Singapore's new Media(Corp) scene hots up

Three of us were on our way to the Indo Chine Forbidden City at Clark Quay for MediaCorp's Trade Networking event on Friday. All of us were going there in batches.

A colleague called on the mobile phone of another colleague. She was sitting next to me, so I could overhear: "Why's the Forbidden City forbidden us from entering?"

It turned out that they were at the back door of the venue and were supposed to approach it from the front gate.

No big trouble at all.

The event, that officially kicked off at about 4.30 pm, turned out well. The attendance was good and people seemed to enjoy the chilled out atmosphere. All MediaCorp websites were on display. The figures bandied about were astronomically impressive. These websites attract several billion hits and millions of unique visitors.

All this is the result of hard work and some smart thinking.

Lucas Chow, CEO, MediaCorp also said, "MediaCorp has been preparing itself to engage in the New Media Frontier. I'm proud to say our efforts have been rewarded with high traffic and industry recognition."

"The inclusion of New Media into the marketing mix has become today's buzzword for the savvy marketeer. Smart advertisers are looking at stretching their dollar across multiple platforms," said Timothy Goh, Vice-President, New Media Business/CRM.

But do all advertisers appreciate the immediate, one-to-one, interactive and measurable benefits of new media advertising? I hope they do. As Mr Chow rightly pointed out that it's now common for a person to watch television on the Internet while answering email at the same time - this trend described as media meshing is what advertisers need to be aware of to reach consumers from more than one platform.

In US alone, out of 76 billion total media revenues, an increasing share is coming from the internet. More and more newspapers are taking the internet seriously and monetising it successfully. Google and Yahoo are signing up with media companies there. I'm sure the same trend will be reflected soon here, and local advertisers and media companies need to intertwine their marketing needs and delivery platforms. With Web 2.0 in full swing now, can we afford to miss the bus?

Read CNA's report and watch the videos here.