Dato' Borhanuddin Osman, Chairman of the Communications and Multimedia Content Forum of Malaysia (CMCF), focused on the need for content providers and the Malaysian public to exercise self-regulation of content across multiple electronic media vehicles to effectively reflect local culture and sensitivities, in his keynote address at the CMCF's 12th AGM meeting today.

25.3 million unique browsers, attributing to a 4.4 percent increase compared to the previous month, were collected on websites across All Categories Malaysia in the month ending January 2012. Over 1.3 billion web pages were viewed in this time, with mobile acquiring 9.4 percent share.

TV is about to go through the biggest radical rethink in decades as it becomes connected to the internet. And who is going to help manage this process of change? You, the digital marketer.

Who says B2B clients will not jump on your digital marketing campaign bandwagon? These award winning digital marketing campaigns for the usually hesitant Business-to business, prove otherwise.

By Hando Sinisalu,
Managing Director
Best Marketing International

Digital marketing, especially social media and mobile, is often considered to be the discipline for consumer marketing. Business to business companies are usually hesitant to jump on the digital media bandwagon.

Here are three great examples of B2B social media marketing, from different business sectors. They have all won prestigious digital marketing awards and have demonstrated excellent business results.

PREMIER INN
(Winner of NMA Digital Effectiveness Award, best mobile campaign, UK)

The Issue
The client, Premier Inn is UK's and Ireland's biggest and fastest growing hotel company. The client noticed they were receiving approx 250,000 hits a month to their website from mobile devices, but only about a thousand of these converted into actual bookings. Customers were struggling to navigate the non-mobile optimised Website from their smart-phones. Premier Inn has wide range of customers who use different kind of mobile phones.

Objective
The objective was to make this service available to anyone and everyone with a smartphone, and overall to drive additional revenue.

Solution
The Solution was an app that the customers could download via a single link, which appears on the Premier Inn Website. Users' handset (Android, iPhone, Balckberry, Windows) will be automatically detected and the right app for their phone will be downloaded.

Result
Within three months since the launch, approx 50% of the company's same-day bookings were coming via the mobile application. During six months there were well over 1 million downloads generating an average of £2m a month for the hotel chain. "We recognised that there are a variety of platforms in the market, with Android growing fast and Blackberry's strong business audience, so it was key that our app should support all leading smartphone types,” said Steve Conway, Head of Marketing, Premier Inn.

Key learnings

• Mobile is a great way to get new business – not just get the same customers via different channel
• For business customers, Blackberry is still the favourite platform. Blackberry customers were the most profitable for Premier Inn.

MICROSOFT BING
(Winner of NMA Digital Effectiveness Award, best B2B campaign, UK)

The Issue
The brief was to raise the profile of Bing search engine within large digital media agencies in UK and show its true potential as an advertising platform (PPC) . The market is dominated by Google and Bing was not even on the radar of media agencies.

Solution
To tackle this B2B challenge, the starting point was to highlight key features of the search experience in a fun and engaging way.

Over 7,400 employees from 100 British agencies were targeted with email campaign inviting them to take part of Bing ‘Bling' contest, allowing contestants to win ‘Bling' prizes, such as notebooks covered with Swarowsky crystals Each weekly question on campaign website was narrated by a funny animal character created for this campaign: Peaches – the grumpy dog living in a designer bag.

"We were talking to hard-nosed media planners and we needed to create a campaign that had real cut- through. The dog came from the idea that media people are quite cynical and our dog was also "with attitude”, so media planners could relate to such character”, commented David Harris, Executive Creative Director of Wunderman.

Results
In total resulting 30 media groups to take part of the competition. The campaign generated 693 product trials. Overall, 50% of involved media planners were more likely to recommend Bing to their clients. "This competition was not only a great way to explore some less obvious features of Bing and their implications for agencies, but was also great fun”, said Stacy Oakley, Online Account Director at Atom42, the agency that won the competition.

