Asian e-Marketing December 2011

Yahoo: Science is Insight, Not Hindsight!, page 41

Out There Media’s State-of-the-art Mobile Advertising Marketplace, page 44

Springboard Research’s Top 10 Predictions in 2011, page 22 IDC: The Only Certainty is Uncer-tainty in 2012 , Page 4

Content is Key in Website Optimiza-tion, Page 37

Hydra's Integrated OneSearch Juggles Natural and Paid Search at Once, Page 43

December 2011

Search Engine Marketing ( Part 2 )

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Dear Reader, It remains to be seen, but increasingly it looks like we are heading into a turbulent 2012 - well, at least there still seems to be greater optimism in Asia than the rest of the world! By reading this issue of Asian e-Marketing, you should gain a better understanding of what most probably will come next. We included, for instance, a number of surveys and reports that identify several SEO trends for 2012 to help you take actionable steps that should attract more high quality traffic from search engines.

Keep an eye on Search Engine Marketing and Optimization to be found in your industry, as it helps you to brave the challenges and uncertainties our industry may have to face next year – so do go for it! Enjoy reading!

EDITORIAL:

O N L I N E V E R S I O N

Daniela La Marca Editor-in-Chief

Asian eMarketing

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RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS 4 IDC: The Only Certainty is Uncertainty in 2012 4 MAGNAGLOBAL: Internet Media is Big Winner in 2011 7 The Only Constant is Change 11 Apple Mobile Devices, especially iPad, Widely Used Across Southeast Asia 12 Yahoo! Study Reveals Mobile Internet Habits 13 Frost & Sullivan: Cloud Computing will become Mainstream in 2012 14 IDC Recommends Putting Active Citizen Engagement on 2012 Agenda 16 GroupM: Global Ad Spending Up by 6.4% in 2012 18 In 2012 Telcos in APEJ Still Struggle to Redefine Themselves 19 Regus: Stop Hoping for the Best and Start Planning for the Worst 22 Asia Pacific Banks will Outperform Gloomy Predictions in 2012 24 How Productive is Work during the Festive Season? 26 Search Traffic for the latest Smartphone Models increased significantly in Hong Kong 27 Fournaise: Due to Marketing and Sales Misalignment 92% of Prospects are not closed in 2011 30 BEST PRACTICES & STRATEGIES 33 Get Found Online 33 Find instead of Search: Personalized Content on the Web is becoming the Norm 35 Content is Key in Website Optimization 37 Cashing in: Mobile Finance and the Shopping Experience 38

SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING (Part 2)

DECEMBER 2011 INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

Five Very Obvious Signs in Spotting a Bad SEO Service Provider 40 Keywords are the Foundation of SEO so put the Effort into finding the Right Ones! 41 TECHNOLOGIES & PRODUCTS 43 Hydra's Integrated OneSearch Juggles Natural and Paid Search at Once 43 COMPANIES & CAMPAIGNS 45 Smaato is Pushing Mobile Real-Time Bidding (RTB) Standards 45 LEGISLATION 48 MMA's Universal Ad Unit Guidelines Released for Public Comment 48 BUZZWORD 50 Black Hat Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 50 APPOINTMENTS 52 IMPRINT 54

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IDC: The Only Certainty is Uncertainty in 2012 in the coming year. IDC expects ICT spending in the APEJ region to reach US$653 billion in 2012, which is 10.4% growth over 2011. Growth will not be as high as in 2011 as it is expected to drop over the next four to five years but the rate still remains above 9% by 2015.

Drawing from the latest IDC research and internal brainstorming sessions amongst IDC's regional and country analysts, the following are the top 10 key ICT predictions in 2012. These trends are what IDC be-lieves will have the biggest commercial impact on the APEJ ICT market.

IDC is seeing a new type of enterprise shaping the marketplace: The "Emerging Asian Enterprise". These enterprises are looking to aggressively challenge the traditional MNC model, are hungry for growth and geo-graphical expansion, and have a DNA very different to organizations from mature economies. In these organi-zations, CIOs are looking at new ways to compete more effectively and shorten the time to market for their IT investments.

IDC expects Emerging Asian Enterprises to drive a "new wave" of ICT spend in 2012, as they look to invest in disruptive IT, such as mobility, cloud, analytics and social media.

The Value of 1: Asian Businesses Appreciate the Value of Singularity in IT Offerings

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Based on the prospect of a turbulent and uncertain economic climate in 2012, IDC forecasted recently in their annual Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan: APEJ) Top 10 ICT Predictions.

Although market volatility is at an all-time high, compa-nies will still expect growth in this region. Business leaders are likely to face difficult investment decisions to maintain growth, but businesses will be looking to leverage ICT in newer and more robust ways.

"As we head into what looks to be a turbulent 2012, the only certainty is uncertainty. While this region is becom-ing increasingly resilient to the economic woes of other regions, companies are likely to hedge their bets when investing in ICT in 2012. Pairing caution with ambition, companies will still seek to profit from growth in the re-gion. As consumers and workforces are becoming smarter, more affluent and demanding, companies will need to match their efforts with intelligent spending to avoid getting their fingers burnt in case another world-wide crisis hits," says Claus Mortensen, Principal for Emerging Technology Research, IDC Asia/Pacific.

Although IDC acknowledges the risk of a global reces-sion in 2012, the research company does not expect a major impact on ICT spending in Asia Pacific. Against the backdrop of a very uncertain economic outlook for 2012, instead expect that companies in the region will have a somewhat cautious approach to ICT spending

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The complexity of the Asia Pacific market has led to a need and ap-preciation of "singular" offerings and players where a single portfolio can generate a successful and sus-tainable business model for the vendor/provider. The classic exam-ple is Apple with its focus on sim-plicity: one mobile phone offering, and one media tablet offering. Prior to Apple, many had touted diversity as the critical success factor in the mobile devices sector but IDC ex-pects ICT companies across the board to consider the "singular" model in 2012 and beyond.

Making 2 + 2 = 1: Cloud Service Orchestration Services Lead the Drive to Outsourcing 3.0

In 2011, IDC estimated that 80% of new enterprise application develop-ment was for the public cloud, and by 2015, 20% of enterprise applica-tion spending will be cloud-sourced. As a result, cloud service buyers will now have to manage a much larger number of services and ven-dors, adding a level of manage-ment difficulty to what should have been an easier adoption of new services. To counter this, cloud ser-vice providers will provide inte-grated management of disparate cloud services - cloud orchestration - in 2012 and beyond. As a result, the market will not be talking so much about cloud services by 2015, but will consider these as a natural evolution of outsourcing, or Outsourcing 3.0.

The Chief Data Scientist will make "Big Data" Relevant to the Business

IDC expects that 2012 will see the arrival of a "Big Data" era in the region. Social media interactions, real-time sensor data feeds, geo-spatial information and other new data sources are presenting organi-zations with a range of challenges in terms of next generation informa-tion strategies, but also significant opportunities. The most useful in-sights will come though the high-

end analytics that can be per-formed on the increasing volumes, velocity and variety of data that or-ganizations are generating - or Big Data analytics. But the variables and models for Big Data analytics are likely to be entirely new, requir-ing new analyst skill sets, and IDC believes that the Chief Data Scien-tist will emerge in 2012 as a job title to help organizations define their "Big Data" strategies.

New Cloud Workloads will emerge: Leading with Automa-tion

In 2012, IDC expects that as IT looks to adapt to changing busi-ness demands in the light of the current economic uncertainty, the ability to quickly provision IT capa-bilities and resources will become a key differentiator in the market. As the next wave of workloads move into cloud, IDC believes that it will become increasingly important to standardize and automate IT proc-esses and that automation will be a key focus point for CIOs in 2012. Investments in standardization and automation will enable organiza-tions to dynamically design, deliver and operate agile business ser-vices that will enable the flexibility to align with key business proc-esses and ensure that IT becomes more ingrained within overall busi-ness operations.

The Apps Aggregator: Telco's Innovation Scout Team to Deliver Connected Homes and Hotspots

The explosion of digital content and applications delivered on multiple devices over both fixed and mobile networks has brought new opportu-nities for telcos.

Now, they have the chance to ag-gregate applications and contents to deliver connected, personalized, and user-centric solutions to the end-user. But telcos can only de-liver these through focused and

dedicated teams that can identify, bundle, integrate, and launch the "right" business or consumer appli-cations. IDC believes that in 2012, the more forward looking telcos will form dedicated innovation scout teams to find and deliver appropri-ate applications and content to con-nected homes, businesses and hot-spots.

Predictable Failure will become a Strategic Platform Choice

Unpredictable IT systems have a big impact on business perform-ance and to overcome this, organi-zations invest heavily in duplicate copies of servers, systems, data and networks - also known as re-dundancy. But IDC expects forward-looking organizations to think dif-ferently in 2012. Instead of relying on redundancy, virtualization will allow them to build a margin of er-ror into their IT platforms that per-mits failure. IDC expects this con-cept to gain traction in 2012 and to become the preferred approach when deploying larger virtualized x86 environments within the next few years.

Companies will return to Cus-tomer-Centric IT

Due to the uncertain economic out-look, IDC expects "customer-centricity" to be on the top of the agenda for companies in Asia Pa-cific in 2012, together with a focus on technologies that help compa-nies increase customer focus, cus-tomer engagement, and increase their knowledge of those customers who contribute the most to their business.

"Customer-centricity" may not have the same mind share in 2013, if the economic outlook gets better, but IDC expects this customer-focus approach to be an integral part of most companies' IT by 2015.

The Fusion of Mobile and IT will pave the Way for a New Work-space

IDC expects organizations to start creating new workspace architec-tures built around mobility, cloud and data services in 2012. Con-sumerization has created new de-mands on the work environment and IDC expects organizations to use desktop refreshes, green field deployments and remote/small site operations as opportunities to pilot new mobile services and solutions in 2012.

Becoming "Middleclass": Sub-US$100 Smartphones Will De-liver New Revenue Streams

Smartphones have ushered in a new era of personal computing, with the shipment of smartphones expected to exceed the shipment of PCs in the region in 2012, a mile-stone that is most likely never, ever going to be reversed. IDC expects the market to see the introduction of sub-US$100 smartphones in 2012, which will in turn create big opportunities for service providers in emerging Asia. IDC also believes that consumers in these markets


will soon demonstrate the same addictive nature to mobile applica-tions as seen in mature markets.

The suspense continues as the only certainty is uncertainty in the coming year. (Source: IDC) ♦

By MediaBUZZ

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http://www.conferences.com.sg/conf-smm5.htm

http://www.uppersideconferences.com/v6world2012/v6world2012intro.html

MAGNAGLOBAL: Internet Media is Big Winner in 2011 MAGNAGLOBAL, the strategic global media unit of Interpublic Group and division of IPG Mediabrands, recently released an updated Global Advertising Fore-casts, showing media owners' revenue growth for 2011 and 2012 to be slower than previously projected, but still resilient. From MAGNAGLOBAL's +5.2% forecast published in June 2011, global growth has been re-vised slightly down to +4.7%, totaling $427 billion now, due to the softening of some markets in the second half of the year. The company is monitoring media suppli-ers' revenues in 63 major markets, representing more than 95% of the world's economy. Its media suppliers advertising revenue projection includes: television (pay and free), internet (search, display, video, mobile), newspapers, magazines, radio, cinema and out-of-home (traditional and digital) and excludes direct mar-keting categories such as direct mail or traditional "yellow page" directories.

The geography of growth

More than ever, emerging economies drove global ad-vertising revenue growth in 2011, posting an average +15.0% growth during the year. Among these develop-ing economies, Latin America posted the strongest growth rates, averaging +13.2%, closely followed by Central and Eastern Europe at +13.0%.


Meanwhile, developed markets grew at much slower rates, such as +1.6% in Western Europe and +3.1% in North America, due to a number of factors including: a strong 2010 comparison, where revenues were up +8.2% compared to 2009; macro-economic slow down and persistent financial uncertainties; the absence of major sporting events or US elections; and natural dis-asters in Asia. Among individual countries, the strong-est growth rates came from: Argentina with +37.9% in the context of a strong inflationary economic growth, China (+22.5%), Kazakhstan (+25.6%), Russia (+20.4%), India (+15%) and Brazil (+10.2%).

