Embrace new marketing methods or die

Digital media is the obvious answer, but with statistics still unreliable about exactly who is on a site, it makes it harder now to reach a target audience.

Add to that the fact that people are happy to ignore intrusive online ads that may surround text or video, or will use the time shifting functions to fast forward through commercial breaks on TV and it makes the job a whole lot harder.

Speaking at OgilvyOne's recent digital media conference, at the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai, Brian Featherstone, chairman and chief executive of the company, warned that agencies and customers must change their attitudes to advertising, or they will stop reaching their target audiences. "The consumer has seized control," he said. "It's the one monster trend we see across markets."

But talk is easy; the real skill will be getting companies seeped in traditional advertising methods to realise how the market is changing. That's a problem advertising agencies and their clients are struggling to solve, pushing them to try different media and in different ways.

And while the US and western Europe has been quicker to embrace digital media, the Middle East still has other obstacles to overcome, such as broadband penetration and speeds, and gaining the trust of consumers, so that they will use their credit cards to part with their hard earned money.

Trust is still an issue, but not one that is unique to the Middle East. As every region started to embrace online media, fears of credit card fraud or even concerns about whether the goods would be delivered in a timely fashion - and be what was expected - have vexed markets.

Time, effort and reassurance helps to overcome that barrier, but Omar Hijazi, CEO of online market place Tejari said this region does have a problem with transparency and trust that it must overcome. "The internet brings transparency to business, but that can be very scary to people, so we measure the Corruption Index to see how ready a region is."

He added: "The Middle East has problems with corruption. The UAE and Qatar are not too bad, but it gets worse as you go down the list. So we need to improve that and it is improving. The region still has some way to go, but from a UAE perspective it's looking pretty good."

This is a sentiment echoed by James Duthie, CEO of OgilvyOne Middle East. "It's still burdened by the lack of transparency and trust among consumers and marketers," he said.

There is a belief that the Middle East (and Central Europe) is ripe for rapid growth; a reason agencies such as OgilvyOne are aggressively pushing digital advertising and marketing in this region. And while larger international brands over here are generally first movers, big local brands are also embracing online methods to hit their target audiences.

With digital media, different approaches are being embraced to push branding messages, such as email and online search. The latter is seen as being hugely important in the future, as so many people now use search engines to find products and information online.

Exploiting this to push a company, service or product into the top rankings, through methods such as sponsored links, will reap huge benefits in terms of eyeballs on sites. But search is not all about the engines, it can also be as simple as clever use of popular message boards that people use to seek out products and services.

And with the prolific growth of mobile phones in the region, experiences and knowledge learnt here can potentially be taken to other world regions.

But with restrictions in place online in some countries and the slow speeds experienced by many users, is this going to damage the growth of companies trying to use the internet to reach consumers? Duthie thinks not. "Not all markets go through a proxy. And the government does quite a good job of policing the web here. But it can be a bit frustrating sometimes. There has to be an element of self-policing on the web. But I don't see it changing or as a barrier."

Rapid internet growth in the Middle East is fuelling the push for online advertising, but key to brand success is a change in attitude by advertisers in the way a message is put across. With companies turning even to YouTube to push their message (Dove and Sony have both used the site successfully to promote their products), now is an exciting time in the world of media advertising, and a period when creativity and new ideas are being encouraged like never before.