Media planning in Malaysia has gaps, says expert

Malaysia - Prashun Dutt, media planner and independent advisor to The Sun and Utusan group, said the best minds in media planning used to come from Malaysia but standards have dropped.

"There is an urgent need for more in-depth and laser-like thinking in the media planning process and getting the "grammar" right in this country," he said.

If information is lacking in the client brief, the media planner should ask for the information, or offer to get the information and be paid for it. The quality of the client brief should not be compromised for fear of losing the client.

During the workshop, Dutt also shared ideas on what strategies that can be employed on some case studies.

On Air Asia's case strategy of attracting businesses from small and medium-sized companies, he said marketing strategies should be focused on the secretary and the travel agent - the people who do travel recommendations.

On how a government-linked bank like CIMB could use the Chinese media to reach out to the blue collar rich people, he said that strategies should be on building share of heart and trust.

And on how a government-owned bank like Bank Rakyat can increase microfinancing among east coast farmers, he agreed with the participants' suggestion that the media plan should focus on the second generation farmers or the children of the farmers.

He also suggested the Chinese media like Sin Chew should do more to capitalise on the upcoming Olympics event in China, as well as on its "blue collar rich" readership base.

Dutt was the media planner responsible for Forbes' bold ad campaign in 1999 that showed a large percentage of business class passengers read Forbes while The Economist was mainly read by passengers in the economy class. On Forbes' debut in European Business Readership Survey (EBRS) 2000, the publication achieved 59% of the readership base of The Economist and 83% of the base of BusinessWeek.

Dutt shared his views on the gaps in media planning at the recent 'Media Planning - Critical Insights' workshop organised by the ABC.