Life Of A Suit

Idris Jala in The McKinsey Quarterly

The man has stood up to some tests of his own. Take a read (registration to the site might be required). Or you may download the PDF.

As I struggled with the initial growing pains of running your own digital business, I can’t help but to remind myself that spending on digital media in Malaysia remains ridiculously low. Those in the industry long enough will attest to this fact.

Digital media, or in it’s various permutations that it’s known (new media, interactive, online, web, etc) – is often looked upon by many a client simply as setting up a microsite, create a couple of web banners here and there and buying up a couple of keywords on Google. Throw in analytics and you pretty much get what the digital medium offers in it’s most basic form.

That is as good as it gets for the client. Anything beyond that, they cringe.

The eternal battle between the agency and the client is almost always on the issue of the digital media accountability. Top this off with the “wait-and-see” attitudes of most brand owners, you’ll find that here in Malaysia few and far good brands actually has a solid digital strategy to get their business and brands online.

Very few local brands is able to plan and execute a total digital strategy in it’s entirety. Fewer still actually even dared to ask for a digital media schedule.

AirAsia will and continue to lead this space for a while. They’ve embraced the medium.

As for the rest – listen to your digital agency. And ask for more than just a microsite, web banners, keywords and analytics.

Let’s start making the “almost 1%” digital spending in the forecasted RM6 bllion Malaysian Adex to “a little over 1%” in 2009.