Juice Digital, Making you Digitally Famous

In the words of Umair Haque, Director of Havas Media Lab, Obama is stimulating; G20 is deliberating; C-level executives are eliminating; Wall Street is recriminating.

Welcome to what Haque refers to as the zombieconomy and the macropocalypse: Humpty Dumpty has fallen off his wall and no one, it seems, least of all the “king’s” horses and men, can put the global economy back together again.

With the obsession about financial ‘instruments’ and debt management, the business of innovation in products and services aimed at a sustainable future is bankrupt. Tomorrow’s growth won’t come from a particular person, place, or technology but from understanding why recent growth has failed.

The same growth models applied to new people, places, and technologies will simply result in the same crises, over again. We have to reboot growth (and maybe capitalism itself): the problem is not what is growing versus what is not, but how we grow.

The Wall Street model is failing

So as marketers, let’s concentrate at creative thinking in those areas in which we have control. We know that the conventional advertising, public relations and direct marketing models are having less effective results. The consumer (and business user) is Web-savvy, resistant to interruption and engaging in more and more interaction online.

There has been a wave of mania about social media and, in particular, Twitter. These have a place in an overall digital public relations plan. But let’s all get our basic building blocks in order first, the usability and optimisation of our websites, the effectiveness of our email marketing campaigns and a blog integrated into our website and using a relevant set of keywords.

When you have platforms worth back-linking to, then you can go hell-for-leather for social media exposure. Social media is relatively long-term, in any case. You need to use buzz monitoring tools to watch and analyse. You need to join networks and get used to the etiquette. You need to engage and not interrupt. You need to join the conversation and not dominate.

Zombie thinking is doing what has always been done and ignoring diminishing returns. Reboot your marketing and think digital.