Dig-it 12: Digging the digital industry

When a country has the highest internet growth rate in its surrounding region, the need of taking the marketing and advertising to a whole new level and syncing the traditional ways with digital ones arises. Yes, you got it right; Pakistan is the country in spotlight here, overshadowing the South East Asian region with the highest internet growth rate.  Such a need was addressed when digital marketing tycoons from Pakistan and abroad came together to share their expertise with Pakistani business enthusiasts at Digit12; a conference about digital marketing and advertising held on 18^th of this month at Sheraton, Karachi.

The conference revolved around the ways of bringing  digital innovation to the local industry to keep it at par with the modern  ways of marketing and advertising. The evolution of advertising along with the tactics for successful campaigning were also discussed. Moonis Rehman, CEO Naseeb Networks left the audience’s jaw  dropped when he revealed that the largest advertising agencies have transformed into largest online branding companies. While measuring the footsteps of Coca Cola’s digital journey, Shakir Moin shared how Coca Cola used polar bears to make their campaign for Super Bowl go viral.

 The sessions made it crystal clear to the audience that in this era where the world has been digitalized enough to be accessed merely at the touch of a fingertip, restricting marketing and advertising to the conventional ways would mean retracing its steps back to the scratch for a brand. Successful reaching out to consumers would involve increasing their digital access to the product and digitalizing their experience.

Almost all the sessions laid stress upon the need of understanding and connecting to your customers through the art of creating stories which tug at their emotional strings. Speakers also shed light upon the significance of generating relevant content to grasp their audience’s attention. Michael Leander, Master trainer in marketing and advertising from Denmark, praised those brands which empower their employees to generate content at free will by calling them the most successful ones.

Mobile marketing was also regarded as one of the substantial  tools in reaching out a large number of audience.  The facts presented at the session, by PTA’s courtesy showed that  out of 120 million mobile subscribers in Pakistan, 20 million are estimated to be mobile internet users.  The concern of majority of people not having mobile internet access in Pakistan was also raised which was met by Naeem Zamindar, CEO Wateen expressing his company's goal of setting up wi-fi hotspots throughout Pakistan. Wateen also served as the official wi-fi partner for the event.

Digit12 was indeed, a great initiative to give the required boost to the digital industry of Pakistan. The statistics shared at the conference,  supported the speakers in their view that although, digital medium is the new girl in town, it has a long way to go until it outdates traditional methods of marketing as a primary medium for companies to publicise their brand given the small number of people who enjoy the privilege of internet access in Pakistan.