Agencies of The Future

Paul (Bangkok) writes:

A glimpse of the near future, for those of us working in marketing communication?

From Trendsspotting.com:

Sapient recently sponsored a national online survey to gain insights into what marketers want from their advertising and marketing agencies in the next 12 months. The survey polled more than 200 chief marketing officers (CMOs) and senior marketing professionals.

Two points can be derived out of this survey:
I. Traditional advertising agencies are now at risk of losing their clients.
II. Agencies should acquire Social Media expertise.

For the full article: Brand Marketers aim to receive digital expertise from their advertising and  marketing agencies.

Related article: Sapient’s Top 10 Wish List for Agencies of the Future, based on their survey.

Found in Translation

James M (MindShare, Thailand) writes: 

Today I attended a presentation arranged by AmCham with Asia Online as Guest Speaker. Once over the initial shock of the title (Is Machine Translation Ready for Real-world Use?), I found the subject matter fascinating and wondered why it had not struck me sooner? With approximately one billion online, many of whom are comfortable with the English language, what of the next billion? The ‘next generation’ will want (and many will only be able) to interact with the web in their own language.

Dion Wiggins, CEO of Asia Online, explained how currently only 12% of all web pages are in Asian languages (mostly split between Chinese and Japanese – with Thai making up less than 0.03%). Although much was made about making technology available to the developing world, he went on (especially the Nicholas Negroponte-fronted project One Laptop per Child) little progress had been made in making the vast majority of the existing, valuable content available in anything but the English language.

In response, his company is “innovating software translation technology to deliver far more accurate results and to support many language combinations…to translate huge quantities of valuable content and make that freely available in local languages.” They are well aware of the idioms and nuances each language possesses and as such the software requires vast amounts of data (corpus) in original and translated versions from which it can learn. Assuming they are successful, the value of existing content and the ability to create new pages instantly available in multiple languages will be of huge potential to the current and ‘next billion’ Internet users.

Watch this space…

A digitizing Bollywood? India’s first serial for mobiles

Ju (MindShare, Regional team) writes:

Hope you had a great refreshing holiday like I did and wishing everyone a superb year ahead!

I opened my inbox to find an interesting article on the distribution of content through mobile phones in India, forwarded to me by Alefiyah in MindShare Singapore who gave us the “Bollywood on Mobile” story last year. The article on the Hindustani Times, titled “India’s first serial for mobiles next month” featured another example of how Bollywood is capitalizing on digital technology to bring entertainment to the masses. Rajshri Productions, a major Bollywood production house, has created a “90-episode series, with three minutes per episode, … in the humour genre” offered to the audience via the mobile phone.

With the high penetration rate of mobile phones in the region, other developing countries in Asia-Pacific might want to keep an eye on India to see how the landscape for digital content and platforms will unfold. In the developing world, it is likely that India will lead in terms of creative ideas on producing content for new media like the Internet, mobile phones and mp3 players, given the population’s uniquely insatiable appetite for Bollywood fare.

The article reminds me a recent chat I had with a Thai security guard servicing one of my friend’s apartment in Bangkok. The guard (apparently an early adopter of trends, as my friend tells me) was trying out DTAC’s (a Thai mobile network operator) new GPRS promotion plan that offered a FREE mobile-internet-friendly Nokia phone bundled with 20 hours of downloads for 99 baht (about 3 USD). He was happily connected to the Internet with his phone through the mobile internet browser Opera, but he had one problem. He had no idea where to go to find any kind of entertainment on the Internet! I have a feeling he’d go for a Thai version of the mobile comedy series launching in India…

Read India’s first serial for mobiles next month on Hindustani Times. Thanks Alefiyah!

China’s Online Creative Community – Part 2: Interview

Ju (MindShare, Regional Insights) writes:

A couple of months back I had the chance to meet with Sean Leow in a small café in Shanghai, one of the co-founders of the social networking site ‘Neocha’, which Pew Internet dubbed as China’s MySpace for the creative-types, as mentioned in the previous introductory post. I was first introduced to Neocha.com through our trend scout in Shanghai through her article on ‘Online Home for Indie Culture in China‘ on our Asia Scout Network blog.

Sean is a half-Chinese, half-American who has been living and working in China for the past four years. After growing up in San Francisco’s Bay Area and graduating from Duke University, Sean moved to China, studying and working in four Chinese cities along the way.

