Modern Marketing - Blog by Collaborate PR & Marketing

Marketing Strategy In A Digital World

In the Digital Strategy Sessions I run I sometimes start by saying that I am going to try and make an argument with which the people in the group should feel free to disagree.  I go onto suggest that digital marketing is dead, and that we should talk about marketing strategy in a digital world.  To illustrate my point, I occasionally describe meetings where I’ve sat with a group of senior executives who are grappling with how they should handle the effects of digital and networked media on their market. However, when I raise a few issues for discussion there is a slightly awkward moment and the executives in question say words along the lines of, ‘Let’s wait for Fred – he’s our digital specialist’.  At that point, the barriers go up and, ‘Fred’ becomes a way of avoiding the digital issues – whatever they may be.  The idea of marketing strategy in a digital world can sometimes help overcome this obstacle and ground subsequent conversations.  We can then go on to discuss which aspects of the digital world are relevant to the executives' specific market sector and planning techniques for including them within ongoing business planning - in ways that everyone can understand and appreciate.  Not just Fred.

Advertising Aliens

At a Digital Strategy Session I ran the other week for a creative agency, one of the management commented that she’d recently been to an advertising conference and felt like she was at a technology show. Her comment was that if an alien had landed at the event, it would have assumed advertising was largely about software calculating small differences in consumer behavior and purchasing patterns. Certainly all very different from the days of the fabled Big Idea, where ad agencies would arrive and unveil the result of their reductive brain-mashing. These days, a lot more attention is paid to the brute-force style analytical approach where the goal is to maximise clicks, fans and followers. Undoubtedly, the apparently revolutionary advantages brought by automated markets trading signals and attention data are highly alluring for CMOs with data-hungry procurement officers breathing down their necks. However, as media companies increasingly morph into software houses and drive the big data agenda forward, it’s very easy for the power of good creative to get lost. Or become confused with innovative data management platforms or whizzy, layered look-a-like and life event targeting techniques. No doubt, it’s all just part of the ebb and flow occurring in media and marketing as the rising tide of digital and networked media continues.

Everyone Wants Answers

Everyone would like specific answers to their specific digital marketing questions. And ideally they would like them immediately and in a paint-by-numbers format. This is one lesson I have learnt from the four hundred odd Digital Strategy Sessions I have run. Generally, it’s good to give people what they want. Especially, if others are saying they can provide perfectly packaged, specific, actionable, deliverable, measurable strategic plans.  However, in my experience – unfortunately - it’s just not feasible. The world of digital is now so vast, fluid and throws up so many challenges – not to mention jargon – that I think it’s best to focus on the landscape and how digital and networked media is changing specific sectors. And how that influences business strategy – if at all. In fact, most marketing folk and brands know this to be true, and understand that the most important aspect of operating in today’s markets remains understanding what consumers (aka people) are doing differently, and how technology is changing their expectations. Along with the tools that let them operate in these new networked media environments.  So in the Digital Strategy Sessions that’s what I focus on and, generally, people find it helpful. Even if deep down they really want specific answers to their specific questions. But, hey, don’t we all?

Search, Display And Social Combine

Last year was the moment when social channels stopped pretending to be earned or organic and became paid media, as the market was flooded with behavioural targeting options and 'social display' exploded. Increasingly, and somewhat ironically, the only place to now gain organic reach is through search (aka Google in the UK). That said, SEO is also being turned upside-down by the rise of knowledge graphs, entities and the subsequent erosion of keyword influence. Furthermore, display and search are increasingly difficult to view separately as search marketeers call upon audience demographics to augment their keyword intent data. Returning the favour, display advertisers can use keyword data to target their brand images via data management platforms, using groovy new approaches such as content remarketing. Additionally, as vast programmatically-driven markets expand, traditional commercial models also blend. Thus, display marketeers are able to access auction-based models previously associated with search which means turning from CPM to CPC. Welcome to the new world of markets for attention data - or signals. They may seem confusing - but they aren’t going away.

