BEYOND THE WEB. Yahoo! Southeast Asia managing director Ken Mandel emphasizes that consumers want more than search, as he presented the company's strategy for the online and mobile advertising market in the region during the Yahoo! Southeast Asia Advertising Summit. Video taken by INQUIRER.net community evangelist Alex Villafania in Singapore.
Yahoo! targets online, mobile ad market in Asia By Alexander Villafania INQUIRER.net First Posted 15:20:00 04/03/2008
SINGAPORE -- Citing figures from a survey conducted last year by research firm Synovate, a Yahoo! executive said a growing number of Asians are spending more time using the Internet than any other medium. Singapore and Taiwan are currently leading the pack, followed by Hong Kong, Malaysia and Thailand. Television remains the main information source for Filipinos but the Internet has outranked newspapers, magazines and radio.
Though traditional advertisers dictate that marketing budgets go to traditional media, such as TV, radio and print, the gap is closing for online advertising, particularly with the rise of new content such as online video.
"Rich media will become premium content," said Yahoo! Southeast Asia managing director Ken Mandel in his opening remarks at the Yahoo! Southeast Asia Advertising Summit here.
Yahoo! is upping the ante in the advertising space, specifically in Southeast Asia, as it sees more users in the region shifting toward the Internet for services and information. Beyond the Web, however, the company is also plans to cash in on the potential revenue it could generate from advertising on different platforms.
Mandel noted that the first that should be targeted are the consumers. While the company is said to already enjoy a 53-million-user figure in Southeast Asia, Yahoo! is still aiming to be the "starting point" for most consumers, where they could check their e-mail, chat via Yahoo! messenger, and access news and information, among other services. Users have also embraced rich media, such as online video and podcasts, to create and distribute content. As the number of users grows, Mandel said Yahoo! will then turn into a "must-buy" platform for advertisers who would have the capability to target users for their advertising campaigns.
At the summit here, Yahoo! executives showcased some of the services that the company hopes will entice new users and advertisers. Some of the services also delve into the mobile space, wherein mobile phones will be the next stage for content aggregation, distribution and revenue generation. Yahoo! sees the mobile phone as a ubiquitous platform for information sharing and distribution, as well as a possible market for advertising.
Mandel said the company has been introducing new mobile services, including Yahoo! Go 2.0, but has set its sights on mobile advertising as well. Though he said that this will be small at first, he expects this segment to eventually grow as mobile phones become more powerful and enable users to access different online services.
Last year, Yahoo! acquired Blue Lithium, a startup firm that is able to do demographics analysis to better determine the advertising and marketing campaigns for companies.
Prashant Mehta, Yahoo! vice president for Advertiser and Publisher Group for Emerging Markets, said that by analyzing the online behavior of users, advertisers can create better marketing campaigns and get higher gains. As such, Yahoo! can also focus on creating values according to the requirements of the user, then measure what kind of information can be delivered to them. Advertisers will be able to see where they can fit their marketing strategies.
"We're investing in common hosted platforms to connect the advertiser and publisher to ad networks where they could easily measure their gains," Mehta said.
Mehta said he is optimistic that online advertising will continue to grow tremendously, stating that it is currently worth 43 billion US dollars but could grow up to 78 billion US dollars by 2010.
"User behaviors are changing very fast and so we need to adapt to them," Mehta said.
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