It’s the year that will precede the demise of third-party cookies, and with many other changes on the horizon, 2022 is a pivotal one for the Asia Pacific (APAC) media industry.
In late 2021, Quantcast set out to understand what challenges would face marketers, agencies, and publishers alike in the year ahead, and where opportunities to succeed can be found. Following a comprehensive survey of almost 600 marketers and media professionals in the region, a few clear trends around what the industry expects to navigate in 2022 emerged.
Australia and New Zealand: Attribution, a lack of skills, and navigating the cookieless world are key challenges to address. But opportunities lie in strengthening the foundations.
Source: Advertising State-of-Play Report 2022, Asia Pacific Edition
Three key themes emerged across ANZ respondents, when asked what they foresee as their biggest challenges in 2022:
- Measurement: To make data-informed decisions and better determine marketing ROI, measurement is more important than ever. Along with a plethora of media platforms and channels now available to use in modern advertising, attribution models are becoming more complex, and multiple measures are often needed to track success across campaigns.
- Skill shortages: Brands are looking to drive revenue growth in 2022, but increasing digitisation, combined with the impact of COVID-19, has resulted in skills shortages in the industry. As the media landscape recovers, marketers, media agencies, and publishers are facing pressure to develop their workforces for a new era in marketing, one where digital know-how adds more value than ever.
- The cookieless world: With third-party cookies exiting the digital ecosystem in 2023, the media industry is pressed to find new ways to understand audiences, particularly as consumer behaviour is rapidly evolving. The road ahead hinges on advertisers and publishers building sound first-party data strategies, and having a plan for ad reach, activation, and measurement in the post-cookie world.
Source: Advertising State-of-Play Report 2022, Asia Pacific Edition
These challenges facing the media industry are not new, and in the midst of change, advertisers and publishers in the region see three key opportunity areas to embark on in 2022, and are going back to basics to do so: understanding the customer, gaining industry knowledge, and working on brand awareness.
- Getting first-party data right: It’s no longer just a bridge to cross in the far-off future: first-party data has become central to the conversation of marketing measurement and relevance in the digital environment that consumers (including us) have helped to shape. In 2022, the real work with first-party data begins as advertisers and publishers invest more into digital channels or platforms, and look to capitalise on deeper audience insights by expanding their access to first-party data.
- Learning and upskilling: With critical skills gaps to fill, marketers and agencies are looking to develop their teams’ and get more done with less. Gaining knowledge within teams helps businesses future-proof themselves for increased digital consumption. It’s a great time to lean on the experts and industry partners that can provide training in the digital advertising space.
- Building brand: As the industry carries out plans to launch new products and services, advertisers and publishers anticipate upticks in demand over the next 12 months. Brand-building activity is therefore crucial for businesses that want to continue staying top-of-mind as consumer spend increases.
Asia: Consumer behavioural change is shifting business strategies, but digital shifts are creating opportunities to build brand and fill skills gaps
Source: Advertising State-of-Play Report 2022, Asia Pacific Edition
Asia is arguably one of the globe’s key growth markets for businesses, and fast-changing consumer behaviour is driving digital shifts in the region. These key themes are what respondents from Asia saw as their biggest challenges in 2022:
- Consumer change: It’s become crucial for marketers and publishers to better understand their audiences, and meet their needs with relevant messaging as online buying behaviour surges in Asia. Deriving deeper and more accurate audience insights will drive businesses to develop first-party data strategies that can help them better measure ad effectiveness from digital marketing tactics.
- Driving revenue: As brands recover from a pandemic-driven standstill, marketers are challenged to drive revenue for their businesses. Media agencies are therefore facing increased scrutiny to demonstrate marketing return on investment (ROI) from media investments. With digital media budgets slated to grow this year, publishers are challenged to understand more about their readers in order to strengthen their inventories and meet advertiser demands.
- Digital transformation: Businesses are going through a transformative period in media. Rapid digitalisation in Asia will influence hiring and resourcing within organisations as brands, agencies, and publishers look to fill critical skills gaps.
Source: Advertising State-of-Play Report 2022, Asia Pacific Edition
As the media landscape in Asia continues to evolve, advertisers and publishers in the region see opportunities to focus on brand awareness, explore more digital tactics, and fill skill gaps.
- Building brand: Advertisers and publishers are looking to improve their product or service offerings, potentially expanding into new markets over the next 12 months. With these growth goals planned, marketers are looking to invest in brand-building activity and gain traction, particularly in previously unexplored markets.
- Investing in digital: Digital advertising is the way forward, with advertisers prepared to invest in digital channels and platforms, and leveraging AI and ML technology to derive deeper audience insights in 2022.
- Learning and upskilling: With the increasing dominance of digital, advertisers and publishers alike see the opportunity to learn and upskill their teams to fill key knowledge gaps, particularly as digital media takes on greater importance within marketing strategies.
What does the future of advertising look like in Asia Pacific?
Access the APAC Advertising State-of-Play report to gain more in-depth regional insights on where the future of digital advertising is headed this year, where advertisers are planning media investments, what skill gaps need to be filled, and more.
To further prepare yourself for 2022, check out these 3 Ad Tech Trends for the APAC Media Landscape in 2022 and Quantcast 2022 Predictions: Cookieless Future, AI-Driven Solutions, and Data Privacy.