EDITORIAL

Communication State of the Art

by MEGS S. LUNN

In the Global Business Conference held at the Aklan Training Center, Kalibo, Aklan, Professor Enrique M. Soriano shared the Language of New Media (Facebook, Twitter and others) to the participants. Soriano is the Turnaround Advisor of Asia and Eastern Europe. He teaches Global Marketing and Services at the Ateneo Graduate School of Business, Quezon City.

According to Steve Rubel, quoted in "The Guardian", March 2006 issue, "People don’t trust business the way they used to….For the first time we found that the most trusted source is ‘a person such as yourself or a peer’. World events have led to that and blogging has led to that."

Now a day, people don’t need advertising anymore to tell them about products. If they want to find out, they will find it on their terms. In the Philippines, of the 94 million population, based on the 2010 Population by Generation, Gen Y are 36.1 million. Meaning, this generation belongs to the people ages 19 to 36 years old. The Philippines is one of the top Asian countries in the world which has 29.7 million internet or 31.5 percent internet users and 16.2 million or 16.3 percent facebook users compared to Indonesia with only 12.3 percent internet users and 11.3 percent facebook users. Thailand has 26.3 percent internet users and 7.7 percent facebook users.

Today, social media is about building relationships, telling a story, listening, showing trans-parency and being accountable. The Philippines ranked 12th with 67.7 percent of the population in the Global Mobile Phones users. Since 80.0 percent of her population has mobile phones compared to China which ranks 1st, India 2nd and USA 3rd in the Global Mobile Phones survey. The internet growth in the Philippines from year 2000 was 2.6 percent; 2005 was 9.3 percent; 2008 was 1.6 percent, 2009 was 24.5 percent, and in 2010 was 31.5 percent. With all these surveys, it made the Philippines the 5th largest country on Facebook with 20,302,540 users as of January 2011.

Traditional media started when there are Radio, Television, Newspapers and Magazines that continuously diversify as it evolves, the landscape changes in CD/DVD player, I-pod, Ipad, Macbook, Website/own domain, Facebook, Twitters, Blog, Teleconferencing. On radio listening itself, generation Y/young generations who compose the largest scales of the total population want more control over music they want to hear, though listenership levels are healthy during mornings (6:30-9:30 am) and in the afternoon (4:00-5:30 pm). What’s the future of radio and TV? It’s at the tip of your fingers – the mobile phones. Even the declining newspapers readers are higher and equally experienced by those from the upper-middle and lower class homes.

To read or to surf? As an information medium, the internet may substitute for print. "I just download news from the internet and read my morning news from the internet, too." These are the normal conversation today.

Television is the triumph of machine over people. Perception now, 80 percent of CEO’s believe that their brands provide a superior customer experience, but unfortunately, only 8 percent of their customers agree (Bain & Company).

Social networking now dominates the new era. Internet growth is driven by the young and upscale audience. Home internet access continues to grow with engagement levels increasing with growth in private access. The Philippines’ enormous appetite for social networking could accelerate the emergence of "selective socialization." Engaging in social networking makes it reciprocal, lively, empowering, collaborative, consumer-driven, vigorous, dynamic, transparent and open. Above all, it lessens the cost for advertisement. From creator to Radio/TV Ads to consumer vis-à-vis from creator (minus down production cost, gone duplication cost and gone distribution cost) to consumer

What’s the future of communication? Prof. Soriano advised the following: STOP interrupting, shouting, high-powered messages, reacting, return on investment, big promises and explaining. START engaging, connecting, enticing, engaging content, interacting, return on involvement, intimate gestures, revealing and discovering.

The future of advertising marketing and solutions should go beyond commercial messages, solve something, involve and enable people, allow people to participate and create brand fans. It will make people feel better. The experience should be at the center of more of what we do. One idea should be brought to life in different ways in different places.

In advertising, we can only remember one thing. Our Future – creating a powerful story that makes peoples’ lives better. William Gibson once quoted, "The future is here, it just isn’t widely distributed yet". /MP