The New Era of Digital Transformation

Avi Dan’s most recent article in Forbes addresses the dramatic shift in today’s marketing landscape. If businesses don’t pivot their advertising strategies accordingly, then well… those businesses may be no more. Traditional advertising has stopped growing and it’s easy to claim the age-old defense of an over-saturated market, but that’s not the case. Growth is threatened because “traditional agencies still use the TV commercial as a default business solution… an increasingly irrelevant approach as consumers moved to digital platforms.”

Digital Transformation (DT) is the name of the game. And it makes sense. We are all operating on multiple devices everyday. Right now, I’m typing on my laptop. My phone just dinged a notification, probably Instagram. I’m checking my email on an iPad and the Alexa is cranking out the latest Armchair podcast (if you’re unfamiliar, give it a listen.. after you finish reading this). Our day to day takes place “in an omnichannel world.” So no, the traditional TV commercial approach simply doesn’t work anymore. The customer is no longer engaged by a thirty second story on the television. It’s an unwelcomed interruption. And honestly, if you’re still watching commercials, you’ve got to upgrade your Hulu account.

The user experience is now fundamentally the brand.

👆This is a ‘mic drop’ if I’ve ever heard one. It couldn’t be more true. The user experience is now the heartbeat behind any and every effective marketing effort. Dan calls out ad agencies’ failure to “realign themselves with product development, innovation or business strategy” as they still position themselves as solely the “‘creative’ partner.” Marketing can no longer get by with a one dimensional approach. To please your clients and to attract your customers, you must engage with them on multiple digital platforms. And the best part of marketing on these digital platforms? You can always track your efforts. In a previous post, we stressed the importance of using analytics to gage how effective your strategy is. With evidentiary data always at your fingertips, you can adjust your user experience within the hour if necessary. And when one morning we could wake up to a pandemic and the next, Tiger King– we have to be ready to adjust what our customer sees at any given moment.

Don’t believe it? Look at the numbers. They don’t lie. Dan reports that for every dollar aimed toward improving the user experience, “businesses earn three dollars in return and an 11% increase in revenue.” By choosing to compete through customer experience, companies have transformed yesterday’s operations to meet today’s customers.

Ultimately, agencies need to become the connecting tissue that holds multiple technology platforms together in order to serve both clients and consumers in tandem.

The ad agency’s role is ever evolving in our digital age. New platforms will continue to emerge and the demand for relevant marketing will only increase. But has the main goal really changed at all? Isn’t the agency’s job still to serve their clients by bringing in the customers? You bet. The end game is the same. But the way it’s played, it’s players and their pace- let’s just say, it’s a whole lot faster. And we’ve got to keep up.