Chatting casually over coffee, Sean talks about his exposure to Japanese-influenced youth subcultures in China and the one-day Neocha launch event which attracted 8,000 to 10,000 young people through digital means and word-of-mouth while taking us through Neocha’s webzine <Blow-Up>. He contends that the best way to connect with young people is through brand engagement.

This edited video clip is a short collection of the highlights of the interview.

Read on for the full version:

1. What do you find interesting about China’s digital media landscape?
One thing that I find interesting is digital webzines. That’s something that some people say is a failure in other countries – releasing webzines with flash online. In China though, it has been pretty successful coz it’s so hard to get a publishing license here, that if you can release it online for free, people are demanding that kind of content – new content that speaks to them so much more than the stuff that is shown on state-run media.

We actually have one of our own – it’s called <Blow Up>. I’m pretty proud of ours because it’s the only one I know that’s 100% original content. A lot of these webzines they take articles or videos that they find on the internet and they’ll piece together some interesting stuff. There are some good ones, but one thing that we tried to really do is create a fully original one including all the music. All the music is by bands and musicians that we know in China. (View Neocha’s most recent issue of <Blow Up> here – definitely worth a look!)

2. Why create another online community platform in China?
The simple reason was that there was none targeted specifically at the creative communities in China. I’ve spent a lot of time going all over China. I’ve been here for four and a half years and I see really interesting content being created whether it’s music or photography or design. And when I go somewhere like Beijing, I’ll meet someone like “oh, I know someone who’s doing something similar in Shanghai” and I kept running into those situations until I’m thinking where is the aggregation point in this. Is this being done online or offline? What I found was that it wasn’t really existing, it was very scattered groups and I thought there was an opportunity to bring them together. So I went to some of my Chinese friends who are even more knowledgeable on this demographic – guys who are musicians, those who actually live the life. They’re like no, there isn’t a website that caters to us, that speak the same language.

So, on the one hand we saw that there was a need for an aggregator. On the other hand, I grew up in Silicon Valley so all my friends and family were always involved with the internet. Now I think the tools do exist that we can allow these people to both promote themselves, and at the same time collaborate with other people who are interested in this content.

One thing that we do that’s a bit different from other online communities is that we do have a big focus on offline events like that big event I showed. Our communities are already set up like that. To do a concert with them is not difficult because they’re already doing concerts. To do a photography exhibit with our photographers is not difficult because they’re already doing exhibits. And I also believe any successful community has an element where people can meet and talk, to reinforce the friends and the connections that you make online and offline. We’ve already done four or five offline events. We’re thinking of doing something on a monthly basis, on a smaller scale. This (launch event) is like once a year type of thing. Right now we only have the resources to handle Shanghai, but we’d also like to be in Beijing, Hangzhou, and to a lesser extent the other cities.

3. So how did you “get the ball rolling” and start attracting young people to the site and to the event?
In China, young people don’t use email that much. You think of viral campaigns that you do in the US, a lot of that’s through email. In China, you can definitely use email as a tool, but it’s definitely not used as widely as the US, except among white collar workers who use it for work. I find with the young generation it’s almost all IM, in the big cities it would MSN or otherwise QQ, and through cell phone. We also send out emails. I mean you send out 3,000 emails you’re bound to get somebody that’s going to respond to it and not think it’s spam. The other way that we did it was just contacting everybody that we knew that we considered, we’d call them ‘mavens’, guess you could say that, people who we think are influential, who have fans, networks that they can reach out to. You get those people on it and you get them to bring the people that they know. And then on top of that was the big event that we did. I find the best way to market online is actually through BBS’s, BBS forums. That’s traditionally how these online communities have been structured and in China it’s still and extremely popular form of communication. I think that’s moving more to the blog/space type of set up that we have. I guess that’s why we didn’t create a BBS for creative communities. But BBS is still very powerful for spreading your message.

4. Do you think there’s any social or cultural link between these creative communities and the non-creative types of people? Or are they completely separate from each other?
I’m not going to say that [the creative community] is huge because I don’t think it is yet. But it’s different from other niche subcultures that you see, because I think these people are having more and more influence over mainstream culture, and I think in 3-5 years they will be tremendously influential. That’s the hypothesis behind what we’re doing. We think they’re going to be extremely influential – these people are about 17 to about 30 years-old and they really represent the new generation of Chinese kids which is they’re very proud of being Chinese, and at the same time they’re part of the world community and that they have innovative, interesting content. They’re not just the China of old, made-in-China products, they want to turn that around and say ‘look we’ve got some interesting stuff too’. And it’s also the same as the motive by the government because for so long, China’s at a cultural deficit, they’ve been importing movies, music, art, and they haven’t been exporting anything. So they want to reverse that cultural deficit and start creating their own stuff that they can start using as ‘soft power’ to export to the rest of the world, like music. So I think it’s a perfect storm between these people coming of age, having the means to do it because they don’t have to worry about day-to-day existence, and basically being supported by the government and other people, not just their parents, but other people that they know.

