adasia 2011: Day 1 at a glance

Creative minds from across the Asian continent were welcomed with a ting of chilling breeze in the national capital. New Delhi, the new hot spot for the booming media and its exchange activities, is hosting another international media event. Adasia 2011 began on a musical note with the anthem of the Republic of Adasia and a soothing performance by renowned Shillong Choir Group.

Diana Hayden played a chirpy host for the inaugural session where the Minister of Information Broadcasting Ambika Soni was the Guest of Honor. In her welcome address to a multicultural audience, she said, ""India's economic growth has been at a toss. Increasing literacy has been our prime concerns. There has been a boom in the print media as well. We have a large and huge newspaper market, with the number of users using internet is increasing day by day."

"Both television and radio have done a remarkable job in the two decade: from 10 channels to 100 channels both national and international, television has geared up and 800 radio stations are covering the whole country," added Soni.

Conclusively she said, "Media and communication cover almost all sections of the country. India has a vibrant advertising and marketing industry. Conferences like these inspire a lot of people, as it gives an opportunity to discuss and hold interactive platform for intellectual exchange. We are in process of revamping; the TRPs are critical to growth of advertising. My government is committed to the freedom of press. Advertising is an integral part of freedom of speech. Consumer's interest is paramount. But this freedom should be used with high sense of responsibility. I request you all by mentioning that use your skills for messages and mass communication in terms of social help. I hope you all will benefit from the elaborate spread of highly interactive discussion over the next three days."

The second session took us through the answer of the question, "how market leaders reinvent themselves?' Harish Manwani, Chief Operating Officer, Unilever and Chairman, Hindustan Unilever Ltd, says, "The world is changing dramatically. There is a rapid growth and urbanization; also there is a need to live substantially. We are harnessing the power of digital and consumer centricity."

Adding further, he said, "The way growth is taking place, we need three planets, which we don't have and so we need to take steps accordingly. This is not one India so you need to ensure that you cover each and everything. In markets like India you are competing for non consumption. Affordability and accessibility also plays an important role so you need to make sure how you develop the business model and make your product accessible and affordable."

"The fourth dimension of growth is responsibility. Our biggest leverage is that 2 million people use are brands. It is our responsibility to make sure that all brands just don't carry emotional mission but also carry a social mission. We are an emerging "the market company.'"

Michel Roth Chairman and Chief Operating Officer, Interpublic, appraisingly said, "Indian market is growing at a faster rate and we are doing remarkable jobs in a market like India. I think we need take more efforts like Uniliver. One should make sure how they reinvent their brand by repositioning themselves in a competitive market."

As sessions passed by, Adasia 2011 caught up pace, where in the third session speakers tried to decode the new age consumers. Mckinsey presented a detailed paper highlighting the behavioral pattern, its impact on the market place. It aimed at understanding consumer and company realtions.

Adil Zainulbhai, MD ' India, Mckinsey & Company Inc, said, "The scenario in a nutshell is that the world changing. It is changing at quite an equal pace in both developed and emerging markets. As we see it, there are five crucial crucibles of innovations, namely - the great re balancing, the productivity imperative, the global grid, pricing the planet and market state".

Laxman Narasimhan, Director, New Delhi, Mckinsey & Company Inc said, "Connectivity is driving a social networking revolution around the world. In China almost 95% of the consumers has an access and is active on social networking sites. Almost 40% of Japanese consumers have multiple social networking sites accounts, while china has 50% of them. So what we see that, consumers and companies are engaging in a two way conversation, where both have several forums available to present themselves.

Remarking that the 3- dimension model of marketing is dead, and 4-dimensional marketing is the in thing, Narasimhan said, "Earlier, the scene was that a brand ' revolved around three marketing aspects. First, functional i.e. better products, secondly, relationship ' i.e. value for loyalty and lastly, process ' i.e. simple and convenient interaction. But in a connected world, where consumers expect more, engagement is the way to fulfill the demands and desires of both the parties involved; thus making engagement as the 4th dimension to marketing."

Elaborating further he said, "Consumer engagement drives purchase intent. And even in markets like China, Korea, India and Japan, now shed relatively higher importance to this dimension. We think that a radical transformation in marketing is required which can be done through embracing digital, new look at marketing functions, getting closer to the consumer, building better engagement eco system, developing new capabilities ' media companies vs advertising and embedding product metrics- transform from traditional to online marketing."

