Insights into the status of digital marketing in Asia, published by the Asia Digital Marketing Association. To join as a member, visit www.asiadma.com

1. 5th Annual Asia-Pacific
Digital Marketing Survey
2008
Supporting Organisations

2. Introduction and Objectives
The objectives of this research are to understand the following:
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Budget allocation to digital marketing and year-on-year trends
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Barriers to allocating more budget to digital marketing
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Expected impact of current financial crisis on digital marketing budgets
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Perceived importance and actual usage of selected digital marketing strategies
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Corporate blogging and perceived communications' effectiveness
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Integration of online and offline communications
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Most popular purchasing variations for online ad campaigns
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As a result of rapid changes in digital marketing, this survey includes
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several changes to the questions from previous years. Where questions
remained comparable across the waves, trends have been highlighted in
the report
Aha! Research conducted the research
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3. Survey Methodology
Sample definition: Individuals with an interest in marketing activities in Asia Pacific
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The sampling frame is all individuals listed in the databases of ADMA and the selected co-sanctioning
•
organisations
Email invitations containing the online survey link were sent out by Aha! Research to individuals listed in
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the ADMA’s database. Each co-sanctioning organisation (MMA, HKDMA, HKiM, VMA, DMAS) sent out
invitations to individuals listed in their databases. The initial invites were followed up by a reminder email
The survey language was English and consisted of 16 questions which took, on average, 10 minutes to
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complete
Fieldwork was conducted during November and December of 2008
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A total of 345 usable surveys were collected
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Respondent profile:
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Business Sector: Agencies (40%), Advertisers (40%), Media Owners (19%), Others (1%)
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Function: Marketing (46%), Management (28%), Business development (12%), Advertising (8%), Other (6%)
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Company size: Small, (32%), Medium (27%), Large (41%)
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Industries: Advertisers – broad range of industries
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Residence – sample is highly skewed towards Singapore and Hong Kong which reflects the home base of regional offices
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Note that the sampling unit is “individuals” and not “corporations” which is important when interpreting
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“usage” questions (some corporations may have multiple individuals who completed the survey)
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4. Executive Summary
Budget allocation to digital marketing continues to grow and only 5% of respondents reported not
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having allocated any budget to digital marketing in 2007. This may further shrink as 64% of all respondents
increased their digital budgets in 2008 compared with 2007. Furthermore, 58% expect to spend more on
digital marketing in 2009 as a direct result of the current global financial crisis
Advertiser’s budgets are increasing: Well over half of respondents employed by advertisers increased
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their digital budgets in 2008 compared with 2007 and only 17% expect a decrease in their digital marketing
budgets in 2009 as a direct result of the financial crisis
Among the barriers to increase spending on digital marketing are lack of experience and understanding of
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the usage and benefits as well as claims that it is not part of the corporate culture
Digital strategies deemed of greatest importance for 2009 are “informative / interactive corporate
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websites”, “search engine optimisation”, and “behavioural targeting”
“Corporate website”, “email campaigns” and “e-newsletters” are still the most widely used digital strategies
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Among the most promising digital strategies currently being less utilised are “online games”, “widgets &
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gadgets”, “text message promotions”, and “mobile device advertising”
Corporate blogging is growing. Currently 28% of respondents are maintaining a blog and a quarter of
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those without blogs are planning to launch in 2009. Reasons given for the popularity of blogs are:
effectiveness in consumer feedback; public relations; and opinion seeding
Units of ad effectiveness measurement: PPC (Pay per Click) / CPC (Cost per Click) and CPM (Cost per
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Thousand) remain the most commonly used
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5. Table of Contents
2007 Marketing Budget Allocated to Digital Marketing
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Digital Marketing Budget Allocation - 2008 vs 2007
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Effect of Financial Crisis on 2009 Digital Marketing Budget
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Reasons for Low Spending on Digital Marketing
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Digital Campaigns: Importance to marketers
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Digital Campaigns: 2008 Usage
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Digital Campaigns: Importance vs Usage
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Mobile Marketing Strategy
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Online Game Strategy
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Corporate Blogging
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Communications Integration
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Online Ad Campaigns Measurement
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Respondent Profile:
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Business Sector & Employment Level
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Company Size & Marketing/Ad Spend
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Place of Current Residence
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NOTE: Where applicable, a significant difference at the 95% confidence level (p<0.05) has been indicated by *. This signifies that the
difference is not likely due to chance, but that in 1 out of 20 times the results may not be the same due to sheer randomness.
