“It seems that measurable reach and penetration to customers was not enough for brands and products to retain their shares in the market,” Pathamawan Sathaporn, managing director of Mindshare Thailand, said yesterday.

“They are now demanding more sales and consumer engagement to make sure not only that their market share remains unchanged but also that customer spending per basket increases,” she said.

Brands were influenced by the rapid change in customer behaviour while the revolution in the media landscape was also shaping the way people consume products, communicate and interact with brands.

She raised this issue during the annual “Huddle” seminar organised by her company under the topic “Bring Adaptive to Life”.

The event aimed to encourage marketers with diverse perspectives to adopt marketing communications via multiple platforms.

“So we now call today’s consumers ‘super consumers’, who almost dominate the market, which brands used to do,” she said.

Consumers have gained more power and voices particularly in the online world. For example, they have the right to complain or criticise brands and products even though they love those brands.

To deal with this challenge, creating brand experiences must come first with adaptability and agility to respond to the sophisticated demands of consumers, she said.

Sanchit Sanga, chief digital officer for Asia-Pacific, said chief executive officers should take the lead in this regard as chief experience officers to engage with customers physically and digitally.

Besides using and analysing slow data such as monthly or weekly market research studies to plan strategy, chief experience officers should realise the importance of fast data collected from social media listening and monitoring to help keep their brands up-to-date. Amid the pressure from the economic situation, brands and advertisers appeared to have tightened their belts to preserve their bottom lines.

Advertising spending this year is expected to stagnate, according to the projection of Mindshare Thailand.

Nielsen Thailand reported yesterday that advertising expenditures during the first eight months of this year still fell by 6 per cent to Bt76.88 billion from Bt81.82 billion in the same period last year.

This reflected the pruning of ad budgets by some major sponsors like Unilever, Toyota, Beiersdorf and L’Oreal.