COMPANIES that want to get noticed online or on other new marketing platforms like mobile phones need to remember that 'less is more', and 'do no evil', said Google regional managing director Richard Kimber.
Mr Kimber told The Straits Times yesterday that in the Internet's early days, many firms would insist on having big splashy advertisements that hijacked entire webpages. Others would post ads that played for minutes on end before allowing the user to progress.

Big mistake. People do not 'just surf', said Mr Kimber, so the only thing these expensive ads did was frustrate users and accomplish the exact opposite of what they hoped to achieve - a positive brand image for the advertiser.

Companies using the Internet for branding and marketing need to put themselves in the shoes of the viewer.

Users, said Mr Kimber, go online for a purpose, so do not get in the way of that purpose.

That means less disruptive, less frequent, but more targeted ads work better.

Another mistake many companies commit when they venture on to new media platforms is to expect only positive outcomes and resort to 'fake' experiences in order to accomplish this.

This is a reference to the incidence over recent years of companies that created fake blogs with postings from 'happy customers'.

This, noted Mr Kimber, is another big no-no because new media users demand an 'authentic' experience.

Companies that break this unspoken contract may find it harder to recover because 'there is a lot less forgiveness than you might think', he said.

The way companies should use new media, said Mr Kimber, was to generate feedback - and be willing to accept both good and bad responses.

New media, he said, gives companies a way to find and tap on the 'long tail' - that is industry-speak for niche communities whose needs are poorly served by bigger dominant industry players.

Companies that can use new media to identify such under-served niche communities and better yet, get these customers to fine-tune their product, will be the true new media success stories.

Mr Kimber was also on a panel, which included CNBC Asia Pacific's president, Mr Jeremy Pink, India's Zee Network managing director, Mr Yogesh Radhakrisnan, and Malaysia's Media Prima group chief executive, Datuk Farid Ridzuan, which looked at the future of new and mainstream media.

Successful content companies, said the panel, are also those with a strong brand name and which are able to give their users the content they want, the way they want it.

Whether it is new or mainstream media, said Mr Pink, 'content is king'.

chuahh@sph.com.sg