Agencies are going to have to increasingly focus their attention on
hiring really fabulously experienced senior, client facing people
who can think as business people as well as account handling.
Clients now really understand digital … as a component of the marketing mix, they
understand digital as a business delivery environment. What they need help
with … is bridging the gap between marketing the brand, retail, their customers,
their internal stakeholders, technology and making the whole thing work seemlessly.

That to me seems like the challenge now which is a sort of funny hybrid of business
consulting, brand strategy and marketing.

Tom Adams of Mook - NMA Podcast
http://www.nmapodcast.co.uk/podcast-56.mp3

I was listening to the NMA podcast and came across this quote. I find it very revealing about the state of the digital industry that there would be a significant comment that shows companies want something different from digital.

What is Digital?

Digital is the marketing channel that uses digital technology in it’s various forms, mostly the web, email and mobile (currently) but also including interactive TV and now social media.

It’s become increasingly important in the past few years, given the rise of the ubiquity of the internet and the increase in data to mobiles has now made digital marketing an essential part of any marketing strategy.

What’s interesting is…

That digital marketing is not about being clever creatively any more. It’s far more than that. Some of the most innovative campaigns are the simplest, and this is often missed. A large proportion of digital agencies think that it’s imperative to spend serious amounts of money on “creative” when actually, this is not the case.

Far more important is the business case for the work, and especially now.  This is why it’s vitally important for companies to change their outlook on account management.

As a company, we are very used to managing blue-chip clients and creating a business case for campaigns over and above the normal metrics and ideas that are created.  We have a strong understanding of the part social media plays in marketing and have done for over 7 years.

We aim to take agencies and companies on a journey into the cutting edge of digital and want to take maany more companies there. I think the quote above shows that digital is changing from being an extension of marketing to being something altogether more intuitive and fast-moving.