In the second of a five-part series on the digital skills shortage in the marcomms industry, Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Australia chief executive Paul Fisher has argued the biggest gaps lie on the client side.
Fisher's comments come in the wake of a Digital Chameleon study which showed low digital skills in the local industry. Only 28% of respondents felt they held the necessary digital skills to complete their role. The study has led to strong reactions from a number of peak industry bodies.
Fisher was adamant that digital skill sets are too low in Australia, suggesting that Digital Chameleon's figures were broadly in line with an IAB study which is set to launch in the near future. However, he argued the problem has been worse in certain areas of the industry.
“There is a major gap in skills and education,” Fisher said. “But it does depend on who you survey. There has not been a lot of investment in digital training in the last 15 years, but I would suggest that people on the publisher side and the digital side of media agencies are relatively skilled. But the non-digital and client side is where you start to see the biggest problems.
“Unless you are a digital marketer, it is clear that there is still a large proportion of the marketplace that is not properly skilled, and that is more on the buy side or the marketer side than the sell side.”
Fisher pointed to a number of reasons for the skills gap. He said increasing pressures on marcomms staff has meant there are time constraints which make training difficult. He also suggested digital media businesses have not been talking with non-digital businesses, due to silos the industry has erected.
“These have started to break down over the last couple of years, but it's still an issue,” Fisher said.
Yesterday, in the first part of the 'Digital Skills Crisis' series, the Association for Data-driven Marketing and Advertising (ADMA) chief executive Jodie Sangster argued that local universities have not been preparing students adequately for jobs involving digital.
Fisher agreed with Sangster that universities have not been preparing students, but also said the biggest focus at the moment should be on training people already in the industry.
“There's no silver bullet solution,” Fisher said. “Really the solution is more of what we are seeing now. More education and training. But what would help would be a more integrated view on training, a more coordinated approach.
“There is no inventory of who is training whom. There needs to be a skills gap analysis, and then training courses need to be designed accordingly. It's a huge job, and who's job is it? The Department of Education? The Department of Broadbrand and Communications? It's probably a combination of federal and state government bodies, industry bodies, providers and stakeholders.”
The Digital Chameleon report has been supported by Responsys' Big Australia Report, which indicated a widening gap in digital expertise. The report showed that over half of Australian marketers felt there was a lack of digital expertise in their company.
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