How low can you go?

Here’s the thing: companies don’t need strategies (even digital ones), they need a fundamental reason to exist. Having arguments about which discipline should lead is like entering a three-legged race with you and your partner on your knees; by the time you figure out something is wrong, everyone else has long since finished.

One thing I’m trying to move the folk I deal with away from is the desire to be so channel focused. While I’m a passionate advocate for digital, I’m not blinded by the channel (or even the myriad of channels that make it up). Depending on your audience there’s an argument to be made for using traditional media, and some of the most innovative movements in marketing business strategy at the moment are tapping in to as many different channels at once as possible.

I said a couple weeks back things will get (really) interesting when we get down to a level where everyone functions as a single organism, and that can happen as a joint venture as Marcus advocates, but I imagine it can probably happen a few other ways too.

Whatever form it takes, it is about getting so deeply involved with companies that you do move as one. That will take a lot more trust on both sides than either client or agency is prepared to invest right now. But I believe we’re headed there, and I find that pretty exciting.

What’s that? How deep?

How low can you go?

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Image courtesy of lolodrake, with thanks to compfight.