5. How have the young people influenced the mainstream? Have you any examples?
Part of it you can just see by walking in this area (Xinle Lu). This is kind of like the hip area of Shanghai. You go into the boutique shops here and you see the clothes and, the T-shirt revolution that’s going in China as everywhere else in the world. There’s a lot of these designers like ‘The Thing’. You see their influences and their designs on everyday people who are walking the streets.

6. What’s the general attitude of the young Chinese people that you meet?
They’re sick of old media. They’re also sick of the canto-pop star. It’s difficult to put a label on them. They’re interested in finding ways to take independent culture and making it more influential on the mainstream. They’re not rebellious in the way that you would think of Americans or Europeans are rebellious, like try to run away from home. They still have that kind of filial piety to their parents. Some people’s parents are more accepting of what they’re trying to do and some people aren’t. They’re not interested in politics. We have over a hundred blogs which I read half of everyday and no one’s ever really talked about politics.

They’re talking about a new CD, posting an illustration that they did. There are different stratums of users. Our strategy is we are going after people who are already creating content. But they don’t have a good place to post it. In that way they already have the content – the pictures, the stories, the music. We think that’s the best way to grow the website fast because people have stuff to look at and interact with. And then at the same time, we’re trying to work on strategies to bring in more regular people who are interested in these creative communities, but isn’t necessarily the members who are making this stuff. They’re more interested in maybe reading about it or maybe commenting on it.

7. What’s the best way to connect with young people?
I really think digital is the best way to connect to young people. Not only are they spending time there and you can target them demographically, but also you can engage them so much more than you can with just an advertisement on TV. You can get them to in there and write a comment. You can get them to go in there and to vote for someone. You can get in there and download a template for a t-shirt and design the next version of the Adidas t-shirt. They engage with your brand that way – It’s not just I saw it and that’s great. They’re actually engaging with it….The cost isn’t that much to sponsor, but the return they get is that get all of these influential people all engaged with their brands for a certain amount of time. Maybe it’s a buzzword, but I think that brand engagement is a pretty important part of the digital strategy.

Global digital stats report

David, MindShare Thailand, writes:

Fact fest for planners with a predilection for statistical summaries.

To add to the recent post about the new APAC internet study, anyone seriously interested in how the Big Switch will play out around Asia might want to invest a couple of hours in ploughing through the ITU / UNCTAD (International Telecommunication Union / United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) World Information Society Report 2007

It isn’t a relaxing read for the beach (tough luck, Western bloggers, the good weather’s on its way to Asia now). But the world-at-a-glance statistics and maps offer authoritative back-up for anyone working on multi-market digital strategies: “If you don’t like my numbers, go argue with the United Nations”.

While we’re on statistics, it’s self-evident that the wealthiest nations have the highest take-up of broadband. So what sense does it make to charge the highest subscription charges in markets where the public can least afford it? MuniWireless.com posted this piece a couple of months ago.

Asian youth and the mobile phone

Ju (MindShare, Regional Insights) writes:

The mobile phone has become an indispensible equipment for Asian youth. PwC’s 2007 survey of nearly 8,000 of their staff from 17 countries around the world (78% aged between 16-34 yrs) revealed a whopping 98% mobile penetration rate in Asia-Pacific countries, with a significantly lower 62% fixed-line penetration rate.

The first Asia Scout Network pan-regional summary report by MindShare is therefore dedicated to the mobile phone – how mobiles mold the lifestyles of Asian youth and vice versa.  Findings are based on updates on the Asia Scout Network blog from our city scouts in Tokyo, Singapore, Jakarta, Bangkok, Sydney, Shanghai, and Kuala Lumpur.

The headlines are:
1) Asian youth pimp their mobiles
2) Mobilizing communities
3) Japan’s contagious QR codes
4) Mobile multimedia gains momentum
5) Making ‘Hero’ features visible
6) What lies beyond

Download the full report:asia-scout-network-the-mobile-life.pdf

APAC Internet Usage study reveals less time spent on Net than the West

Praveen (MindShare, Bangalore) writes:

We know how Internet usage is increasing across the region. comScore’s first comprehensive review of Asia-Pacific Internet Usage comes up with a few interesting findings.

