digital media dan pemilu 2009

Mid 2007 - 2008 digital media di Indonesia hampir bisa diumpamakan layaknya sebuah keranda. Ketika dibicarakan dan dibuat beramai-ramai; namun tidak ada satupun orang yang mau masuk duluan.

Sepertinya semua akan berbeda di tahun 2009. Pemilu dengan 33 partai akan bergulir; bisa dibayangkan berapa besar keuntungan media konvensional dengan adanya even ini. Saya bukan seorang ahli media, tapi berdasarkan logika harga media placement akan meningkat tajam berdasarkan suppy-demand ratio.

Apa dampaknya terhadap strategi komunikasi produk-produk komersial dengan peningkatan harga ini?

Satu hal yang pasti, mereka tidak akan berhenti melakukan komunikasi; hanya cara dan pemilihan media yang harus lebih di teliti mengingat harga yang meningkat tajam.

Media Digital (internet maupun hp -atau biasa disebut mobile marketing); akan menjadi pilihan yang cukup bijaksana; mengapa?

berikut logika saya;

1. partai akan mencari suara terbanyak; apapun usaha komunikasinya, tujuannya hanya 1: DUKUNGAN
2. Massa terbanyak ada di ‘bottom of pyramid’ dimana media yang dapat dengan mudah mereka jangkau adalah konvensional media
3. berperang dengan ramai-nya pesan-pesan politik yang akan bergulir, akan bias dan tidak efektif
4. digital media, akan sangat sedikit dilirik oleh partai karena kurang memberikan nilai lebih kecuali image dari partai tersebut. Sementara seperti yang saya ungkapkan di point pertama;yang mereka butuhkan adalah orang memilih dan mencoblos gambar partai mereka diantara 32 partai lainnya

Dengan logika sederhana diatas; cukup bijaksana produk komersil memulai langkah mereka ke dunia digital. Karena akan menjadi sangat masuk akal baik dari sisi matematis maupun budget, untuk mengalihkan lebih banyak budget media ke media digital di tahun 2009, khususnya untuk product untuk SES AB&C+

Saatnya mereka bisa berkonsentrasi untuk melakukan ‘keterlibatan’ (engagement) customer terhadap produk-produk mereka, melalui media digital. Entah itu adalah untuk melakukan viral, memulai melakukan persuasive technology melalui media internet dan mobile, sampai memulai cita-cita mereka untuk membuat digital campaign yang terintegrasi baik dari sisi channel (mobile dan internet) maupun eksekusi.

today’s theme…

I was stumbling around the web and found this quote;

“Work like you don’t need money,
Love like you’ve never been hurt,
And dance like no one’s watching.”

-crystal boyd-

very inspiring quotes during my busy day and remind me to keep my passion, and love it like I never fail

Firefox 3 Download day; internet community marketing

Unlike their regular updates or new releases of internet browsers, firefox on its Firefox 3 try to approach and create a buzz among internet users.

They create a virtual event called Firefox 3 Download Day 2008 that will be started on June 17th.

Firefox; an opensource based internet browser is the 2nd most popular internet browser after MS IE. They have users communities and developer communities that can be enabled as their product ambassadors and willing to do so.

Some of it users know why they choose firefox instead of their regular browsers but most of them didn’t know why they need to use Firefox instead of other browsers. Most of these users use Firefox because their friends told them to, regardless the fact that there are other better (technically) browsers.

Their strength in product quality + users and developers communities = Firefox 3 download day

let see, whether they can set a new record on their download day; but definitely from marketing point of view -that defined by a technology guy :p- what they’ve done so far can be categorized as what Seth Godin said a ‘purple cow’

~post written on firefox 3 rc 3

innovate or re-invent?

Sometime it is hard for me to differentiate between innovate or re-invent or copycat especially when it come to creative idea in global space like internet or mobile internet.

For example, we create a ‘google/yahoo-news-like’ portal that specified for local news contents http://rangkum.com

The idea was discussed during lunch time with my ‘love-to-parse’ working buddy; Azis. We were discussing why google/yahoo seem not too bother with content localization especially to Bahasa Indonesia. Our discussion then become more specifically to news product and how we need to open more than one tab / windows just to cover all local news in Bahasa.

I believe many commuters don’t really have time to read newspaper or read internet news in their office. From our point of view, news will have meaning to the readers if only they really interesting after read its headline.

