He said this in his presentation on Sustainable Tourism Marketing Through New Media at the Sustainable Tourism Conference 2009 held on World Tourism Day (27 September).
Having started with one of the leading mainstream newspapers then (in terms of circulation) as a journalist in the mid-80s, I do not agree totally with Uzaidi.
I see the letters to editors to the newspapers and magazines representing that two-way communication with their readers then. Such columns allowed the readers to express how they feel about the issues of the day and give their comments. Sometimes a reply from these publications is included.
To keep up with the times, newpapers such as The Star, have gone a step further to feature SMS views or comments from its readers on issues related to general news, business and sports without much doctoring of the text messages. Although a name or pseudonym is requested, this is not featured in the paper, which calls itself “The People’s Paper”.
Another good example is the popular Hotline section in the Malay Mail (MM), which served as the avenue for the readers to “interact” with their daily newspaper. When this section was taken off by paper, which called itself “The Paper That Cares”, readers clamoured for it to be reinstated.
Responding to its readers’ needs, the 113-year old MM, which now calls itself Malaysia’s #1 investigative newspaper, the hotline number (03-7947 2222) is back. There is also an email address, hotline@mmail.com.my and fax no. as alternative options for the readers to reach them because the paper believes in their rights to be heard.
I agree with Uzaidi that the new media allows for a more direct relationship between the customer and the supplier unlike the old media where the customer has to go through a retailer and wholesaler before reaching the supplier.
Granted that the traditional ways of marketing using via sales calls, travel exhibitions, advertisements in newspapers, publications, radio and TV are getting to be “very expensive” to use compared to the new media which is free, I believe there is still a role to be played by such mediums.
Quoting the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) Malaysia, Uzaidi said the average circulation of dailies in all languages have marginally declined compared to 2008.
According to ABC Malaysia, average daily newspaper circulation stood at 2.5 million copies for the year ending June 2008, down from 2.54 million copies in the previous year.
Uzaidi went on to cite more statistics which showed the average person spending 30 minutes daily on papers while between 15 minutes and two hours are spent on the TV. The rest goes for the online medium.
To reinforce world business guru Seth Godin’s statement which expects 90% of the future sales to come from word of mouth (WOM), Uzaidi said a Neilsen Company survey reportedly showed nine out of 10 Malaysians trust the opinions they know before shopping.
This is followed by editorial content, brand websites, brand sponsorships, and then only advertisements in newspapers, radio and TV.
He said, “The objective of the new media is to maximise on WOM because it is low budget but offers high impact.”
For him to say there is no proper metrics to gauge the success of a campaign in the old media is not exactly true.
I used to hear my ex-marketing colleagues from the papers telling me how their clients would gauge the response towards their advertisements via the use of cut out coupons and calls from readers in response to ads or editorial contents placed, for instance, in supplements pages.
Uzaidi said the new media can show how much you can get back. I agree to a certain the number of hits, visitors count or followers you have using the social media network gives you an indication of the response.
Although the Malaysian advertising (ad) market reported 1% decline in its total spending of RM2.9 billion for the first half of 2009 compared to the same period last year, newspapers and terrestrial TV continued to command the bulk of total ads across the media measured at 54% and 35% respectively.
This was followed by radio (5%), magazines (2%) and outdoor (2%), according to the latest Nielsen Advertising Information Services report (where ad figures are based on published rate card except for outdoor, which is based on actual billings) released on 24 July.
It said the growth in terrestrial TV (+6%), radio (+10%), outdoor (+16%), point-of-sale (+7%) and Internet (+12%) has helped to off-set the decline in adspend for newspapers (-5%), magazines (-11%) and cinema (-10%).
Its Internet adspend measurement starts in 2008 based on website spending from Yahoo, MSN, Forbes, Utusan sites, Sin Chew sites and The Star sites (from 2009).
While the old media cannot be ignored, it has also to be recognised that Internet and digital marketing are increasingly being used by both the small and big boys.
However, when a question was posed by Euro-Asia Network Ltd managing director Andre Foresti to Uzaidi on how the use of new media has impacted his sales and affected his inbound and outbound tour operations, Uzaidi’s reply did not come out too well.
“I have a small company established since 1985 with 12 staff. We cannot compete with the big players like Triways Travel & Tours Sdn Bhd and AirAsia. Through the new media, we have a niche and can set up our own fan club.”
Uzaidi is happy receiving a few enquiries on the Internet daily and eager to share the knowledge he has acquired on the new media and how to exploit its full potential to others.
He challenged the 40 plus participants of the Sustainable Tourism Conference to open an account in one of the new social media networks and use it daily.
Uzaidi offered the participants a free workshop on how to turbo charge your business with the new social media network on 3 October. Places were limited to the first 30 who signed up.