One, Netizens in APAC spend less time on the Net when compared to the West. But it does vary across countries – ranging from less than half an hour daily in India to more than 1 hr/day among the South Koreans.

Two, Yahoo sites are the most popular in the region, unlike Google, which leads in the worldwide stakes.

*Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.
**Estimated Users age 15+ active within 30 days from Home or Work computer as a percentage of total country population age 15+.
*** Total Asia-Pacific, including countries other than the 10 countries that comScore provides individual country-level reporting

Digital trends in Thailand, Asia-Pacific, and beyond

Peck (MindShare, Bangkok) writes:

PWC’s “Convergence Monitor” survey shows that Thailand has the one of the largest number of social networking (virtual networking and blogging) users in Asia, second only to China which has more than 85% of respondents having engaged in social networking at least once while Thailand has 71%.

Chatting, instant messaging, and downloading digital music are popular services among Thai internet users. 90% of respondents have used chatting or instant messaging at least once, and 87% have downloaded music through the internet at least once, expecting to see higher growth along with increase demand for broadband internet. However, online banking and online shopping are not as popular in Thailand as they are in other Asia Pacific countries. For example, while 39% of Singaporean respondents stated that they had used online banking and shopping at least once, only 8% of Thai respondents had done so.

Download the full report titled “Convergence Monitor: The Digital Home” here.

Examples of popular Thai blogs and blogging platforms:

www.bloggang.com

http://vip-galz.storythai.com/

36 (Asian) Youth Facts in 159 Seconds

Ju (MindShare, Regional Team) writes:

The threebillion project put together a fascinating video on behalf of MTV Asia for the Music Matters Conference in Hong Kong late May ’07. The video features 36 facts dedicated to Asian youth in 159 seconds.

From threebillion: Whether it be teenage marriage in India, mobile phone usage in Japan, Filipino TV watching or Saudi Arabian Bluetooth porn, each market is rich it’s own brand of youth culture. This video is dedicated to the best thirty six facts we could find.

For those still waiting for the day the internet is free from censorship, here are all the facts and some screen captures of the video, courtesy of Global Nerdy.

• There are 3 billion people under 25 on this planet
• 61% of them live in Asia
• 67% of young Asians have downloaded music in the last month
• Only 27% paid for it
• Hong Kong youth spend the most time online per day (4.7 hours)
• Indonesian youth spend the least (0.9 hours)
• Young Filipinos watch the most TV per day (6.2 hours)
• Young Chinese watch the least (3.2 hours)
• There are 37.5 million gamers in China
• 90% play online games
• Weekly, Korean teenagers will spend
  • 14 hours on the computer…
  • .12.8 hours watching TV
  • 0.7 hours reading newspapers
• Taiwan has the highest teenage birthrate in Asia
• South Korea has the lowest
• 45% of young Japanese women said they were in love
• Only 30% of young Japanese men said the same
• 82% of Japanese teen males said they used contraception the first time they had sex
• Only 12% of Japanese 20-year-olds use the home PC to access the internet — the same level as 50-year-olds — they’re using their mobile phones instead
• 26% of all youth deaths in China are from suicide
• In India, 50% of girls will be married before they are 18
• In Nepal, the rate is 60%
• 85% of Korean teenagers own a cell phone
• They send an average of 60 messages per day
• 46% of students send messages in class
• “Our children are seriously addicted to cell phones” — Parent’s Union Spokesperson
• Chinese people spend 10x more money on the internet than people in the west
• It represents 10% of their monthly income
• Who prefers a laid-back hassle-free lifestyle?
  • 14% of Chinese teens
  • 22% of South Korean teens
  • 43% of Japanese teens
• 99% of Saudi teens use Bluetooth
• 99% said that the device had broken social taboos
• 85% said it was safe for communication with the opposite sex
• 69% of messages exchanged by Saudi teens were pornographic

As Streetwear Peaks in Bangkok…

Ju (MindShare, Regional Team) writes:

“With a surfer’s business model, Harajuku aesthetic, and uniquely independent American attitude, the message of streetwear speaks to a global youth audience.” – Theme Magazine, “X-Pollination of Streetwear”

At The Esplanade, another mall that has recently sprouted up in Bangkok, there is huge fenced-off, under-construction section that promised a space for Zoo York, Ed Hardy, Reef, Emily The Strange, and the likes of other such streetwear brands.

