In the newest ad for Number One condoms, a young man pulls a condom from a drawer, slips it in his pocket and imagines the smiling face of his lover. The two meet and sneak off together, and, with the smooth sounds of pop music as a backdrop, a Khmer voice rumbles: “Regardless of when or where, Number One is your best friend in HIV, AIDS, STD prevention.”
The television spot may be brief, but it, and others like it, point toward a drastic shift in the mentalities of Cambodian consumers.
Population Services International, the NGO that distributes Number One condoms, performed marketing research and consulted behavior surveillance surveys and public opinion polls before committing to the spots depicting an amorous relationship between a young man and woman.
The ad’s indirect reference to sex is one example of advertising’s evolution in Cambodia, where traditional values still prevail. Although simple, direct product references have been relied upon in past campaigns, urban consumers now are relating to a new kind of delivery, where jokes and subtle references are employed to sell goods.
Focus groups and pre-testing campaigns, used by PSI here since the early 1990s, show that consumer taste is becoming more refined.
They, like the rest of Cambodian consumers, are catching up to international shoppers.
“In four years there has been a change in understanding,” said Pascal Buriez, managing director of Bates Advertising.
He attributes consumers’ heightened comprehension to their exposure to international television and magazines.
“Advertising is always linked with the consumer, [and] the consumer is changing in the urban center,” said Buriez.
According to Buriez, advertising companies long have identified three types of consumers in developed nations: Trendsetters, followers and “confident people.”
Phnom Penh only recently began cultivating its own three-tiered group of consumers. Marketing experts consider trendsetters to be a group of young, fashion-conscious shoppers with disposable incomes. They seek modern clothes and the latest technology in mobile phones, Buriez said.
Also hoping to ride in style are the followers, who purchase products deemed attractive by the trendsetters. The confident people seek the status attached to image-conscious materials but generally ride a fashion wave after its peak.
The baby boom generation of Cambodians born after the toppling of the Pol Pot regime in 1979 make up the majority of the country’s population. And when they have money, they are more likely to purchase mobile phones, Internet service, clothes and motorcycles—especially if they are trendy and used by foreigners, Buriez said.
“The image of the product is more important than the product itself,” he said.
Norton University student Khor Rieth, 20, does not think he can achieve the status held by the twentysomething models on MobiTel’s billboards, but he would like to try.
“It is a better product if the person is modern and well dressed,” he said. “I, of course, want to have a phone because it’s an improvement [in socio-economic status].”
Bates has expanded its staff in the last six years from 15 to 34 employees, Buriez said. But he remains skeptical whether Cambodia’s economy can keep up with the advertising sector’s fevered pitch.
“The way we advertise is going faster than the market itself. It is a slow market. I don’t see any major changes in the next one or two years,” he said.
Chap Sotharith, an economist at the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace, said the country’s economy currently is “not so good because investors are worried about the trend of the regional market after the financial crisis and the Bali bombing.” Investors also may be concerned about whether political stability can be maintained before and after the scheduled July elections, he said.
Although the Asian Development Outlook 2002 said per capita incomes are only rising about two percent a year, Chap Sotharith said there is growing purchasing power from Cambodia’s middle class, made up of government workers with extra income “maybe from corruption.”
Those working in NGOs and the business sector are also better off, he said.
While urban professionals reportedly are spending more, rural dwellers are not, Buriez said. Little economic development and low formal education levels require advertising agencies to use simple, obvious sales techniques in the provinces.
“Being on the site is crucial to effective marketing. You must be next to the consumer,” Buriez said.
Traveling road shows, in which company representatives promote goods from mobile units, have been an effective field marketing technique for products like Number One, which uses traveling televisions to reach provincial markets.
PSI has long acknowledged the benefit of targeting specific audiences, but a large-scale media surveillance industry is only just developing in Cambodia. A new business sector has emerged, in fact, to gauge the power and effect of Cambodia’s new society of media-conscious consumers.
Bates Advertising formed Zenith Media in 1996, a concentrated communications company conducting media studies to link clients with consumers. Zenith is the first company in Cambodia to conduct television rating surveys, identifying who is watching which television programs and for how long.
“My role is to get the message to the consumer. The consumer dictates what kind of media they consume,” Zenith Media General Manager Rob Nabin said.
Zenith’s current client list—including MobiTel, Cambodia Brewery Limited and Caltex Cambodia—has benefited greatly from the surveys, which identify the best time and channel to reach the most appropriate audience. More targeted media planning strategies yield cost savings, Nabin said.
Zenith conducts market surveys every two weeks for MobiTel. Eight colorful billboards peppering Phnom Penh with images of smiling hand phone users have made MobiTel one of the most visible agents of aspirational advertising—commercials which tease consumers with what they could be or do.
MobiTel’s pictures of trendy Khmers using the latest technology in well-furnished homes target three sectors of the population. One campaign is meant to attract housewives and guards, while the others should appeal to young professionals and mature business people, MobiTel marketing director Sitha Porm said.
At least every two months, MobiTel spends between $15,000 and $20,000 for three-week print campaigns in local newspapers and $30,000 for television campaigns, Porm said.
Employing monthly promotions, as well as TV and newspaper ads, MobiTel aims to convince young Cambodians that its services are necessities. SMS, the short messaging system commonly known as text messaging, has been successfully touted as an essential means of cheap communication, Porm said.
“People don’t actually need SMS, but our campaign is giving people a reason to use it,” he said.
When MobiTel launched SMS in 2000, 30,000 messages were sent daily, Porm said. Now, two years later, 400,000 are sent each day, earning the company $12,000 a day for messages that cost $0.03. Porm attributes the success to its advertising campaign.
Many Cambodian businesses have yet to make the connection between planning and payoff, however.
“They [businesses] don’t have the background or knowledge to appreciate this information. Media planning processes still have a long way to go,” Nabin said.
Other businesses may admire the flashy campaigns of MobiTel and PSI, but they do not have the design experience or money to help them out, said Nabin.
Few Cambodian-trained designers have a firm grasp of the technological aspects of graphic design, according to Mario Geraud, business director of Interquess Design.
“The problem is not learning design programs. The problem is the creativity and application of these tools. This is something people don’t have,” Geraud said.
The quality of advertisements is not up to par with international standards, he said. The keys to quality, Geraud explained, are clarity, simplicity, and attractiveness. Many Cambodian companies choose excess over simplicity, inundating a small space with excessive amounts of information and poor quality photos.
The consensus within Phnom Penh’s design and advertising community is that Cambodian companies have not identified nor tapped the potential buying power of Cambodian consumers.
“They should be waiting for the market that’s already here. It’s going to crest soon,” said Gordan Candelin, art director of Graphic Roots.
Candelin sees a steadily growing group of young people with disposable incomes and a “desire to be a part of the world, to be a part of a country that’s changing.”
