Digital media enhances business operations but not a complete solution — Chew

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DIGITAL AGE: Photo shows a man surfing Event Horizon’s website on a digital tablet. While digital media has come to be integral in business operations, the digital realm should not be taken as a holistic solution.

Jason Chew

KUCHING: Digital media has come to be integral in business operations such as communications, marketing, advertising, performance analysis and research but while this array of technological tools cannot be ignored, it should not be taken as a holistic solution.

Outlining this, Event Horizon managing director Jason Chew stated that the digital age had brought the information gathering process great speed and in terms of reach, it had made the event management company visible internationally.

“We recently received an inquiry all the way from India. Although Sarawak might just be in the second tier on the international MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) destination circuit, this shows that we need to upgrade our standards quickly to be ready to cater for international market.

“Digital media or tools have started to improve the industry. No longer do you need to print endless paper for delegates’ registration.

“There are applications such RSVP, ticketing smart phone application that link to your entire RSVP database which makes updating information that much easier.

“Online storage or cloud computing is very helpful these days. No longer do you need to wait for days for counterparts to courier large digital content to you. Now, we can do it almost instantly over the Internet.”

On the other hand, he noted that there were also disadvantages such as copyright issues where in terms of originality, the issue had become ‘greyer’ than before.

With information sharing and spreading in real time, everyone had the latest information and industry development updates and so, in terms of creative content, it had become a challenge to keep originality and royalty rights.

Giving an example, he said, “Your team may have the most impressive stage props and lighting effects but in truth, the actual idea might have come from a musical stage play that is showing on the Internet.

“So, how much creative content you show during the proposal and bidding stage becomes a ‘chicken and egg’ thing all over again in order to be competitive in the industry.”

He reckoned that digital media was more like a new option to reach a certain group of audience effectively as traditional media was still very much in demand.

A large majority of people still maintained their old habits in that “flipping a page of newspaper is still different from flipping it on a digital pad or notebook.”

He revealed that newspapers, magazines, radio, T-shirts and ‘outdoor media’ such as buntings, banners and billboards were among the other forms of media the company used use for marketing.

Nonetheless, he highlighted, “For exposure and networking, the likes of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter is the ‘in thing’ at the moment.

“That means everyone is using them and they make your reach more effective which is the whole point of networking: getting noticed.”