Eleven countries, out of the 63 analyzed by MAGNAGLOBAL, suffered a decline in advertising revenues, including countries in Southern Europe hit by protracted economic turmoil and political instability, such as Greece: -19.3%; Portugal: -6.9%; Spain: -6.3%; Italy: -2.5%; as well as emerging markets tempo-rarily destabilized by the Arab Spring (Egypt -21%); and Asian countries hit natural disasters (Japan -2.0%, Thailand: -2.0%). Many of the large markets of Western Europe and North America wound up in the middle, typically showing low single-digit growth (UK: +1.8%; Germany: +3.0%; US: +2.9%).

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Among media categories, televi-sion, an unexpected winner in 2010 (+12.7%), continued to show strength in 2011, despite the ab-sence of cyclical sporting events or elections in the US. Broadcasters' advertising revenues grew 4.8% to $175 billion, in 2011, maintaining TV's leadership with a 41.0% mar-ket share globally. Good audience levels and audience measurement improvements such as the integra-tion of time-shifted DVR viewing into ratings for the first time (e.g. France) made the medium attrac-tive. Out-of-home (OOH) media fared even better: including cinema, OOH grew 6.4% globally, driven by the incremental revenues gener-ated through digital billboards (+19.9%), which have rolled out in various parts of continental Europe and Asia. Other traditional media categories, however, had a tougher year. Radio grew only +2.2%; newspapers revenues were down -2.4% and magazines declined -0.9%. Declining circulation, shrink-ing readership, internet competition and short term media buying pat-terns (which penalizes monthly magazines), all contributed to print's decline in developed mar-kets. Things are different in emerg-ing markets, however, where liter-acy is still increasing and broad-band access is still relatively low. In those markets, magazines are growing along with the middle class, and there is enough advertis-ing demand for every media to benefit beyond TV. Overall, print advertising revenues are up by a high single digit percent in emerg-ing markets.

The big winner of 2011, however, was internet media. Total internet advertising revenues increased +16.9% to $78.5 billion. While Dis-play subcategories increased +15%, Paid Search reaped the benefits of usage growth and algo-rithm improvements to reclaim its position as the largest digital reve-nue driver (+19%). Within Display, online video continues to show im-pressive growth (+58.5%), reaching $4.7 billion in revenues. Pre- and mid-rolls in online videos now gen-

erate 6% of total internet advertis-ing revenues and 1.1% of global advertising revenues. Even more than online video sharing special-ists, TV broadcasters offering free, ad-funded online "catch-up" of long-form, full-length episodes are driv-ing category growth.

Overall, coming after a strong 2010 and in a poor macro-economic con-text, media suppliers displayed a resilient performance in 2011. But the global market is barely back to where it was in 2007 ($423 billion in constant USD), and still smaller in the case of Western Europe (2007: $112 billion, 2011: $106 billion). This reflects that media costs that are still low from a historical per-spective.

2012: The BRIC Engine

For 2012, MAGNAGLOBAL now forecasts media owners' advertising revenues to grow by 5.0% to $449 billion, which is 1.5% below their previous prediction published in June 2011 (6.5%), due to deterio-rating macro-economic perspec-tives. Their forecast model is based on current, official economic fore-casts that are generally predicting weaker - but still positive - growth next year. Uncertainty, however, remains high, especially in Europe. In September, the IMF reduced its global output forecast (real GDP growth) from +4.5% to +4.0%. Al-though that forecast suggests the world economy would still grow, it's an awkward average between emerging economies that are grow-ing at healthy rates and developed economies that are still sputtering (average: +1.9%, US: +1.8%). In late November, the OECD revised its own global output forecast to +3.4% (including +1.6% for OECD countries and only +0.2% for the Euro area) warning that 4Q11 and 1Q12 could tip negative in most European countries, in line with a 3Q11 slowdown. Greece, Italy and Portugal, in particular, are now ex-pected to suffer full-year recessions in 2012. Other economic indicators, such as industrial production, per-


sonal consumption and business confidence, have been similarly downgraded in recent months and some independent forecasters have expressed increasingly gloomier views.

Despite the worsening economic outlook, MAGNAGLOBAL is still projecting a positive growth rate based on a few factors:

1. The well-known "quadrennial" cyclical driver is back, and it is believed that it will be stronger than ever. The incremental ad spending, generated by major sporting events like the London Summer Olympics, or the Po-land/Ukraine European Soccer Championship, and the US Presidential Elections, will bring an additional 1% to 2% on top of organic revenue growth across markets. In the US, Political and Olympic (P&O) money will ac-count for three billion dollars of incremental ad spend, mostly on television ($2.4 billion related to the Elections, $600 million gen-erated by Olympic Broadcasts). Meanwhile, major sporting events will help in European markets that are otherwise hit by economic stagnation, such as the UK, which is hosting the Olympics, although the games are broadcast on the ad-free BCC, and Italy where the Games and Soccer tournament will mostly be broadcast by RAI, one of the few European public television groups still allowed to carry a full, all-day advertising load.

2. Big emerging countries will in-crease their share of global eco-nomic and advertising influence. At the end of 2012, emerging markets will represent 24% of global advertising revenues (compared to 7% in 1999) and the four BRICs alone will ac-count for 14% (compared to 3% in 1999). Adding scale to dyna-mism, the BRIC markets have the capacity to offset part or all of the Western weakness. The four BRIC markets equated to

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FMCG, have since admitted that they may have over-reacted back then by cutting advertising expenditure too hard too quickly, which harmed their brands. We believe that this time, even if sales forecasts are being revised downwards, mar-keters will remember that mar-ket shares are still up for losses or gains, including - and per-haps even more so - during a recession, as consumers recon-sider their choices. Besides the Western advertising market is still smaller than five years ago, which means prices and net costs per thousand - despite some inflation in 2010/2011 - are still competitive and attrac-tive by long term standards. Therefore, brands in various sectors have both the incentive and capacity to invest smartly to boost or defend their market shares.

In 2012, advertising revenues will grow by 12.4% in emerging econo-mies, with Latin America still lead-ing the charge (+13.0%) followed by Central and Eastern Europe (slowing down at +7.7%). Asia Pa-cific will re-accelerate to 8.3% due to the recovery of Japan and the

only 10% of Western Europe's advertising revenues in 1999. That ratio will grow to 59% by the end of 2012, and by 2016 the BRIC countries will almost match the size of Western Europe (94%). The BRIC coun-tries contributed to 45% of the global market growth in 2011 ($9 billion out of $19 billion). With a growing proportion of the BRIC countries' population ac-cessing mass media, digital media and Western-style con-sumption patterns; with Western and local brands competing to position themselves in the top of mind of that emerging middle class, media demand is in ex-cess of supply and inflation reigns. BRIC countries lag be-hind the global average adver-tising spend per capita ($80) - Russia: $70, Brazil: $60; China: $21, and India: $4. With such structural factors, we expect advertising spending and reve-nues in those markets to keep growing faster than the general economy, supporting global revenues in their wake.

3. Some lessons learned in 2009 may help avoid a replay. A few major advertisers, e.g. in

continued growth of China. West-ern Europe will slow down at +1.1%. The sports driver will not be enough to offset recession in many European countries: Greece, Por-tugal, Spain, Ireland will decrease again (between -2% and -6%); Italy and France will be flat at best. UK and Germany will grow below 2%.

The biggest growth rates of 2012 will come from Argentina (+26.4%), Ukraine (+21.0%), Indonesia (+16.0%), China (+16.1%), Brazil (+12.0%), India (+13.5%) and Rus-sia (+9.6%).

In terms of media market share, internet will grow by 11.2% and outrank newspapers to become the second biggest media category globally, accounting for nearly 20% of global advertising dollars (19.5% at $87.4 billion). The category al-ready stands at 23% in both North America and Western Europe - where it even takes the #1 spot in a few markets, such as the UK.

Television will receive the bulk of the "quadrennial" bonanza and benefits from the typical concentra-tion of advertisers into leading me-dia at the expense of secondary media during harsh times. TV will grow by 6.7% globally to $187 bil-lion.

Newspaper and magazine reve-nues will shrink by an average -1% and -1.3% respectively, with much deeper drops in Western markets, where circulation losses of 2011 will be reflected in 2012 ad pricing.

Radio will grow by 2.2% to $30.4 billion. OOH will also benefit from the "quadrennial" events and the roll-out of new digital (+6.3% to $28.3 billion) platforms. In the UK, the innovative upfront auction proc-ess conducted last summer to allo-cate the most premium London inventory during the Games did not quite meet the high expectations, but the industry is still expected to

Top 10 advertising in 2012 (constant USD 2010)

Rank Country USD %

1 United States 152,887 34.0%

2 China 33,258 7.4%

3 Japan 32,113 7.2%

4 Germany 24,769 5.5%

5 United Kingdom 19,619 4.4%

6 France 14,582 3.2%

7 Brazil 13,134 2.9%

8 Canada 12,384 2.8%

9 Australia 12,167 2.7%

10 Italy 11,337 2.5%

Top 10 326,250 72.7%

Grand total (63 countries) 449,019 100.0%


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China's advertising market is expected to continue outperforming its already impressive economic growth in 2012, with +16.1% growth. At $33 billion, China will become the second biggest advertising market, ahead of Japan, now third at $32.1 billion. Germany remains the fourth biggest market, some distance behind ($25 billion). Other top 10 markets are - in the following order - UK, France, Brazil, Canada, Australia and Italy. Russia will enter the top 10 in 2013, at the expense of Italy. (Source: IPG Mediabrands)♦

By MediaBUZZ

grow healthily next year.

China Takes the #2 Spot

Global Media Owners Advertising Revenues (2006-2013)

Global Advertising Growth by Media Category (2011-2012)

The Only Constant

is Change According to the IAB report internet ad revenue for 2011 is expected to cross a record $30 billion this year. Fifteen years ago this number was a mere $267 million. This phenomenal growth can be attributed to only one factor, change.

What has changed? Everything has! The audience, the medium, the message and the delivery.

Internet advertising as we know it, started with the first web banner sold by HotWired paid for by AT&T, and put online on October 27, 1994. Today digital advertis-ing encompasses multiple channels including email, display, search, mobile, social, video, etc. Each of these channels in itself has evolved; display advertising now operates through ad networks, ad exchanges, de-mand and supply side platforms. The creative execu-tion has kept up as well and today IAB recognizes more than 20 types of formats. Generic content has given way to socially customized content and advanced tracking has taken marketing intelligence to a whole new level.

The underlying factor is, of course, the way people use technology to consume media.

Nielsen's Southeast Asia Digital Consumer Report on the regions' netizens revealed most users access the internet on a regular basis, the vast majority at least several times per week, if not daily. A large proportion of digital consumers are making use of mobile phone applications. Games-related and Facebook apps are largely the most popular across all six Southeast Asian markets. Online media is capturing a significant amount of digital consumers' media time each week.

What does this mean for the marketers, media agen-cies, brand and campaign managers and supply side vendors like us in Asia? I guess it means we need to avoid looking at the digital canvass through the rear view mirror. We need to embrace the new - whether it's re-targeting campaigns and integrated media buys or video seeding and blog sponsorships. Present day technology and digital media in its various shapes and forms is now ready to cover the entire customer journey from acquisition to sales to post-sales. The closer we work together on this, the quicker we'll grow the indus-try! ♦

By Amarpal Singh, Marketing Manager, Aktiv Digital


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http://www.jfpsgroup.com/abc/index.html

Apple Mobile Devices widely used across Southeast Asia

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS &

TRENDS

Apart from Singapore, where iPhone emerged as the most used Apple device with 37.51% share, iPad has the highest usage compared to other mobile devices:

Top Manufacturers of Mobile Devices 14.6 million e-mobile users, accounting for 65.7% of the SEA e-mobile population, used mobile devices manu-factured by Apple, RIM, Nokia and Samsung.

