New Weapons of the Competitive War

The sun is still not up in Singapore, and Reuters reports that US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld is saying the US government still functions as a “five and dime” store, while today’s weapons of war include email, blackberries, instant messaging, digital cameras, and blogs.

How come Rumsfeld gets it but many participants in the war of the competitive marketplace don’t? While most companies have by now figured out their internet strategy (sort of), they have no clue about their mobile-device strategy.

Yet, at a brand experience conference here in Singapore at SMU, I just learned that the Asian market is moving ahead. By the end of this year, industry experts expect audio and high quality video ad messages (in other words, sophisticated mobile commercials) to be broadcast to Asian consumers by leading brands on the latest cutting-edge phones. And of course, these brands can track which consumer gets which message when and how consumers are going to respond.

Call that the future of communications, coming in a few months (at least in some parts of the world). In comparison, on my American mobile phone I can’t even respond to an SMS messages while roaming in Hong Kong.

So, another reason to keep your US mobile in the pocket while in Asia: so that you don’t embarrass yourself.