MANILA, JANUARY 29, 2013 – Despite the ever-changing communication landscape, one thing is certain, said Meckoy Quiogue, Media Specialists Association of the Philippines (MSAP) president and GroupM CEO & chairman, the human heart is still the same.
This statement makes one thing more necessary than ever: make people engagement a key ingredient in all creative and media plans.
Organized by the MSAP, the first Media Congress held Monday, January 28, 2013 at the Performing Arts Theater, Resorts World Manila, proved to be a successful one. Although the youngest among communication’s organizations, the Congress brought in 1,500 participants, taking in media keystones from six of the country’s most respected communicators and advertisers.
One of the speakers was Gina Lorenzana, vice president of personal care for Unilever Philippines. She started the jam-packed day with a clear map as to where the communications landscape is and what advertisers really want from media agencies.
“Media planners should come in the beginning of a brand campaign plan, not at the end of the process,” she said. Media is a part of the overall campaign.
Today’s advertisers and media agencies face certain challenges that professionals before weren’t confronted with, Lorenzana said. Among the challenges that advertisers and media agencies face are: convergence, people power, and brand building.
On the first point, Lorenzana attributed the need for convergence to the people’s changing lifestyles. Broadcast is far from being dead although specialized channels can garner more engagement from people.
Second, interruption, as in an advertisement interrupting a program, is a thing of the past as new media channels give people the power to cancel out advertisements all-together. Broadcast and earned media has changed as devices became more and more mobile. What is the implication of all this? Lorenzana stressed that people who don’t necessarily have to be famous can gather a respectable amount of following and they can easily broadcast their thoughts about a brand, which can be a boon or bane for a brand.
Third, building brands takes the loyalty of people which can then turn to preference. But building a successful brand, as most marketing and media professionals know, takes creative campaign and effective media planning which can engage people. And this is the challenge of the marketing community, not just of media professionals, but also of the advertiser and the creative agencies as well.
Although the changing landscape can make any marketing professional anxious, Lorenzana and Quiogue echo the same sentiment: “There is no exciting time to be in media than it is today.”