Blackberry ranked third with 6.9% share, while Sam-sung rounded off the list with a collective 2.6% share. ♦

Effective Measure, a provider of digital media planning solutions in emerging markets, released data reporting Apple's significant market share in Southeast Asia (SEA) during the month ending October 2011.

Apple SEA Market Share

The data showed that Apple mobile devices including iPad, iPhone and iPod touch are used by 11.8 million internet users, attributing to 53.1% of the e-mobile population in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singa-pore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Apple has the greatest market share in Thailand and Singapore, used by over 70% of the local e-mobile population.

(Source: Effective Measure)

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http://www.clickasiasummit.com/


Yahoo! Study Reveals Mobile Internet Habits

Through in-depth consumer insights on current internet trends, the evolving digital landscape and online behav-ior, Yahoo! is able to deliver unique and compelling content experiences which in turn create powerful op-portunities for advertisers to connect with their target audiences, in context and at scale. As part of its annual Net Index 2011, Yahoo! conducted a study on mobile internet habits, in conjunction with Nielsen in the Philip-pines, Synovate in Malaysia, Kantar Media in Vietnam and TNS in Indonesia. Their report revealed that mobile internet is on the rise across Southeast Asia with fea-ture phones, costing less than US$200, playing a sig-nificant role in driving this growth. Nokia holds the lead position in the region beating its competitors such as Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and other smart-phone manufacturers.

Uniform across the region, the youth segment, from 10-29 years of age, is using inexpensive handsets bundled with bite-size voice and data plans, for emailing, social networking, Instant Messaging and search. The vast majority of users, with the exception of Malaysians, are on pre-paid plans and spend somewhere between US$12.50 to US$20 per month.

Interestingly, home is the most common mobile internet access point, compared to other outdoor locations such as a friend's place, restaurant, school, work and whilst on the move shopping, travelling or waiting. Users "snack" content such as facts, trivia, images, news and graphics.

According to Yahoo! it is the second most frequently visited website on a mobile device, following closely behind Facebook and in some markets Google.

Indonesia, in particular, has seen a remarkable growth in individuals accessing the internet via their mobile, increasing from 22% in 2009 to 58% this year. This phenomenal growth, owing to the availability of and access to low-cost affordable devices with 'smartphone' functionalities and a low monthly mobile Internet spend (US$12.50 on average), makes Indonesia the most mobile internet ready market in the region.

Vietnam has also shown tremendous growth in indi-viduals accessing the internet via their mobile, from 19% in 2010 to 30% this year. Interestingly, this growth has been witnessed in the second tier cities of Da Nang

(46%) and Can Tho (61%), where users are leapfrog-ging from fixed-line internet access to the mobile Web.

The Philippines stands apart as the only country where women (57%) make up a higher proportion of mobile internet users than men (43%). It is also the only country where mobile internet is still in its infancy. However, with 90 million mobile phone subscriptions in the country, the country has a high penetration of inter-net-capable low-cost feature phones and users are in-creasingly dependent on these as a Web access de-vice.

Malaysia distinguishes itself from other regional mar-kets by having a higher proportion of users on post-paid plans and accessing mobile internet out-of-home. Malaysia should be seen as a country where marketers can leverage the latter end of the purchase funnel and target consumers on the move.

"The phenomenal growth of mobile internet in South-east Asia offers a range of opportunities to brand mar-keters to tap into the entire journey of a consumer's purchase path," said David Jeffs, Head of Insights for Yahoo! Southeast Asia. "Marketers must start adopting mobile as a platform for building their brand's aware-ness, consideration and ultimately purchase intent. Whilst mobile marketing is currently in its infancy, we see that this will become a popular channel to comple-ment other mass media platforms." (Source: Yahoo!) ♦

By MediaBUZZ

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Frost & Sullivan: Cloud Computing will be-come Mainstream in 2012 According to Frost & Sullivan’s predictions, the coming year will be a significant year for the ICT industry glob-ally and in Asia Pacific respectively, as many trends in the industry gain momentum.

It is expected that in 2012 cloud computing is set to become mainstream in Asia Pacific. Indeed, approxi-mately 30% of Asia Pacific organizations will have adopted some form of cloud computing by 2012 due to the fact these organizations do recognize the benefits of cloud computing, which are manifold. These benefits include the ability to offer greater business agility, cost reduction and a switch in IT spending from capital in-vestment to operational expenditure. Basically, cloud computing is becoming critical as a means of gaining a competitive advantage for today’s organizations. It is completely a strategic issue.

Andrew Milroy, Vice President, ICT Practice, Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific says, “Against this background, the market for public cloud computing is set to reach US$5.8 billion by 2015, growing at a CAGR of 39% be-tween 2010 and 2015."

“The impact of the shift to cloud computing will become apparent. One of the first obvious effects of this type of technology is the cloud-driven transformation of whole industries.

The IT industry itself is being transformed by cloud computing as consumers and businesses depend, to a greater extent, on smartphones and tablets.”

Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) is set to be the new bat-tleground in the cloud computing industry as PaaS ven-dors seek to attract developers to their platforms. To-day, Force.com has a huge advantage over other plat-forms as a result of its early entry into the market. Over the last 18 months or so, however, new platforms have come online, supported by major vendors such as Mi-crosoft, Amazon, IBM, Google and VMWare. Two or three platforms can be expected to dominate as a criti-cal mass of applications is developed on each. Other areas with high potential growth include Enterprise Communications and the Telecom sector.


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The Enterprise Communications market for the entire Asia Pacific was valued at US$4.32 billion in 2010 and the industry is growing in general at about 10% year-on-year, which is very positive. There has been increased consolidation as the industry matures, driven by key players like Cisco, Microsoft, or IBM. In general the ser-vices side of enterprise communications and UC (utility computing) has seen increased interest from corpora-tions, who are now more open to having a utility based pricing model on the cloud (pay depending on usage or over a period of time) as compared to CAPEX invest-ment which was capital intensive.

According to Pranabesh Nath, Industry Manager, ICT Practice, Asia Pacific, Frost & Sullivan, “This allows them to better manage their finance in a predictable fashion when it comes to technology adoption or up-grades. There is still concern about the security and privacy of data in the cloud, and this is largely a ques-tion of trust. Service providers are focusing their efforts in this area, as well as offering corporations private and hybrid clouds to alleviate some of their concerns.”

IP Telephony is expected to see high growth compared to analog based telephony in 2012 and growth is ex-pected to be 14.5%. While IP penetration has been in-creasing it is still quite low in emerging countries such as China, India, or Thailand, for example, when com-pared to Australia, Japan, or South Korea. Major cities in emerging economies are better connected via IP in relative terms versus Tier 2 and 3 cities.

The emergence of new and innovative solutions in the marketplace is another important factor, as is interop-erability of solutions between different players in the market. Enterprise Video growth is forecasted, for in-stance, to be around 18% to 23% in 2012.

Service providers will definitely become more important next year and the focus will shift from customers buying hardware/software based solutions from resellers to buying a managed service from service providers listed earlier in a cloud delivery model. Even so, this shift is expected to be gradual and take place over the next three to four years. Conferencing services in 2012 for audio and web is expected to be around 15% to 25%

Nitin Bhat, Partner and Senior Vice President of the Frost & Sullivan ICT Practice Asia Pacific observes that increased smartphone and tablet usage also paves the way for mobile cloud and consumer social networking, which would continue to gain momentum and particu-larly in enterprise social networking. He adds further that “fixed broadband will make a comeback as the promised speeds and availability begin to be more ubiquitous in more countries in Asia Pacific. On the other hand, telco transformation will initiate intense evolution as more telcos come under revenue growth pressure even across emerging markets. Choice of play in the market would be a decision that can no longer be postponed.” (Source: Frost & Sullivan) ♦

By MediaBUZZ

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http://conferences.com.sg/i5202-mmi-35w-l.pdf

IDC Recommends Putting Active Citizen En-gagement on 2012 Agenda These days, citizens are actively seeking engagement on social networks with companies, brands, and prod-ucts and they are also looking to engage with govern-ment representatives in a similar way.

Many governments across Asia Pacific, however, are delaying online interaction with their citizens until pro-tective policies for security guidelines are defined, ac-cording to the IDC Government Insights report.

Across IDC Government Insights' key predictions for the government sector across Asia Pacific, three key themes stand out:

1. IT security is expected to be commoditized in 2012 and any discussion with government entities about ICT solutions needs to have an elaborate security component. Ironically, both vendors and government representatives are unlikely to be fully prepared or equipped to have that conversation.

2. Cloud infrastructure and platform decisions will also get well on the way among maturer countries. De-veloping nations, on the other hand, will look to cloud solutions to scale up their ICT offerings quickly.

3. Finally, Asia Pacific has seen its fair share of natural disasters recently. Consequently, IDC Government Insights expects smart city initiatives to benefit from renewed government focus to limit the impact of disasters and manage their after-effects.

IDC Government Insights intends to assist government policy, program, and IT leaders, as well as the suppli-ers who serve them, in making more effective technol-ogy decisions by providing accurate, timely, and in-sightful fact-based research and consulting services. They therefore published recently their Asia Pacific Government Insights 2012 Top 10 Predictions:

1. Information security will be a critical component in government purchases;

2. Proactive interaction by governments with citizens through popular social media will change from nov-elty to necessity;

3. Government spending and investments will not be significantly affected by the economic struggles in the US and Europe;

4. Mature governments will significantly invest in Infra-structure as a Service (IaaS) to prepare for the cloud era;

5. Governments will closely monitor the cloud best practices among public sectors worldwide to define their own cloud deployment road map in their re-spective countries;

6. Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) will see strong mixed adoption be-tween the public and private sector;

7. Government apps will morph from one-way informa-tion-centric delivery mechanisms to two-way insepa-rable services and interaction tools for citizens;


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8. National broadband initiatives will evolve the educa-tion sector and tablets will revolutionize how educa-tion is conducted;

9. Bring Your Own Device trends will radically change the traditional function of IT and device management in governments;

10.New funds will be allocated by governments to pre-pare city infrastructures for natural disasters and the influx of people from urban areas.

"While keeping all senses tuned to maintain awareness of security risks until regulations and policies are final-ized is good, online citizen interaction will prove critical to meet the increasing demand by citizens to address their needs and concerns 24/7. Ignoring their calls for interaction may not be wise in a long-run", says Frank Levering, Research Manager, IDC Government In-sights Asia/Pacific.

Following the release of the global top ten predictions, IDC's geographic, technology and industry teams will be releasing their own specific predictions in the com-ing months. For more information, visit www.idc.asia/microsites/predictions/2012. ♦

By MediaBUZZ

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http://www.conferences.com.sg/conf-smm5.htm

http://www.vtimes.com/events/contentseminar

A vigorous Japanese advertising recovery following the nation’s devastating natural disasters coupled with an-ticipated spending on the Olympics,

European football and US elections will contribute to an estimated 6.4 percent growth in measured worldwide advertising spending in 2012, according to a newly re-vised forecast in GroupM’s biannual worldwide report, This Year, Next Year, which predicted that globally, 2011 advertising spending in measured media would hit $490 billion, a five percent increase over 2010 spending of $467 billion.

The 70-country forecast also predicted that global ad spending in 2012 would reach $522 billion, a 6.4 per-cent increase over 2011 spending. The figure is down from an earlier worldwide forecast of a 6.8 percent in-crease made in July.

For the US market, the report predicted 2011 ad spend-ing of $147 billion, a 3.3 percent increase over 2010 spending of $142.5 billion. For 2012, US ad spending should reach $153 billion, representing a four percent hike over 2011. Both those figures were also down from the previous report, which predicted a 3.8 percent hike in 2011 and a 4.2 percent increase for 2012.

“Spending growth in 2012 will be driven primarily by local media where we expect $2.5 - 3 billion dollars in political campaign advertising and advocacy initiatives”, said Rino Scanzoni, GroupM’s Chief Investment Offi-cer. “National media will see a slowing in growth as the economy continues to face head winds.”

