“During the two-day meeting, members discussed how to leverage the various channels of communication, the emergence of the new media and development of ROI metrics for traditional advertising, mobile marketing or digital campaigns,” said Rahul Welde (pictured), regional VP for the WFA and vice president, media, Unilever.
Welde said that two priorities — Integrated Marketing Communciations (IMC) and Media Cost/Transparency — were identified as key topics by its members.
While agencies and advertisers have partnered to achieve marketing goals, there is scope to improve the transparency further particularly in areas of agency volume rebates and free advertising space, he added.
Darren Woolley, managing director of Trinity P3, who was a guest speaker at the event, said that while success of each campaign must meet financial, marketing and performance deliverables, although the specifics of success can be variable.
“Measures are important but they have to be specific to business and strategy,” said Woolley. “If these measurements of success are stated at the outset, both agencies and marketers will stand to benefit."
The conference also touched on the adoption of new media by marketers. In contrast to the high internet penetration in Asia, digital ad spend has been typically low. Marketers are responding to the opportunities posed and accelerating the presence in the new media, but it still continues to be low single digits for most.
Steve Lightfoot, communication procurement manager of the WFA, accepts that the marketing community is reckoning with digital media, assessing the metrics it needs to put in place for digital campaigns and going through internal restructuring. “Many clients are going through this process and it is at the top of their agenda,” he assured.
Welde agreed that the marketer community realises the huge potential digital media offers and said that it required a deeper understanding of its related channels through active participation.“Clearly there is a need to enhance capabilities and the WFA Charter has emphasised the need for media research and analytics,” he said, adding that ROI on marketing budgets and value-based remuneration model is something that marketers are also considering to extend to mobile marketing and digital campaigns.
“Asia is on a strong path of growth for all advertisers. The region is thus a big priority for WFA and there are a number of initiatives that are underway to address the opportunities and challenges in the region,” Welde concluded.