Digitization and passion - Brandex Festival 2020

On 14.01.2020 the time has come: BrandEx starts under the motto "Passion". What a title. And then I'm supposed to talk about digitization - how fitting.

To get you in the mood, I will now be reporting my thoughts on the topic of digitization in live communication on this channel on a regular basis - until the climax of "the festival", so to speak. Enjoy reading and subscribing.

Digitization and passions

"The Internet is new territory for all of us" - how much discussion and malice this statement has caused. But let's be honest. Would we in the live communication industry call ourselves digital communication specialists - probably not.

But I think it gets worse - many in the industry even believe that live communication is immune to the disruptive impulses of digitalization. So it's not new-land, it's whatever-land. How can you digitize something that wants to be analog at its core?

In my current book on the subject of digitization in live communication, I therefore began the introduction with the provocative title "Can live communication still be saved? And that brings us back to the quote from Angela Merkel.

New ground

But perhaps new territory is not so negative? After all, "new" can also mean "new possibilities" when the old ones no longer work. I think this can mean a much more conciliatory live communications approach to digitization. With that in mind, let's take a positive look at the possibilities of digitization for our industry in upcoming articles - rather than the risks.

At the IFES World Summit in Athens, I therefore ended my presentation with the following statement.

Digitalization - Friend, not foe of Live marketing

So come on, let's explore the possibilities of the "new territory" with an open mind, motivated and above all with passion with the topic of the first blog post "Success factors". Good luck!

Top 1: Agility

I often ask people at presentations if they think the world is getting faster and more dynamic? Most of them answer in the affirmative. Often the term "VUKA world" comes up. Our world is becoming more volatile, more uncertain, more complex and yes, also ambiguous. How should I behave in such a world? Well, we also need to increase our reaction speed. A measure we often call agility in today's world. What am I trying to say? In a dynamic world, our own agility - but also the agility of communication - becomes the key success factor that live communication must also face. You will see, I will come back to this success factor again and again in future blog posts.

Top 2: Scalability

Especially in an ambiguous world, we can predict the effects of our (marketing) measures with increasing difficulty. We therefore need to experiment more (a topic that is unfortunately often equated with error culture today). Well, and if an experiment works, what then? Then we need to scale. But what about scaling opportunities in our industry now compared to our digital counterparts. Have you ever tried to scale a live measure the way you would a Facebook ad?

Top 3: Quality

When it comes to quality, we are now getting down to the "nitty-gritty" of our industry. Haven't we been emphasizing the quality of personal communication for years - as the ultimate protection against the "superficial contacts" of the digital world? Honestly as much as we "preach" this like a mantra - would we put our hand in the fire for it? Ultimately, we still owe the proof "in numbers".

Top 4: Costs

Oops! Now there are also the costs. Well, we've always known that we're more expensive than alternative communication channels. But that was never a problem - with the quality of live communication. But what happens now when we have to provide proof of quality - to justify the cost of live communication, so to speak. The economic outlook for the next few years is not rosy. Cost-cutting and a precise analysis of the success of measures will become dominant. Are we equipped for this?

Top 5: Information

In marketing, data and the resulting information are increasingly becoming the new currency. Can we play along here? Digital marketing channels were developed around the "raw material data" - they are thus native data collectors and data suppliers. This was never the original mindset of live communications. But what now if this becomes the new currency - in "new territory" so to speak. Can we play along here?

Top 6: Speed

The requirements for the speed of marketing measures - i.e., time-to-show - will be just as important in the VUKA world as agility. Only if we get measures to our target groups quickly enough will we be heard. Newspapers, for example, have been overtaken by the Internet as a messenger of news. You won't find "HotNews" in a newspaper anymore that you haven't already read several times on the web (sorry, new territory). What about live communication here - are we ready for it - and do we even need to be?

As you can see, there will be many exciting aspects to the opportunities and risks of digitalization for live communication in the next few posts. The 6 success factors will always be with us.

Links:

https://www.amazon.de/Event-Resource-Management-digitalen-Tools-Digitalisierung-Live-Kommunikation/dp/3658223308

https://brand-ex.org/team/christian-coppeneur-guelz/