AdAsia 2011: “Social media enables us to make decisions across consumers”: Ram Charan

Ram Charan, author, speaker and business advisor, delivered the keynote address before the start of the first session at AdAsia 2011.

Charan spoke about how digitisation has liberated the consumer. He said, “Social media has given the power to the consumer. Social media is creating faster commodisation across all countries and it enables marketers to make decisions across consumers.”

With the help of a chart, Charan divided the developing and developed countries and spoke about the emergence of countries like China, Turkey, India, Mexico and Indonesia among others. These countries were placed in the bottom half of the diagram. The countries placed in the top half included Canada, USA, Russia, Korea, Japan and countries from Eastern Europe and Western Europe.

Charan said, “The markets of the future are below the line. There is a transfer of foreign direct investment and know-how from West to East. It is here where you have the momentum and where you see various forces driving the growth rate. In these countries the business model and advertising money is going to change.”