Sure, Digital’s The ‘New Normal’ But What About The Customer Experience?

In this opinion piece, Paula Parkes, Adobe’s director of marketing, Asia Pacific, says marketers have got digital right but maybe forgetting one thing – the customer experience…
Businesses in Asia Pacific are reaching their digital peak. As digital becomes standard, the pace of transformation is slowing and marketers are falling into a comfort zone, starting to become risk adverse and not pushing technologies to the next level.
Yet, new research from Adobe and CMO Council show that the next evolution of customer experience is about to hit marketers and businesses across Asia Pacific, with creativity and content playing a pivotal role in delivering a personalised customer experience.
CMO Council in partnership with Adobe has released the fourth annual APAC Digital Marketing Performance Dashboard which explores the adoption, traction and success of digital marketing in key Asia Pacific countries.
It included a three month in-field program comprising quantitative surveys with 900 senior marketers. For the first time, the 2015 Digital Dashboard also examined creative empowerment and content velocity indicators, both critical to delivering an integrated and compelling customer experience.
Digital marketing
Digital marketing is accessible, measurable, incredibly cost effective and absolutely unavoidable in today’s digital world. Digital is no longer a question and organizations are no longer questioning the need to embark on these new customer-powered digital experiences. Digital marketing is now becoming fundamental marketing as customers demand focused and relevant experience across mobile, social and web.
The research clearly shows this with 91 per cent of respondents believing digital marketing will drive competitive advantage. In addition, digital marketing enjoys strong business leadership support across Asia Pacific, with the CMO taking responsibility for digital marketing strategy at 39 per cent of organisations across the region.
As you can see from the image above, the mindset that digital marketing is important is high around the region with Australia and New Zealand leading the charge. Over 60 per cent of APAC marketers believe digital marketing better engages and activates their audiences. More business leadership teams are receptive to piloting and testing new digital strategies (34 per cent) while fewer are wedded to traditional marketing tactics only (13 per cent). Gone are the questions about the importance of digital.
Is digital maturity stagnating?
The level of digital maturity is steadily growing in the region but is this growth slowing to a halt? 28 per cent of APAC marketers believe they are highly evolved and progressive leaders while the majority 36 per cent feel they are still exploring and evaluating all options and only 6 per cent feel they are laggards.
Measurement and analytics are accepted as mandatory for the modern digital marketing organization, with 84 per cent of APAC marketers confirming they are using marketing technology platforms to analyse and report. However, there is still progress to be made in the application of these technologies, with only 4 per cent saying they believe they are doing an excellent job at measuring return on investment. In additional only nine per cent believe data is integrated throughout the marketing lifecycle!
The changes for marketing readiness and marketing skills is minor with very slight growth year on year. There is a sense that marketers understand that measurement needs to happen and that digital is the new normal, but the disturbing trend here is that marketers have landed firmly in the middle – seemingly unable to take the leap from moderate results and average performance to excellence.
All the Buzz about customer experience
Customer experience is becoming the new buzz word as marketers struggle to provide a perfectly unified experience in a fragmented digital world. The holy grail of customer experience is when content, data and channel are aligned. By using the data to move beyond just reporting on KPIs and looking into customer insights, you can deliver personalized content across multiple channels. Customers can then get personalized content from your brand anytime, anywhere.
Few marketers say they are struggling to find and implement a coherent creative voice (10 per cent) but only four per cent say they have a highly evolved creative engine fueled by an organization-wide, unified vision. Far more (22 per cent) enjoy a defined vision within the organization but admit that this vision fails to reach outside their organizational walls and is far less aligned with external agencies and partners. This lack of unified creative vision and content development alignment threatens the customer experience.
To absolutely no-one’s surprise, mobile continues to be central in APAC, and marketers have taken positive steps to meet customer demands with one in four marketers saying an integrated mobile experience is a core element of their customer journey. In addition, 29 per cent say they have enabled creative teams to develop mobile-ready content that is accessible on multiple devices. Marketers are starting to adopt a mobile-first strategy mindset (18 per cent in APAC) but more need to be done as customers become more mobile-dependent.
It seems that although companies are increasingly data-driven, they have not yet managed to extend an integrated approach to include creativity and content development. Marketers need to strive for a seamless alignment between content, data and channel by moving beyond simply using data to report on campaign KPIs and use it to gain customer insights, which in turn lead to actionable strategies to deliver personalized, high value content across multiple channels. Content and creativity are key, and together with strong organizational data mindset and executing, will be the fuel that catapults customer experience forward.
Download the full report here.
This piece originally appeared on B&T’s sister site www.which-50.com
Latest News