Streetwear is part of street culture, the definition of which is difficult to articulate and often subject to debate. On a superficial level, street culture is united through the elements of hip-hop, skate/surf culture, graffiti arts, print designs, and an obsession for limited editions. At its more meaningful core, it manifests the values of individuality, rebellion, sexiness, originality, freedom, and a sense of exclusive smallness, dressed up in a certain aesthetics, tone, music and attitude that only those ‘in the know’ can decode.

As I walked by that section at The Esplanade, I couldn’t help thinking of the principles of trend research, as a paper written eight years ago by Flamingo International on forward-looking trend research (Complacency Kills: Protecting Levi’s Cool Mindshare) articulates very well:

…one of the effects of skate culture, a culture both marginal and increasingly aspirational for the mainstream, has been the growth in non-denim workwear and combats, from brands such as Carhartt, Dickie’s, Homeboy, Stoopid. The Early Adopter credibility of these brands depends on their smallness, to the extent that once they become big they are left to the mainstream, as the leading edge goes off in search of more underground brands. The short lifecycle of these brands feeds into consumer perceptions that they can keep finding cool, new, small brands (indeed, smallness becomes a prerequisite for coolness and acceptability).

Assuming this, could the fact that these ‘underground’ brands now have a big, clear presence in a mall and are thus more accessible and recognized by the mainstream erode their ‘cool equity’ in the minds of Bangkok’s true leading edge youth?

As streetwear travels from its fringe origins with local Californian surfer Shawn Stussy in 1980, mutating and cross-pollinating around the globe (more on the journey of streetwear here), the type that eventually lands with a grand entrance at one of Bangkok’s latest shopping malls 27 years later is also likely to attract a mainstream group who buy more into the hype rather than into the lifestyle or the attitude of the brand. This risks chipping away at the brand’s youth credibility in the long run even as sales volume rises.

For any mass brand striving to become a part of youth’s ‘cool’ ground (or maintain it), it may useful to consider this ‘Early Adopter’ strategy put forth in Flamingo’s paper:

As a mass brand, in the sense that the brand enjoys high volume sales, it has been central… to retain cool mindshare by specifically not targeting the mainstream. As a brand which has to achieve credibility above all with the key 15-19 male target, it is essential that the brand be seen to be part of the target’s world, initiating trends from within, rather than merely ‘decorating’ that world. This means aiming ideally to stay ahead of the core target, but at least to match them…

….Media is not only chosen on the basis of penetration, GRPs, etc. Cool mindshare depends on…maintaining a discreet dialogue with the most opinion-leading core target: this means having a credible low-key presence in selected media… ensuring that opinion-leading youth feel they have access to communication coming from the brand which is less accessible to the mainstream.

HK Terrestrial TV Goes Digital

Candy (MindShare, Regional Team) writes:

By this year end, both ATV and TVB will adopt mainland China’s national standard to transmit digital programmes to 40 to 50 percent of households, according to South China Morning Post.

The coverage will go up to 75% by 2008 and full digitalization will take place no later than 2012.

With digital broadcast, there will be 8 more free channels such as business, entertainment news and TV shopping accessible by viewers who can even experience the surround sound and high resolution images if their TVs are HD compatible.

That says HK’s TV landscape is likely to experience a big switch which may have far-reaching impact to media agencies, advertisers and the overall media industry.

Some implications/food for thought:

1) Will it accelerate TV inflation as broadcasters need to find ways to cover the huge investment cost for building transmission stations and producing digital programmes?

2) The datacasting and interactive capabilities of digital broadcast ideally can provide advertisers and media agencies a creative, engaging and measurable communication platform in reaching the consumers. While current Pay TV can do the same, it is less promising than Terrestrial TV in terms of audience delivery. With so many benefits going along with Terrestrial TV’s digital broadcast, will it invite reallocation of existing communication budget to put more behind it? And if the pie is fixed, which medium/media will suffer?

3) Will the new channels that provide more targeted programming be able to attract irregular TV viewers? Is the TAM system geared up to capture this coming change?

4) On the social side, will it narrow the “digital divide” with this sophisticated communication platform easily and readily made available to the mass by just a few hundred HK dollars to get the digital receiver?

