Digital campaigns must reflect regional behaviours
Advertising Age took a worldwide look at the state of digital marketing this week, having surveyed executives at ICOM, a global network of independent ad agencies, about the top digital trends and issues facing their markets in 2010.
The findings underscore the importance of understanding local trends and behaviours as marketers worldwide seek to leverage the growing power of digital marketing. They also highlight the opportunities available to those marketers who do grasp regional peculiarities and differences – and harness these – as internet use continues to increase and evolve in key country markets.
For example, we are told that in Brazil and Estonia Google-owned social networking site Orkut is proving popular. Social media is a hot topic in both markets.
Take global restaurant chain T.G.I. Friday’s in Brazil. It used Orkut, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to launch a new milkshake flavour and offered free milkshakes to the first 1000 people to sign up as followers on Twitter. “That happened within two hours and was considered a great success,” says Mauricio Noznica, a planning manager in São Paulo, “Marketers are using digital more and more.
In the Philippines, 65.8% of internet users start their own blog. Yet bloggers must beware elsewhere in Asia-Pacific – regulatory body, the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission, has blocked a number of websites because of political sensitivities.
In China apparently the biggest news this year is the prospect of Google leaving the country due to censorship requirements. Baidu, the number one local search engine, would be pleased to see the search giant go, yet it’s been accused of basing rankings on how much money it is paid. Successful sites such as Tudou and Ku6 (video-sharing websites), Tencent (instant messaging) and Kaixin (social networking) have one thing in common: they are all specific ‘Chinese’ versions.
In Europe, the key platforms for advertisers, unsurprisingly, vary country by country. Music site Spotify is proving popular in Spain, which has led to global brands such as Coca-Cola offering free subscriptions to customers. Marketers seeking to promote their wares to kids may also find success on Tuenti, an invitation-only social networking site which is more popular than Facebook amongst the country’s under 17s. In Switzerland, however, Facebook remains key for B2C, while Xing and LinkedIn share the stronghold on the B2B market.
Brands need to do their homework. Leveraging regional hubs, and identifying key trends in country markets, can optimize your chances of success with digital marketing the world over.
Tags: Digital Production, Global Brand
