On the 8th of May 2012 OMD Malaysia provided a future forward peek into the dynamics of the media and marketing industry through an event, titled OMD Predicts.

The physics of media have changed. The evolved consumer, who has become the editor and the content creator, is now fully in control. Technology is changing the way society functions, and, as a consequence, the way consumers interact and engage. With this in mind, and in line with OMD’s positioning as a dynamic agency that is Always Thinking, Always Asking, Always Doing, OMD Predicts is launched as a series of industry events that look beyond today and anticipate what is around the corner to be better prepared in understanding media-usage related consumer behavior and trends.

Predicting the future is never easy, being ahead of the curve and harnessing change is OMD’s mandate. “At OMD we like to make the future happen, rather than to wonder, what happened,” said Margaret Lim, OMD Malaysia Managing Director.  As one of the most wired nations of South East Asia, Malaysia is at the forefront of a plethora of emerging media & technology opportunities that has implication for the rest of Asia.

OMD Predicts Malaysia delved into local consumer trends and media developments in a bid to reveal the future of media and communications. The conference featuring speakers from OMD and Omnicom Media Group provided insights and stimulating conversations on three key topics in the Malaysian media context:
1.    Social Listening
2.    Consumer Centric Brand Roles
3.    Online TV and real time buying.

“OMD Predicts is our vision for the future, a future that we are excited to bring to life in Malaysia. Brand engagement rules are being continuously rewritten in the face of rapidly changing consumer behaviour.” said Andreas Vogiatzakis, Managing Director, Omnicom Media Group, Malaysia.

One of the many predictions made OMD Predicts Malaysia is that in three years’ time listening to consumers in real time would replace surveys as the mainstay of how insights are gathered. Guy Hearn, Director Communication Insights, Asia Pacific demonstrated Antenna; a real time social media monitoring application pioneered by Omnicom Media Group to help its clients keep tab of consumer sentiments real time and act accordingly.

The conference also focused on a key development borne out of the evolution technologies, in the media industry. People are spending more time on the internet. Television is no longer the single point of video consumption. In Malaysia, Nielsen Media Index tells us that between 2007 and 2011, time spent on the internet increased by 43% while over the same period, time spent on TV increased by 4%. This would suggest that we re-asses the budget allocation of media spend that is going to TV. Media spend on the internet is still tiny in comparison to TV spending.

Margaret Lim, Managing Director, OMD Malaysia said, “Television dominance is weakening in the face of multitude of screens that have invaded the consumer’s daily life. Social media networks and mobile devices have given way to multi-tasking like never before. OMD Predicts is a platform that is designed to help marketers get better in the art of effective customer engagement.”

“We're generating and managing an increasing amount of data, the insights that are derived from it allow for more accurate and effective marketing decision-making” opined Matthew Harty, General Manager, Accuen (part of Omnicom Media Group) as he illustrated in his presentation how to extract business value from existing and new data sources.

“Things change fast and you need to have a perspective on new consumer behaviour and new technology,” OMD Asia-Pacific head of communications planning Paddy Crawshaw said. Paddy spoke about the evolving role of brands and the perpetual challenge it faces to move from the periphery of perpetual partial attention to creating mind spaces based on brand behaviours.

OMD Malaysia’s Predictions:
-    In three years’ time Listening to consumers in real time would replace surveys as the mainstay of how insights are gathered
-    Brands need to find definite roles. Contribution will define communication.
-    The tools that are now emerging for Internet RTB will be used in Television by 2015

OMD PREDICTS hopes to re-plant the seeds of innovation and creativity that have always been the backbone of our Malaysian marketing scene, but this time within the new media landscape that surrounds us today. It’s often said that “Life can only be understood backwards; but, it must be lived forwards”. OMD Predicts is a stepping-stone into living our life (our media life that is) forwards.