Connecting with Malaysian teens through TV

David (MindShare, Thailand) writes:

From our close relative The Juice comes this item about the continuation of “Impian Illyana” a great piece of integrated TV branded content & activation for SunSilk. Proof that sensitively-produced content can appeal to audiences and work at the checkout.

Branded utility from media owners

James (MindShare Asia-Pacific) writes:

Richardt at the ever-excellent Flytip.com posted recently about ‘these NYTimes.com info-porn-like tools’:

This week’s tool is a Rent vs. Buy tool for those negotiating the questionable real estate landscape these days. Users of the tool can easily compare the costs of renting and buying equivalent homes.

Once again it reminds of the potential for branded utility tools like this. Stuff that is so useful and valuable that the world can’t help but forward it to on. This one’s from the NY Times, and unless you register, you can’t enjoy it. It’s a great way to create value for the NY Times media brand. But I still don’t understand why more marketers aren’t aggressively driving this kind of branded utility tool. Shouldn’t this be brought to us, for free, by one of the global banks?

Economic Indicators – Thai Style

Paul (MindShare, Thailand) writes:

We’re always looking for those nuggets of information that give us insight into the future direction of an economy. Often the more traditional measures are too little, too late.

If you’ve worked in Thailand then you may have heard about the Mama Noodle Index. This states that as the economy declines sales of instant noodles increase exponentially, as people cut back on eating out & discretionary spending on food.

Read more here : http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/using-their-noodles/2005/09/04/1125772407287.html

Now we have another equally unusual but maybe very telling index. Gold shop robberies.

Especially up country, traffic and turnover through gold shops is a useful economic barometer. Unfortunately in recent months, most of that traffic have been people looking to purchase on the “5 finger discount”.

Recent headlines:
Police concerned by near-daily robberies
Gold shops hunkering down– Wave of thefts has owners turning to everything from barricades to dogs
Police urge gold shops to tighten security

Singapore – big plans for a small island

Alefiyah (MindShare, Singapore) writes:

Formula1. Terminal 3 (T3) at Changi. Integrated Resorts (IR).

Big things are happening in a small country.

These three economic drivers in Singapore can change the way we do business within our industry. It can be the Big Switch for us.

But first, let’s take a glance at the scale of change within each.

One: Formula 1 – Getting Singapore on the ‘fast track’

Having won the rights to host a first ever night Grand Prix for the next five years, the government is all set to have the event & it’s city state, publicized across the world.

Inevitable, of course, are the gains it will get through the influx of tourists and like revenue, which will work towards fulfilling the 2015 target of the Tourism Board:

1. Tripling Tourism Receipts to S$30 billion,
2. Doubling visitor arrivals to 17 million, and creating
3. Additional 100,000 jobs in the services sector
(Source : STB)

Read the Reuters article for more details about the same.

We could lead this race with the host of business opportunities and partnerships it presents. The possibilities are endless…

Two : A new travel Experience at T3 in Changi, Singapore

T3 promises to change the globe trotters travel experience, with its 5 storey high, vertical “Green Wall” garden, 70 Retail & Shopping stores and 30 F&B outlets. Besides this, the automated ‘Baggage Sortation System’ and 9 storey airport hotel promise to transform Changi into the foremost among Airports.
3. The Emerging Opportunities with IR’s in Singapore

With people spoilt for choice in goods, products and services, not only marketers, but even tourism boards vie with each other to capture the attention and wallet of the consumer-traveler.

Within Asia, we have centers of pulsating change : The Shanghai’s face lift, the upcoming new West Kowloon cultural centre in Hong Kong, Integrated resorts in Khao Lak, Thailand, and Formula one and the KLCC project in Malaysia.

Shedding a few inhibitions, Singapore is aggressively launching its two Integrated Resorts at Marina Bay and Sentosa. These will convert 57 hectares of land into an offering of Theme Parks, Resorts, Hotels, Restaurants, Shopping malls, convention & exhibition space, museums, theatres and casinos.

It will feed the tourism revenues with about 35,000 jobs in the hospitality sector: Retail, Exhibition, Hotel, F&B and Aviation.

For more details on the IR read Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s speech in Parliament.

It’s impossible not to get effected by this change. There is an urgent need to establish our stance within the “Business” in Communication & Media. Retail, Content & Films and Sports Partnerships will thrive. They are expected to. Pertinent is the ‘scale’ on which we do business that will make all the difference.

If the fields of competition are open to all, and this is where the consumer is going to be, we should be in the race.