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.
That was the message delivered to delegates at the Festival of Media Asia Pacific 2015 (FOMA) in Singapore, in a panel session on ‘The Role of Brands in the 21st Century’.
The panel, chaired by C Squared content director Jeremy King, included OMD’s Asia Pacific CEO Steve Blakeman, Hasbro SVP and general manager, Asia Pacific, Billy Lagor, and Facebook’s director, global agency team Stephen Haines.
OMD’s Blakeman said that, despite the innovative potential of Asia, clients and agencies of the region had been slow to comprehend the enormous importance of mobile when communicating with consumers.
“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,” he said.
Blakeman added that, partly as a result of this sluggishness, major advertisers are being forced to learn from ordinary users: “Smaller, individual content creators are beginning to excel. It is a tipping point – we are now learning from them.”
Facebook’s Haines agreed that marketers are now “mirroring” consumers in their content creation, attempting to fit seamlessly into the environment on which they are communicating.
“If you look at what happened 10 years ago, content successful in one medium was just taken to another. Today, you need to look at that individual platform and what the consumer wants. And collaborating with the people who make that content,” said Haines.
The sum of this content, argued Hasbro marketer Lagor, creates an overall brand experience – with brands living primarily in the “minds” of consumers: “A brand in the 21st century has become the accumulated experience that a person has with it.
“As consumers interact, they end up taking as much ownership as the brand does. It’s a story which changes and evolves.”
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