Rose Tsou, Yahoo! Inc's senior vice president of the Asia Pacific region, suggests the brands focus on content marketing to get more engagement from consumers. VNS Photo Lan Dung

HA NOI (Biz Hub)— Content marketing is helping brands attract consumers by harnessing creative platforms to promote information, according to Yahoo! Inc's senior vice president of the Asia Pacific region, Rose Tsou.

Speaking at the 28th Asian Advertising Congress on Tuesday in Ha Noi, the Yahoo! Inc executive referred to the increasing number of internet devices and the daily habits of users, adding that brands could now utilise daily access to consumers.

Tsou also highlighted how much time consumers spent on communications and entertainment on mobile devices, emphasising that brands could not ignore the opportunity to engage more profoundly with consumers.

"Recently, e-marketers have established a poll to learn what is most important for marketers to think about. Content marketing is number one. For a long time, the advertising industry has focused very much on creative advertising rather than just looking at brands and communications in conventional ways," she said.

The industry has seen a dramatic shift in the way marketers approach consumers in the market place, according to the senior vice president, who said that the two million devices connected to the internet was estimated to double by 2017.

Tsou urged participants to set view content marketing as a staple to marketing efforts in an increasingly connected marketplace, saying that content marketing would merge brand messages and stories organically, to appeal to consumers.

"Social tools will help you share the messages and stories more widely and amplify the impact. Word of mouth is also very effective to drive more users to follow your brands. Of course, they will drive them for the purchase and transaction," she said.

"Social marketing is one of core strategy."

Amazing campaign

Appearing on Youtube from November 2012, the "Dumb Ways to Die" video part of a campaign to educate people on train safety, has attracted 64.2 million views so far.

The marketing campaign, from an Australian advertising agency, snagged a record of five Grand Prix awards at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity this year.

Taking this campaign as an example, Google Asia-Pacific chief creative officer John Merrifield emphasised the creativity and objectives of every campaign.

"If you want your company to be among the top 10 brands in the country, I think it needs an amazing campaign," he said.

He said that he did not know how many likes converted into actual sales, but said these kinds of campaigns would help companies engage with audiences.

Merrifield added that if a brand did not have its points of view, it would fail to attract attention.

"Did you make something easier? Did you make something better? Take something that consumers have already been doing and make that experience better," he said.

"You treat them with respect and bring them into your world in the way they want to come into. That will give rewards in the future," he said.

Tsou and John were among a high-powered medley of speakers who chaired conferences during the three-day event, which attracted nearly 400 international participants to the National Convention Centre.

It is one of the biggest events in advertising and marketing, with the next congress to be held in Taipei in 2015. — VNS