Digital Media Association holds their 3rd Digital Wednesday evening and receives overwhelming response. Talk of great ideas brew and Marketing magazines gets the scoop.
Think about the digital community and you would imagine a bunch of geeky bespectacled nerds hovering over their laptops disconnected from the real world. The scene was quite the contrary at the third ‘Digital Wednesday’ recently, the monthly social evening organised by newly formed Malaysian Digital Association (MDA). Almost 100 digital industry players filled the first floor of Souled Out’s restaurant and bar in Desa Hartamas to come together and rebuild the fragmented industry.
MDA, which was set up barely six months ago, has already garnered about 130 members. The founders of the association are positive that this time around their attempt to get a digital association up and running will be fruitful as digital marketing is growing, especially in these challenging economic times. “Digital players are becoming more committed as they realise consumers are shifting towards digital media. The economic down turn is a stimulator for digital media as it is more cost effective compared to traditional media,” says Rene E Menezes, vice chairman of MDA.
Rene explains that in the past such initiatives failed as they were championed by just one group of digital media players, either purely by online publishers, service providers, media agencies or the 4A’s. MDA on the other hand comprises of many different digital players. The council itself is made up of members from ASTRO, Yellow Brick Road, Malaysiakini, Media Prima, TheStar and Utusan Online among others. In a nut shell, the association aims to educate the market, standardise a measurement currency for the industry and encourage technical development in Malaysia that will eventually contribute to the global digital market. With digital advertising making up five percent of the adex hence a huge opportunity is waiting to be tapped. The MDA could just be the answer to bring the digital community together and grow the digital industry. The current committee is made up of 17 members. The association also has four advisory councils that over see four key areas – audit and research, governance and technical, creative, knowledge. One concern that the association hopes to address is the bleeding talent pool of the industry. Gary Tay, Secretary of MDA and head of the ‘Knowledge’ council, believes the young generation has the required skills. However as software application knowledge is growing fast many can’t keep up. Paul Moss, general manager of Media Prima network’s media portal and Gary are championing this council to prepare students with the evolving knowledge and prepping them with experience and skills so as to ensure they are job ready. “If this is not done, eventually the industry will suffer as it will have to pay a premium for quality human resources. We are looking at tying up with universities and providing them a guideline to syllabus so as to keep them parallel to the advancements of the industry. These young people are desperately needed by the industry as the industry itself is ageing and needs new blood,” says Tay.
Special Guest Speaker Joe Nguyen, VP Southeast Asia of comScore gave a quick overview about the online audiences in Malaysia and Asia Pacific. As comScore has come to the shores of Malaysia since the second half of last year, the online community is finally able to have a measurement tool in the digital world. comScore monitors online activity enabling them to analyse and report online consumer behaviour. This helps their clients better understand, leverage and profit from the rapidly evolving worldwide web and mobile arena. Among the companies who have already started using their services locally are ASTRO, Star publications and Media Prima. Though comScore is new in Malaysia but it has already widely been used in nine countries in the Asian and Australasia region including New Zealand and Australia.