PETALING JAYA: Amid the global economic uncertainties and recessionary risk, agencies need to redefine their approaches to analyse if their proposed strategies provide the best returns, according to Mediabrands Malaysia.
Its CEO Bala Pomaleh (pic) told StarBiz ultimately, cost effectiveness is a better measure of success than cost efficiency. Therefore, he said it is important that clients and agencies alike are aligned on what suits them best.
“Hence, there is a great need to identify high value audiences across every campaign to zero in on audiences who will push the business needle and audiences who are addressable on media, so every effort and resource speaks to the effectiveness quotient,” he noted.
Recognising that growth might decelerate, he said it is important for agencies to deliver not just on output, but on outcome.
He said clients are now looking for more value, and agencies need to define and measure what that value is for the brands they work on, so that they are accurately measured and paid for the outcome, and not the output of work.
On the media industry outlook, Bala, who is also the Media Specialists Association president, said Malaysia’s advertising spends is expected to grow by 9% to RM6.6bil in 2023, with digital growing 13% to form 62% of total budgets.
With warnings of a global recession this year, he said it may cause consumers to be conservative and cautious in spending. As such, growth is anticipated to moderate and slowdown in the second half given this unpredictability and global economic uncertainties, he added.
As an agency, he said it would continue to drive better effectiveness while ensuring better efficiencies.
“Effectiveness will come with refining and building new capabilities that are in line with market demand such as analytics, technology, research and SEO (search engine optimisation). SEO is the process of improving the quality and quantity of website traffic from search engines.
“To meet these needs, our talent pipeline is likewise reflected, as we look to engage more specialist skills in fields like data science, information technology, programming, statistics and engineering,” he said.
Bala said the agency is doubling efforts to ensure it continues co-creating solutions with its industry partners to solve any ongoing issues, and better understand platform trends and capabilities.
Internally, he said the agency also has a healthy learning programme to upskill talents on proprietary tools that help teams across various areas such as – marketing mix modelling, optimisers for testing planning strategies, comms allocations tools to help across the planning process, data feed management etc.
Commenting on the trends in the media industry, Bala said with the rise of streaming services, connected TV advertising is becoming an increasingly popular channel for businesses to reach consumers.
As more households shift towards connected TV, businesses would be able to leverage this trend by investing in programmatic advertising solutions that allow them to serve targeted ads to specific audiences and expand reach with connected TV to mobile ads for a more holistic 360 solution.
This would be an area to look out and plan for in the coming three to five years, he added.
On another note, he said customer data platforms (CDPs) have been gaining traction in recent years as businesses seek to leverage data to better understand their customers and provide more personalised and targeted marketing campaigns.
“As more businesses invest in digital transformation initiatives and prioritise customer experience, CDPs are likely to become increasingly important for businesses across various industries in Malaysia. And this is a core focus area for us as we have the necessary experience and expertise to facilitate implementation and strategise on tactics for activations,” Bala noted.
As to the specific areas the agency would be focusing this year, he said consultancy is one of them. This service has been a big emphasis for the agency and would continue to grow, he noted.
“Internally, we have been building a consultative mindset, not just with our senior leaders, but across all members of the team.
“We have supported this by adopting and adapting tools and frameworks to change our day-to-day conversations and accelerate consultancy across areas such as full funnel modelling, portfolio analysis and high value audiences,” Bala said.
Another area of focus is digital experience tools for eCommerce. He said these tools would be used to audit the path to purchase, content personalisation, tech applications to bridge online and offline retail experiences and social and live commerce. Bala said he sees good opportunities in eCommerce for long-term growth.
Programmatic digital out-of-home (DOOH) is also an area which the agency would strongly focus on, he said.
Bala said: “Programmatic DOOH is an emerging trend in the digital advertising landscape that combines the targeting and automation of programmatic advertising with the reach and impact of DOOH displays.
“Programmatic DOOH in Malaysia is still in its infancy, but there is significant potential for growth. With our strong infrastructure and high mobile penetration rates, brands can leverage programmatic DOOH in creative ways to reach consumers in real-time and in various locations.”
With the increasing importance of personalisation, investing in the right capabilities and technology in the marketing technology space would also be a big focus, he said.
Within the IPG network, Bala said the agency has a full force of a Marketing Intelligence Engine to build applications and software solutions and support customer experiences using data and technology.
“We are prioritising customer data management by leveraging on this expertise to help brands acquire, retain and grow their customer base, and providing access to a connected suite of solutions to power more effective media, creative and marketing overall,” he said.
