BROADBAND and mobile take-up rates are skyrocketing as Singaporeans continue to lap up the latest gadgetries such as feature-packed smart phones and razor-thin notebooks. However, a marketing expert says local companies are still not keeping pace with the furious pace of technology advancement, resulting in a gaping disparity between IT-savvy consumer behaviour and the choice of advertising and promotional platforms.

'Asia is a US$115 billion advertising market. About US$10 billion of this is (made up of) digital media,' said Kent Wertime, president of interactive marketing agency OgilvyOne Asia-Pacific. 'In Singapore, only 3.5 to 4 per cent of the total media market is digital so despite being such a technologically advanced country, Singapore is behind (in digital marketing spending).'

According to statistics released by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, the total number of handphone subscriptions continues to outnumber the Republic's population base, with mobile penetration peaking at 127 per cent in February this year. Similarly, the take-up of high-speed Internet packages is also on the rise, with household broadband now standing at 79.2 per cent.

'You now have this widening confidence gap where 'usership' (of digital channels) is growing dramatically and the amount of money invested in digital marketing is growing dramatically but the latter is not keeping up with the users,' Mr Wertime stressed. 'Marketers haven't caught up with the potential (of digital marketing). The consumer's streaking ahead.'

The main reason for this widening gulf is a fundamental lack of understanding among Singaporean companies on what the new media have to offer, Mr Wertime explained.

'Marketers move their money when they know how to. You don't need to justify the numbers now - the users are already there. What is lacking now is the knowledge, the confidence and creativity to harness what's available,' he said.

To address this knowledge gap, Mr Wertime recently co-authored a new book called Digimarketing - The Essential Guide to New Media and Digital Marketing to delve into the impact of developments such as Web 2.0 on companies today.

Published by John Wiley and Sons, it outlines important new media trends such as blogs and Internet television and how companies can tap on such new digital marketing opportunities.

'Many companies are nervous because they don't know the ins and outs (of digital marketing). Because they don't know it, they haven't invested enough of their marketing funds in it,' Mr Wertime said.

'Traditional media still dominates spending. This is not a failure of digital media. It's a failure of marketers to make the shift,' he added.

This article was first published in The Business Times on May 5, 2008