February’s issue of Revolu­tion magazine talks in great detail about the term ‘digital’ in rela­tion to mar­ket­ing and com­mu­nic­a­tions. To quote the editor, Gareth Jones, “The days of digital being used as a moniker for a spe­cific way of think­ing or doing busi­ness are well and truly numbered”.

The art­icle goes on to sug­gest that there isn’t much of a future for agen­cies or indi­vidu­als who badge them­selves as purely ‘digital’ — a com­ment from Dylan Wil­li­ams at Mother explains that “brands no longer want a digital strategy; they want strategy for a digital world”. The art­icle talks to many strategists and mar­ket­ing dir­ect­ors and all of them agree that brand­ing your­self as spe­cial­ising in digital may not be wise when look­ing to the future. Steven Hess from Weapon 7 states that “… digital agen­cies will not exist in the next 10 years because the good ones will grav­it­ate towards stra­tegic, channel-neutral think­ing… ” which is rein­forced later in the art­icle by Ben Fen­nell of BBH Lon­don who says “only the cre­at­ive busi­nesses that can take the very best from two col­lid­ing worlds will prosper”.

I read this art­icle on the back of the latest train­ing day for the MSc that I am cur­rently doing and it struck a chord with me as I feel I’m get­ting a bit of a repu­ta­tion of being the ‘old man’ of the class — I tend to get very enthu­si­astic when I talk about print or typo­graphy and have a tend­ency to try to make sure I don’t dis­miss the ‘old school’ mar­ket­ing tools such as leaf­lets, bro­chures, press ads, etc, when look­ing at a digital mar­ket­ing strategy. Don’t get me wrong — I find the whole field of digital mar­ket­ing com­mu­nic­a­tions really excit­ing (oth­er­wise I wouldn’t be study­ing it at Mas­ters level), but I have to agree with many of the opin­ions and points in the Revolu­tion art­icle — why impose lim­its on your­self by using a cur­rent buzz word in your title or identity?

My job title is cur­rently Vice-President of Com­mu­nic­a­tions. I like that. ‘Com­mu­nic­a­tions’ cov­ers a wide range of skills and know­ledge, which suits me just fine. I was recently asked if I would like to add the word ‘digital’ to this and I’m afraid I had to say no. I’ve had digital in my title before and I felt, although it showed I have know­ledge in that area — it was at the expense of all the other skills and know­ledge I have.

What’s your view? Does hav­ing ‘digital’ in your title or brand impose lim­its on the per­cep­tion of your skills or ser­vices or is that not a con­cern for you?

The full art­icle can be read in Revolu­tion magazine, a sup­ple­ment of Mar­ket­ing.