Key learnings:

• Gamification and contests work well in B2B marketing, if done properly;
• Use relevant style and tone of voice (media planners could identify with Peaches the dog)
• Brits love "funny animals" in advertising

During the six months there were well over 1 million downloads generating an average of £2m a month for the hotel chain.

The campaign generated 693 product trials. Overall, 50% of involved media planners were more likely to recommend Bing to their Clients

L'Oreal Facebook ProgramME

(Winner of Forrester Research Groundswell awards, USA) The Salon Facebook Program is an innovative and breakthrough digital project developed by the L'Oreal Professional Products division that allows the brands and their salons to partner in a marketing effort using the power of social media.

As salons struggle to drive more business in a weak economy, the program enables salons to market themselves to existing and potential clients using special Facebook platform provided by L'Oreal. More than 4,000 salons now have the ability to launch dynamic content on their official Facebook Page without the need to learn any technical aspects of Facebook. Features that salons can launch include how-to videos, an appointment-booking engine and information on L'Oreal products.

Through this nationwide salon program, L'Oreal aimed to increase awareness and sales of their products at national salons, as well as create a more efficient platform for all of their affiliated salons. By the end of 2011, the combined salon participation exceeded 6,000 salons reaching approximately 1.7 million clients.

Cost for reaching target audience (CPM) was significantly lower than cost of advertising in professional magazines, the usual vehicle for L'Oréal partner campaigns.

Additionally, L'Oréal USA was able to gain access and insights about their salons and customers.

Key learnings:

• Social media is excellent tool for developing B2B partner relations.
• Social media offers better ROI than B2B magazine advertising.

More than 4,000 salons now have the ability to launch dynamic content on their official Facebook

The coming Malaysian Media Conference (MMC) 2012 is themed as 'Digital Disclosures'. MMC will attempt to unravel the issues in terms of understanding the new connected user, optimisation of current working processes (role of technology), managing client expectations and Big Data through these exciting times ahead. The Malaysian Media Conference will frame this scenario and the way forward for all thinking media practitioners... Email  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to register your participation!

Grand Millennium Kuala Lumpur unveiled Malaysia's first Facebook booking engine for a hotel on Thursday, following the milestone of 30,000 fans on Facebook earlier this year. The Facebook booking engine allows Facebook fans of the hotel to book comfortably within the Facebook environment, while enjoying fans-only rates.

EHS 4D UK today announced Matt Fanshawe has taken on a new role in the network as the digital Global Brand Director, at the same time he will become an Executive Director of EHS 4D UK – Euro RSCG's cutting edge direct, digital and data agency. In this role, Matt will report to Kate Robertson, Chairman UK & Tash Whitmey, Group CEO EHS 4D UK. He will be based in the EHS 4D offices in London. 

Blogs for professional killers have surfaced in Indonesia. Behind the assumed shield of anonymity, said individuals have been eliciting murderous solicitations from clients with targets. Blog addresses like pembunuh-bayaran.blogpost.com and hitmanindonesia.wordpress.com have caught the attention of the authorities for their illegal business dealings.

Catcha Digital, the strategic partner of Microsoft Advertising in Malaysia, covering both MSN Malaysia (MSN.com.my) and Windows Live, and exclusive has unveiled MSN Motoring on MSN.com.my, Malaysia's No.1 portal. The launch of the new motoring channel at http://motoring.malaysia.msn.com comes on the back of strong demand for motoring content by MSN.com.my's users.

MediaMind, independent provider of integrated digital advertising solutions, announced today its partnership with Encore Media Metrics to deliver cross-channel, full-funnel attribution as an extension of the MediaMind platform. Marketers can now receive deep, actionable insights through robust, attribution-based reports through the partnership.  As an integrated solution, MediaMind and Encore are reducing the cost, complexity and level of effort normally associated with advanced Analytics.

MediaMind Technologies Inc., the leading independent provider of integrated digital advertising solutions has evealed the top 5 performing online ad formats in a new study released today entitled
"5 ad formats that make a difference for your brand."