This Year I Stop Using The Term "Digital"

Just over 75 years ago, the world's first TV advertisement aired in the US. It was shakey, cost $9 and single handedly changed the way ad agencies created client work forever. When companies began creating television commercials, there was a definitive line drawn. Old versus new. Specialists emerged, naysayers naysayed.

"These moving pictures will never stand up to those you can hold in your hands"

-Naysayer, 1941   

Some creatives were drawn to the evolution of telling a brand's story, enveloped in the transformative glow. Today, TV ads are no longer referred to as a new form of advertising, it's just part of the marketing mix. Television advertising has lasting power for brands.

Nadar Ashway wrote about how marketing tends to work in the form of a Butterfly Effect. Many small brand interactions multiply to produce something greater than the sum of its parts. 

Successful brands that have stood the test of time interact with their customers holistically. They work across multiple touch points, blurring the lines between new and traditional like a well weathered friendship.

Hold-hands-with-brands.jpeg

So why delete "digital" from my vocabulary? When paired with "marketing" it infers that what we do online has no relation or concurrence with what we do offline for the business.

My focus no longer lies in digital marketing. 

It's just marketing, period. 

Marketing is 

What keeps me up at night are the interconnected activities we can do to grow Crankworx. I believe in building a marketing strategy that drives a constellation of efforts.

I'm not the only one.

I'm stoked to be working alongside PinkBike on this year's annual Whistler Bike conference in May.

It's a gathering of an intimate group of bike leaders that challenge themselves to expand their marketing approach. This year's theme is "Marketing to the Connected Consumer." I'm currently building the speaker roster and it's already shaping up to be a pretty cool line-up. 

For more details visit PinkBike's site or to speak your mind to the group, drop me an email!