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2014: The year of convergence

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digital-media-tree-1024x834At this time of the year there are countless blogs predicting what will happen, in every sector, in the coming year. They range from the insightful to the fanciful to the controversial. This one isn’t particularly any of those because it is simply predicting that, in marketing, a trend that has been gathering pace for the last two years or so will peak – convergence.

On and offline, digital and traditional, PR, Social Media and Search – all are becoming intrinsically linked. None of them are becoming more or less important, simply dependent on each other to work effectively. Marketers, both on the client and agency sides, are having to adjust their approach to match the consumer. Consumers don’t differentiate between on and offline, they’ll simply use the channel that is most convenient for them at any moment in time – or several of them simultaneously.

Businesses and brands are either winning or losing dependent on their ability to adapt to this consumer behaviour. Just this week the chief executive of John Lewis cited the success of their click and collect service as a major factor in their excellent Christmas sales figures, whereas the chief exec of Morrison’s bemoaned their under-achievement in this area as major contributor to their poor ones. And it’s not only in the consumer arena. Almost all B2B purchasing decisions will have had a mix of online search, website visits, emails, personal visits and reputation involved. A complete mix of on and offline channels.

But what about the ‘channels’ themselves? They’re also converging. Take the media as an example. Over recent years all has been doom and gloom about how the internet will cause the death of the newspaper industry and how Pay-Walls will never work. How wrong that has proven. Maybe they’ve been slow, but many media organisations are running highly successful joint print and online businesses. Yes, some have perished under the challenge, but the savvy and determined have thrived. Once again, it’s all about user behavior. A typical consumer might scan BBC online news first thing in the morning and sporadically during the day, then, in their leisure time read in depth features via their online subscription to their specialist interest magazine and curl up in bed with a hefty paper copy of the Sunday Times at the weekend. In between they may have scanned the free papers on their daily commute and got the news from TV and Radio. Then there’s social media…

Successful Ebay shops are opening bricks and mortar stores, computer games are spawning movies, the music industry is reporting record sales – due to downloading! Remember when that was going to destroy the music industry? The battle between books and the tablet wasn’t a battle at all. Many people are happily switching between both as fancy takes them.

This convergence by business and the consumer is causing the marketing sector to converge itself. Media specialists are acquiring search and social media business. Search specialists are opening PR departments. PR agencies are employing ‘content creators’. Is there really a need for a ‘Digital Marketing Manager’ anymore? As opposed to what other type of marketing manager? And what of social media? Virtually all media is ‘social’ now, so the differentiation in expertise in managing on and offline channels is disappearing and the old structures that went with it.

So, if you want a New Year’s Resolution why not ‘I will do everything I can to make sure my business is a converged business’?

The post 2014: The year of convergence appeared first on Hatrick.


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