HOW MANY BITCOINS FOR A TV SPOT?

Peter Vessenes, Founder & CEO, CoinLab & Chairman Bitcoin Foundation, opened the second day with a glimpse at the future of currency. He shared about how disruptive technologies like Bitcoin is opening up opportunities, giving users freedom to transact economically with anonymity.

ASSESSING THE COMPETITION

Nitin Nishandar, regional managing director, brand & communications, TNS discussed aboutlocal brands that have the potential to be global giant killers, highlighting Chinese brands Baidu, Tencent, Huawei and Lenovo as such innovative brands. He noted that although Chinese corporations are becoming bigger, they have not yet fully gained the respect of their peers.

Some key learnings that larger corporations could take away from local companies were:
• To improvise and always put the need of the consumer first,
• To start small by looking at markets as segments and looking at opportunities within markets.
• To have an appetite for growth but be willing to star small and learn, then expand.
• To value the entrepreneurial spirit
• To acquire for access rather than look at short term results
• To make multicultural moves and have talent from all over the world

• To understand the value of a handshake and look for people to partner and grow with

Ambrish Jain, VP Marketing APAC shared his experiences in smaller vs larger organisations, in Western vs Eastern working cultures. Jain spoke about the process, speed, agility and boldness of emerging global trends and the speed mentality in Asian markets. It's not abouthaving all the answers. It's about failing fast, and then learning quickly in Asian companies where trust is built and earned over time in contrast to Western companies where trust is given and maintained from day one.

Ajit Varghese, CEO, Maxus Asia-Pacific shared his views about Western brands and how they have established that value equation: How to create more value than price advantages? The panel considered talent management in Western vs Asian companies and further exchanged views on the value of companies like Whatsapp and WeChat - Whatsapp having been sold to Facebook for a staggering $19B for its 450 million monthly active users with 19 employees and $0 ad spend.

IN CONVERSATION WITH CHARLIE CROWE: KEYNOTE INTERVIEW WITH STEPHEN ALLAN

Stephen Allan, Global CEO, MediaCom and Charlie Crowe chat about how big companies like MediaCom deal with being in the media industry, staying nimble even if they are one of the biggest in the world. How MediaCom's delivers the most relevant content in the most connected system, helping bewildered clients who are overwhelmed by data and numbers to sort them out to create solutions. "It's not about having the data, it's about how you use it", he says. Allan notes that it's not just responsiveness but also relevance. He explained that the growth is coming through a broader and deeper range of services. Where the industry is much more complex now, there exists so many different choices for clients, presenting a greater need for specialists to sort the data and insight to present solutions that work.

DISCOVERING THE NEXT MEANINGFUL MEDIUM

Tony Sarmiento, Regional Creative Integrator, HavasMediaGroup APAC shared the industry struggle to give value to each post and tweet. To help quantify engagement and interaction, the team launched their new HeartBot (Havas Engagement-Activated Responsive Technology Robot). The HeartBot has the ability to translate social activity like tweets and likes into tangible action, helping a tweet work harder with physical activity.

TALKING PROGRAMMATIC

According to the panel, made up of Jay Sears, SVP, Rubicon Project, Grace Liau, Regional GM APAC, Audience on Demand, Michel de Rijk, MD Asia, Xaxis, Yean Cheong, VP, Market Solutions, MAP Asia Pacific and Scott Joslin, VP, International Advertising Effectiveness, comScore, although advancements in technology is fast, adoption in Asia is slow. Asian markets see programmatic advertising's value but are fearful of transparency whereas Australia is seen to be a risk takers, a mature market in comparison. Scott Joslin notes a 6X increase in ROI of clients due to the efficiencies of programmatic advertising but accuracy oftargeting, safety, and non-human traffic are some concerns clients have with programmatic ad buying. Ultimately, it's about optimising, using a test-and-learn approach to make the most effective use of programmatic advertising and education is still needed for many clients to understand the addition to the ad tech landscape.

AGILITY IN THE REAL-TIME WORLD

Shailesh Rao, VP, APAC & Latin America & Emerging Markets, Twitter spoke about the importance of agility in the real-time world, where brands need to create relevant, real-time content to engage with empowered digital consumers who expect the brands and businesses they interact with to always be relevant and 'Always On'. Rao touched on creative disruption, where it is not enough just to innovate and create at a consistent pace, quoting Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland: "My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that." Rao highlighted that there are rarely people who disagree with technology advancements like programmatic advertising, yet adoption for such technology is usually slow. It is up to leadership to commit to change and be agile, he said.

Damien Cummings, Regional VP & CMO, Philips ASEAN & Pacific shared Philips' Conversation Engine model to listen, plan, create, amplify and manage. The 'heartbeat' of their marketing, the model combines social media and marketing analytics, the ability to have a newsroom and a 360 degree distribution.

CHINA ON-DEMAND

Leo Liang, Senior Director of National Business Development, Youku Tudou explained how Youku Tudou is more than just China's version of YouTube, rather, it is a combination of YouTube, Hulu, Netflix and HBO. With 1 in 3 people in China using Youku Tudou and many of them with multi-screen behaviour, marketers have the ability to cover their target audiences wherever he goes, whenever he logs on. Chinese consumers' online viewing behaviours were discussedas were the opportunities that this offers marketers looking to cross platforms.

RISING STAR SHOWCASE THEATRE SESSION

In this session, five finalists pitched their ideas for a real-life brief set by Kelloggs to win the acclaimed Rising Star Award.

THE PAYMENT DEBATE

The dance between agency and procurement is never-ending and not for the faint of heart.George Patten, Global MD, Accenture, Matthew Wigham, Head of Trading, Mediacom APAC and Peter Mitchell, Global Media Innovation Director, Mondeléz International discussed about issues and matters holding the industry back, a view into the different departments' concerns and adapting to the complexity of the digital age. Ultimately, as Peter Mitchell said, it's not about driving prices down; it's about efficiency.

THE FINAL WORD

The Festival of Media Asia-Pacific closed with a look back at the key talking points with the Asian leaders who are setting the agenda. Vishnu Mohan, CEO, Havas Media APAC, Jeffrey Seah, country chair, Vivaki and Ajit Varghese, CEO, Maxus APAC share their thoughts about the usage of digital channels and future media leaders.

That's a wrap! The next Festival of Media Asia Pacific will take place 22-24 March 2015, but until then watch out for The Festival of Media Globalhappening in Rome from 6-8 April 2014.

This article was first posted on the Festival of Media Asia Pacific