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6. 2007 Marketing Budget Allocated
to Digital Marketing
95% of respondents allocated at least some
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budget to digital marketing (compared with 87%
in the 2006 survey, and 77% in 2004)
More than a quarter (28%) of respondents
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allocated less than 5% of their total marketing
budget to digital marketing
13% allocated more than half of their total budget
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to digital marketing
Among advertisers, almost a third (31%) allocated
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less than 5% while 9% allocated more than 50%
Small firms (<50 employees) are more likely to
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allocate a significantly* larger proportion to digital
marketing than larger firms
Q1: Approximately what percentage of your total marketing budget was spent on digital marketing in 2007? (n=345) * p<0.05
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7. Digital Marketing Budget
Allocation – 2008 vs 2007
Digital marketing budgets are increasing with 64%
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reporting higher budgets in 2008 compared with
2007
Only 7% had a decline in their 2008 budgets
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compared with 2007
Respondents who expect that the current financial
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crisis will lower their digital marketing spending in
2009, also spent less in 2008 than in 2007
59% of advertisers increased their digital
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marketing budgets in 2008 while only 10%
decreased
Q2: How does your digital marketing budget this year (2008) compare to last year? (n=345)
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8. Impact of Financial Crisis on 2009
Digital Marketing Budgets
The current global financial crisis is expected to
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have an overall positive effect on digital marketing
budget size. Only 13% expect a decrease in spend
during 2009 as a direct result of the financial crisis
Where budgets were higher in 2008 than in 2007,
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more will also be spent in 2009 by 71% of these
respondents. Where spending was lower in 2008
vs 2007, only 34% will spend more in 2009
Among advertisers, 17% expect a decrease in their
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digital marketing budgets in 2009
Neither company size nor location seem to have a
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significant* effect on changes in budgets as a
result of the financial crisis
Q3b: How do you expect the current global financial crisis may impact your digital marketing budget for 2009? (n=345) * p<0.05
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9. Reasons for Low Spending on
Digital Marketing
20% of respondents are low spenders
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(<10% of total budget allocated to digital
in 2007) and also did not increase their
budgets during 2008
Main reasons for low spending are a lack of
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experience and understanding of the usage
and benefits of digital marketing
Barriers among advertisers are particularly
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a “lack of corporate culture” and lack of
understanding of how to best use and
appreciate the benefits of digital marketing
Those who plan to spend less as a result of
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the financial crisis, are significantly* more
concerned about “not reaching their target
audiencequot;
Top 2 Box – Agree Strongly + Agree Somewhat
Q3a: To what extent do you agree, or disagree, with each of the following statements as reasons for why your company spent none, or less than
10%, of your total marketing budget on digital marketing (n=68 - low spenders (<10% in 2007) and did not increase their budgets during 2008) * p<0.05
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10. Digital Campaigns:
Importance to Marketers
Among the most important digital marketing
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strategies for 2009 are good corporate
websites, search engines and two-way user
communications (newsletters, emails
campaigns, and online research).
