The cost per spot is $175 for 5 seconds in Singapore and that is a whooping $4000 for a 120 seconds spot.
In corporate boardrooms all across the world, marketing executives look at their marketing budgets and ask how many people actually watched our TV commercial.
MediaCorp Advertising Rates Vs Digital Marketing Rates
Gary Vaynerchuk notoriously claimed that traditional advertising has no place in today’s world. He claims those are ‘commercials that no one gives a shit about’. believes that capital and effort put into radio advertisements and bad commercials can be re-invested into hiring a team to handle social media outlets such as Twitter.
There’s the high cost of production involved when producing a television commercial. First, you have to hire a marketing agency to shoot your television commercial, and then you have to purchase the $4000 dollars spot.
That’s a lot of cash invested upfront.
The Benefits of Digital Marketing VS TV Advertising
- It’s Measure-able
Unlike traditional marketing, digital marketing is measurable. This means you can identify what is working, do more of it, and stop wasting time campaigns that don’t work.
There are many variables you can test and control with digital marketing. You can change your marketing offer on your landing page when running Facebook advertising. You can adjust and change the message of the advertisement. You can also change the budget of your advertisement. You can make changes instantaneously. You can test out different copies a month. You can’t do this with the mainstream marketing channels such as television or radio.
You don’t have to worry about hiring actors, video directors and worry about an ad that you’re going to spend thousands of dollars on, on television advertising.
No Money for Channel 5? No Problem!
Take a look at an example of a private doctor who wants to open up his own small medium enterprise practice in the heartlands of Singapore as compared to Raffles Medical, a big brand that has the firepower to purchase media space from Mediacorp.
Raffles Medical will not be able to leverage on social media and the internet because of bureaucracy and corporate structure. They are a huge company that’s listed on the stock exchange and it’s of shareholders interest to present a professional and branded image of the company to the public.
The doctor can rank his keywords on Google using SEO, run simple Google advertisement ads through pay per click or run social media advertising. His site can be differentiated by being more personalised than Raffles Medical as he doesn’t have to care about brand image, corporate structure.
Large Enough Digital Audience
People don’t like to be sold, they like to buy. There is a huge enough digital audience online. Half of Singaporeans are found to go online to compare choices before making a purchase. Studies also show that Singaporeans frequently researched online, and purchase offline.
Singaporeans are also found to be more likely to use smartphones than computers to browse the internet.
Singapore also boasts the highest smart phone adoption in the world, at eight-five percent. Singaporeans are also found to use an average of 3.3 electronic devices a day, one of the highest rates in the world. Singaporeans also mostly use their phones to take photos.
- Facebook Users
Facebook is the most popular social media platform in Singapore. In 2018, the number of Facebook users in Singapore is expected to reach 3.2 million, up from 2.9 million in 2016. That’s more than half of the population in Singapore.
Through Facebook marketing, you’re able to slice and dice demographics according the age, race, gender, likes and dislikes. Facebook marketing strategies has the ability to target laser targeted audience as well.
- Twitter Users
Twitter has 2.5 million users in Singapore, that’s almost half our population. Oh, our most recently elected president has her own Twitter Icon.
- Youtube Users
Singaporeans are found to mainly watch Youtube videos to be entertained or inspired. They are often watched whilst traveling and commuting. Small medium enterprises in Singapore can capitalise and create motivational or entertainment content to reach out to Singaporean audiences.
Youtube is also found to have almost 4 million users in Singapore.
- Instagram Users
There are 1.4 million Instagram users in Singapore. 85% of 18-24 years old in Singapore uses Instagram. Food and lifestyle bloggers in Singapore often use Instagram as a platform to drive traffic to their blogs. There are also “influencers” in Singapore who has built their online profiles and monetize them by advertising blog shops and small businesses through their Instagram profile.
- Snap Chat and Instagram Statistics
Singapore ranks behind Hong Kong and Malaysia in terms of penetration for social media apps Instagram and Snapchat at 63% and 37% respectively
Unlike SEO, where search results are displayed indefinitely and where users are mostly look for ‘How Tos’ and Tutorials. Snapchat sets itself apart from other photo sharing apps by having a time limit on its posts.
Facebook, Twitter and Youtube and Google probably make up 80% of the digital pie in Singapore.
Go Traditional Or Digital?
I might be biased here because I am running a digital marketing agency. However, I believe going digital is the way forward if you do not wish to compete in the traditional marketing space in Singapore.