Then, with respect to Google and Yahoo!; we create rangkum.com . A news portal that gather local news sites in Bahasa Indonesia.

Do we violate intellectual property? off course no We honor them, that’s why we just take the headlines and some sentences of the news in order to update our readers to hot topics about Indonesia. If they interested to read more about the news, they can click a link then it will redirect them to the source of content owner sites.

Although we still on progress on do the web-semantic thing in our rangkum.com-beta portal and enhance it with more personalize functionality, we got positive feedback from our friends. I really hope our work can be useful to others too.

digital media; NOW and FOREVER media

Went to Asia Pacific Media Forum last week was a very meaningful experience for me as a new player in the industry. I believe not only me that got this kind of reactions; most of the people I talked to have the same impressions.

Changes are happening in media industry; from its medium to business model, from creative idea to executions. It all happened as a result of consumer evolution which change people from viewers to collaborators, from passive to interactive, from general to personal, and from primetime to my time. On 1965, it only take 3 TV commercial spots in order to reach 80% of woman aged 18-49 in US; today, the same effect will take 97 TV commercial spots with the same durations.

How can you talk your target that browse internet while watch TV, listening music using earphones, and checking their mobile phone every once in a while to text their friends?

Increasing TV placement budget will only make TV stations richer without any additional value to the brand.

Early age of Digital Media

Not a rocket science that alternative media is needed. Some of brands then look at digital media as one of their ‘complementary’ channel to support traditional media. When Internet users penetration boom in US, Europe, and Japan, some other countries -not necessarily has the same penetration rate - join the web portal band-wagon and create ad-hoc product websites that usually will disappear after a while.

There is no strategy, measurement, or even business model to capitalize digital media. Everybody build it for hygiene factor only, so they will have a temporary presence in digital world.

New Era of Digital Media

As the industry grow; strategy, measurement, and business model become more clear -although some redudancy on its measurement until now- media agencies not only talk about presence in Internet world, they also talk about how to take advantages on its technology superiority.

People start to talk about engagement time rather than just visitors per day, analyze traffic sources rather than only know how many hits they got per day, and in race to become the most search engine friendly websites.

Website that well known as ‘new media’ become now media. Brands are in the race of viral marketing on Internet business and create variants of websites and enhance it functionality from brochure sites into user generating contents websites.

Mobile Media

More than 30% of penetration and innovative mobile devices create another space of media to be explored. Unlike the beginning of internet media, on mobile media agencies did more proper research and create some of industry ecosystem proposals.

Unlike internet media, mobile media born in a more complex business model because it involving more parties in the picture that I don’t think are in the same page as innovative marketers and technology innovators.

Its nature as a paid media and involving multi-billion investments, network operators are calculating very carefully mobile media business potentials and risks.

Where’s Indonesia in digital media evolution?

One thing that unfortunately not being discussed in depth is digital media in emerging market like Indonesia, where technology infrastructures can’t be as advance as developed countries. Some of things hard -or impossible- to be happened in emerging market countries.

So let me share my personal view on it;

• Contents; localization will become important task to be done. There maybe less than 10% people that can understand English in Indonesia
• Infrastructure; Indonesia internet penetration will be growing faster on wireless based technology
• Will Internet ever go faster than Mobile? From my personal view, I don’t think Internet penetration will be higher than mobile penetration, but mobile internet (mobile sites that accessed through mobile phones) penetration might be. Indonesia -if I may say- culture, will definitely drive people to buy mobile phone than a computer when they have to choose between those two sophisticated devices. Because mobile phone can be carried and somehow show status symbol.
• Which media has the highest index? Quantitatively, TV off course still the biggest coverage media , but according to media research, mobile and internet has the biggest qualitative points compared to TV
• Intelectual property; there are still no clear regulation on intellectual properties in Indonesia

If I want to promote my brand in Indonesia, which digital media should I choose?

Once again, in my personal view; still internet will the best digital media to penetrate Indonesia’s market with some tweaking on user-interface and development. Mobile on the other hand, can be used as an additional channel to create 360 degree presence on digital media and creating integrated digital media campaign.

By really considering some of points mentioned above, I think in Indonesia digital media is not only now media, it become now and forever media.

be the talk of town!

a short video from marketing guru himself in a TED conference that shows a receipt how you can sell your product more. How you should make your product have OTAKU (a japan word for people who obsessed fan of something), because OTAKU(s) will talk about your product, write about it, discuss it, and become your free-sales promotion people.

