SINGAPORE: Marketers in the Asia-Pacific region are not doing enough to engage with consumers who are increasingly well connected via a multiplicity of devices and who are looking for compelling content, according to leading industry figures.

"Content is the 'social juice' to attract and engage consumers and move them through the path to purchase," noted Don Anderson, SVP Regional Strategic Digital Integration, Fleishman-Hillard, speaking ahead of an upcoming content marketing conference in Singapore.

He pointed to several issues that regional marketers needed to address. "The most pressing challenge that companies face is having veritable warehouses of content, but doing nothing with it; or simply not having content strategy in place," he said.

"The increased proliferation of communication platforms is making it more critical for publishers to find means of cutting through the clutter," he added.

Nico Abbruzzese, Head of Digital, Asia Pacific, Maxus Global, warned that content strategies needed to avoid the hard-sell approach.

"You can't just shout a message," he stated. "You have to create value and desirability in the content that your brand develops before you can talk about your brand and products," he concluded.

Separately, YouTube's Benjamin Grubbs, Head of Partner Marketing in the APAC region, told The Music Void how his organisation is targeting Gen C – "people who care deeply about creation, curation, connection and community".

Gen C moves seamlessly between devices and platforms in the search for high-qualithy content and Grubbs explained his job was to connect this audience to the content they enjoy.

"From Hollywood producers to first-time creators in APAC, YouTube's goal is to offer people a broad range of high quality content to tune in to on a regular basis," he said.

But high quality content is just one part of the equation, cautioned Karen Cahn, general manager of original videos at Aol, writing on Digiday.

She advised content producers to develop a proper audience-development strategy early on, including social components, syndication plans, marketing and PR, and clear metrics.

"There are plenty of potential viewers waiting for the right content – it just takes some work and a little luck to find them," she said.

Data sourced from ACN Newswire, The Music Void, Digiday; additional content by Warc staff