CMO Corner. How digital medium is changing the definition of marketing

The digital medium has radically and irreversibly changed how we consume media — gone are the days of passively surfing through channels and idly flipping pages.

We start off as digital immigrants indulging in the active search vs the passive surf, and before we know it, we are transformed into digital natives adding the terms ‘sharing’ and ‘curating’ to our vocabularies. The ultimate digital native, as the new-age marketer knows, is the one who creates content on behalf of brands and goes on to influence consumers far more effectively than at times precision-created advertising and moneybag media spends.

Marketing, therefore, has to shift from sequential thinking to radial thinking, accepting thought blurbs from anywhere.

Advertising has to transition to content.

Marketing needs to become the fine art of curating, with marketers donning the role of storytellers. Thank God some things don’t change — insights, the power of the right messaging, and storytelling albeit in a different format.

What have changed, and like how, have been the speed of consumers and response, the multi-dimensionality of the medium, the sheer quantum of data available to be mined through, and the never-endingness of possible solutions.

I believe that what marketers need are re-orienting of skills, competencies and mindsets to keep pace with consumers in the digital world.

Both sides of the brain, the left and the right, need to be brought seamlessly into play — the creative and the analytical. The marketer needs to learn not to be swamped by data or possibilities, and be proactive rather than just react to consumer conversations.

This can be done only when the marketer assumes the role of orchestrating multiple specialist agencies all working seamlessly towards the brand goal.

Most critically, today’s marketer has to learn to let go and to divest some control, and let the consumer in as a participant in the brand’s storytelling.

That’s when the true power of digital will be unleashed which is a necessity today, not a choice.

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