“We need to improve in digital.”
I hear this a lot from clients.
And here’s the thing. Digital is too often talked about like it’s someone’s tennis game, or golf game; like a handicap that needs shaving. “Digital” is not something to get better at.
Digital is NOT something to improve at, like your golf swing
Digital is: 0’s & 1’s
Digital is Zero’s and One’s. It’s a technology, by extension an opportunity. “Digital” is NOT a practice. “Digital” is not an expertise.
Controversial?
Not really.
Digital now pervades everything. Our TV’s are digital. Our streets are populated with digital billboards showcasing advertisers who buy “dayparts”. By virtue of now Being Everywhere, digital’s role as a descriptor is arguably redundant. Our world, as a Digital Playground, can really just be termed a playground, and “digital” simply offers new means by which to play... in a bigger playground with more distractions.
So now for the “what digital really is”, for the exciting bit.
What a post-digital world does represent is a world of considerably greater marketing opportunities, a genuine surfeit of possibilities. There remain old ways of Thinking & Acting, and there are now new ways of Thinking & Succeeding.
The Brand-Communication Model is changing, has changed. With ever-greater enthusiasm, we’re shifting from making ad messages that intrude into people’s lives, to producing content which people enjoy and share and (even) re-work. All this means that “digital” sits INSIDE the Big Picture Challenge of making brands MEANINGFUL in people’s lives.
And for marketing practitioners, this further means that digital “pure-play” is purely naive. Cold truth: digital-centricity is blinkered, silo-thinking. Digital solutions are an exciting new set of answers that serve as part-response to an age old set of marketing questions. How do you build my brand? How do you make my brand famous? How can you compel and excite people to buy my brand? How can you REVEAL something of human nature that motivates it to WANT?
“Improving at digital” is really about capitalising on new ways to improve at the fundamentals.
SP.