Campaign TV: Nielsen's Cheong Tai Leung on media in 2012

Despite TV still being the dominant medium, digital is rising exponentially, says Nielsen's Cheong Tai Leung. Internet users in Southeast Asia currently make up around 40 per cent of the population with consumers in many parts of the region spending up to one day out of a week online.

Leung goes on to say that in the Phillipines, however, consumers are already spending more time surfing the web than they do watching television. The country's netizens spend 21 hours per week surfing the web compared to only 13 hours per week in front of the telly.

But media consumption is no longer exclusive to one channel as with the rise of internet enabled devices like smartphones, there is a much younger group of consumers media multi-tasking or engaging in simultaneous media consumption. 

"The question is," says Leung, "Is digital going to become the new traditional media in the foreseeable future?"

When asked how this will continue to evolve over the next five years, Nielsen's president of Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa said media fragmentation will continue to accelerate, consumers will have more control over their media consumption and there will be no more content exclusivity on any channel as the rise of digital media drives more device-agnostic content.

"Anytime, anywhere content will grow over the next five years," she says. "Brand owners, corporations and institutions must allocate more resources to the digital platform, in particular social media."

The proliferation of internet-enabled mobile devices, in addition to affordable data plans, will lead to more than one billion first-time consumers in the region's emerging markets entering the market over the next twenty years.

Leung adds that more affordable internet also means social media activity is ramping up across the region as a growing young generation turns to social networking for everything from entertainment and socialising to sharing opinions. With 55 million users, Indonesia is the second largest Facebook country in the world behind the US.

Consumers in Asia are also increasingly using social media for research. More than 80 per cent of Vietnamese consumers and more than 70 per cent of Chinese consumers research products on social networks before making purchasing decisions.

"Successful companies will be those who engage the consumers and leverage the social media platform in their strategy," says Leung.

The Changing Media Landscape Campaign TV series kicked off on 24 November with Barney Loehnis, head of digital for Ogilvy & Mather Asia-Pacific. The series will continue on Thursday December 8.