Connected Marketing has principles – 11 of them

Ever since we first published The Connected Marketer™ last July, journalists, partners, members, and clients have been asking us two key questions: what do the winners in connected marketing have in common and how can we apply their learning to our own business? The practice of Connected Marketing is new and evolving. We have spent a huge amount of time …

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Continuing Thoughts on Change

“It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.” – Isaac Asimov Seemingly nothing in life changes as much as technology. Technology is constantly upgraded and updated around us. This …

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Why Digital Darwinism Doesn’t Make Sense

I must read an article or blog post every week that talks about Digital Darwinism and how evolutionary forces are shaping our lives and the business environment. Digital Darwinism explains the demise of so many brick and mortar retailer businesses that failed to adapt to our times. But I can’t help feeling that Digital Darwinism is not an accurate description because it’s …

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Schrödinger’s Marketing Plans

Thanks in part to ‘The Big Bang Theory’, many more people are familiar with the idea that something can be and not be simultaneously. Only by opening the metaphorical box do we discover if the cat is alive or dead. It is much the same way with new marketing ideas it seems; they can be both the best and worst …

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Data doesn’t get more intimate than this

I recently wrote a post suggesting that marketers should stop using the term big data for everything collected from connected individuals and instead think about ‘intimate data’. The collection, storage and use of data that comes from wearables and IOT devices in particular fits in the category of intimate data. Aside from knowing our search history, what could be more …

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The road to understanding

A core tenant of The Connected Marketer is understanding; that is, marketers need to understand the individuals they’re serving. They need to understand the individual’s needs, wants, and desires and the actions individuals take to be fulfilled. A recent study from Millward Brown Digital has found that marketers have a lot of work ahead of them. According to the study, as reported by eMarketer, 55% of companies are …

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Think before rushing to replace the human touch

Over the weekend, a story broke that Facebook has fired its trending news team and handed the service over to an algorithm with disastrous results. This was reminiscent of the mess Microsoft got in after handing over their twitter feed to AI. You cannot open your email or newsfeed without reading about the rise of bots. Despite the fact I …

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The Marketing Singularity

Many people are familiar with the idea of the singularity; the point at which sentient artificially intelligent machines can build smarter versions of themselves, which according to Ray Kurzweil will take place in the next 30 years, but I wonder if the Marketing Singularity might precede that. The marketing singularity would take place when technology takes over from humans in creating …

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The journey from mobile marketer to Connected Marketer

Since we launched The Connected Marketer last month we have been asked by a few of our longest standing friends in the industry to tell them about the journey from mobile marketers to Connected Marketers and indeed explain the role that mobile has in this new approach. ‘Were we dropping the mobile bit?’ someone asked. That is a resounding ‘no’. …

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Pokémon Go and arrival of Mixed Reality

Depending on your perspective you either won’t have time to read this post because you are too busy training your Pokémon at a gym, you are bored by the flood of stories on Pokémon Go or you are scratching your head wondering how on earth this game got so big so quickly. There is a seemingly endless number of news …

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