Adgully Exclusive | Every single individual is now a media: OgilvyOne Singapore's Lucy McCabe

Lucy started her marketing career in the UK with Vodafone as a Direct Marketing Manager ' launching the first ever e-mail to pager service. She moved to Singapore 10 years ago and first joined Ogilvy in 2001 where she spearheaded Levi's first Asia Pacific online marketing campaign.

As Vice President Consulting Services Asia Pacific, Lucy leads a team which delivers strategic, data driven, marketing consultancy to clients.

In an exclusive conversation with Adgully, Lucy McCabe, Vice President - Consulting Services Asia Pacific, OgilvyOne Worldwide, Singapore, share her views on today's digital world and how marketers are adapting it.

"I look at the digital world from a marketer perspective i.e. what my business, my clients and major brands are looking for, in terms of how they can connect to digital world, how they can grow their business and how they can solve their business problems. What we see today is the world of opportunities, and many brands, many marketers and struggling customers always think of from where I start. Around the world, marketers look at the different stages of development, different stages of broadband connectivity and 3G. In this advance market, people always think from where they should start and how to work on it and the problem is that marketers are never working in that perspective. So, i think we need to make key opportunities for digital programs, to maintain good relationships with customers, to reach every individual with the help of digital medium, and to form one way conversation. Looking at how we can use digital medium! Through it we could understand what customers are, what customers are doing, what they are feeling about our brand and what they want from our brand. It's one of the huge opportunities for marketers where they can engage with their customers." Said, Lucy McCabe

According to Lucy McCabe, India is growing as other countries in the digital and Social domain and , but it's lacking somewhere, she said, "If i compare Singapore to

India is trying to catch up with innovations as still there is some gap."

When it comes to media, Indian advertisers still have more of a bent towards traditional way. So, we asked Lucy McCabe the way she looks at Indian advertisers and agencies. She explained that, "Advertisers and agencies do use funny campaigns and I remember there was one of the campaigns by Ogilvy Mumbai, which had 2 million followers on Facebook. People wouldn't follow it, if that was not entertaining and engaging. As todays advertising is trying to spread their message, I am seeing lots off advertisers using the digital domain. In the whole world, today's marketers are ready with their product just by saying; this is what my product is! They make product look sexy and not focusing on what that product valued for the customers, and this is not India specific it's about whole world in general. It's a big challenge to engage customers and simultaneously focus on the brand."

She further elaborated, "What brands are wanting to achieve, is to get customers by sharing message, by seeding information to the media themselves for their brand communication. That's what social media means that every single individual is now a media. So, when you have 500 followers on twitter and a thousand fans on Facebook, you have media reach individually over 1500 customers plus their friends and others in their network. So, you have individual media reach and for any brand marketer, it's like achieving total media reach and to connect with millions of customers. Many marketers get seduced by this as they save loads of money on it and that they can use in traditional media as they are reaching to their customers positively. But, to get customers positively is very hard, you just can't create anything artificially as today's customer can spot fault very easily and are smart too. So, brands have to be conscious while communicating with the customers as people may not be influenced very easily."

In the digital space, it's difficult to sustain in the market as everyone is trying to make a mark in the digital arena. On this Lucy McCabe commented, "It's entirely possible for brands today to be in any market in the digital world, only one thing is important that it should have customer base and already have digital access. But, when your market doesn't have digital access, and then traditional media is still going to be a very important for the brand. Whatever media a brand is using to communicate, there are few things that have really changed for the marketers today. Today marketers have to work on the absolute need, the fundamental honesty about their brand, about their brand purpose, about their brand mission and brand quality. Because, if product isn't good people will tell each other very quickly about it and that can tarnish the image of the brand."

"There is a very strong culture of storytelling and entertainment here in India and I can see that in today's work. Indian creative teams are much more focused on dramatics and fun side of it and I could find that. I am not sure that Indian marketers and agency should need to think particularly different from the rest of the world. Because I think the way digital media is developing in India is developing at the same pace in other countries." Said Lucy McCabe about creative teams and agencies of India. She further stated that, "We all are human being and according to human behavior, its inherent nature that we love to be connected, to be together, to collaborate, and to talk to each other wherever we are and whichever country we live in. And I think all creative teams and agencies need to look at it and should build this concept in their work."

Lucy McCabe has been associated with this industry from last 20 years; she started her career with direct market and according to her today in that same industry things have changed. She explained, "Today things have changed, and opportunity for marketer with digital is that "as faster you'll be, is better'. Digital marketers have to be data savvy, because opportunity with digital is that, it's one of the medium through which we can understand our customers. And I call it as digital body language. All digital marketers would have to be getting very smart about data and understand the possibilities of data, and the other thing is that marketer should have willingness to keep learning over time, as possibilities changes very fast. Today digital is recognized much more than it was 20 years ago and with a strong identity. So, we have to just keep changing our self constantly to learn new trends and explore new possibilities."

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