Digital Minds Forum

A few weeks ago whilst on holiday, I went to investigate a disturbance outside my tent in the middle of the night, some drunken louts shouting, swearing and getting rather physical with each other. Having phoned 999 I decided to venture outside and try to resolve the matter once and for all.

So, dressed in my silky nightdress, hunters wellies and London Marathon raincoat …. I was almost ready… just the final weapon…my iphone.

Once, outside, armed with my handy iphone confronted by this group of drunken non-English speaking men, I desperately hunted through my apps. I guess I was looking for a ‘light saber app’ or ‘pretend your surrounded police app’ I actually don’t know. Instead, I found my ‘flashtorch’ app which is fact a pointless colour screen and flashed that around thinking they would soon see I had come equipped with my iphone and disappear.

What planet are we all living on? I had ventured in to some warped reality of iphone, wii and sci fi. A real testimony to digital marketing living and breathing the virtual world. I hadn’t even had a drink!

Luckily, in this instance the police appeared and everything was dissolved peacefully. For me it was a lesson that perhaps I’m getting just a little to reliant on my gadgets….and perhaps taking my digital marketing world a little too seriously.

Digital marketing is a massively important area.  All us enlightened modern marketers know that.

However, are many digital marketers wasting much of their time?   Are they building relationships with the wrong customers? Are the messages wrong for that digital audience?  Do the messages reinforce or counter the company’s competitiveness?

In essence, how much direction are digital marketers given by the company’s marketing strategy? Unfortunately, there is much evidence that strategy formulation is weak in many companies (see a book called ‘Marketing Plans, How to Prepare Them, How to Use Them’ by Professor Malcolm McDonald).  The consequence of this is that poor targets are often set for digital campaigns and the digital marketer becomes an obedient dog keenly jumping over a cliff to chase a worthless stick for their master. (Read more…)

The 4th Cambridge Digital Marketing Conference is happening on the 8th July. Looks like a very impressive day for a bargain £100 + vat. Really pleased to see it priced at something which self-pay students and freelance lecturers will be able to afford as well as those on a training budget.

The speakers include:

• Michael Nutley – editor-in-chief of New Media Age
• Mark Stuart – head of research at CIM and author of its recent Shape the Agenda report into the future of digital
• Dave Chaffey – beloved internet marketing guru of CIM/CAM students, author of emarketing books, websites and blogs

The Conference website itself is well worth a browse with audio of previous years’ talks as well as Powerpoints of some of the presentations.

I’ve got a bunch of my CAM and CIM students coming with me. Do spread the word.

Book online here.