people all around ....

it has been so nice lately spending some time with a the most diverse people you could imagine. From a swedish guy in who ended up in Barcelona with a passion for Porsche to some dear colleageu digital marketeers moving back to their home country ... but most of all meeting up with the old gang of my team was such a blessing.

during my last visit to London i took the opportunity to meet up with some relations from the industry and we start discussing the future of digital marketing. With Ashley Friedlin from the e-consultancy group i had a very nice discussion on the shift that is taking place within marketing. We discussed that Sir Martin Sorell was right when he said that the traditional marketeers are in no position to react properly to digital marketing, but they are desperately trying. This results in digital marketing being concquered by the old habits without regarding the specificity of digital.

We must keep in mind and never forget that digital marketing is the marriage between technology and marketing. This marriage needs to be based on mutual understanding and respects for each limitations and possibilities. It is now in that balance that lies the challenge for the marketeers. Contrary to the traditional forms of marketing, digital requires a certain skill set that goes beyond putting a good idea and some creative people together and at the same time goes beyond having some whizz kids that can do magic with technology.

Digital is not an advertizing medium that has a passive audience sitting there and absorbing the message, but put the user in control on how they want to interact with your brand. Digital consumers want to have the choice and they judge with the mousse by clicking onto information they can relate to or engage with.

Digital needs to be and remain a center of excellence that services and initiates marketing programs and campaigns from out it's own specificity: the marriage between creativity, usability and technology.

Anyhow it leaves us with the never ending challenge to convince marketeers around us that bringing digital under marcoms or advertizing is not a step towards a better integration, on the contrary since it is underestimating the need for a digital marketing approach in all customer facing layers of a company. Thus the struggle and fight for a truley integrated digital marketing departement (technology and marketing) on the same level as marcoms and brand continues.

Happy travels