The Art of Being a Digital Disrupter

I was talking to the awesome and talented Tanya Moore and something happened to me, she said something sublime: "I feel like a digital disrupter is when Marketing (Products), Digital(Campaigns) and Technology(Innovative Interactivity) come together ...." I had never ever heard anything quite like that before. It was one of those ah-ha moments. 

I've been doing a lot of thinking of late on authenticity, branding, social selling and influencer marketing. A disruptive innovation is an innovation that helps create a new market and value network, and eventually disrupts an exiting marketing and value network over a period of years or decades, displacing earlier technology. Innovation is after all, a social event. Pioneers lead, consumers adopt. There is no reason not to "upgrade".

 So a digital disruptor is someone who is in sync with the future of technology, social media and the digital and virtual landscape. Proponents of omnichannel thinking were  digital disruptors a few years ago, when it wasn't as obvious how mobile was taking over and how customer experience would snowball in importance.

Marketers and sales teams need to reinvent themselves, otherwise your company will fail! This is hard for CEOs to get a grips upon or take seriously, they believe in their products and don't see being adaptable as necessary to their survival.  Maybe they rely too much on investors or are just incapable of innovative thinking. But young marketers realize the necessity of being digital disruptors, of taking risks and finding new contemporary answers to old problems. Like how to retain customers and convert prospects. Like how to find new audiences for products and how to repackage products to suit the customer. Like how to optimize interface and how to improve production chains. 

 We have to live in a mindset of innovation, if we don't do this, we are on the way to bankruptcy. I've witnessed corporate arrogance and apathy first hand, I've heard the executives laugh off the future, "oh it could not happen to us."  But digital is not only the way we live as consumers, it's changing the way we conduct ourselves professionally. Hang on a second, what does that even mean, say what?

Every generation has pioneers that displace the hierarchy of the last. Some of these influencers represent persuasive trends, like champions of ecommerce, predictive analytics, Big data, growth hackers that simply have a secret formula that works for your target audience. How can we identify a digital disruptor? For starters, they don't' just say the same thing and have methods to accelerate growth at an unprecedented rate. They appeal to the urgency of the spirit of evolution herself, and see windows of opportunity as shrinking rainbows. 

They have an innate knack for product marketing using avant-garde methods and are growth orientated. They see beyond the current trends. They are able to position your brand in dynamic ecosystems of value that combine digital channels in new ways and push limits of innovation in story-telling, new media and interactivity. Their emphasis is to transform the experience of their customers. You won't find hoards of articles about them, they are rare breed of leader that are likely digitally as different from you, as you are from your grandparents. Sometimes digital disruptors are simply emerging technologies (who may be applied by digital disrupters in their respective domains):

 Examples:

• Amazon delivery of goods with a fleet of drones, is a great example of disruptive marketing. I mean who saw that coming?

• How about Emotive Insight, the perfect brand name, they are coming up with a neuroheadset to give brain computer interfaces a spin.

• Bitcoin, enough said. 

• 3-D printing, set to quadruple by 2020. 

In the next 10 years, there will be thousands of examples. Will you be able to spot them? Bottom line, if your marketing team is not innovating, fire them. They will likely be replaced by younger minds that are more in tune with the future anyway.