On July 24 2008 leading marketers from around the world gathered in Shanghai to attend “Tencent MIND – 2008 Efficient Online Marketing Summit” billed as the “greatest marketing event” held in China prior to the Beijing Olympics. The event followed up on the rapid growth in online marketing since the Beijing summit organized by Tencent this April.

Summit keynote speakers included integrated marketing communication master and Northwest University professor Don Schultz as well as DigiMarketing expert and OgilvyOne Asia Pacific Region President Kent Wertime. Marketing executives of Coca Cola Nike P&G Unilever and other global brands shared their online marketing experiences with summit participants presenting compelling online marketing case studies such as the Online Torch Relay Nike+ and Nike Sports Community.

Tencent Chairman and CEO Ma Huateng attended the summit and expressed his optimism about the prospects of online advertising. He stated that despite problems in the world’s economies related to surging energy prices and the sub-prime loan crisis China’s Internet sector was not affected. According to forecasts by 2010 the value of China’s Internet market will exceed RMB 100 billion of which the online advertising market will represent RMB20 billion. Ma believes that the Internet possesses the ability to drive social and economic development. based on its macroeconomic performance many enterprises could leverage Internet integration to optimize their business processes improve their working efficiency and strengthen their competitiveness. In this perspective online marketing development is fundamental.

As the theme of the summit “Tencent MIND” has become the criteria of the Chinese language advertising industry’s LongXi Awards. It means that “Tencent MIND” has reached beyond Tencent to explore new ground in the online marketing field as the industry standard. Tencent online marketing services & corporate branding executive VP Lau Seng Yee said “the concept of Tencent MIND came out of the analysis of 700 Tencent cases by senior experts in the advertising and marketing sector from the U.S. Singapore Chinese Hong Kong Chinese Taiwan and the Chinese Mainland.” According to industry insiders Tencent MIND is a tangible manifestation of the company’s “High Response Great Impact” brand positioning launched in April not only clarifying the rules in online marketing sector but also taking on the industry’s key issues and opportunities.