The study is part of GroupM's media and marketing forecasting series drawn from data supplied by parent company WPP's worldwide resources in advertising, public relations, market research, and specialist com-

munications and has been released by GroupM Fu-tures Director Adam Smith at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference in New York.

“Japan's advertising recovery has proved substantially more vigorous and resilient than we forecast in our mid-year report,” said Smith. Additionally, the so-called ‘quadrennial effect’ of American elections, Olympics and European football are worth an estimated one per-cent of incremental growth in 2012.

Smith also pointed out that the report’s forecasts across most of the faster-growing world in 2012 were unchanged from the previous report in July and that those nations account for 66 percent of global ad spending.

Measured digital media investment is predicted to pro-vide 43 percent of the global dollar growth in 2012, ac-cording to the report. Global digital ad spending is ex-pected to reach $84.7 billion in 2011, a 16 percent in-crease over 2010, and $98.2 billion in 2012, also repre-senting a 16 percent hike.

“We expect digital to comprise 22 percent of all meas-ured ad investment in mature Western economies in 2012, and 12 percent in the faster-growing world,” Smith said. “The predicted respective digital growth rates in 2012 are 11 percent and 37 percent, so the faster-growing world is catching up fast.”

Global ad spending on paid inventory in social media is likely to be around $5 billion in 2011 or about six per-cent of measured online ad investment. Smith said this is probably the largest single growth component in paid-for digital today, on a trajectory which could double to $10 billion within two years. ♦

By MediaBUZZ


GroupM: Global Ad Spend-ing Up by 6.4% in 2012

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http://www.forumdavos.com/registration

In 2012 Telcos in APEJ Still Struggle to Rede-fine Themselves Telecom service providers (SPs) in the region are still stumbling in their transformation to redefine themselves in an ever-converging ICT world where separation of networks and IT are almost indiscernible. Many are struggling to remain relevant to end-users or risk being permanently left behind.

IDC foresees that the continued economic turmoil on a global scale could potentially add another dimension of uncertainty to many telecom SPs in the region in the next 12 months, according to the company's Telecom-munications 2012 Top 10 Predictions.

"The convergence of IT and networks has created an enormous amount of new opportunities for telcos in the region, far outstripping the possibilities that were imag-ined only a few years ago," says Adrian Dominic Ho, Principal, Telecom and Managed Services, Networking Research at IDC Asia Pacific. "Moreover, the massive delivery of content, and endless addiction of consumers to their smartphones, have reinvigorated growth in broadband and consumer mobility. This insatiable de-mand of the Asian consumer will also help define the decade for many telcos, especially in uncertain eco-nomic times." He continues, "The telcos' manifesto for success in 2012 is one really of common sense, stem-ming from the need to focus on the three core factors driving ICT spending.

"He adds, "Internally, telcos should also focus on op-erational efficiency, business transformation and their customer as shrinking margins and increased competi-tion will make internal transformation more critical than ever before."

Drawing from the latest research and internal brain-storming sessions amongst IDC's regional and country analysts, the following are the top 10 Telecommunica-tions Predictions in 2012 for the Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) region. These top 10 predictions repre-sent major trends with either the most significant finan-cial impact or long-term market impact across the APEJ region and IDC has grouped them under "Business Process Manifesto", "Customer Manifesto" and "Operational Efficiency Manifesto":

Business Process Manifesto

1. Getting Ready for Big Data – Delivering Hyper Speed to Hyper Connect

There is strong evidence indicating that big data has produced numerous benefits for manufacturers, gov-ernment, health care authorities, retailers, and financial institutions all over the world. Many have experienced increased revenue and competitive positioning, produc-tivity gains, and net margins.


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Big data requires "big pipes" and the need for ultra-fast connectivity to deliver that extra competitive advantage, thus making the net-work more critical than ever before. There are large incremental poten-tial network opportunities for telcos, especially in low latency networks, and network and bandwidth optimi-zation. Other opportunities for tel-cos include storage and Analytics as a Service (AaaS).

2. The New Mobile Enterprise - From Social-Enabled to Busi-ness Outcome Led There are four main driving factors behind enterprise mobility:

First, the need to drive increased cost savings from contract and de-vice management.

Second, new applications will be integrated into smart devices that will drive sales and delivery execu-tion.

Third, customer loyalty and reve-nue generation will be enhanced by stronger mobile analytics that en-ables organizations to understand their customers better.

Lastly, there will be a need for se-curity and compliance for executive smart devices.

3. The Enterprise Orchestrated Cloud - Outsourcing in a New Dimension In 2011, IDC estimated that 80% of new enterprise application develop-ment was for the public cloud, and by 2015, 20% of enterprise applica-tion spending will be cloud-sourced. As a result, cloud service buyers will now have to manage a much larger number of services and ven-dors, adding a level of manage-ment difficulty to what should have been an easier adoption of new services.

To counter this, cloud service pro-viders will provide an integrated management of disparate cloud services - cloud orchestration - in 2012 and beyond. As a result, the market will not be talking so much about cloud services by 2015, but will consider these as a natural evolution of outsourcing, or Out-

sourcing 3.0.

Customer Manifesto

4. Sub-US$100 Smartphones - The New Middle Class Smartphones have ushered in a new era of personal computing, with the shipment of smartphones expected to exceed the shipment of PCs in the region in 2012, a mile-stone that is most likely never, ever going to be reversed. IDC expects the market to see the introduction of sub-US$100 smartphones in 2012, which will in turn create big opportunities for service providers in emerging Asia. IDC also believes that consumers in these markets will soon demonstrate the same addictive nature to mobile applica-tions as seen in mature markets.

5. Content-aware Tiered Pricing - Different Strokes for Different Folks Mobile operators will soon start of-fering tariff plans by segmentation (application specific, time of day, speed, etc.) as well as multi-device plans for smartphone- and tablet-users. Accordingly, unlimited data plans will start being phased out wherever possible and replaced with tiered plans especially for 4G LTE services. Analytics throughout the network will enable planners to understand usage patterns by time of day, device type (e.g. Samsung Galaxy S II vs. iPhone 4), and by application signatures (e.g. peer-to-peer, email, video- and audio streaming, FTP, etc.) so that per-sonalized tariff plans can be offered to users and groups of users (e.g. employees working for the same company) strengthening customer retention and loyalty. Most carriers in Asia Pacific are using legacy Op-erational Support Systems (OSS)/ Business Support Systems (BSS) and thus will need to upgrade or modernize their OSS/BSS to sup-port real-time analytics.

6. Personalized Cloud Services - Expanding Cloud Opportunities Organizations will be examining the possibilities of exploiting cloud technologies to collaborate with their customers. This may include


extending their cloud customer re-lationship management (CRM) sys-tem in a collaborative fashion with their clients. The challenge for or-ganizations and service providers will be to guarantee the same en-terprise grade experience and per-formance. Licensing models would have to be modified as the current ones are too prohibitive for many organizations. The potential bene-fits for telecom SPs include in-creased bandwidth pull through, managed services, Platform as a Service (PaaS) and application life-cycle management.

7. The Apps Aggregator - Innova-tion Scout Team The explosion of digital content and applications delivered on multiple devices over both fixed and mobile networks has brought about new opportunities for telcos. With this, they have the chance to aggregate applications and content to deliver connected, personalized, and user-centric solutions to the end-user. But telcos can only deliver these through focused and dedicated teams able to identify, bundle, inte-grate, and launch the "right" busi-ness or consumer applications. IDC believes that in 2012, the more for-ward-looking telcos will form dedi-cated innovation scout teams to find and deliver appropriate appli-cations and content to connected homes, businesses or hot-spots.

Operational Efficiency Manifesto

8. Wholesaling Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) Capacity - Creat-ing PaaS Opportunities Telecom providers who have built up their cloud infrastructure as a service capacity too rapidly will start looking to fully realize their return on investments (ROI). Telcos could potentially wholesale their spare capacity to existing IT ven-dors and even other telcos who do not have the deep pockets required to build up datacenters. The other option for telcos is to create PaaS opportunities and claim leadership in this area that has largely been untapped by telcos. IDC believes that this will expand the cloud op-portunities for many telcos by a

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factor of two.

9. Delivering "Super Economics" - Sweating the Assets with Cloud Asia Pacific is now developing cloud networking strate-gies and architectures to support cloud computing ser-vices such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), PaaS and IaaS. At the same time, "cloudifcation" of the SP's IT systems, edge, and core network starts to make a lot of sense because many, if not most, major SPs will be upgrading their OSS/BSS and service delivery plat-forms (SDP) in the next three to five years. Telcos would also increasingly look to cloud automation and standardization of many processes to drive further effi-ciencies.

10. Virtualization of Mobile Packet Core - Coping with Smartphone Proliferation Stress

Most 3G networks are designed to maintain approxi-mately 25-60% overcapacity at the radio base station side and typically 30-50% overcapacity in the packet core. Most 3G operators are still generating over 60% of their cash flow from voice services but the invest-ment in mobile data infrastructure is typically greater than five times that of mobile voice infrastructure. The excess capacity in the radio base station means that the baseband processors are sitting idle or are being underutilized. As such, many telcos will be compelled to virtualize their mobile packet core to ensure that their networks can meet the increased demand expected over the next few years. (Source: IDC) ♦


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http://www.ad-tech.com/singapore/adtech_singapore.aspx

http://www.internetshow.com.sg/

Regus: Stop Hoping for the Best and Start Planning for the Worst Two-fifths (40%) of Singapore businesses do not have a disaster recovery (DR) plan in place for their IT and even more (59%) have no business continuity plan for their workplace requirements. The catastrophic spate of disasters that occurred in 2011, including recent flash floods in the Republic caused by heavy rain, created a standstill in many areas including the central shopping district, resulting in heavy losses for business and hin-dering human traffic. This has driven the issue of DR to the top of boardroom agendas, highlighting the huge cost to businesses that natural disasters and their after-math can cause. Although these are extreme exam-ples, the consequences of common events such as fires and vandalism can also seriously damage a busi-ness.

In order to take the pulse of global business 'preparedness', the latest survey by Regus, the world's largest provider of flexible workplaces, canvassed the opinions of over 12,000 business people in 85 coun-tries and found that a significant proportion of firms are taking a huge risk with their shareholder's assets and failing to take proper precautions.

Key findings include:

• 40% of Singapore firms compared to 45% globally do not have an IT DR plan in place ensuring systems are up and running within 24 hours;

• Globally 55% of firms have no workplace recovery that could be available within 24 hours, and Singa-pore follows this trend with 59% of firms lacking workplace DR;

• Singapore businesses (37%) are more likely to per-ceive the cost of DR as prohibitive than the global average (33%);

• Over two thirds of Singapore respondents (67%) compared to 55% globally declared that they would invest in workplace recovery if the service were suitably priced;

• Globally, although larger firms are better prepared for disaster recovery than smaller companies, 26% of larger corporates still remain without a DR facility for their IT systems, and 40% have no workplace DR facility;

• Globally, financial services (71%) and ICT busi-nesses (66%) were more likely to have a business continuity plan although more than 40% of firms in these sectors have no workplace recovery arrange-ment.

William Willems, Regional Vice-President for Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia, Regus comments: "The research reveals that, in spite of reports indicating that the average incident can cost up to US$500,000, disaster recovery among Singapore businesses is not as wide-spread as imagined, particularly when it comes to the workplace."

According to Graham Pullen, Vice President for Open-Text Asia Pacific, "Without a disaster recovery plan and a strong content management infrastructure in place, we find that many business operations are affected when critical information is lost after a disaster. Instead of maintaining continuity, businesses need to spend more time in retrieving or recreating lost information, resulting in increased cost and reduced efficiency. In the aftermath of a disaster, it is imperative that IT is aligned closely with the business to ensure the smooth functioning of the organization."


