The 2012 Challenges for Marketing

What reality do we face as we plan the new year?

The trends are out.   They tell us what is happening and where we are going (maybe).   This leaves us the fundamental problem of wrestling some large issues to the ground.

1. Channel Blur:  we have reached the point where media fragmentation is no longer a set of discrete choices; they all interact to support whatever it is the consumer wishes to do.  So, how do we migrate from a functional, siloed team to one that surrounds the consumer with interesting content?
2. Data Deluge: all these digital platforms produce copious amounts of data; but we don't yet know how to either glean insights or identify business drivers.  Wharton professor George Day describes the gap that emerges when companies can't keep up.   So, how do we separate the wheat from the chaff to develop appropriate indicators of performance?
3. Brutal Transparency:  the world is instant, harsh and unforgiving; it is clear that the emperor has no clothes. So, Clark Kokich of Razorfish asked the all important question: how do we migrate from changing the reality of our product not its perception?

 To paraphrase McKinsey's recent survey results (registration required) of CMO's:

"The digital transformation allows us to interact and serve our customers in new ways.   To accomplish this we must derive deep consumer insights and overcome internal hurdles – from metrics to technology to skills -  in order to deliver a compelling experience on their device and not our site."

Going to be a good year....