Positively Media

For many in APAC the mobile phone is seen as an extension of your personality rather than a cool tech gadget. We communicate differently than many westerners in normal life due to tradition and culture.

We are not so…direct with words and feelings and the term “losing face” has a lot of power in some Asian countries. But many of those traditions and culture is somehow filtered away when we use the mobile phone. We can be more direct – although we still communicate differently. Love couples in a western country would have no problem showing their affection in public while here in Asia we keep it low.

On the mobile phone we sent images or music to our love ones to show our affection. So not directly like most other people would do with a SMS text but we are using in-direct expressions. Much like you in the western world might remember from your youth when you made a “love tape/cassette” to the girl you fancied, thus the mobile provides an extension to our personality.

But I must correct a small issue: Thailand is NOT using mobile phones more than computer to gain access to social networks yet. Malaysia is however the country that broke that barrier earlier this year.

I think the biggest issue is/will be to get the telcos to understand that content and service is key – not extra antennas, 4G or iPhones.

The segment currently does not have the means to buy a smartphone to cope with modern technology but they do have a normal mobile phone with a browser (or Opera Mini) and if the choice is between a refrigerator and a smartphone in a small household what would you chose? It is like Digital TV - sure the pictures get a lot better but that will not help if the programs are not good. I dont think people will turn on the TV to see "Glamour" just because the images are so crisp. And the same goes with the mobile phone users. Content is king.

Thank you for your thoughtful comment. It is great to hear first hand how you find the cultural differences in the use technology and communication. It is an important reminder that there are differences among us all, and some are quite profound. It is too easy to assume a one-size-fits-all approach to emerging technologies without understanding all the cultural, cognitive, linguistic, and contextual implications--not to mention the availability of technology! I agree that content and usefulness will drive much of the adoption of mobile technologies because of the fundamental financial choices that you mention. For many, the ROI needs to be measured in material life improvement and not just the social arena. Many thanks for sharing your perspective.
Pam

When I founded my marketing communications company in 1996, the obvious choice for a brand to reflect our expectation for the corporate impact of communications technologies was: Digital Tsunami.

Not despite, but because of our awareness of the regularity and impact of tsunamis (especially in the APac region), I considered it an apt metaphor for the dramatic change and power of online technologies.

Historical perspective aligns recent technological developments (what we refer to in our brandline as 'Communications Evolution'), with the revolutions of the printing press and the telegraph.

The global social and corporate impact of online technologies will continue in their dramatic rise as more people gain access.