60 per cent of ASEAN CMOs unprepared for digital complexity: IBM study

While 76 per cent of CMO’s in the sub-region expect a very high level of complexity arising from digital, only 40 per cent feel prepared, compared to a global average of 48 per cent.

And accountability is top of their agenda, with 70 per cent feeling that ROMI (return on marketing investment) will be the primary measure of the marketing function’s effectiveness by 2015.

For its Global CMO Study, IBM interviewed over 1,700 chief marketing officers, including 70 from ASEAN.

Other key findings were that ASEAN CMO’s underlined the importance of getting closer to the consumer and understanding the market and competition was another key priority.

ASEAN CMO’s are also focused on using social media as a key engagement channel, leveraging data analytics and on improving tools and methods to calculate the ROI of marketing activities.

Speaking at an event to present some of the findings, Diageo Asia Pacific’s CMO James Thompson said brands are not talking to people any more, they are something that people engage with.

But he cautioned against the over reliance on data and measurement. “It’s great to consider this ‘left-brain’ side of marketing, but also need to get the ‘right-brain’ working – we need the ideas and creativity to engage the consumer.”

Referencing a quote from Sir John Banham, “in business we value most highly that which we can measure most precisely,” Thompson went on to say that it’s important not to focus only on that which can be measured, as many important aspects of marketing are not easy to measure.

BP Castrol’s regional marketing director Shyam Balasubramanian added that overcoming internal denial was one of the biggest challenges facing marketers in the digital era. “We need to raise the digital IQ,” he said, “and we need to measure before we start doing – we need to be clear what we want and where we’re going.”