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| Lawrence Wan Digital director OMD Digital |
Ivy Wong Chief operating officer TVB.com |
Marnix Drysdale Director Sport Match International |
Ian Chapman- Banks Asia-Pacific VP Motorola |
YES |
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NO |
YES |
| “Will Facebook be the next Google? It seems to think so. It has taken the search advertising self-serve model that worked so well for Google during its meteoric rise. That rise came from SMEs. For them, search was the lifeblood for customer leads (offline business) and direct sales (e-commerce). For them, search was a must-have.
But that model didn’t work as well in the Asia Pacific region, with Google now playing catch-up here. The lesson? Not only do you need on-the-ground sales forces, you need to segment for both the major advertisers and SMEs, which require completely different solutions.” |
“I am impressed by Facebook’s social ads and its other platform solution. Yet this solution may be more appealing to SME advertisers.
While Asia’s SMEs are not as sophisticated as in the US, giving them a pure ‘self-service’ ad system may not be optimal. Looking at Google and Overture, they provide a selfservice system and service from local sales teams. From another angle, big brand advertisers are the pioneers of integrating their advertising message with online communities and social networks in Asia. I bet Facebook won’t satisfy those advertisers with a ‘self-service’ platform.”
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“The downside of the recent focus on this fairly new consumer region is the clutter of advertisements and campaign fields. Facebook is approaching this huge market with a certain caution. It expects its Asia- Pacific advertisers to find their own way to the existing online ad booking platform.
A roll-out with local presence will most certainly follow this short-term strategy. Until then, Facebook is perfectly capable of controlling campaign quality through its global advertising alliance with MSN, and, perhaps more importantly, do some valuable learning on Asia-Pacific. |
“Several of Facebook’s rivals have reps in the region, and for good reason: marketers in Asia do not consider themselves part of the US when it comes to advertising.
Creative, or parts of it, may come from the US, but messaging and media plans are all developed by people here in the region. We want to be able to deal with people who are right here, who viscerally understand the diverse people in the region, and who can help us ensure that our advertising is tightly targeted to, and acutely relevant for, the people we’re trying to reach. And you simply cannot do all of that from San Francisco or New York.” |
