Page 6 - index

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

PwC: Significant

“media gap” exists

in Singapore

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) recent report Digital ple relationships, greater effort, and more risk ventur-
advertising in Singapore: mind the gap reveals that de- ing into the unknown.
spite the fact that Singapore is one of the most digitally
connected populations with the highest smartphone With Singaporeans spending an average of 40% of
penetration (85%) in the world, the level of online adver- their time on online media each day, the city state has
tising in the country is well below international averages. the highest rate of digital consumption in the world,
making the low digital spend — one of the lowest pro-
Google Asia Pacific commissioned PwC to interview top portions among developed countries — all the more
marketing and media agency executives in Singapore surprising.
from June to August 2014 to prepare the independent
report in order to understand the media gap in Singa- Although the proportion of advertising budgets allocat-
pore. Interview topics included advertising mix by media
type, online advertising mix, inhibitors of digital spend ed to online has grown rapidly, climbing from just 7% in
2011 to 15% in 2014 with a compound annual growth
and growth opportunities for online advertising. The fo- rate of 35%, Singapore is still far behind the United
cus was on online advertising spend in the telecommu-
nications, retail, and financial services industries for the Kingdom, China, Australia, United Arab Emirates, USA
purpose of this study. and Japan as seen in the diagram at the end of the arti-
cle. The following four approaches may help business-
The report reveals four inhibitors that hinder the adapta- es close the “media gap” in Singapore:
tion of online:
1. Poor understanding of measurement metrics 1. Developing meaningful business metrics for dig-
(68%) – Digital marketing has the advantage of ital
measuring data; however this may lead to information Knowing which KPIs to track is an important step.
overload. Marketers struggle to filter the plethora of Companies can map their key business objectives
data into a “killer business metric”, making it too diffi- and understand the digital levers associated with
cult for senior management to interpret. The industry each of these objectives in order to prioritize the
will need time to get used to measuring online data metrics that matter – sales revenue, cost savings,
and integrating it with traditional media metrics. customer satisfaction. For example, digital reach
2. Limited supply of “digital” talent (64%) - Digital and web traffic can impact store sales. After the key
advertising requires both analytical and creative skills. objectives and online levers are defined, companies
There is a shortage of citizens with this depth of talent need to establish baselines as a starting point and
in Singapore and as a result of this, marketing teams, set goals against each measure for tracking purpos-
agencies and tech companies are competing for tal- es. Publishing this information into an employee ap-
ent. The dilemma of upskilling versus importing prov- praisal that is easily interpreted by management on
en talent is an ongoing challenge. a regular basis helps educate and drive a common
language across the business with digital as a part.
3. Slow mindset shift in education (59%) - The will- Lastly, media agencies, media owners and industry
ingness to learn and having a different way of manag- bodies such as the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bu-
ing communication is key to digital marketing. The reau), SiTF (Singapore Information Technology Fed-
industry is moving away from traditional campaigns eration) or SRA (Singapore Retail Association)
“bursts” to “always-on” strategies – ongoing process- should provide benchmarks on industry relevant
es of engagement, analysis and refinement. The KPIs to monitor competitor metrics.
Board and other stakeholders have to be bough -in to
this fundamentally new way of connecting with con- 2. Talent strategies to integrate digital competency
sumers for the shift to happen. into the workforce
4. Relative ease of using traditional media (45%) - For companies unsure of which talent to prioritize,
Singapore stands out amongst its international peers an option in the early days is to consider increasing
for its highly consolidated traditional media land- digital leadership by hiring a ‘Chief Digital Of-
scape. As such, the industry tends to use traditional ficer’ (CDO), mandated to drive the digital charge
media as their default avenue, with simpler relation- across digital media and digital customer experience
ship and pricing structures. By comparison, online for the organization. At the same time, companies
media is seen to be more complicated requiring multi- should start to both upskill and import talent.
6 Asian eMarketing November 2014 - Cross-, Multi-, Omni-Channel & Everywhere Commerce