Making sense of life, & communications, online & offline
Traditional vs. Digital
Marketing Predictions for 2012
January 1, 2012
At this time of year we see a multitude of articles about predictions for the year to come – some obvious and some less evident – I’ve tried to keep my list short and focussed this time around as we marketers have only a limited bandwidth to evolve our increasingly complex ecosystem. Some elements may seem like they should have happened in 2011, whilst others are reaching their peak now. There is no doubt that 2012 will, yet again, be a year of changes – let’s hope that this time around the marketing world can keep up!
SECURED payday loans
1. Content Marketing
Content marketing is coming to life, and 2012 will More >
Inbound Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing [INFOGRAPHIC]
October 31, 2011
I particularly liked this infographic from Voltier Digital as it lays down in very clear terms the old vs. the new. In the amusing and beautiful design there are some very key points that relate to one-way messaging and looking for consumers as opposed to understanding that they are in control and that it is about being found and adding value – marketing has changed, and marketers need to change too.
Infographic courtesy of Voltier Digital
Follow The Money – Focussing on Inputs or Outputs
October 10, 2011
Deep Throat said it to Bob Woodward in 1976, and it’s still true today – if you want to understand, if you want to really get to the truth, you need to follow the money.
And this is is just as true in the advertising business as we try and evolve an ageing traditional, TV and print focussed, business model into our 2.0 world. Agency holding companies have created digital exchanges, ad agencies have bought up their BTL counterparts and certain organisations have even attempted to renew their entire staff base by bringing in new digital specialists, but at the end of the day, bringing ‘digital’ More >
Barriers to the Phygital Revolution
August 22, 2011
I love that word phygital, I didn’t come up with it, and I’m not even sure it was coined by Momentum either (although they have trademarked it), but they seem to have optimised their site for this term and their positioning as An agency for the Phygital™ world.
But phygital doesn’t belong to just one agency. Phygital as it sounds is the combination of the physical and digital worlds and it is, IMVHO, the real sign of the coming of age of technology in the marketing world. As we move away from the days of a super full flash website, just because you can, or a mobile or iPad app that doesn’t More >
Content & Amplification – The New Brand Brief
May 25, 2011
Sometimes it’s still hard to talk to ‘traditional ad guys’ and get them to understand how the business of communications has changed, how the web has exploded the number of channels through which we can deliver messages and also empowered the consumer to respond, turning a monologue into dialogue and thereby giving them a voice. And how these evolutions have not just created a step change in the strategy of marketing communications but really created a paradigm shift in how we approach our work.
Hence it is still not uncommon to be presented with very traditional print or outdoor brand ads More >
My Job is about Change – Agitating & Activating
April 10, 2011
Depending on who I’m talking to, I find it very hard to describe what I do – a lot of the time I talk about ‘digital strategy‘ but I know that if I find it difficult to explain, that probably means that others find it even harder to understand – it’s a logical conclusion.
What is digital strategy? Where does it start and finish? How is this different from business strategy or communications strategy? Invariably, when I start to try and answer these questions, I end up talking about the tasks I cover, or what I deliver, or how a typical day looks – but really this doesn’t get to the heart of More >
Outside the Box – The Future of TV
March 8, 2011
I was recently interviewed by Communicate on the subject of The Future of TV, see the full piece below or download the pdf here.
Are digital agencies the new dinosaurs?
February 27, 2011
I was asked to answer the question ‘Are digital agencies the new dinosaurs?’ in this week’s Campaign ME – check out my answer below and those of my industry colleagues in the attached.
Digital is no longer a microsite or a banner ad, digital is everywhere and in everything – look at interactive TV, digital billboards and magazine subscriptions on the iPad. Agencies are evolving too and the term digital agency has lost its meaning – many of the original pure play web agencies are finding that their strength is in production as ‘traditional’ agencies are evolving their own positioning to truly More >
Overcome the fear
January 30, 2011
I answered a question the other day on Quora: How can you change the culture of an advertising agency? And this has developed into a discussion about some simple things that agencies can start to do to set them on the path of cultural change.
My original answer was as follows:
The culture of an agency is about the people and how engaged they are in what they do – I think the reason we see this sort of question, and all the talk about agencies in general transforming is a fear among those who are getting left behind. We hear very little from agencies who are performing in the market today More >
Can agencies really play nicely together?
January 20, 2011
I’ve had a few conversations recently about the changing remit of the advertising agency and the growing inter-relationships between different agencies, be they pure event/activation groups, web development or even media agencies. The question that always comes up (on both sides of the table) is whether the agencies will be able to get along.
The fact of the matter is that an agency is always looking to increase its bottom line – after all this is the business that they are in, and we know that the big holding companies are driving each of their business units hard with absolute revenue More >