Enlightening Sharing By Adept Media Expert

Have you ever wonder how you could benefit from the changing media landscape and stay ahead of others in the fast-paced advertising scene? The One Academy was privileged to invite guest speaker, Neal Estavillo a media expert, to share his experience of the evolving Malaysian media landscape and how these changes exert influence in terms of consumer decisions.

Holding the role as managing director for MediaCom at present, Neal has been the mainstay in numerous established creative agencies which build brands for notable clientele such as Unilever, Volkswagen, HSBC and Shell throughout his 20 over years of industry exposure.

He initiated the talk by highlighting on the pattern shifts of existing media landscape and emerging trends in hope of enabling students to understand the impact these changes will bring in terms of how one sees things today along with opportunities plus future challenges posed by the evolving media landscape.

According to Neal, the advent of mobile devices like smartphones and tablets have accelerated digital platform as the new wave of advertising in which he emphasised that one needs to pay attention closely on how efficient this form of media reaches its target audience and the affinity level i.e. how well a brand communicate through Facebook, YouTube™, blogs and other mediums. “Facebook, for instance is no longer just a social medium as there are 10.5 million visitors in Malaysia per month alone who log in for news updates, to make money, product browsing or create social causes,” Neal highlighted.

The enliven speaker explained that we have gone from a TV and newspaper centric age to a multi-platform proliferation era where viewers can access to the same information using diverse screens simultaneously. He further pointed out that companies now are able to advertise to increasingly specific audiences, based on a myriad factors relating to user behavior and intent. “A brand must have social presence with consumer voice or point of view that your potential customer could better relate with and not just some corporate voice because consumers nowadays are swarmed with choices in the digital age!” quipped Neal. 

The One Academy has always been committed to its role as a creative education provider of championing ‘Masters Train Masters’ coaching philosophy shown through interactive sharing session. While grasping precious insights from Neal, students and lecturers were actively inquiring pertinent media strategies and his outlook on the Malaysian media scene.

“Putting up banner ads in social media is just another channel of amplifying a brand name to further entice consumer’s purchase desire. You’ll also need to know your target audience’s lifestyle and product well enough,” said Neal when responding to student’s query on whether banner ads are effective to create brand awareness. 

While developing content rich site is crucial, he added that one also has to ensure liquid content is accessible consistently across all digital platforms to maintain viewership. Neal construed that the challenge of keeping a brand’s content managed on real-time basis will eventually lead companies to rethink how they could provide the right environment and screen-specific experiences to potential customers while retaining continuity of overall user and brand experiences across those screens.