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Willems notes: "Over a third of businesses in Singapore reveal a high perceived cost of DR, but many also report that they would be willing to pay a monthly fee to ac-cess a workplace disaster recovery

facility in case of emergency. This is an important indication that al-though too many businesses are taking a gamble, their mentality is changing. As affordable products and services become available


around the globe, it is likely that more businesses will finally stop hoping for the best and seriously s t a r t p l a n n i n g f o r t h e worst." (Source: Regus) ♦

By MediaBUZZ

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http://www.infosecurityworld.net/


http://www.cmocouncil.org/resources/forms/promotion-commotion/index.php

Asia Pacific Banks will Outperform Gloomy Predictions in 2012 The banking industry in the Asia Pacific region will show good growth, despite a potentially turbulent year for the financial services industry worldwide, according to the IDC Financial Insights report Asia Pacific Bank-ing Top 10 Predictions. Michael Araneta, Research Director for IDC Financial Insights Asia/Pacific says, "There are several mistaken generalizations about what will happen in Asia Pacific banking in 2012. We correct the notion that many insti-tutions will either fold up or exit the industry, leaving fewer players across the sub-regions, including Asia Pacific. Instead, we expect that even more institutions will compete in our region and drive yet more ferocious market competition, even in already mature banking segments." Araneta continues, "We expect around the same growth of 5.8%, as predicted the year before, in the number of banking institutions in 2012." Several trends from the list of IDC Financial Insights' top ten predictions point towards a dynamic market in the region in the year ahead, such as: 1. The number of banks will grow even further; 2. IT spending growth will decelerate as banks drive

down cost ratios to unprecedented levels; 3. Spend on risk management will account for 15% of

IT budgets; 4. Longer core banking project implementations will

become more acceptable; 5. Asia Pacific banks won't be hit hard by Basel III-

related provisions, but can still stumble on the indi-rect burden of compliance;

6. The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) makes banks think "super-regional";

7. Banks will become more willing to allocate consid-erable IT dollars to innovation programs;

8. Big Data will find its first successful use cases in risk management and fraud management;

9. The benefits of private and hybrid clouds will gradu-ally relax anti-cloud computing positions;

10. Speed and real-time capabilities are the competitive differentiators to watch out for in 2012.

In the area of IT spending, IDC Financial Insights ex-pects banks' external IT budgets to expand by an aver-age of 7% in 2012 over 2011. The growth rate is lower than what the industry has been accustomed to in the past, reflecting a wait-and-see mindset taking hold in the industry at large. How-ever, Araneta adds, "There are also some industry seg-ments and functional IT areas that will see robust IT spending growth. In general, we see healthy IT spend-ing from banks in large, geographically dispersed mar-kets, as well as mid-sized banks that are attempting to become Tier 1 players." Other areas of high spending growth include phased investments in new core banking systems, and their follow-on projects in channels, business process man-agement, and product management systems. Araneta highlights plans of banks to further invest in risk man-agement and compliance, representing a second round of spending on critical systems and process standardi-zation activities that allow banks to cope with adverse economic conditions. (Source: IDC) ♦

By MediaBUZZ


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http://www.uppersideconferences.com/mplsworld2012/mplsworld2012intro.html

http://www.brandcouture-lse.com/mb

How Productive is Work during the Festive Season? Three-fifths of Singapore workers will work during the Christmas and New Year break this year, yet over two-fifths believe very little will be achieved. Monitoring work trends, Regus, the world's largest provider of flexi-ble workplaces, asked over 12,000 business people in 85 countries about their intentions to work during the end of year holidays. The survey reveals that although a third of business people will go to the office during the festive season, their levels of productivity are expected to be low, providing little value to their employers and wasting employees' precious home and family time commuting.

Key findings include:

• 62% of Singapore business people will work during the end of year festive period;

• A third of Singapore respondents working over the break (33%) will travel into the office to do so;

• 45% of Singapore respondents believe that workers will get very little done in this work time;

• Almost half of Singapore business people (48%) think that staff working over the holidays, mostly tend to use this time to catch up on unfinished tasks.

William Willems, Regional Vice-President for Regus Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia notes: "The holiday season is a special time for people to devote to their families and friends without neglecting their work duties.

However, our research suggests many people are not taking full advantage of the break and, if they are also travelling into the office to work, are unnecessarily squandering precious time with their loved ones."

"As the developed world faces economic difficulties and rapidly developing countries deal with the challenge of sustainable growth, businesses are under enormous pressure to keep a full head of steam, so it is not sur-prising that workers use this time to catch up on unfin-ished work. But are workers choosing to power through the break really producing the best value for their ef-forts?"

"With the holiday season approaching, businesses are ever more focused on how to achieve or improve the work/life balance they offer so that workers can spend time with their loved ones. Particularly workers making the effort to travel in to work with limited transport op-tions and in some cases adverse weather conditions could benefit from using a work location closer to home, reducing time wasted in commuting and maxi-mizing the time they can spend with their families dur-ing the break," said Willems. (Source: Regus) ♦

By MediaBUZZ


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Search Traffic for the latest Smartphone Models increased significantly in Hong Kong

Experian Hitwise, a leading online competitive intelli-gence service, revealed that search traffic on the latest smartphone models from Hong Kong internet users has significantly increased over the past six months (Figure 1).

Since 1997, the company has pioneered a unique, net-work-based approach to internet measurement through relationships with internet service providers around the world and its patented methodology to anonymously capture the online usage, search and conversion be-haviour of 25 million internet users.


Figure 1: Weekly share of traffic from each portfolio to All Categories, based on Hong Kong usage

Source: Experian Hitwise Hong Kong, October 2011

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Despite the popularity of the recently launched iPhone 4S on November 11, the data also shows growing inter-est in competitive products, with search traffic for the

HTC Sensation and Samsung Galaxy R increasing by 279% and 433% respectively, from the week ending October 1 to the week ending October 29 (Figure 2).


Search for iPhone 5 at an all-time high, until the launch of iPhone 4S

Leading the way among the wide range of smartphone brands, the search term "iPhone 4S" captured the high-est share of traffic, accounting for 0.0437% of all Inter-net traffic week ending October 29.

Share of traffic for the "iPhone 4S" gained momentum immediately after the launch announcement was made on October 4, increasing by 6,395% in just one week from 0.0021% to 0.1364% across all internet keyword searches.

Prior to this announcement, due to the long anticipation by consumers, the search term, "iPhone 5" had consis-tently ranked the highest in terms of share of traffic over the last six months (Figure 1). However, by week ending October 15, traffic from "iPhone 5" had de-creased drastically by 96%, and was overtaken by higher search traffic for "iPhone 4S".

Figure 2: Weekly share of traffic from each portfolio to All Categories, based on Hong Kong usage (a closer look at brands excluding iPhone 4S and iPhone 5)

Source: Experian Hitwise Hong Kong, October 2011

"While it's evident that the demand for the iPhone 4S is huge, the smartphone industry continues to be a heated battlefield. Not every consumer prefers an iPhone 4S and there are still many brands in the mar-ket competing to capture the attention of smartphone users," said Graeme Beardsell, Chief Customer Devel-opment and Marketing Officer, Experian Asia Pacific. "In order to increase the visibility of their products and not fall behind the competition, these companies will require competitive insight, as well as capabilities to monitor search patterns and identify trends in order to plan and execute an effective go-to-market strategy."

Growing interest in HTC Sensation and Samsung Galaxy

iPhone 4S was not the only smartphone brand that at-tracted the interest of Hong Kong consumers. As a re-sult of recent launches from HTC and Samsung, share of traffic for search terms "HTC Sensation" and "Samsung Galaxy R" increased by 279% and 433%

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respectively, from the week ending October 1 to the week ending October 29.

In fact "Samsung Galaxy S" has been a strong player in the last two quarters where it peaked in mid-June in terms of search traffic.

However, "HTC Sensation" out-competed it with a product launch in the week ending October 15 and sus-tained momentum in the search arena. (Source: Ex-perian Hitwise) ♦

By MediaBUZZ


Figure 3: Ranking of the weekly share of traffic from each portfolio to All Categories, based on Hong Kong usage in October 2011

Source: Experian Hitwise Hong Kong, Month of October 2011

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http://www.jfpsgroup.com/abc/index.html

Fournaise: Due to Marketing and Sales Misalignment 92% of Prospects are not closed in 2011 The Fournaise Marketing Group (Fournaise), one of the global leaders in Marketing Performance, tracked that it helped its marketer clients generate +39% more pros-pects through their cross-channel marketing and adver-tising campaigns in 2011 compared to 2010, but claims that 92% of the total prospects captured were not closed by sales forces, according to their Customer-Generator™.

Fournaise CustomerGenerator™ is a unique 3-in-1 Prospect Acquisition & Tracking TURBO-BOOSTER™:

1. It performance-tracked real time the thousands of ads its marketer clients deployed in 17 media types (traditional, PR, online and mobile) in 20 countries worldwide;

2. It captured and analysed the millions of pros-pects generated by these ads and fed them real time to its clients’ Sales Forces; and

3. It monitored real time the Sales Forces’ effective-ness when it came to following up on, nurturing and converting these prospects into customers.

1. 2011 Key Marketing Performance Results Four-

naise tracked: a) Zooming into selected media types, the prospect-generation effectiveness of traditional ads increased by +30% compared to 2010 - with referrals (+38%), direct marketing (+35%), print (+23%) and public relations (+20%) performing particularly well. Online continued to slow down with a -10% year-on-year decline in pros-pect generation, with display ads (-38%) and keywords (-12%) delivering worrying performance results. Mobile failed again to live up to its “next big thing” status and only delivered a small +0.3% growth in the amount of prospects it was able to generate.

b) The Business/Revenue Potential Generated by Mar-keting (BizPM™) grew by +40% compared to 2010 - representing a solid increase in the value of prospects automatically captured and fed real time to the Sales Forces of its Marketer clients by Fournaise: confirming the notion that Marketing can be a solid, quantifiable revenue generator.

c) 90% of the prospects captured by Marketing were Engagement-ready: they fit the profiles Marketing was going after, had a need to be fulfilled, had started look-ing for solutions, were exposed to the Marketers’ ad campaigns, raised their hands and said “Talk to me, I


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am interested”. While they may not have a budget in mind yet, they had voluntarily entered the Marketing & Sales Funnels of the advertisers.

d) The 10% balance of prospects captured by Marketing were Sales-ready: they were already at an ad-vanced stage of their decision-making process, had a budget and an implementation timing in mind, were considering several solutions/providers and were not far from signing on the dotted line.

2. 2011 Key Sales Force Perform-ance Results Fournaise tracked: a) Sales forces only converted 8% of the marketing-generated pros-pects on average.

b) 80% of prospects were not fol-lowed up on by sales forces within 48 hours of their capture - highlight-ing the need for sales forces to re-act faster to gain a bigger competi-tive edge.

c) 10% of the marketing-generated prospects were scored “hot” by sales forces because of their high conversion potential within the short term. These were the very sales-ready prospects sales forces were understandingly interested in, and in which they invested more than 80% of their time and efforts following up on.

d) The 90% balance of marketing-generated prospects were scored by sales forces “warm” (60%) and “dry” (30%) - highlighting the need for these prospects to be nurtured over time before they potentially become sales-ready.

Fournaise measured that with cur-rent sales commission plans and sales performance targets being often short-term driven, sales forces focused less than 20% of their time and efforts following up on and nurturing these early-stage “warm” and “dry” prospects. The consequence: the vast majority of these prospects ended up forgotten or lost within a few months of their capture.

With the sales pipeline needing to be continuously fed, Fournaise also identified that the key to reduce

loss rates and increase conversion rates down the line for “warm” and “dry” prospects was to better align marketing and sales expectations/processes, and to either move the nurturing of these prospects under the responsibility of marketing or under that of a pre-sales team dedi-cated to grooming engagement-ready prospects into sales-ready ones.

e) 70% of the prospect conversions could be attributed to the top 20% sales representatives, confirming that Prospect Acquisition Perform-ance Boosting solutions like Four-naise Customer Generator™ make the performing sales representa-tives shine and put the spotlight on the under-performing ones, creat-ing a natural performance-driven ecosystem within organizations, and enabling top management to implement more business-effective sales force reward and motivation programs.