Amazon Prime Secures Rights To Next Cricket World Cup
In a massive shift in the broadcasting landscape, Amazon Prime has secured the Australian rights to the next cricket World Cup alongside a range of other tournaments run by the International Cricket Council (ICC) until 2027. The deal means that Australian Cricket fans can only access the tournaments if they have a paid subscription to […]

Limited Tickets Still Available For First Ever Industry Pantomime
With just over 24 hours to go until the world premiere of Addy Lala and the Mood Tea Thieves, limited tickets are still available for the pantomime, which will run for one night only at the Everest Theatre in Sydney’s Seymour Centre on December 5th. All in the industry are encouraged to come along to […]

Palin Communications joins GlobalCom PR Network
Specialist Australian health PR agency, Palin Communications, has joined GlobalCom PR Network with a view to delivering meaningful, consistent, impactful, global health campaigns across a range of countries and regions.

Axe-Wielding Eric Andre Stars In Opera GX Campaign, Via Waste Creatives
Irreverent campaign for Opera GX, the browser for gamers, sees actor and comedian Eric Andre confronting people using “boring” browsers

Make it your way at Highpoint Via Cyclone Creative Agency
Highpoint is inviting Melbournians to embrace what makes them different, through their ‘Make it Your Way’ campaign via Cyclone Creative agency.

2045: A New Melbourne-Based Creative Agency Founded by Tim Evans and Nick Auditore
2045, a Melbourne-based creative agency founded by Tim Evans and Nick Auditore has just launched. The agency takes its name from the year futurist Ray Kurzweil predicted organic and artificial intelligence would converge. Lead Image: 2045 Team Evans was formerly a Partner and Executive Strategy Director at DT (now AKQA), before co-founding B.B.E in 2015. […]

Pengu Dances Their Way Through New Film by electriclime°
Production house electriclime° have linked up with Riot Games to create a new film to celebrate the launch of Teamfight Tactics Mobile (“TFT”) in Asia Pacific.

National Breast Cancer Foundation Announced as Charity Partner For NYE Sydney
The National Breast Cancer Foundation has been announced as the Charity Partner for Sydney New Year’s Eve. The Australian not-for-profit organisation is represented by the pink ribbon and raises money to fund world-class research towards its vision of zero deaths from breast cancer. Research that saves lives through a better understanding of how to prevent […]

Sunday TV Ratings: Brits Dominate With Annika, Joanna Lumley And David Attenborough Making Top 10
Sunday night strangely dominated by UK-made content. That said, Piers not getting a heap of love over at Sky.

Emporium Unveils Unique Christmas Campaign: “Every Tradition Starts Somewhere”
This holiday season, Emporium Melbourne has announced its festive creative campaign that celebrates and encourages the Melbourne community to embrace their personal ‘untraditional traditions’ – the unique traditions that make Christmas truly special for them, and their family. The campaign’s tagline, “Every tradition starts somewhere”, reflects Emporium’s commitment to embracing, inspiring and applauding diverse traditions […]

Stop Being A Water Waster! Sydney Schoolboy Urges Everyone To Save Water
Planning a staff dunking booth this Christmas? Not too late to switch to 10-pin bowling with this water save campaign.

Reddit Updates Conversation Placement Ads Formats
Reddit has announced updates to its new ads placement with Carousel Ads and Product Ads. These new units, placed in the heart of Reddit discussions, provide an even more dynamic and compelling way for advertisers to scale to relevant audiences, deliver deeper value to users, and drive stronger, full-funnel performance among the hundreds of thousands […]

Full Throttle Into 2024: Drive.com.au Announces 12 New Products In 2024 Upfronts
Automotive Network Drive has announced its 2024 upfronts, its biggest in more than a decade, with a suite of more than 12 new products that underpin its vision to be the number one automotive network in Australia. Now in its 27th year and with a monthly audience of 2.45 million, Drive is leveraging its reputation […]

Journalist Tegan George Suing Network 10 After Being Left With “Trauma” From Bushfire Reporting
It's been a rocky road for many people & agencies in 2023; however, it's been all sunshine & rainbows for 10's lawyers.

As Big Spenders Flee, X Pivots To SMBs To Fill Ad Dollar Deficit
Elon's halo continues to slip. Joining Albo's, Harry's, Meghan's and Optus' similar downward trajectory.

Foxtel Group Extends Partnership With Mindshare For A Further Three Years
Mindshare Christmas bash upgraded from "house" to "spirits included" after Foxtel re-signs.

Sleeping Duck’s Cheeky Campaign Exposes Its Competitors’ Tricks
B&T unaware of the vitriol & acrimony between the online mattress companies. We were aware of it between News & the ABC.