Mobile Everything

There are certain words used very frequently in marketing meetings that probably mean entirely different things to the individuals sitting around the table.  Mobile is one of those words.  For some people it means smart phones (but not tablets); for others it means ‘on-the-go’; retailers might be thinking 'in-store'; developers might ponder iOS8 vs Android Lollipop; data-heads may focus on location layers; programmatic fiends may zero in on geo-fencing; while consumers (aka people) might not really make a distinction between one screen and another – it’s all just information.  Indeed, Google's data shows that most mobile search is done in the home or at work, as the smartphone is now the first port-of-call that oftens leads to other screens and media.  It may be more helpful to think about mobile as the latest stage of computing.  This is hardly a radical idea – a quick peek at any analytics tool over the last few years makes that trend clear.  However, prepare for further confusion as the terribly-named Internet Of Things takes hold with sensors built into cars, toys, clothes, shelves and even medicine.  Increasingly, it only makes sense to talk about specific usage cases for individual sectors and categories.  Or in other words - insights.  Which is what marketing has always been about.

Signals

A lot is made of the differences and battles between the mega-tech players such as Google, Facebook and Twitter. However, the reality is they are all in the same business. Namely, collecting signals from the market. Call it big data, analytics, search, social, implicit, explicit, predictive – in plain English these companies pick up digital signals that consumers (aka people) send out about themselves and their lives and provide tools to target messages against those signals. It’s a vast market powered by Moore’s Law driven groovyware that is now morphing into huge markets for attention data – otherwise known as programmatic.

Digital Fiefdoms

Last week I was running a digital strategy session in the beautiful city of Zagreb for the splendid folk at HURA.  It was interesting to hear that many of the issues being faced in Croatia are similar to those in other markets.  For instance, one agency man told me that the problem they have is bringing the digital department in line with the rest of the agency, as it currently operates as an independent fiefdom that almost competes with the rest of the business, rather than supporting it.  I think this is a good example of how many of the issues in this technological revolution through which we are living are not technical.

Modern Marketing, Silver Bullets And Ghouls

A couple of weeks ago, I was running a digital strategy session in Poland for a group of very smart advertising folk.  We were talking about different ways to engage senior execs in networked media issues and I mentioned a recent experience I'd had when asked to go and speak to a Grand Fromage at a financial services organisation.  I explained that, prior to my chat, the only brief I was given was : ‘he wants to know what’s going on but says if you talk about technology he’ll walk out or go to sleep’.  Slightly daunted, my approach was to stick to business issues I suspected the GF was very close to and then mention a few points about how each was changing as a result of technological trends.  It seemed to work in that he stayed in the room – and awake.  Back at the digital strategy sessions during the coffee break, one of the more experienced agency folk approached me and excitedly asked what the ‘answer was’, following my chat with the banking executive.  I was slightly confused and responded that there wasn’t really, 'an answer'.  However, I understood what was meant by the question.  A lot of people...

Understanding The New Consumer Contract

The media and marketing industry has long been guilty of beating consumers (aka people) over the head with commercial brand messages until they pay attention. This mass marketing approach is crudely military with big brands seeking maximium reach and frequency by launching campaigns that seek to cut-through and penetrate. However, modern networked media has put the power back in the hands of individuals who are simply able to turn off, fast-forward, filter out and unsubscribe from irritating ads. This has left brands in a quandary about how to reach consumers and build that illusive equity that encourages shareholders to keep investing their shekels.  However, whilst mass marketing results in the majority of folk covering their ears, the new alternative may leave them looking over their shoulders.  This is because big brands are increasingly focusing on mass-snooping exercises to gather data about individuals in the hope of identifying likely customers.  Clearly, the collection of information about people isn't new. The direct marketing industry has been with us...

Why Networked Media Is Like The British Weather

Like many independent web workers, I sometimes find it tricky when people ask me what I do professionally. The day-to-day reality is that I research and analyse digital trends that I think are interesting and help like-minded clients work out if and how they are relevant. However, people don't always find that helpful. So sometimes I say that I work with marketeers and brands that feel overwhelmed by technology. Which, I suspect, can sound patronising. But it shouldn't. Feeling overwhelmed is a perfectly understandable reaction as, rather like the rain in the UK at the moment, technological change can seem unrelenting, which for many people is disturbing. I recall a session I ran earlier this year when an executive told me she was worried that the pace of digital change was eventually going to make her redundant. Not because her job was going to disappear but, despite being a smart, accomplished individual she felt she didn't have the time to keep up with the latest bits and bytes. Once again, this is understandable and the individual in question is certainly...