“Marketing will always have to gen-erate and catch more prospects, and sales will always have to follow up and convert more: that’s the job of both groups, that’s what they are paid for and that’s what CEOs, boards and share-holders expect of them” said Jerome Fontaine, CEO and Chief Tracker of Fournaise.

“Given the tough economic environ-ment, the key to solid business growth is to ensure that marketing and sales work as one single unit to be 100% aligned on the type of prospects they are looking for (engagement-ready and/or sales-ready), on the type of follow-ups


they should implement, the type of nurturing programs they should deploy, and have clarity over who is responsible for what parts of the nurturing and conversion process. This marketing-sales alignment can only be put in place by the ultimate business drivers: the CEOs”, he added.

“We’ve performance-tracked that prospect conversion rates can be up to three times higher in organi-zations where marketing and sales are aligned compared to those where both groups work in silos and with different agendas” Fontaine concluded.

Sales and marketing have been complaining about each other for the longest time: for sales, market-ing is not delivering enough quali-fied prospects; for marketing, sales is wasting too many prospects and is not converting enough and it’s good to know that Fournaise’s solu-tions can track and boost the per-formance of any marketing strategy and any ad campaign, in any media (traditional, online and mobile), on any audience, anywhere in the world - automatically, seamlessly and in real-time for 13 vertical in-dustries by FORTUNE 500 compa-nies, Large Corporations, SMEs and Advertising Agencies. (Source: The Fournaise Marketing Group) ♦

By MediaBUZZ

31


The big winner of 2011 was internet media. Total internet advertising revenues increased +16.9% to $78.5 billion.

Consumers in today's internet-savvy era usually rely on search engines to research and purchase products and services.

So, to stay competitive, you should utilize "inbound" marketing techniques, such as search engine market-ing, blogging or social media, to "get found" by your potential clients as the majority of them is nowadays searching online for products and services.

How to do it

STEP 1: Find Keywords

• Search Volume - Given two different keyword phrases, optimize for the one with the larger num-ber of searches;

• Relevance - Choose keywords that your target market is using to describe and search for your products and services;

• Difficulty or Competition - Consider your chances for ranking on the first page of Google for that key-word phrase. Look at the sites ranked in those first 10 slots, their authority and relevance to search terms, and measure if you will be able to overtake them to secure a spot on that first page.

STEP 2: On-Page SEO

• Place keywords in the page title, URL, headings, and page text;

• Optimize your page description for maximum click-through-rate when your site ranks in Google searches,

• Place keywords in other "invisible" places on your site, including meta-keyword tags and alt-text on images.

STEP 3: Off-Page SEO

• Build more inbound links from other sites into yours. Each link serves as a recommendation or a reference to tell search engines that your site is a quality site;

• Build more links within context, i.e. those with valu-able keywords in the link anchor text (the text that is hyperlinked to your site). Link anchor text pro-vides context for the search engines to understand what your site is about;

• Build more links from trusted websites. Just as ref-erences from well-respected friends and experts offer more value, so do links from trusted and well-respected websites. Link-building tips:

○ Submit your website to directories like the Ya-hoo! Directory and Business.com;

○ Communicate with others in your industry through blogs and other social media;

○ Create compelling tools (such as an interesting calculator) and content (via a blog, for exam-ple).

STEP 4: Measure & Analyze

• Track the number of inbound links, keyword rank over time and compare these to your competitors' results;

• Measure real business results: number of visitors, leads, and customers from SEO.

Similar steps are quite useful when using Social Media to attract search engines

STEP 1: Guidelines for Engagement

• Meet people and start conversations, become a real member of the community - don't join to just advertise your products;

• Add value to the community - answer questions and help others;

• Ask questions - trust others' advice.

STEP 2: Publish, Share, and Network

• Publish: Everyone can publish anything for every-one;

○ Publish everything you have anywhere you can;

○ Monitor what others publish and promote it;

BEST PRACTICES & STRATEGIES

33

Get Found Online


• Empower your customers to publish;

• Share: Anyone can promote anything to everyone;

• Monitor what's being shared about you;

• Find where your audience hangs out;

• Promote valuable content, yours and others';

• Produce product content your audience will love;

• Network: Anyone can connect with everyone from anywhere;

• Make friends - find your exist-ing connections and build new ones;

• Be helpful - answer questions, share interesting content.

STEP 3: Measure & Analyse Key metrics to consider are: num-ber of blog visitors and subscribers, del.icio.us bookmarks, inbound links, Facebook fans and activity, friends on Facebook or LinkedIn, votes for blog articles, posts in fo-rums. (Source: HubSpot)

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http://www.clickasiasummit.com/

http://www.szwgroup.com/2012/mobile/


A Google search gives each user a personalized result and if a customer calls up the Amazon shopping plat-form, products tailored to the user's interests get rec-ommended. Even while surfing on popular magazine and portal sites individual advertisements and link rec-ommendations are now displayed and it really seems that personalized content on the Web is becoming the norm. Most probably that trend will move to online ser-vices and corporate web sites too, as the targeting of users, the personalization of the content according to their interests, and the analysis of this information for downstream (online) marketing efforts will become in-creasingly important.

So how can the personalization of a web page be tech-nically done? What opportunities for addressing users in a personalized way are available? What measures can be used for personalization in online marketing?

The following contains some suggested approaches, tools and concepts for the personalization of online ac-tivities:

Personalization through self-assessment

One form of personalization is to allow a self-assessment by the user, which can be done with a scroll bar (beginner, expert, professional) in the appro-

priate website. Through user input the website gets information on the level of complexity or detail of the website contents that should be displayed for them. Product information could then, for instance, be re-duced for beginners or the sorting of products could be changed to better meet their specific requirements.

Personalization by user profiles

User log-ins are probably the most commonly used form of personalization: After a successful user regis-tration, a personalized view of the website can be dis-played and content can be adjusted manually or auto-matically, in accordance to the user's needs.

The need to register often occurs at a threshold, in times of continuously growing social networks, where users are, to no surprise, increasingly reluctant to cre-ate or maintain additional profiles on several different websites.

An alternative may be the possibility of the personaliza-tion of Facebook, which allows the connection of the user profile on Facebook with the website. Even here - with regard to the issue of privacy - acceptance by us-ers is rather low and these functions should be used very cautiously.

Find instead of Search: Personalized Content on the Web is becoming the Norm

35


Automatic personalization by tracking interest

The basis for the personalization of web sites is a thematic mapping of content. By allocating website con-tent to various topics of interest or profiles it is possible to define, within a content management sys-tem, which content is suitable for which target groups. If content of an online offer is categorized ac-cordingly, all information gained during the delivery of the website can be assigned to the user with the help of cookies.

By visiting various thematically dedicated pages the user profile gets created piece by piece or click by click respectively. After four to five page views it's usually pretty clear what kind of user type is cur-rently accessing the website, pro-viding information that can be used for personalization.

Personalization with geographic coordinates

One of the most widely used forms of Web personalizations is based on geo-location of the user. Infor-mation gained from the IP address allows conclusions to be drawn about a user's whereabouts which can be used, for instance, to pre-sent appropriate service centers or special offers and promotions. In addition, this information is also very useful to link with other re-gional data - such information could be whether there is rain or shine at the location, or can be used for a suitable or useful geo-based prod-uct recommendation.

Enhancement of customer data-bases

The various data, obtained through the personalization concepts, are ideal to optimize or personalize tai-lored downstream marketing activi-ties. Thus, with a newsletter regis-tration or the use of a contact form, the corresponding profile of inter-

ests, the self-assessment or the linked information from the user profile to a customer database or CRM system can be transferred. Caution: Personal data should be stored appropriately according to local laws and guidelines on data protection.

Personalization of newsletters and email marketing campaigns

Based on this data highly targeted email marketing campaigns and newsletters can be generated and personalized, according to the in-terest profiles of registered recipi-ents.

Personalized advertising through remarketing

Since 2010, Google offers with its remarketing function the option to capture visitors to a website or landing page and to address them later with targeted advertisements. Important here is to achieve a criti-cal mass of 100 users who have accessed the page first, because

after that, the ads can be delivered.

Outlook for the personalized Web

On social networks like Facebook and Google+ users give away more and more information about their interests and needs. These data are already used to deliver target group appropriate advertising - at least on Facebook. Google will surely follow and deliver to their Google+ members even more rele-vant ads through AdWords.

In the area of detached online ser-vices, such as corporate websites, this trend will certainly have an im-pact, too. By reducing wastage and providing a better opportunity to address users, the success rates and conversion rates can be opti-mized, making it easier to gain new customers. Expect the Web to con-tinue to be personalized - from the search results page to the company website to the point of email news-letter. ♦

By MediaBUZZ

36

http://www.uppersideconferences.com/mplsworld2012/mplsworld2012intro.html


Content is Key in Website Optimization Content is king if you want to attract visitors to your site. Since, search engine spiders mainly focus on text, targeting your audience with the content they are look-ing for is vital for searchers and search engine spiders to find you.

A good rule of thumb, when determining how much content to include, is to insert between 200-250 words of rich search engine friendly content on each of your site pages. If you use more words, do consider that readers typically don't like having to scroll down. Plus make sure that your site loads quickly. If graphics are slowing it down, you'll most probably lose your audi-ence before they get their eyes on your content be-cause they have clicked the "back" button to look for another site instead. Therefore, only use graphics that are relevant to your site's purpose, and aim for a file size that is 12 kB or smaller. If you must include an im-age that is larger than 12 kB, then use a thumbnail im-age. In the context of search engine optimization, load-intensive graphics will hinder search engine spiders, since spiders' primary food is content. Use images sparingly, and instead, work on adding relevant content that will attract both users and search engine spiders.

Make sure that every single page on your site has clear navigation, so that users know exactly where they are and where they are going, and do also make sure that all of your links actually work. It's frustrating for users to click on something and encounter the dreaded "404 Error Page Not Found".

It is also very important that your site has no broken side links, as search engine spiders cannot navigate a poorly designed site, and search engine users in gen-eral also do not have the patience to navigate a poorly designed site, which means you are missing out on both. While it might sound like a no-brainer, sites with text that is hard to decipher tend to get less visits by

search engine users, so also make sure that your text is readable, which means:

• Don't use fonts that are difficult to read on the Web; • Avoid busy backgrounds that obscure the text; • Use bold text, headlines, and bullets so users can

scan your content quickly. Don't forget to double check:

• Browser compatibility: Test what your site looks like in a multitude of different browsers, like Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Avant, etc.;

• The overall appeal of your site: What could be improved;

• Loading time: So if you choose to use multimedia technology, use it sparingly;

• Errors and mistakes: Spelling errors can drive away many users, so proofread your site and fix any mistakes;

• Logos or brand names: Make sure to include them on every page for recognition;

• Flash: Use it carefully, since it deters search en-gine spiders and increases loading time. Instead, focus on keyword-rich content rather than band-width-hogging multimedia;

• Frames: Try to avoid them as most major search engine spiders are unable to read frames;

• Sound: Automatically generated sound is usually perceived as extremely distracting and irritating;

• Pop-ups: Avoid using them for any reason as they are just plain annoying. ♦

By MediaBUZZ

37


The explosion of phrases with the "mobile" prefix is a reflection of how much mobile has become a part of our daily lives. For a while, everything was electronic (e-books, for example) and of course, a certain company has made the "i" prefix part of their brand identity. But the latest catchphrases are all connected to mobile - mobile finance (m-finance), mobile banking (m-banking), mobile payment (m-payment) and mobile commerce (m-commerce). Distinguishing between them can be difficult, and there isn't necessarily any common consensus as to the meaning of the different terms.

Perhaps it is easiest to use the regular meaning of each word, and then consider the mobile implications. Mobile finance is easy, a broad-based umbrella term that includes most of the others, and which basically covers any sort of financial transaction that uses mobile devices. M-banking refers specifically to banking func-tions (withdrawals, deposits, and so on) using mobile devices as either the medium for the transaction or as a

unique identifier or both. M-payment is more specific: it refers to payments using mobile devices, through elec-tronic wallets, near field communication (NFC) or other means.

