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.

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.

who will pay?

See the sign? Somehow our brain process the word GRATIS(FREE) differently. When we read this sign, we will react by read more detail about it. If it’s a free magazine, even though we don’t interested in what the magazine is all about we tends to take it anyway. Free postcard was a trend in Jakarta couple of years ago; so many sophisticated design put in a rack and everybody can take it -although they will leave it somewhere, then somebody else will throw it to trash bin-. Now, nobody do this anymore, maybe because there is no functional value in it (did you really use a postcards? or is it collectible item?).

GRATIS (FREE) element will create buzz and attract people just like ‘love at a first sight’. Then people will try, soon when they don’t think it add value(s), it wont be an attraction anymore.

Most successful internet companies know the secret of GRATIS(FREE). It will take more than just converting clicks to cents. When FREE is not enough people will leave you then there will be no clicks can be converted; .com nightmare

On the other hand, consumers are demanding;high quality freebies. Quality will be evolve with consumer. When consumer has choices and get smarter, quality standard get higher.

Who doesn’t know Yahoo! ? When other freebies .com(s) are falling, they generate more revenue. They’re never promote their product specifically in Indonesia (except in the last 2-3 years), but there are more than 4 million yahoo! users in Indonesia, in fact yahoo messenger (YM) become a term when we refer to an internet messenger. 3 years later (Yahoo incorporated on 1995) a search engine contender named Google come. They challenge Yahoo! superiority on internet search engine and was very focus in search functionalities, while Yahoo! had expanded their service as one stop Internet service provider (News, Web Mail, IM). When Yahoo! offers paid email service with POP3 capabilities to generate more revenue, Google still very focus on generating revenue from internet search functionalities while they think how to become #1.

7 years after Yahoo! acquire RocketMail and launch web based email service (2004), Google offered ‘invitation-only’ 1GB quota web-mail service with extra POP3 capability and it’s FREE

Yahoo! and Google know that in order to generate critical internet user mass that make them worth to be called as a mass media they need to do more innovations (or acquisitions) to maintain best service for internet users.

On 2004, (IMHO) Google successfully create a buzz among internet users, not just give the biggest quota to internet users as what internet users looking for, by announce it as ‘invitation-only’ service it make all internet users looking for it. Not only become a hot topic to talk about among internet users (Word of Mouth) they also succeeded on implementing one-to-one marketing by giving invited users ability to invite their friends to be Gmail users so they can invite more friends, and so on.

Until now, Google innovations are still be the hot topic among internet users. Not only they always surprisingly make new things, they always deliver a better service if similar service exist.

On 2006, Google had beat Yahoo! on search engine usage once again because their innovation in internet search algorithm that made internet search more useful both; for internet users and advertisers. They create more value for advertisers and create great experience to internet users by give users relevant advertising based on their search keyword.

Google had constantly create innovation that made advertiser willing to spend more, by create so many functionalities that made internet users keep coming back to their site. Not to mention, they also enable their users to generate revenue from their website (blog, company websites, etc)

Freebies in internet world are paid by advertiser; why? Not just email, news, and other regular portal features, internet giants are in the race of innovations by combining elements that build more reasoning why advertiser allocate more budget in digital media.

Advertiser will follow trend from generic message to relevant and personalized message. This trend require digital media to do passive observation (what consumer searched, bought, accessed, typed) or create exciting interaction process (social networking, portfolio building, etc).

Passive observation can be done via user’s blog, what they’ve looking for in a search engine, and their browsing behavior. While interaction process that can make internet users define their own profile need to be exciting so they always have reason to keep coming back and reveal themselves.

How? let digital media giants be the inventor, I will be their follower and be innovator by combining giants superiorites