Beyond "Digital" as a specialism

The solution is not a new word for digital. The solution is the extinction of the entire concept because it has been totally absorbed into our discipline.

Over on Marketing Week, there's something of a discussion brewing around last week's news from Adam&EveDDB that - agency-wide - they were making moves to slash the label Digital from job titles. Mark's argument, is that this is merely swapping one label for another, so as such - perhaps not a big enough step forward.

My initial reaction - and I commented as such to Mark on Twitter - was that whilst such stance is notable, a big part of it feels like little more than a surface level label change. The D becomes I; so what? 

Personally - "Interactive" as a label feels a touch late 90's to me. I don't think for a moment Adam & Eve are set to revive the CD-ROM, and it clearly means something different from its digital predecessor, but it's a specialist channel within "digital marketing" - sorry; force of habit - I mean "marketing". It cant only be about simply looking for a  like-for-like change.

Alex Hesz, has counted that interactive is directly related to the channels and activations through which the consumer - or user - directly participates; something more than just a passive experience. The additional delineation that this is part of a wider grouping of disciplines into interactive, film and display, channels adds a layer of clarity that makes more sense to me as a former agency head. I see where they're going with it.

As and aside, the cynic in me might even suggest Adam & Eve made the move first for the purely as a "PR inches" land grab. Still, somebody needed to blink first - to get the ball rolling - so undoubtedly I'm being overly harsh with this particular train of thought. Even if this was their strategy, Alex and his team should be commended for making that first move. A Marathon begins with the first step right? 

What I'm most interested in though is how this continues to manifest its self into the workflows, practices and strategies when working with clients. 

As Mark suggests, this is a deeper issue that the vanity of labels. Brad Jakemen of Pepsi, was pretty blunt with us all back in October of last year. This has to be about cultural change. Simply merging your digital department into the wider marketing offering and striping the "D" word is too shallow a change. Long term it has to cut deeper.

The key stake-holding marketers have to understand everything has changed. No longer can disciplines exist solely within their own silo's. Granted, nobody is saying there won't be a call for experts within the minutia of execution, but at a strategic level those without skills honed in the focus of "digital" risk holding things back.

For me, this is not just an agency-side challenge though. Jakemen was also clear on this. Client side, brand and product owners have to understand this shift also. Yes they can lean on the expertise of their agencies, but without a deeply entrenched understanding of what our new digitally driven consumers want and need - and how they truly consume media - they're not in a position to best steer what agencies deliver in a constructive direction.

Worse still, they're going to hold things back.

All this said, our "roles" need titles (after all we all want to manage our own "personal brands" to sex up how we appear to our peers on LinkedIn right?) especially when categorising specialties in certain disciplines. Key for me though is seeing any role as needing the "digital" label. It should be a given - assumed almost - that it's part of a roles day-to-day responsibility.

Exactly what this new label should be is a complex conversation, and let's be honest, what ever label we give it, we'll all be back here in 10 years time discussing how that replacement label should be dropped. 

Rinse and repeat...

All in though, this isn't going to be a change that happens overnight, and there's going to be resistance. But it's a necessary conversation and it might as well start somewhere. Interesting times lie ahead.