While evaluation of most strategies were
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fairly unanimous (particularly for “corporate
websites” and “online research”), the
following generated highly diverse opinions
of their importance:
Online games
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Viral campaigns
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Mobile device advertising
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Text message promotions
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Widgets & gadgets
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Video sharing
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Top 2 Box – Agree Strongly + Agree Somewhat
Q4: How important do you think each of the following digital marketing strategies or campaigns will be for marketers over the next 12 months? (n=345)
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11. Digital Campaigns:
2008 Usage
• In terms of actual usage during 2008, good
corporate websites and email campaigns
ranked the highest
Smaller companies are significantly* heavier
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users of “viral campaigns”, “blogs” and
“email campaigns”
Online game usage is significantly* higher in
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Hong Kong compared with Singapore based
respondents
Top 2 Box – Extremely important+ Somewhat important
Q5: In terms of time, effort and money, to what extent are each of the following digital marketing campaigns part of your strategy for 2008? (n=345) * p<0.05
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12. Importance vs Usage of
Digital Marketing Strategies
HIGH corporate website
MAINSTREAM STRATEGIES
email campaigns
e-newsletters
search engine optimisation
MATURE STRATEGIES search engine advertising
Current usage
of digital behavioural targeting
banner ads
marketing online research
viral campaigns
strategy rich media advertising
social network advertising
corporate/brand blogging
consumer generated advertising
DEVELOPING STRATEGIES video sharing
MIDWAY STRATEGIES
mobile device advertising
widgets & gadgets
Note
podcasting/webinars
Chart indicates
text message promotions
relative positions
LOW but is not to scale
online games
LOW HIGH
Importance to marketers in next 12 months
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13. Mobile Marketing
65% of respondents used text message
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promotions and other forms of mobile
marketing during 2008
Most popular mobile strategies are “mass
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SMS alerts” and profile/location based SMS
alerts
SMS mass alerts seems to be less
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dominating in 2008 compared with the 2007
survey findings
Q6: Which of the following is part of your mobile marketing strategy? (n=223)
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14. Online Games
45% of respondents used online games as
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part of their digital marketing strategy
during 2008
Most popular strategies are “sponsored
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games on websites” and “commissioned
branded games”
The previous survey (2007) found that
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“commissioned branded game to be
created” was the most popular back in 2007
Q7: Which of the following is part of your online game strategy? (n=155)
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15. Corporate Blogging
The majority of respondents (68%) reported
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that their company does not currently have a
“corporate blog” and among these, only 25%
are confident that they have plans to launch
their blog in 2009
The higher the digital marketing budget, the
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more likely a corporate blog exists
Agencies and Media owners are more likely to
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have a corporate blog than advertisers. Only
19% of the 138 advertiser respondents have
a corporate blog, but a quarter of these plan
to launch their blog in 2009
Q8a: Does your company currently maintain a corporate blog? (n=345)
Q8b: IF NOT: Does your company have plans to launch a corporate blog in the next 12 months? (n=233)
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16. Corporate Blogging
While not regarded as vital to maintain a
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corporate blog, respondents highly agree
that blogs are effective for “consumer
feedback”, “public relations”, “opinion
seeding” and “brand monitoring”
Advertisers (70%) are most in agreement
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with the importance of “consumer generated
advertising” while media owners are the
least (57%)
Top 2 Box – Agree Strongly + Agree Somewhat
Q9: Corporate blogging, as well as personal bloggers blogging about corporations, their brands and products, are becoming increasingly important to marketers. Consumers are
also starting to generate their own videos about corporations and brands. To what extent do you agree, or disagree, with each of the following statements? (n=345)
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17. Communications Integration
Almost half (45%) of the total respondents
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use several agencies and vendors for their
offline and online communications functions
Usage of several agencies is employed by
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55% of advertiser respondents, 52% of
media owners, and only 31% of agencies.
Agencies (52%) prefer the same agency/
vendor for both online and offline functions
Size of marketing budget doesn’t seem to
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have an effect on the communications
integration
Q10: Which statement best describes the integration of your online and offline communication functions by external agencies? (n=345)
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18. Online Ad Campaign Measurement
Most respondents prefer to use PPC/CPC
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and/or CPM in the purchasing of their
online ad campaigns
Larger companies and larger marketing
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budgets are significantly* more in favour of
PPC/CPC
Media owners are significantly* more than
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agencies and advertisers in favour of using
CPM
Those planning to spent more on digital
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marketing in 2009 are significantly* more
in favour of CPM and CPL
Top 2 Box – Always + Very often
Q11: To what extent do you use each of the following types of purchasing variations for your online ad campaigns? (n=345) * p<0.05
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19. Respondent Profile:
Business Sector & Employment Level
Q12a: In which business sector do you work? (n=345) Q13: Which one of the following roles best describes your current position? (n=345)
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20. Respondent Profile:
Company Size & Marketing / Ad Spend
Q14: Approximately how many full-time employees are currently employed by your Q15: What was your company’s total annual marketing and advertising spend in
company in Asia Pacific (excluding Japan)? (n=345) Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) last year? (n=345)
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21. Respondent Profile:
Place of Current Residence
Q16: In which location are you currently based? (n=345)
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22. 5th Annual Asia-Pacific
Digital Marketing Survey – 2008
Questions about this report? Contact:
Kay Bayliss, ADMA - director@asiadma.com
Peter Steyn, Aha! Research - peter.steyn@aharesearch.com
Many thanks to our supporting organisations