The problematic term is "commerce" and oddly, that is the one that is of most interest to today's marketer. Rather than being about financial transactions, let's suggest that m-commerce is actually about the entire experience of shopping, and how it is being trans-formed by mobile. Being able to pay for goods and ser-vices using mobile (as described above) is certainly part of it, but that is only a small part.

In mobile commerce, consumers use their mobile de-vices not only at the very end of the sales funnel, when the deal is transacted, but at nearly every stage along the way. Mobile can help consumers discover new products, learn more information and influence their purchasing decisions.

Cashing in: Mobile Finance and the Shopping Experience

38


Mobile advertising and marketing already keeps people involved and informed of new products and ser-vices, and as location-based ser-vices take off, users will be given information about offers and prod-ucts that are nearby, opportunisti-cally providing them with the chance to experience discovery through their mobile device.

Mobile search already enables con-sumers to get more information about the products that they are interested in. This is not limited fea-ture-specific information, but also information about the origins of ma-terials, whether the product was manufactured in an environmentally-conscious way, and even reviews, professional and otherwise. An-other rising trend is for comparison shopping: consumers can identify desirable products from the range available on display at a bricks-and-mortar store, but can then use their mobile devices to check for cheaper online sources.

Retailers have been taking this ac-tivity into account by providing more information to in-store cus-tomers through QR codes and we-blinks that take them to related me-dia and more information. Other schemes to foster loyalty can also be deployed through the mobile channel, by offering electronic cou-pons and other benefits to shop-pers through their mobile devices.

Alternatively, businesses can move the bulk of their efforts to the digital or mobile space. Venue ticketing, for example, has already done so, with electronic tickets often taking the place of the physical alterna-tive. This may be more suitable for some industries than others. In Australia, Qantas already lets its passengers buy tickets, select seats and check baggage electroni-cally, and offering some aspect of that already-digital transaction to mobile users is likely to happen sooner rather than later.

Other industries might not seem suited to m-commerce from end to end, but even so, some aspects may lend themselves to mobile use. Food and beverage outlets, for example, rely greatly on offering an in-store experience, but already, some fast food companies have robust couponing campaigns, which let consumers take advan-tage of special offers simply by showing the coupon (in the form of a JPG) to counter staff. Mobile can also streamline the process of get-ting reservations.

Whether or not we agree on defini-tions, the fact of the matter is that mobile is more than just a channel for monetary transactions. Having access to information and applica-tions via the mobile channel turns the mobile device in the con-sumer's hand into a handy tool for retailers and marketers alike. ♦

By Rohit Dadwal, Managing Di-rector, APAC, Mobile Marketing

Association

39

http://conferences.com.sg/i5202-mmi-35w-l.pdf

http://www.cmocouncil.org/resources/forms/outlook-report/index.php?sponsor=mediabuzz


Five Very Obvious Signs in Spotting a Bad SEO Service Provider Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is regularly men-tioned by marketers as one of the most effective tactics for generating leads or sales from your website. While most marketers understand the importance of SEO, many see the process as a highly technical discipline that they prefer to hand over to experts. Thus, to no surprise, SMEs especially want to outsource their SEO to trained professionals.

I guess, we have all searched at least once for SEO firms online and were overwhelmed by the thousands of vendors, offering "incredible" or "fast" results for at-tractively low monthly fees or even a simple one-time purchase only. What sounds too good to be true, probably is - so be careful. Many of these "professionals" and SEO experts are counting on cli-ents' SEO ignorance to get quick cash without deliver-ing long-term, sustainable SEO improvements. Even worse, some of the practices used by SEO firms can actually hurt your business in the long run.

How can you make sure that you are not hornswog-gled?

Here are five very obvious signs to be alert to before hiring a SEO firm. Most probably their offer is not worth its salt when the SEO provider is:

1. Making promises that are too good to be true;

2. Using "Black Hat" SEO techniques (see Buzzword);

3. Targeting the wrong keywords (see Keywords are the Foundation of SEO)

4. Promising to list your site in hundreds of online di-rectories and employing shoddy linking schemes;

5. Offering a one-time fix with no on-going mainte-nance.

The fact is that SEO should be a company's constant focus as it is much more than just a few structural fixes and a one-time content generation push. Market-ingSherpa's 2012 Search Marketing Benchmark Report – SEO Edition already highlighted that marketers who have a formal SEO process that they routinely carry out tend to convert 150% more leads than marketers that don't. It means that even if you outsource SEO, part of the work remains with you. Tactics used should be un-derstood, defining keyword and the content creation and so on have to be handled by you. ♦

By MediaBUZZ

40



Keywords are the Foundation of SEO, so put the Effort into finding the Right Ones! Whether you know it or not, your website is already targeting certain keywords. Search engines extract these keywords from your on-page text, headers, page titles, inbound links and other factors. However, you might not have made a con-scious decision to target those key-words. Even if you did, you might not be monitoring your rankings or have a sense of how good your chances are of ranking well for those keywords.

Choosing the right keywords are often the crux of the matter in get-ting found through search or not. As a result, keyword research is the foundation of an effective online marketing strategy, so brainstorm

as many keyword ideas as possible by:

• Talking to clients to determine what terms they use in their search;

• Studying competitors' sites;

• Brainstorming variations of prod-uct and brand related keywords or adding descriptive or geo-graphic variations;

• Last but not least, taking all the variations and entering them into the Google AdWords Keyword Tool, that will suggest numerous other variations.

Please keep in mind that keywords

41

are the words that customers type into search engines, so search terms have many variations. If you are only focused on the most well-known version, then you are up against the stiffest competition, as the most popular keywords are typi-cally the most competitive. Don't neglect other keywords or dare to forget common points of variation such as singular vs. plural, syno-nyms and acronyms, keyword modifiers, or just a different word order.

Turning to Google, the "Masters of Search", and its tools (to support Webmasters and advertisers in finding the most suitable keywords is of course always a good option. ♦

By MediaBUZZ

28—29 February 2012 in Kuala Lumpur

http://www.jfpsgroup.com/asms/index.html

Make sure that every single page on your site has clear navigation, so that users know exactly where they are and where they are going, and

do also make sure that all of your links actually work.

Hydra's Integrated OneSearch Juggles Natural and Paid Search at Once

TECHNOLOGIES & PRODUCTS

Hydra, a provider of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) marketing technology, announced the launch of its next-generation capability - the OneSearch – last week. This new release allows users to manage Search cam-paigns in an integrated way, taking into account both Natural Search and Paid Search performance within the same view.

Since consumers do not think in terms of Paid and Natural Search when they are searching for products online, Hydra's ground-breaking approach means that businesses also do not need to separate these func-tions. Users of "The One Platform" can manage their online activity in an integrated way by seamlessly com-bining actionable insight from the different channels of Search into one view, thereby delivering previously un-tapped opportunities to digital marketers.

This enhancement brings together Natural and Paid Search data, analytics data and metrics about page accessibility, credibility and relevancy; making it possi-ble to see how to get more return on investment (ROI) from campaigns and improving organic rankings.

Further, understanding Quality Score enables market-ers to have a more precise view of what pages will work best with a Paid campaign, and thereby can lever-age a lower Cost-per-Click (CPC) to get a better rank.

By importing existing campaigns, users can see at a keyword and phrase level, how effective each channel is in driving success. Automatic recommendations are delivered simultaneously, suggesting which keyword will be more effective on each page of a website. These can then be developed further to include phrases and keywords from Social Media that are new and trendy.

Hydra's new release offers digital marketers several tangible new benefits -

Natural and Paid Search campaigns come together in a single view: Being able to view both Natural and Paid Search classification or keyword data combined, allows users to choose how much to bid as well as how to prioritize Natural or Paid Search for every keyword.

Creativity using keywords that deliver: Users of the platform can now see Natural and Paid Search cam-paigns as they have designed them, with the added benefit of receiving intelligent recommendations spe-cific to their business for keywords that are both rele-vant to the business and that deliver.

Report according to business requirements: The One Platform's intelligent classification allows users to report in a manner that the business requires - with the organization of keywords within campaigns reflecting how the business operates, regardless of how historical campaigns have been designed.

Assess Quality Score: Users can now get automated recom-mendations as to which landing pages to use for which campaign to increase relevancy and improve rankings for any given Cost-per-Click.

Earlier this year, Hydra conducted a survey of more than 300 digital marketers to evaluate how teams cur-rently operate based on collaboration, use of technolo-gies, and competitor analysis. 55% of respondents said they did not know which words or expressions being used in the market are worth spending on. 90% said they see an advantage in their digital teams using a common reporting and campaign implementation plat-form. This research triggered the develop-ment of "The One Platform" and with it "OneSearch" which is filling a gap in the search industry. ♦

By MediaBUZZ

43

Choosing the right keywords are often the crux of the mat-

ter in getting found through search or not. As a result,

keyword research is the foundation of an effective online

marketing strategy, so brainstorm as many keyword ideas

as possible

In November 2011, Smaato Inc., a mobile advertising and ad optimizing company, significantly upgraded its Smaato Open Mobile Advertising (SOMA) platform with vital improvements in RTB, parallel ad requests, rich media and geo-location targeting. Smaato is the largest mobile Sell Side Platform (SSP) and is energetically pioneering the push for mobile RTB on a global level with its vast reach of serving ads in 230+ countries and territories.

StrikeAd, a mobile advertising specialist that provides media agencies with the expertise to better leverage their mobile budgets, and Fiksu, a mobile marketing technology company that helps mobile app brands on iOS and Android platforms achieve their business goals faster and more cost-effectively, joined Smaato's 70+ mobile ad networks and ad revenue sources connected to SOMA. For all mobile RTB becomes available, ac-cording to the OpenRTB mobile 2.0 standard.

OpenRTB mobile is a sub-committee of OpenRTB, a consortium of digital media companies dedicated to accelerating the growth of the real-time bidding (RTB) marketplace, by providing open industry standards for communication between mobile ad inventory buyers and sellers.

"OpenRTB mobile members, like Fiksu and Smaato, will help the mobile advertising ecosystem become more efficient and benefit both mobile advertisers and mobile publishers", said Micah Adler, Fiksu Founder and CEO, adding:

"By combining Smaato's strategic publisher relation-ships and massive inventory base with Fiksu's industry leading data set and bidding algorithms, our partner-ship can provide unprecedented levels of performance for the global mobile marketing ecosystem."

Alex Rahaman, CEO of StrikeAd, emphasizes: "Brands and agencies now know that mobile is essential to en-gage with consumers. As a result, we see a surge in demand for more intelligent and targeted access to high quality ad inventory."

The pioneering partnerships enable advertisers to have unprecedented access to Smaato's high quality adver-tising inventory in the US, Europe and Asia. With Smaato's extensive range of RTB enabled inventory, more control and choices where to place ads targeted are given, so that brands can optimize their advertising for better ROI and consumer engagement.

Ragnar Kruse, CEO and Co-Founder of Smaato Inc. stated: "RTB is benefiting Smaato's app developers and mobile publishers with enhanced control and maxi-mized pricing. Our SOMA platform is already process-ing huge volumes of ad requests optimized in real-time. Now with Digital Signal Processors (DSPs) and other new players, RTB will enhance the relevance for mobile users as well as data analysis in our publisher dashboards."

COMPANIES & CAMPAIGNS

Smaato is Pushing Mobile Real-Time Bidding (RTB) Standards

45

The main features of Smaato's SOMA platform are the real time optimization of publishers' ad im-pressions on a global scale; rich media (including video) and en-riched ad requests with audience data (i.e. gender, age, location) plus device and carrier targeting.

