It’s odd to think that almost a decade has gone by since I joined the industry here, but I am delighted how in that time, we’ve seen it grow from a few people working upstairs in shophouses, to now being a leading force in the global interactive community. Here’s why I think that is: The Asian interactive industry is the perfect model for the Longtail model of how the Marketing 2.0 is shaping up on the whole.

Consider this, as of September, the internet user population in the APAC region, excluding China and India, is now estimated to be about 255 million users. That makes it just slightly larger than the USA/Canada combined population of 232 million. Add in the behemoth markets of China and India, and you’re now pushing upwards of 477 million consumers. What is really amazing is, this is up from just 114 million consumers in year 2000 -- more than double the rate of growth as seen in the States (302% versus 115% increase).

But if that’s the scale and growth of the market, then why are the big boys in the U.S., such as AvenueA, Agency.com and Digitas still so weak in Asia? And why are some of the Asian founded online companies making substantial headlines in America? I believe the answer comes down to the Longtail.

eBay is the well known example of being the ultimate Longtail company, with over 100 million auctions running in 50,000 different product categories around the world. It’s safe to say that they have something for just about everyone. But then, consider the example of Alibaba.com, the B2B exchange of the recent (HKD 11 billion dollar) IPO’d Alibaba Group and the inking of the deals involving more than 20,000 new products, from 1,000 plus new companies in over 16 different countries.

Now, apply the same massive fragmentation to the interactive agency model. If you take an average online campaign in America, generating a hypothetical US$100K in fees, the plan for that campaign may include half a dozen media buys and running 20 versions of the creative in three IAB standard ad units. The entire campaign is signed off by a single client, who interfaces with a single account manager, creative team and media house. That might be a slight over simplification, but compare that to the same situation in Asia. In order to garner the same reach and sales generated, the campaign may be run across six different countries. This comes up to six different clients, interfacing with six different account teams in six different agencies, producing potentially six different language creatives to be trafficked to six times six, or 36, media outlets.

In many cases, these six different campaigns are being handled by six boutique agencies, in the local language in each market. This acts as a major barrier to the industry gaining efficiencies of scale. The regional agencies that do exist have had to develop robust processes and infrastructures to be able to manage an amazing level of complexity for every dollar of fee revenue earned -- much more so than their larger scale, but relatively simpler, North American equivalents.

What’s interesting is how the world is starting to change. We’re now seeing the tools of micro-segmentation and day parting, and behavioural targeting add increasing complexity to the average online campaigns. It is the Asian experienced campaign managers, strategists and clients who are best suited to managing these challenging scenarios. We’re now seeing several of our top Asian clients migrating to global roles at “HQ in the U.S.” because they have demonstrated a clear ability to manage the type of campaigns that the rest of the world is just starting on.

So while there is a great amount of interest in the Asian online markets, (don’t forget the 182 million online consumers in India and China that I excluded at the beginning) I think an even more interesting story is how the lessons learnt in Asia over the past 10 years, can now be applied to the next generation of work happening around the world.