Koichi Yamamoto, GM, Global Solutions Center, Dentsu said, "Along with the 4d marketing model, now also needs to focus on the communication as well. With social media and engagement becoming highly important, we now use the SIPS model, which is sympathize, identify with the product, participate and share and spread your experience, especially online. That's the new way to market your product and gain good benefits yourself".

Well the forth session took us through the fact that Asian tigers or elephants will lead the next creative renaissance on the planet.

Kitty Lun, CEO LOWE China said, "overall market is very young, creative people are all very hungry, China market is very big, It is really very difficult to make mistakes and take risk and you end up being so safe that you are almost perfect."

Piyush Pandey, Executive Chairman and CD, South Asia, Ogilvy and Mather India, said, "There is a large part India which is still unexplored. You need to ensure what is lacking and how it can be tackled."

Bruce Haines, Chief Strategy Officer, Cheil Worldwide, said, " The market is really young but huge. you should make sure that you study the market well."

The fifth session at the ongoing Adasia 2011 conference, Nikesh Arora, Senior VP and Chief Business Officer, Google spoke about how, real time and meaningful interaction with the crowd can reveal multiple routes to managing uncertainty in the business and marketing world. The enabling dimension of technology and its ubiquitous connectivity can open new vistas of marketing and consumer revolutions for practitioners.

Arora said, "More than a decade back, we at Google began with the aim that if there is any information on the internet, we'll help you find. Google has been riding multiple waves of change in consumer culture and behavior ' sometimes by driving the change and sometimes by proactively adapting to the unfolding future. "

"Media landscapes are changing and we have to converse with these changes in order to make lucrative benefits for both, the consumers and the business outfits", he added.

Speaking about how "brand' and "brand identity' have evolved over the years, Arora said, "If one would observe keenly, in the last 15 years, the brands that people, especially the youth today associat3e so easily, have all been technology related; be it Apple, I pad, Facebook, Nokia, Sony etc, all have a technology bend towards them. So the youth today do not see any particular website as a tech website or a university's website and then create perceptions. Today the benchmark is for these consumers are Google, Facebook, Twitter etc."

The second last session took us through the fact that some years ago, chat rooms used to be the social networking platforms but now it's, Twitter and facebook.

Kate Day, Communities Editor, Daily Telegraph online, said, "This field of digitalization is gearing up at faster speed. Social media today has become the most important platforms in terms of marketing, awareness etc. the engagement of people is increasing day by day."

Arvind Rajan, Managing Director and Vice President, Asia Pacific and Japan, Linkedin, said, "People are increasingly engaging themselves with social media especially, Facebook, twitter and Linkedin which shows a positive sign towards the growth and development of the country."

The concluding session brought about key points like the future of brand India 2020. Kurush Grant, Executive Director, ITC, said, "At the heart of every successful brand there lies a good product. What do we as Indians want brand India to stand for?" Giving an example, he said, "Toshiba- the brand stands for what its consumers stand for. If you have a sustainable and inclusive growth only then it's worldwide."

Sanjay Kapoor, CEO, Bharti Airtel limited, India and South Asia, said, "An interesting fact is that, the youth make up a large part of the population in India. We have five million people below the age of 35 and about 65% of the total population below the age of 30 years. Thus it is understood that there is huge dominance of this section both on work force and consumption."

Further adding Sanjay said, "Since this segment believes in always being connected, it is essential to use this as an advantage in the coming years. "

Ravi Swaminathan, Managing Director and Regional, Vice President( sales and marketing), AMD South Asia, said, "Brand India can take care of itself. Forget about Brand indiabut build up great agaencies which will make "Brand India'. Agencies need to build up their brands. They should also start getting into global supply chains and also build up global organization networks."

New Delhi, the new hot spot for the booming media industry activities and national and international exchange activities in the fraternity, unlike the usual, gave a chilling welcome to the guests from across the world. With such an interestingly designed day one, it will be interesting to see how the next two days at the conference unfold. | By Aanchal Kohli [aanchal(at)adgully.com]