2015, it must be hoped, will be a year in which the communications industry heads back to the future. The digital universe has become hydra-headed, shape shifting. Marketers are drowning in a sea of bits and bytes. Digital crusaders advocate algorithmic salvation and Big Data deliverance.
The perception that marketing professionals can be divided into so-called traditionalists and cool digital kids has taken root. To remain relevant, we lunge at the latest data mining technique or augmented reality app without thinking of strategic imperatives.
The result — message inconsistency, consumer confusion, and cultural conflicts within the communications industry — has not been pretty.
In 2015, a professional intifada will end. The primacy of ideas — both strategic and executional — will become self-evident. We will realize that timeless principles of brand building must be turbo-charged, but not replaced, by technology. As this happens, a few trends emerge:
Consistency is Golden. Marketers will demand “top-down” and “bottom-up” alignment, rooted in a brand idea that defines a long-term relationship between consumers and brand. This relationship, inherently interactive and bilateral, underpins subsequent consumer engagement that needs to be both authentic and constructed.
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