Highlights from Festival of Media Asia Pacific 2015
A wide array of speakers including PepsiCo India's CEO Shiv Shivakumar, ZipDial CEO Valerie Wagoner and Kiip founder Brian Wong were part of the line-up offered to the 500-plus delegates that attended.
PepsiCo India chairman and CEO Shiv Shivakumar opened up the day by explaining that consumers in Asia are forging new relationships with brands which Western brands should learn from. "The future marketing department has to be extremely humble, more responsive and more populated with data scientists. The sheer number of data points will stagger anybody."
ZipDial CEO and founder Valerie Wagoner discussed how Twitter's recent purchase of her business ZipDial has enabled the company to accelerate its growth in emerging markets such as India. "Certain markets behave differently and therefore need to be handled differently."
A panel chaired by C Squared content director Jeremy King, which included OMD's Asia Pacific CEO Steve Blakeman, Hasbro SVP and GM, Asia Pacific, Billy Lagor, and Facebook's director, global agency team Stephen Haines - explored how brands and agencies have been "laggards" when it comes to mobile, losing touch with consumers as they have moved towards devices and away from traditional media. "The opportunity exists, we all know that, but as clients and agencies, we are laggards. We've not moved quickly enough to mobile and that is to our detriment."
In the 'Big Talent Debate', a group of experts on talent in Asia discussed the many challenges found in this market, but added that talented graduates are still attracted to the media industry. "There is no shortage of talented graduates, [but many] want to go to the financial sector as it looks glamorous and it pays well."
Anita Mookerjee, CEO of MediaCom Indonesia, explored how brands can break into the rapidly growing market of Indonesia. "55% of the population is urban. We also have the youngest population in the world - 50% are under 30 years old. Internet is the life blood of this nation."
In an exciting wrap up to this year's Asia Festival, Brian Wong, the chief executive and founder of mobile advertising start-up Kiip, warned advertisers not to view wearable gadgets such as Apple Watch as another platform for display ads. "As we see a world of more connected devices, some this year coming out of CES, it's very simple: as more of these inanimate items become connected, we have a responsibility to connect those needs. We know when it happens. As marketers, we will know when you're about to run out of gas, or you're feeling tired."