People don’t trust strangers (that’s what our mom always said anyway since we were a kid), but they will listen to their friends, they will listen to other people experience, they will listen to people that -they thought- independent.

I’ll take blackberry community in Indonesia called id-blackberry. Couple of years ago, one of the mobile carriers start blackberry service for public in Indonesia. They never heavily advertise it, but they successfully having more than thousands of people using the service. They create a community that consist of blackberry OTAKUs in Indonesia (well they also happened to be gadgets OTAKU - gadgets freaks). Blackberry never have any advertisement, mobile carrier who has the service also never advertise as heavy as their core product for this service. Blackberry OTAKUs do that job. They spread the news - and sometime very persistent - in order to influence people to use blackberry. From its superiority of compression and push technology, to their ease of use of messaging service such as blackberry messenger that can be a cheap way to exchange text based communication.

These blackberry OTAKUs willing to spend more money to enhance the look, performance, and have more than 1 BB devices. People start to know about it, these OTAKUs become their gurus in blackberry, their mailing list become one of the most active mailing list in Indonesia (i wonder why… :p).

Mobile carriers never spend their money to make a TV ads about this product, but BB subscribers increase in a speed that beyond their spending on ads.

These OTAKUs gathers, spreads the news, and persistently insist other to use BB without getting paid (beautiful isn’t it?). Now, mobile carriers start to do package deal for blackberry service; thanks to Indonesian BB OTAKUs!

Why they become BB OTAKUs?

1. some of them are already gadget freak, so they’re reason; they love its technology. Compression, push e-mail, and always connect - Great Product! (for these OTAKUs)
2. It’s (originally) design for corporate, but BlackBerry differentiate these product for retail to aim these technology OTAKUs. - Segmented
3. It keep enhancing its product from only a push mail service with great compression with GPS, camera, and create strategic partnership with software companies and internet service providers (facebook, google, yahoo, etc) - Strategic Partnership, expand OTAKUs from email OTAKUs to internet OTAKUs
4. The way it communicated -because it’s very segmented- made people talk about this product, create a buzz in OTAKUs world, and then spread widely in internet forums, mailing list, and word of mouth. - Be THE TOPIC

I think ( from a technologist that pretend to know a marketing world mind :p ) that’s what Seth mean. We need to make a product that not only aim for biggest chunk of customers, we need to make a product that segmented but have an impact to biggest chunk of customers by word of mouth.

Because these OTAKUs are willing to talk about your product, review it, and persistently insist people to understand its value if it worth.

mobile marketing in Indonesia - a case study from an existing client

Client: leading motorbike manufacturer in Indonesia

Objective: supporting media to create a unique way in order to complete pre-launch activities series using new media and generate database

Target: youngster, new jobber (18-35 y.o)

Concept:

• Create a PR stunt supported by girls in a bike passenger suit
• Girls will give out their ‘name cards’ with their mobile numbers in malls, campuses, and biker hang out places
• 2 type of responses are expected from this stunt;
  • SMS directed to the girls; All SMS will be replied with generic message, but its editorial will follow the way youngsters talk via SMS. Start to tease soon to be launch product by announce URL for pre launch website
  • Call-in; All calls will be answered by generic voice-mail

Execution:

• Based on client’s consideration on contra-productive effect of mobile marketing based on the proposed concept, a name card design changed from a usual ‘model’ name card without any client’s branding and product info into a mini flier that have client’s branding and URL to pre-launch website
• SMS reply also change from a regular youngsters text copy into a hard sell copy mentioning about new motor-bike technology

Result:

• 5% SMS penetration
• 1% Call in
• Buzz in motorbike community in Indonesia
• Average 1500 visitors to http://www.motorimpian.com

Consider major changes from its original concept from a ‘model’ name card to a mini fliers, penetration was not bad at all (compare to SMS broadcast penetration ~10%).
Most important part will still need to be done; follow ups and create a relevant messages to people who interested to the product.

who’s behind the gun?

Several days ago, youtube, multiply, rapidshare, and some other websites were banned in Indonesia. Internet users in Indonesia got a notification from their ISP that those URLs can’t be accessed until further notice according to government’s direction.

