Or budgets will be cut across the board, be it online, tv or print. The jury is still out on this matter.

In some countries, media partners have grown so powerful, as clients are even more dependent on them to get better media deals, that they even shortlist agencies for their client.

10 to 1 digital companies don’t make the list. And clients keep seeing them as a project-based third party supplier, rather than a true partner with weight and voice.

jeff zweig
chief guru, web guru asia
http://www.webguruasia.com

It cleaves closer to my position that clients, media companies and even mainstream agencies do not want to give way to digital work.

“On a smaller level, this is the same challenge facing advertising. Big Spaceship CEO Michael Lebowitz made this point recently. It makes sense. If you think of the big challenges in the industry, they’re infrastructure related: how agencies and clients are set up, analytics and reporting systems, integrating technology, and finding new ways of adding value to people’s lives rather than interrupting them.

The marketing industry feels very much like it’s organized for the 20th century rather than the 21st. Tim Leberecht thinks it’s in “permanent crisis.” Social media is simply revealing a lot of the inadequacies of the current structures.

What I’m struck by is how reversing this comes down to culture. The hardest part of changing infrastructure is not necessarily integrating technology but changing deep-set mindsets, processes and business models. Case in point: TV ad buying and selling…

… A big reason these efforts have failed is a TV ad buying and selling culture that’s set in its ways and worried they’ll get cut out of the equation if the process is modernized… The reason it remains that way is both structural and cultural – clients and agencies haven’t modernized and many in those groups aren’t keen to do so because it might not be to their benefit.

http://bmorrissey.typepad.com/brianmorrissey/2009/02/advertisings-infrastructure-problem-is-cultural.html

1] A direct-marketing culture and tradition that devalues creativity and its long-term effect on brands

1] An interactive agency business model that disincentivizes greatness and fails to penalize mediocrity

3] An unwillingness by mainstream agencies to integrate technologists as full partners in the advertising creative team

4] Media industry values and habits that malign and depreciate our own products, and by extension our customers’

There wer good points made in analysing these points.

I also found this great article, which showed just how rocky the relationship between mainstream ad agencies and digital shops behind well-known campaigns like Subservient Chicken and HBO Voyeur. It is interesting to note that this marriage of convenience is strictly for the short term as these mainstream agencies eventually seek to create a digital arm within their company.

Shops Strive for a New Formula
Digital is the nucleus of many campaigns, but agency DNA has been slow to change
June 30, 2008

http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3i8338a3cc42d9fb02fef5c7f7fcb8fa4c

what especially stood out to me is this part:

“throw in the remarkable production values that for two generations characterized BBDO’s work for Pepsi, sprinkle over it the captivating long copy Ogilvy wrote for Rolls-Royce — and then add the potential for mass viral video distribution, one-to-one validation, social media engagement, blog conversation, customization on premium news and entertainment sites, and segmented reach through online networks. The marketing mind boggles.”

jeff zweig
chief guru, web guru asia
http://www.webguruasia.com

http://www.iab.net/iablog/2009/02/a-bigger-idea-a-manifesto-on-i.html

The 40-somethings can probably be divided into 2 groups. The early and late 40s. What you have defined above is probably the late 40-somethings.

The early 40-somethings today form the core of the Gen X consumer. Also one of the smallest of all the generations outside the Baby boomers, Gen-Ys and Digital Natives / Millennials.

You must remember, those in the 40s were the first to be exposed to PCs, Windows, Macs, Network computing and of course the Internet. In a Malaysian context, the catalyst and growth of ICT started when they were in their 20-somethings.

In sheer size alone, the Gen Xers were the smallest generation. But as the world becomes more reliant in the use of the internet for online transactions to shopping, you’re marketing to a group that (i) is likely to hold credit cards (ii) has the financial resources even deeper pockets (iii) will be seeking a wider and varying investment opportunity in the coming decade.

cheers
garytay

1] Most did not grow up with the mindset of doing transactions online.

2] Most are uncomfortable with revealing personal data, unlike voyeristic streak of the younger crowd.

3] The Internet is a place for them to read the news, email and find information. Nothing more. Even after they read about a product, they may end up flipping through the newspaper pages to find the latest offer.

4] We cannot assume that the 40-somethings have a homogenous/identical standard of web savvyiness. Some will be quite good but for the majority, can we say this for sure?

The 46-50 yr olds would have been in their mid-30s / PMEBs when the Internet first came about, and those in 40-45s would have been in their early 30s.

Given the fact that the web first started in the 1996-1997 and began making an impact in the late 90s prior to the bubble burst. The 40s generation (today) would have by today become the ‘first movers’ or at the very least the first to be exposed to the Internet.

I would speculate that the 35-45 yrs olds today would be a very key target audience and would form the first generation of Internet users in Malaysia.

They would form the generation that is probably fairly accustomed to the Internet and will likely be the ones who will be using web services such as Online Banking and online shopping.

During the mid-1990s, PMEBs were only 500k of the total population with an average 2.2 credit cards. However, today the market averages 4.2 credit cards and the PMEB base is some where in the regions of 1.5 of the population.

We cannot deny the fact that youth form the largest of web users, since they account for 40% of the Internet users in Malaysia.

cheers
garytay