ASIA PACIFIC MEDIA FORUM 2008

Beach side venues and industry forums seem to “go together like a horse and carriage” (as the song goes).

The mother of all industry do’s, the Cannes Lions, made a pebbly beach in the South of France the meeting place of choice every June. The Clios re-launched itself in hip and sunny Miami.

Then for Asia, there’s ADFEST in Pattaya, the Spikes in Bali and for the third time since 2004, the Asia Pacific Media Forum in Bali.

It was a masochistic ritual; participants trooped to the climate-controlled meeting rooms while the sands of Nusa Dua beckon outside the window. Held every two years, this third APMF was better organized and featured more interesting speakers. The 2008 APMF also had more participants, around 600 all in all, with an estimated 100 delegates from overseas.

The keynote speaker, AirAsia founder and CEO Tony Fernandes, captured the attention of the big crowd with the story of AirAsia, recently selected by Fast Company as one of the top brands in the world. He proudly added that AirAsia was ahead of Singapore Air in the listing.

Tony spoke about the culture of AirAsia and how the brand withstood every imaginable nightmare scenario from SARS to the recent record price of oil. The key lesson from Tony’s presentation was how AirAsia “marketed itself out of the crisis and came out a winner”—a contrast to the cut backs that most companies normally do when bad times happen.

His presentation had a down-home flavor of a local boy with no aviation background but who had chutzpah and was now a global success story. He talked about the unique culture of the brand where everyone from the baggage boys to the pilots has the boss’s cell phone number, where cabin attendants and baggage boys aspire to live their dream with  the company’s Flying Academy. It was a good start to a two-day marathon of speakers and presentations.

“Rethinking media and the consumer engagement,” delivered by Nick Emery, chief strategy officer of GroupM and Mindshare Worldwide, warned the audience of  “The Death of the Media Agency and why it’s good for your brand.”  The unsaid assumption was that creative agencies are already dead.

Douglas Khoo, founder and director of OneXeno, spoke on “Marketing in the Attention Economy”–one of the first that tackled the digital media and getting consumers to interact with brands. Vishnu Mohan, Asia Pacific CEO of MPG, talked about “Designing Impactful Media Campaign Measurement and why marketers continue to get it wrong.”

The afternoon speakers were led by Tim Balbirnie, CEO–South Asia Synovate, who continued the debate on “Measuring Effectiveness” followed by Mark Holden, managing director of PhD Australia, who spoke on “Media Owner 3.0 or How Advancements in Technology are going to create new media opportunities for Media Owners.”  Kentaro Kimura, creative director and Co-CEO and account planner of Hakuhodo KETTLE Inc. Japan, delighted the audience with his funny and entertaining case studies from “relaunching a Chinese bun brand” to fashion therapy in an aptly titled piece “How to Boil the World? Bringing the Moment in Media.”  From two media mavens and a creative director, the focus switched to  media consultant Prashun Dutt and real media owner, Keith Bellows (editor-in-chief of National Geographic Traveller) and his journey in transforming a magazine brand to multimedia.

The second-day crowd seemed thinner than Day 1; perhaps some delegates decided to spend their morning at the beach. The morning topic was “Marketing for a Cause” with Debby Sadrach presenting Lifebuoy’s global CSR campaign geared towards fighting diarrhea with a hand washing campaign. The presentation traced the brand’s roots in health and hygiene and how this came to full circle with the CSR campaign in India, Indonesia and Kenya. An Australian brand, Quicksilver also highlighted their CSR campaigns to protect the seas.

The future of Media was tackled by Peter Tortorici, president of GroupM Entertainment. He emphasized that Content is king and that we must all remember the key reason why people switch on their TV, radio, Internet etc. It was a lively presentation with amazing examples of content that have crossed over many media. Digital, consumer engagement and in-game advertising were presented by Barney Loehnis (Aspac director of Isobar), Kotaro Sugiyama (senior executive officer of Dentsu Japan) and Pushkar Sane, (head of Digital, MediaVest Group Asia).

Ian Gee took the audience to a “Blast from the Past,” showing the historical roots of advertising and fast forwarded to the future where consumers are expected to be more interactive. Scott Thomson of Naked Worldwide talked about “The Power of Innovative Execution that delivers Impactful Engagement.” The audience was treated to a refreshing break by the last speaker Gavin Mehrotra, Coca-Cola’s director of International Media, who spoke on “Why marketers must work with their communications partners earlier and closer.” 

The Philippines were represented by Ronald Garcia, the sole delegate from Manila, two Pinays from GroupM Indonesia, and the author (who moderated a session) and Chino Nartates, a student who participated in the Student APMF.

As some of the delegates stayed on and a number of participants flew back to their home countries, for a special group of young people the APMG was not yet over. This was the Asia Pacific Student Media Forum, attended by 20 young students mostly from Indonesia with a few delegates from Edith Cowan University Australia, a Filipino and a Palestinian student.

The Student Media Forum is on its second year and exposes the future practitioners to the issues of media, marketing and communications. This year, Morihiro Harano, creative director of Drill Japan, made a presentation on unique ways of connecting with consumers. Diane Slade, who heads the IAA Committee on Education, led the jury who reviewed the case study presented by the student teams. Every APMF, the organizing committee invites schools from across the region to send their students to learn from the APMF presentations.