Lessons to learn and study for local marketers and advertisers at the LBR LBO Summit this year
While advertising is on the rise in the digital space in today’s modern world, there are many lessons to learn for local marketers and advertisers.
People need to get away from the mindset of Sri Lanka being an island and work towards improving its standards and priorities by looking at other countries in the world. One needs to look at what’s important for your target audience and the content platform they are more engaged in and start thinking from the consumer’s point of view. These and many more similar topics were discussed at the recently-held LBR LBO Brand Summit at the Cinnamon Grand in Colombo. This year’s theme was ‘Building winning brands in the digital age and strategy innovation.’ Many eminent speakers both local and foreign shared their ideas and expertise.
Razorfish India CEO, Charulata Ravi Kumar delivering the opening keynote on ‘The Suicidal Brand Manager’ said, “There are a variety of trending changes in the digital space today. Advertising is all over online and no need of physical advertising anymore. In today’s context people trust their friends more than brands.” The market size of Sri Lanka is not 21 million people but (should be) 1.7 billion with India and other countries around the island nation. People need to get away from the island mindset mentality and get a 360 degree experience, she added.
During the first session of the forum on ‘The Internet of people; how to engage with customers in the age of digital’ Zoe Lawrence from TNS Asia Pacific said, “The marketing world has changed tremendously over the past 10 years.
For the online community, digital platform is mass media. Social media has today become more important for people than their jobs. Advertisers and marketers need to understand what’s important to the target audience, while look for the content platform where the audience is more engaged in.” Vidya Sivarajah from Fonterra mentioned that marketing is today done through connected devices. No one is a marketer in today’s context but a value creator. “Focus much on the content which you are publishing for the customers and build a brand that can give something back in return to the consumer; start thinking from the point of view of the consumer without depending alone on agencies.
During the panel discussion it was revealed that within an organisation every individual needs to think of their own DNA and not wait for someone else to do it for them. The second session of the summit was on ‘How mobile and digital manage customer experiences’ where it was stated that all organisations should go digital, if not they will not survive. The future is where the consumer is and it’s very difficult to get there. In today’s advertising scenario 50 per cent of ads are not seen by the public. Advertisers are facing the issue of having to recognise who their real audience is. It was also mentioned that in Sri Lanka e-commerce is growing at 20 per cent every year while there are 4 million companies engaged in the e-commerce platform worldwide. Many local organisations are getting into the e-commerce space.