RTB with automated media buying processes leads to fair pricing and an efficient market. Mobile publish-ers and app developers benefit by being able to monetize their inven-tory with more control over the po-tential advertiser relevance and pricing. Better data, improved tar-geting technology, and real-time

COMPANIES & CAMPAIGNS

bidding allow advertisers to buy based upon actual audience char-acteristics rather than just ad spaces. This higher transparency for the advertiser leads to realloca-tion of significant budgets in new channels and to higher eCPMs for the publisher.

Mobile advertising will top $5.3 bil-lion in 2012 globally, according to Nick Lane, Chief Analyst of mo-bileSQUARED. He asserts: "Creating an open bidding interface between inventory suppliers and bidders will add strong growth and drive greater innovation, co-operation and profit-ability for the entire eco-system.

We estimate an open RTB stan-dard supported by pioneers like Smaato will accelerate adoption of real-time bidding auctions by a great factor."

The more RTB is evolving in the online advertising space, the more media buyers are looking to expand the automated buying processes to mobile inventory. Smaato values better targeting data available in real-time as a great step forward to drive mobile into the advertising mainstream. ♦

By MediaBUZZ

46

http://www.szwgroup.com/2012/mobile/

http://www.brandcouture-lse.com/mb

Mobile search already enables consumers to get more infor-mation about the products that they are interested in. This is not limited feature-specific information, but also infor-mation about the origins of materials, whether the product was manufactured in an environmentally-conscious way, and even reviews, professional and otherwise.

MMA's Universal Ad Unit Guidelines Released for Public Comment Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), the leading global trade association for the mobile industry, re-leased mobile ad unit guidelines to make it easier to buy, sell, and create mobile ads for smartphones, fea-ture phones and tablets.

The MMA Universal Mobile Ad Package v.2.0 was created with participation from the seller and buyer sides of the industry, mainly the MMA North America "SWAT" Team, that includes AT&T AdWorks, WDIG, ESPN Mobile, Google, InMobi, Joule, Jumptap, Me-dialets, Microsoft, Millennial Media, Ogilvy, Tribune, Turner and The Weather Channel, as well as the Global Mobile Advertising Committee.

"Standardization will make mobile advertising easier to include in the marketing mix," said Rohit Dadwal, Man-aging Director, Mobile Marketing Association Asia Pa-cific. "These guidelines will simplify the mobile ad land-scape by creating six standard ad unit sizes out of the tangle of the more than sixty unit sizes currently in use in the marketplace."

Now the full marketplace will have the chance to review the new standards during a 30-day public comment period. After comments are incorporated, all ad net-works and publishers will have until the end of 1Q 2012 to become fully compliant.

At that time, the MMA will promote compliant compa-nies by issuing MMA Universal Mobile Ad Package Compliance stamps for member use on web sites and marketing materials.

With support from ImServices Group, MMA analysed hundreds of billions of mobile ad impressions delivered across the global mobile advertising marketplace in 2Q 2011, before starting to create the Universal Mobile Ad Package v.2.0. The data, which has been sorted by smart phone and feature phone, networks and publish-ers, and including mobile web and app, helped deter-mine the six unit sizes which have been agreed to as the standard Mobile Universal Ad Package v.2.0.

The final standards mark a true collaboration between the sales side, including networks, rich media vendors and publishers, and the buy side at global ad agencies. MMA is now seeking public comment and encourages all members as well as those in the industry to read the proposed Universal Mobile Ad Package and submit their comments. Feedback will be reviewed and the Universal Mobile Ad Package will be finalized and re-leased in January 2012. ♦

By MediaBUZZ

LEGISLATION

48

http://mmaglobal.com/whitepaper?filename=MMAUniversalMobileAdPackageDec2011.pdf

IDC is seeing a new type of enter-prise shaping the marketplace:

The "Emerging Asian Enterprise".

These enterprises are looking to ag-gressively challenge the traditional

MNC model, are hungry for growth and geographical expansion, and have a DNA very different to organizations

from mature economies.

BUZZWORD

Black Hat Search Engine Optimization (SEO) usually describes techniques that are used to get higher search rankings in an unethical manner, such as breaking search engine rules/regulations or fraudulently present-ing content to search engine spiders and search engine users in a different visual or non-visual way.

It’s simply not a good way to attract searchers or search engine crawlers and therefore you should avoid under all circumstances at least the following tech-niques to not risk any trouble:

• Keyword stuffing, which means packing long lists of keywords and nothing else onto your Website as it will eventually get you penalized by search en-gines.

• Creating doorway pages, which is basically a “fake” page that the user will never see. It is purely for search engine spiders, and attempts to trick them into indexing the site higher.

• Putting up invisible text by listing e.g. keywords in white text on a white background in hopes of attracting more search engine spiders.

Without a doubt Black Hat SEO is tempting, especially since these easy tricks actually do work, at least tem-porarily, in getting higher search rankings. But it’s just not worth the long run risk in being banned for using unethical practices. Instead, be advised to focus on efficient search engine optimization techniques to get your site ranked higher and stay away from the dishon-est practices!

Actually, a lot of what is known as Black Hat SEO used to be legitimate, before these techniques were over-stressed and therefore frowned upon by the general SEO community at large. So do keep in mind that Black Hat SEO is a very short-sighted solution for the long-term work of keeping your website relevant by provid-ing a great user experience and playing fair game for all. ♦

By MediaBUZZ

Black Hat Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

50

http://www.vtimes.com/events/contentseminar

APPOINTMENTS

APPOINTMENTS

WATATAWA, the stakeholder engagement consultancy, has developed a new offering which helps companies integrate Corporate Responsibility into their business strategy and operations. The Singapore-based firm has hired former journalist Ng Tze Yong to work with the WATATAWA leadership team in delivering these new solutions. The move comes as companies in Asia are realising that effective corporate responsibility is as much about how a company makes its profits as about how it spends them. Tze Yong joined WATATAWA in December 2011 from Singapore Press Holdings, where he was the Social Media Editor at The Straits Times and, before that, Special Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief of the English and Malay Newspapers Division. The Young Journalist of The Year 2006 has reported on crime, heritage, politics, and on assignment from the scenes of major global disasters and conflict zones. His work and extensive volunteerism have seen him work on community causes in Kosovo, Lebanon, Kashmir, West Bank and the Gaza Strip.♦

Ng Tze Yong

Ray Pak will join UM and Initiative Singapore as General Manager, being responsi-ble for business development and building upon Mediabrands’ strong digital and spe-cialty services to offer cutting edge marketing solutions. His remit will encompass creative, digital and branded content, adding great value to both current and new cli-ents.

Ray has more than 13 years of dedicated experience in the advertising industry. He began his career as a copywriter and web producer, and over the years he has devel-oped expertise as a media specialist. Ray’s work has spanned close involvement with both local and regional accounts. He joins Mediabrands from Starcom, where he han-dled regional and local accounts. Ray received the prestigious accolade of Young Media Professional, awarded by the Singapore Media Advertising board and won several awards for his advertising work in Singapore, with his last win at the Singa-pore Media Awards for Best Use of Search for Tiger Airways. Ray will report to Pat Lim, Managing Director of UM and Initiative, Singapore.♦

Ray Pak

IPG Mediabrands appointed Yean Cheong as Head of Digital, Asia. Based in Sin-gapore, Yean is responsible for managing Mediabrands’ online media planning teams as well as leading the strategy and development of all digital media activities. Yean reports directly to David Cohen, Global Digital Head, UM. Yean is a Singaporean and returns to her home country after spending the last few years working in different roles in Australia. Yean joins Mediabrands from Aegis Media Pacific. As General Manager Digital, Yean led the Queensland Australia branch of emitch, Australia’s leading digital advertising and online marketing agency, delivering best practices and results for local and regional clients across online, search, mobile and social media. She oversaw the overall financial performance of the company, as well as key client and partner relationships. Prior to Aegis and emitch, Yean was Head of Digital and Direct at Clemenger BBDO Brisbane. There, she led strategy and execution for all online and direct marketing

creative campaigns, including web concept and development, as well as CRM, mobile and search. Yean was an avid driver of digital within the Australian marketing community, with regular speaking roles and tutored digi-tal marketing courses at the Australian Direct Marketing Association. Earlier in her career, Yean joined the pioneer team at the then start-up online travel agency Zuji, owned by Travelocity. During her time at Zuji, Yean supported the launch and assumed the role of Marketing and PR Lead of three websites in Singapore and Australia. She has also held positions at M&C Saatchi, Jurong Point and Sembawang Leisure, amassing her astute understanding of business and communication across indus-tries, from both client and agency perspectives. Yean takes over from Arun Kumar, who has been promoted to a General Manager role within the G14 cluster of Mediabrands working in the Benefits Bundles group including the Mediabrands Audience Platform (MAP). ♦

Yean Cheong

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APPOINTMENTS

Akamai Technologies Pte. Ltd. appointed Rachael Fitzpatrick as Human Resource (HR) Director for the Asia Pacific Japan (APJ) region. Rachael is responsible for HR strat-egy and management, playing a key role in driving Akamai’s expansion strategy in the re-gion.

Rachael brings with her a broad HR background having worked in the information technol-ogy, insurance and shipping industries. Her areas of expertise include merger and acquisi-tion activities, benefits harmonization, market pricing and benchmarking strategies, as well as coaching and neuroscience in the workplace.

APJ is the fastest growing region globally for Akamai, therefore the company aims to con-tinue to strengthen its human resources in view of growth in this region - driven especially by trends in cloud adoption, mobility, e-commerce, next generation media and social net-

working services. Internet connection in cities across the region is also improving at a rapid pace.

Based in Singapore, Rachael reports to Linda Pettingell, Senior Director HR Business Partnering at Akamai.♦

Nando’s has appointed Blugrapes as its social media consultancy following a closed-door pitch held in October involving several agencies for Singapore. Blugrapes will be responsible for the conceptualization and execution of Nando’s year-end campaign focusing on social engagements and the incorporation of new store openings. This includes all related social media consulting and management duties such as strategy development, content crea-tion, brand persona development, conversation management, media buying and application development. The role spans all of Nando’s social media channels including Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr.♦

Blugrapes is setting up local offices in Malaysia and is planning to expand into the rest of Southeast Asia and becoming a major player in the digital marketing space.

The company has been active in Malaysia since 2010, via its Malaysian partner, Better Sdn. Bhd. With a local of-fice, Blugrapes is poised to meet an increasing demand for better localized social media marketing expertise and solutions. This includes building branded social media communities focusing on local nuances, happenings, trends and habits. Better Sdn. Bhd. (Facebook’s official advertising sales representative for Malaysia) will now provide Facebook media buying and campaign optimization capabilities for Blugrapes in Malaysia.♦

Mozat Pte. Ltd. announced that it has made this year’s Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500 Asia Pacific, a rank-ing of the 500 fastest growing technology companies in the APAC region. Rankings are based on percentage revenue growth over three years. Mozat’s mobile social platform now serves 16 million subscribers worldwide, with a strong presence in the Middle East and is currently widening its footprint in Asia Pacific. Mozat’s CEO, Dr. Michael Yin, credits product innovation, key partnerships with telecom operators and new market penetration with the company’s significant growth over the past three years. At present, Mozat has 15 telco partners and its mobile social platform supports more than 600 types of devices from major mobile platforms (Android, Black-Berry, iOS, J2ME, Symbian and soon, Windows Phone 7). ♦.

Rachael Fitzpatrick

Network Box was recently honored as one of MIS Asia’s 2011 Strategic 100 index inductees, the top one hundred ICT companies without favor for their place of origin or their organizational size. Each Strategic 100 honoree owes its place on the index entirely to how well it performs along the previously men-tioned measures. It does not matter whether the company is based in Asia or not, or whether it is a small start-up or a 30-year old software giant. As one of the world's leading Managed Security Services, Network Box has long said that the best protection against hackers, malware, and undesirable content, is to use a multi-engine approach, augmented by real-time PUSH updates, and real-time in-the-cloud technology. Network Box's multi-award winning Z-Scan zero day anti-malware system for example, uses state-of-the-art in-the-cloud technology, to help ensure new viruses are blocked in as little as three seconds from the time they are launched. No other anti-virus system even comes close.♦

MIS Asia’s 2011

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