I will not discussed about the root cause, which I believe already became a hot topic in other blogs and Indonesia’s news portals. It was very interesting (and surprising) decision made by government. I’m questioning whether they aware that they can’t restrict people to go to where ever they want in www world; even if their destination URLs were banned. People can always use Internet proxy (as it shared in several mailing lists when this restriction happened), search from other sources, ask other people to download the contents and send to an Internet disk for Indonesia’s Internet users to download, and many other things that Internet geeks can think of. Internet has the most sophisticated contents distribution channels. If they really think of internet censorship, they really need to think of investing great amount of money and build a system like ‘great firewall of china’.

It’s really sad (for me and other internet users in Indonesia), to know a respectful IT institution in Indonesia had taken such step in order to do internet censorship. I wonder whether they understand how a content can be distributed in www world.

Looking at this situation, highlighted an old issue on how bad Indonesia need the right man behind the gun. Indonesia need a group of professionals that willing to ‘donate’ part of their busy time to at least be a pressure group in order to make things right in our beloved country.

are you one of them? do you care about your country? or you only want to state your comments but not give any solution?

consultant or whore?

working in creative industry and some experience in IT consulting make me wonder whether I’m a consultant or a whore??

Sometime no matter how we follow client’s requirements and guidance, there will be always a way for them to ruin our weekend…

Quoted from a best friend of mine “I think your job is similar to a *sorry* whore, it just clients pay your service with more trailing zeros……..” Working over the weekend -even long weekends-, 24 hours service, and no matter how hard you try to fulfill their request; you can’t make them always stick with you….. then I start to comparing the list between a consultant and a whore (read it with smile…. :));

1. do you work by user’s requirements? consultant: yes - whore:yes
2. does your client demands your creativity on deliver the service? consultant: yes - whore:yes
3. do you have any product to be paid for? consultant:no - whore:yes
4. are you helping clients solving their problems? consultant:yes - whore:yes
5. do you need to build a sophisticated image around your service?consultant: yes - whore:yes
6. do you need to entertain your client by providing full service solution? consultant:yes - whore:yes
7. do you need to maintain your look? consultant:yes - whore:yes
8. will you take order from somebody stranger? consultant:yes - whore:yes
9. do you put your mobile phone number in your name card? consultant:yes - whore:yes
10. do you provide ‘onsite’ service for a long time? consultant:yes - whore:yes

~read it with smile….

everybody can create a website, now it’s easy….. and FREE!!

Trying to get a homepage up n running is not a very hard task this day. I still remember few years back, write a homepage will require you to open your text editor type tags, validate your HTML, then find a place to host it and pay them for the service. Back in those days, creating a websites will require a company spending hundreds to thousands of US$ just to built a static WEB page.

Then few years later DHTML come to solve the requirement to have a dynamic website. ASP, PHP, and JSP enable people to have a database driven website. Updating content not necessarily change the HTML source code, web-administrator only need to insert, update, n delete database. Some -good- web developers also build a user interface to update the contents so clients can easily change texts, images, even upload a video.

Developers that have business sense, then package codes n database into a product. Make web developers’ job easier by not have to create everything from scratch, shorten development time, and most of all create opportunity for more people to create a websites.

WEB 2.0 make things even more interesting. User generated contents reduce web-admin work. Internet users can modify their own page, using easy to modify UI (started by Friendster if I’m not mistaken, where user can modify their profile page..). Blogging sites, more advanced social networking, made internet even more fun.

Some internet start-ups as well as all giants are in race to create the most sophisticated but easy to use applications. I’ve shared my story about google-applications. Saturday morning I got an email regarding newly launched Google product in their google application portfolio.

Before writing this post, I try to play with it and create a sandbox (http://sandbox.dotjuicer.com - not much to see, but for a person that not focus on web-programming it’s very easy… ).

I imagine a if this kind of application can be introduced to SMEs or even home industry in Indonesia. It will surely help them a lot. They don’t need to spend a lot, even they can do it in nearest internet cafe and build their website as if it built by professional web programmers.

So many things can be done; as a start, maybe universities can encourage their IT students to help nearest SMEs or home industries by set-up a short training course to use this new feature from google. This will have a meaningful impact to the community development. It doesn’t need to be sophisticated, the most important is to be exist in www world then any potential buyers can search them through internet.

Google, please get your emerging market team to Indonesia ASAP