’s vision for IT in 2020 which showed the dependency of every single activity of life on technology, Microsoft Sri Lanka Director – Developer Platform Evangelism Wellington Perera stated: “If the automobile industry grows at the rate of the IT industry, we would be having flying cars today.”

He acknowledged that while many tools had been incorporated to move digitisation, those that had created an impact in the arena were social media, smart devices, online search and apps.

In reference to the statistics highlighted by Jayaweera on social media usage, Perera shared that in addition to the tool creating avenues for brand promotions, employment opportunities are also increasing in the arena as creative individual are needed to strategically use social media for awareness and brand building purposes.

Questioning that if one can learn through social media, he said companies such as Microsoft strongly believe that 70% of learning required for a profession happens on the job. “For most of us in digital and marketing arena, we believe that social media can play a massive role in terms of increasing awareness on new trends, consumer behaviour and product patterns,” he added.

Stating that mobile phones in the past were being used merely as voice devices and now used by many as a fashion accessory, Perera said: “Most of the phones we are holding today have the processing power of what NASA had when it launched the first shuttle.” Pointing that an average individual uses only 1% of smart phone technology, he stressed that this area can be leveraged as it is an “untapped goldmine”.

Sharing that search engines receives over five billion search queries per day, “the search element allows us to create instant visibility at minimal cost,” Perera said, stating that the channel is hardly made use of. “Though many companies are willing to put their money on online search and change their products based on search preferences, there are not many experienced marketing consultants in this area to help make the most of it,” he noted.

While smart phone purchasing behaviour is greatly driven by apps, he shared that while over 1.5 million apps are developed, about 750,000 are from Google, 500,000 are from Apple Inc., and approximately 150,000 are from Microsoft.

How should marketers use this as a tool? Perera opined that assuming there are more than 100,000 phone users in one platform, an established channel is available already to take a product to the consumer through an application, encouraging them to download it free. According to him, this allows in building a strong relationship with the customers that is vital for marketers.

Pix by Lasantha Kumara