Bridging the great marketing divide

The topic of traditional versus digital marketing continues to be a talking point especially among digital marketers.

The ongoing debate of effectively planning and buying media online and the problems encountered with traditional media agencies isn’t something that’s going to go away anytime soon.

Though many media agencies are making a considerable effort to ensure that they have adequate digital media and creative skills in-house, nothing much has changed in terms of how the strategy gets executed effectively in a digital environment.

The one big issue that I continue to see is that the traditional agencies do not have enough skills within their “digital” divisions and this is something endemic to South Africa as a whole. The digital stalwarts in the industry, that truly understand the power of digital, have on average 10 years in the digital industry.

This obviously affects the planning and execution process and more importantly the integration with traditional above-the-line campaigns.

The specialist digital agencies continue to dominate the digital marketing space and rightly so — their understanding and skills of digital marketing is far superior to the traditional agencies even if you include their “digital” divisions in the mix.

Another issue that is apparent is one of approach, which is also part of experience and knowledge of the space, and this approach is often focused purely on a campaign or marketing approach. There is no consideration for bottom-line results, ROI, conversions, integration with business processes.

I am not trying to use this as an agency-bashing article — traditional agencies have an important role to play — but I think we are still running around in circles and companies are being led down a rocky road with no long-term return on their spend.

A complete mind-shift is needed and traditional agencies trying to operate in the digital space need to focus on results, only then will the digital agencies have anything to worry about.