[2010 trends] The year of digital

Bringing digital into its own in 2010 are two key factors:

1. Many, many consumers across all demographic fields and boundaries are comfortable with the technologies. Even grannies have mobile phones, SMS their bridge cronies and conduct their financial affairs online.
   
   
2. Digital platforms are more measureable than traditional media. However, interpreting the data they provide can be daunting.

What does this mean for our industry?

Well, the rise of data does not mean the death of branding and creativity. In fact, agencies will need to pay a great deal more attention to brand strategy while making greater use of digital.

Granted, communications strategy will remain the mainstay of what we do, but the brand strategy discussions will be essential for fruitful client relationships. Agencies that have an ‘order-taking' mentality will not survive. Instead, our clients will more and more demand of us to demonstrate proven capability in the area of strategy.

Greater knowledge

What the rise of data does mean for our industry is that a greater knowledge of the digital space, as well as proven sets of capability in this area, is at the top of marketers' list of what they want from their advertising and marketing agencies.

Clients will expect that agency employees use the technologies - say, social media - that they recommend. Familiarity with these technologies is essential, otherwise how do we know that we are recommending the best communications solutions to our clients?

At the same time, to understand more about their target audiences, marketers will rely more and more on virtual communities such as blogs and other social media. Information contained in these community platforms is live and spans a variety of topics. Marketers no longer have to wait six-to-12 months for the market intelligence departments to produce a consumer barometer. Moreover, these platforms deliver a true insight into what matters in the consumers' lives, and not what matters to the marketer.

Mine of data

However, the explosion of virtual communities and digital will give rise to a mine of data and not everyone will know how to mine it. Analytics - such as that offered by Draftfcb partner Crunch will play a critical role as it transforms dry data into rich insights. [The Crunch team analyses a client's data before sourcing and overlays other databases such as AMPS statistics sourced from the Internet and validated, and so on. Then, using visual analytics techniques, it visualises the data and, finally presents it to a client using its proprietary Smartwall, an eight-screen plasma wall that carries rich interactive media and allows the team to tell relevant stories using data.]

The rise of digital also means that agencies that invest in digital capability, in particular human capital, will be more appealing to clients. Digital strategists, and not just digital creatives, add a considerable amount of value to the communications discussion. The pervasiveness of digital platforms requires that agencies think differently about client's business problems.

Web 2.0

And, of course, agencies will have to be Web 2.0 savvy and present 2.0 solutions as part of every campaign. I cannot think of any communications solution that will be implemented without this aspect. Even in South Africa, with our fairly limited access to the web for most of the population, cellular-based solutions are a relevant solution.

Finally, 2010 the year of digital, will see the slow but certain death of ‘push' campaigns as brands engage consumers more and more via ‘pull' interactions such as social media and other online platforms. This will replace the traditional ‘top-down' relationships many brands have had with consumers.