All brands need a digital economy strategy

Dentsu Aegis chief strategy officer, Mathew Crook
By Dentsu Aegis chief strategy officer, Mathew Crook | 27 May 2016
 
Matt Crook

One of the key challenges for any communications group is how we ensure we remain the agency partner of choice to help our clients and partners not only navigate, but thrive in the digital economy.

This is by no means a simple task in an era defined by business, information and consumer globalization, convergence of utility, connectivity and commerce all with a back-drop of media and business disruption, data-defined communications redefining demographics, audiences and consumers as the ‘segment of one’.

We are in a true customer era in every sense of the word. It is somewhat daunting but certainly exciting to be a client or working in an agency navigating this space today.

The digital economy has escalated our requirement to be truly empathetic to the human experience but has also presented both challenges and vast opportunity. No matter what your category, your business, your audience may be – every brand needs a digital economy strategy to survive and potentially flourish.

Digital has stimulated and enhanced a change in expectation of personal experience with basic human needs and desires at the heart. It has fueled the need and enhanced our ability to communicate, share, experience, entertain and transact seamlessly with unbridled choice, speed, on demand and on personal terms.

This cyclical nature of step change technology enhancements delivering ‘new economy’ platforms, new business models, new supply side products and ultimately new customer experience and expectation is at the heart of the digital economy.

It is this cyclical relationship of enhancement and advancement where the digital economy becomes the primary environment to compliment the human experience and expectation.

It is only getting faster and deeper and transcends customers, agencies, media and most importantly our client’s business. It is somewhat of a vortex where analogue or traditional business needs to either adapt to or be enhanced by digital.
We are all advancing our footprint in business critical areas of data, content, programmatic, e-commerce, CRM, partnerships and technology.

We are all acutely aware of the challenges facing established media, the effects of media and platform fragmentation, globalization of media supply and demand as well as unbridled and borderless consumer connection and purchase choice and methodology.

We are participating in a global world where technology and business model disruption is now the status quo. In this world the key question is, how do we ensure we remain not only relevant to our clients but help them win? One of our DAN global leaders explains it perfectly; if you’re not a startup you’re a turnaround. I think this is a great behavioral mindset to take us to 2020 and beyond.

Do we really understand what our clients want and just as importantly, do they always know what they need? Do we really understand the market and client challenges or are we simply masters of interpreting the media symptoms of change? To truly help our clients lean into the digital economy we need to be and participate in all the above.

So to take our business and our clients forward we need to be thinking that communications is our lens into business transformation. This opens the door to a bigger, broader and more powerful conversation that allows us to produce transformational work. Let’s not use the often described view of becoming ‘consultants’ but focusing instead on enhancing a broad, business first mindset partnered with our deep specialist skills is where we want to be.

Our clients and our partners want our guidance, input and intelligence on a vast array of topics. That is a fact but we need to firstly understand what it is they are actually looking for.

They don’t want the best app, a stand-alone quality search campaign, a great mobile site or the best screens plan in isolation.

They want borderless models of business integration that transcend all disciplines, consistency of thought globally and locally and an ability to think big but execute with precision. But most importantly they want to be challenged.

Challenged in a way that not only elevates their communications but enhances and step changes their business.

Are we asking the right questions that will take their business to a new place?

Are we providing opinion, advice and opportunity in areas that sit outside our media ‘comfort zone’?

We need to start answering the key challenges: How is globalization of demand changing my customer base?

Who are my customers and competitors in the digital economy?

How is ‘the corner store’ with no barriers of entry and market potential disrupting my industry?

What are the roles of supply/ demand facilitators and aggregators and the effect of my brands role in the supply chain?

Do I adapt or reinvent and when will my category move?

How do I participate in anywhere/ anytime commerce?

How does technology give me advantage with customer experience?

Is mobility a first step into a true connected device environment and how do I participate?

As an industry, we all have not only an opportunity but a responsibility to help our clients navigate complexity and the start of this journey is by thinking differently about our role and relationships moving forward. A behavioral adjustment if you will.

We need to unite our specialist skills – technology, media, creativity, platforms and audience understanding - under a common, business focused ambition.

Do you have a digital economy strategy?

By Dentsu Aegis ANZ chief strategy officer & CEO performance and data, Mathew Crook

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