“Is it really time to drop the word digital?”

These were the exact words I put to our good friend Google the other day. The response came back in the form of a few links to opinions published by reputable industry members. They were discussing why the lines have blurred so much so that 2016 may well be a year of convergence where the true promise of integration is realized.

This argument is certainly gaining momentum in more mature markets, with a few cases of companies who have let go of the “digital” marker from their systems. However, when one looks at this from the perspective of our region, much fewer are those who have made that bold step, despite the phenomenal growth and consumption of anything digital or tech.

The Arabs have led the way in putting the region on the global digital map and we can clearly see why. The social and cultural fabric of the MENA has opened up massive opportunities of growth for global platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat.

It has also crucially led to the allocation of substantial advertising and marketing investments by brands for the first time in decades. Many in the media industry had been waiting for this inflection point, a turning of the tide so to speak, and both consumers and advertising professionals have much to gain from this new reality.

Fueled by this demand and the availability of appealing media outlets, investments are flowing stronger and stronger. The digital advertising market is close to $1 billion regionally, according to estimates and the merger and acquisitions activity in the digital and technology sector amassed $36 billion in 2015, according to industry sources. 

This is truly transformational as this activity is attracting talent. If, in the past, media and advertising companies sometimes struggled to attract talented individuals away from other industries, this digital disruption is now making them cool. Today, start-ups and entrepreneurs are popular career options to pursue. So much so that new jobs are appearing, new skills sets are in demand and careers are being reshaped. Failure to jump on that train is simply not an option for company leaders, who fear being left behind so fast is the market transformation.

Digital once described the last five minutes of the media strategy presentation, the 1% of media investments, the bit few actually understood or valued. When a company leadership is placed in the hand of a digital native or expert, when the growth strategy of a business depends on digital platforms, it’s clearly a sign that what was once the exception is now the rule.

Look around you: what’s ‘brick and mortar’ when traditional retailers embrace e-commerce? Welcome to the “phygital” age. Technology is disrupting the retail environment in our region, impacting everyone from the automotive dealership to the hypermarket as well as profoundly transforming the consumer experience.

Put another way, it’s near impossible to find an aspect of our lives from which digital is absent or dominant. It’s even more pronounced in our media lives. Marketing is now driven by data by design to such a degree that instead of fighting it, all media are taking the digital and data turn. Analogue is becoming a quaint anachronism. To most brands, it’s a case of ‘no digital, no future’.

Over the coming months and years, this trend will only accelerate and the socio-economic challenges ahead of us will only accelerate this transformation. As it’s already the case in a few markets, digital communications will eventually be brands’ largest allocation in their advertising budgets thanks to their measurable effectiveness.

With digital marketing taking such a prominent role, what is the value of segregating it from the rest, silo-ing it from other media and treating it as the oddity? There will be no reason to use this marker when most or all marketing is digital and planners and buyers manage all media channels holistically.

There is simply no place for any organization to stick to the status quo of digital as a separate vertical as Technology no longer sits with the digital specialists anymore and in an era of convergence and blurred lines, there is a need for a totally new level of congruency.

What’s more, this new culture will also bring with it an era where we will not have to dwell in any elaborative digital defining introductions and titles.