Digital Marketing Needs a Reboot

From my recent contribution to Ad Age, Digital Next:

"Old habits die hard. While consumers are out there spending countless hours on social networks, file sharing applications, chat, community sites, buying stuff, selling stuff and using multiple devices, some of us tradigital old fogies are still reaching for our beloved toolbox of the past in the hopes of getting their attention. While online user behavior tells us that people respond well to simplicity, we labor to create complexity in the form of experimental navigation and sites that take forever to load. When YouTube arrived on the scene, we responded by putting our TV spots on them or -- better yet -- creating spots that looked like they were made by amateurs. Little did we know that the real action happens in the comments. Have we thought about talking back to people or are we really just interested in telling our stories?"
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Comments

[Tom O'Brien]

Hi David:

Take a look at how Goodby helped Adobe launch CS3:

http://layertennis.com/

Creatives competing head to head in front of and judged by their peers.

TO'B

[Bonnie L]

"or are we really just interested in telling our stories?"

David, you are spot on. Frustrating that most companies still don't get it. Technology offers us new ways and places to converse, but companies can't seem to get past the "push" mentality.

bonnieL

[David Armano]

Thanks Bonnie,

Speaking of, I really need to do a better job of replying to the comments here. It's been a little crazy managing time, but I do read them all and they influence my thinking.

[Lynn Crymble]

One big problem is that clients do not often let us use anything other than the tradigital toolbox. Trying something else would be way too much of a leap for them as many are just now coming to terms with the digital space. This means that a 'presence' online is good enough.

Even if we can find the more forward-thinking marketers and execs out there, they are usually not supported within their companies.

Still, I'm forever the optimist and think the shift to sharing and collaborating will happen sooner rather than later.

Thanks for the great article David!

[Shirin Goel]

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[Martina]

Thanks for this post David. It really makes me think about my approach to my job. In a way I tend to agree with you. As digital marketers we often think more like "tradigital" than like purely digital people. And thanks to your post I realized I should dare more.

At the same time I think that being "tradigital" is good to integrate our actions with the rest of the company. Of course this is not an excuse, but I think that a digital marketer has also to show and demonstrate his/her work connection with the other marketing functions. But then again I re-read your article and you have the solution: "Digital marketing doesn't need more tradigital creativity -- it needs more creative problem solving".

Again, thanks for the post :-)