Waves of influence flow at The Digital Ripple: the 4th Internet and Mobile Marketing Summit

PHILIPPINES, AUGUST 20, 2010 – Five hundred marketers and professionals from creative and media agencies converged at the SMX Convention Center on August 19 to 20 for The Digital Ripple: the 4th Internet and Mobile Marketing Summit 2010.

Digital media experts left delegates with much to tweet about and seriously consider in between talks. Noted web strategist Jeremiah Owyang (top left) started the summit on a high note, riding on the “Four Waves of Social Business”, giving practical pointers for marketer to use. ABS-CBN SVP for News and Current Affairs Maria Ressa’s optimism spread like contagion, displaying the power of digital for advocacies effecting true social change. Angeli Beltran, Senior Regional Director of Dentsu Asia, showcased award-winning work both from Dentsu and other agencies, pulling the best of the web together to inspire the audience to create meaningful stories of their own. Yahoo! VP and SEA Managing Director Ken Mandel (below) enumerated “7 Digital Thoughts and Trends”, paid homage to Apple’s Steve Jobs and admitted that experts should not always be taken seriously.

Day Two speakers–Mindshare UK Managing Director Nick Seckold, Euro RSCG Regional Digital Director for Southeast Asia Daniel Lee and Tribal DDB CEO Amanda King–brought in their global experience to their talks and were also quoted heavily via mobile.

It was not hard for the evangelists of social and mobile media to proselytize a crowd already married to smartphones and tablets. The summit was one of the few events in the Philippines where one can get a Foursquare Swarm badge, as there were more than 50 Foursquare users congregating in the same location.

Topics for the breakout sessions included developments in mobile and gaming trends. The sessions were on the growth of business alongside the growth of the Internet and mobile technology: e-commerce is gaining ground, SMEs can benefit greatly from mobile and internet marketing, gaming is here to stay. Paul Papadimitriou entertained while drawing converts to his gospel putting together many of the previous talks. Chinie Diaz and Dickie Soriano proved that email marketing holds untapped potential; Yahoo! SEA’s Sarah Lai and Google Asia’s Anand Tilak showed that there is more to search than meets the search engine.

"The [high] quality of the content is the most consistent feedback I’ve been receiving," says Internet and Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines (IMMAP) President Nix Nolledo. "The case studies are more specific. The metrics are more detailed as well. At the same time, there’s really a connection between the speakers and the audience."

"One of the biggest compliments is that it is very forward-looking,” adds Leah Besa-Jimenez, IMMAP Summit 2010 Chair. “And that is an important thing for IMMAP as an organization."

This year’s summit was designed to be more conducive to interaction, with a networking area specifically designated for chats with speakers and delegates. Panelists were posed tough, incisive questions on the standardization and comparability of metrics, and the challenge of convincing clients to allocate a bigger share of their budget to digital.

As digital is changing behavior, those whose businesses can adapt and engage their consumers will thrive. Digital, if given the chance to, can do wonders to the bottom line, but marketers need to be prepared to make mistakes. Now is the time to make them, declares Rohit Dadwal of the Mobile Marketing Association – Asia. A few years down the road may be too late.

But the real measure of the success of the 4^th IMMAP Summit won’t be seen for months. If it was effective in educating and convincing marketers that the future is in digital, there should be more Filipino case studies next year.