The North Face Flies-In Jacket To Furious Hiker In The Marketing Save Of 2023
North Face continues to bat away a series of PR disasters. And not merely from Australian politicians being seen in it.

oOh!media Unveils 51 New Large Format Sites This Year
oOh!media continues to rapidly expand its large format digital network, launching seven new sites at premium locations across major arterials in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The latest large format digitals include another premium site in the exclusive Sydney suburb of Mosman. Positioned at the gateway of the lower north shore on Military Road, the high-impact […]

Bear Meets Eagle On Fire Unveils “Until Then” Mark II For NRMA
If there's a HOT agency at the moment, it has to be Bear Meets Eagle On Fire. Get your fingers burnt with this latest.

Seven Uses Gen AI to Push Tech Boundaries With Ignite
The Seven Network revealed the results of the second round of its flagship innovation initiative – Ignite – which saw seven employee-led generative AI concepts selected for prototype development. An inspiring three-week event, Ignite brings together internal cross-functional teams of engineers, data scientists, product managers and staff from across the business to collaborate and develop […]

Creative Tensions Boil Over In Witty New Work From Apple
Is it just B&T or does Apple continually spruiking the filmmaking credentials of its phones undermine actual filmmaking?

Shannon Noll Records Aussie-Rock Twist On Christmas Classic For Jetstar Campaign
Shannon Noll's agent receives rare call as Jetstar enlists singer for new campaign. Guy reported to be seething.

Rolling Stone AU/NZ Unveils Its 50 Living Icons Edition
Rolling Stone's living icons edition is here and it'll make difficult reading for Kyle and Ray Hadley.

Australia’s Greatest Ever Ad – The Finalists!
The end is in sight for B&T's search for Australia's greatest ever ad. You can hasten its demise by voting pronto.

CHEP Delivers A Horror Movie For Queensland Health’s Sun Safety Campaign
Queenslanders again reminded to slip, slop, slap. Also reminded not to constantly bang on about XXXX Gold & the Broncos.

Australian Agency Engaging.io Slam Dunks With Texas NBA Team
Australian tech consultancy Engaging.io has scored a major business win with the appointment by a leading Texas-based US National Basketball Association (NBA) team to revolutionise its marketing and communication strategies. The powerhouse NBA franchise turned to Sydney-headquartered Engaging to spearhead a major HubSpot implementation, driving greater efficiencies, personalisation and a more seamless experience for fans. […]

Monkeys’ Tara Ford Appointed CCO Of Accenture Song’s APAC & Latin Growth Markets
Can't even remember to get the milk in the morning? Spare a thought for Tara Ford & this seemingly demanding new role.

SMI Data: Outdoor’s October Bookings Up Almost 20% YOY
Latest data shows outdoor proving to be adland's current shining light. Discover who's less illuminated here too.

Dentsu QLD Partners With DeadlyScience & UnLtd To Drive STEM Programs With First Nations Youth
Dentsu Queensland has formed a strategic partnership with DeadlyScience, an organisation that provides science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) resources to Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander students across Australia. The partnership is in collaboration with UnLtd, which helps connect the media and marketing industries with charities helping children and young people at risk. This is […]

Gen Z Drives Growth At Vogue Australia
Data shows Vogue Australia pulling the Zs. However, Women's Weekly has all but sewn up the Royals & the scones lovers.

Revolution360 Parent Venetian Media Group Acquires Digital Native
Victoria-based Venetian Media Group (VMG) has acquired web and digital strategy shop Digital Native. Lead image L-R: VMG CEO, Michael Fishwick; Digital Native big chief, Matt Gardan. Digital Native specialises in digital strategy, branding, UX and web design it has deep experience in renewables, emerging technology and not-for-profit. Its web design process and collaborative approach […]

Murmur Group Launches High-Octane Campaign For Rare Spares Rockynats
One of Australia’s biggest off-street car and motorbike festivals, Rare Spares Rockynats, is returning to Rockhampton for Easter 2024 and has kicked off its promotional calendar with a high-octane media campaign. The two-phase campaign, via award-winning marketing agency Murmur-Group, will launch across large format out-of-home and retail placements and will be supported by local radio, […]

Think HQ & Cancer Council Victoria Engage Multicultural Audiences To Increase Bowel Screening Numbers
Been reading the food pyramid completely upside down of late? This bowel cancer screening news is a timely reminder.

Drink Driving Myths Busted In New Campaign From TAC Via Clems
They're the two words that destroy any night out, but there's no shying away from the designated driver.

Air New Zealand & Bastion Shine Save Christmas With Their Latest Campaign
When it comes to New Zealanders, are they really just glorified Tasmanians who are much better at sport?