[This blog post was featured in Penn Olson!]

“Clients just don’t get digital” is an oft heard statement made by many from advertising agencies (traditional and new), media agencies (again, traditional and new), digital design houses, digital advertising technology providers, digital media outlets.

It’s a statement that’s been muttered since almost 10 years ago when I first started dabbling in digital businesses, digital marketing and technologies. Everyone seems to have an opinion about that, so what’s the real answer? More importantly, what’s the cause of it?

Here’s my take: I think it’s too sweeping to say all clients, marketers and communications professionals, don’t ‘get’ or see the true value of digital businesses, technologies and operations. BUT I do agree there’s a sizable amount of those here in Asia which isn’t surprising considering the IT and the Internet is still in the early adopter stage in many developing economies.

Where does the fault lie? Quite honestly, it’s often lies with personnel from the abovementioned firms. Agencies, design houses, technology providers, publishers and such all have some issues juggling their business interests and being truly client-centric. Here’s what I mean:

1. Conflicting business interests.

If you run a company that makes money from producing advertising materials or assets, technology tools and applications, what would you say if I told you market share & revenue for a particular client but it wouldn’t involve any production though? Similarly, if you provided digital advertising technologies, advertising spaces/mediums or specialize in planning where clients should advertise, how would you react if I told you a strategy had been put together to address certain point-of-sale or customer service or product positioning problems that would boost revenues or increase customer spend, but it wouldn’t involve licensing any technologies or buying any advertising?

2. Lack of deep knowledge.

Many staff (esp. those in sales) in digital media companies, digital specialists within advertising and media agencies and even digital specialist companies often have crossed over from traditional communication background i.e. television and radio airtime, magazine and newspaper ad slots etc. These include many members of digital teams even in top advertising and media agencies. Many of the strategic planners, account directors, managers aren’t well versed in the various digital media and platforms, not to mention online businesses and their various models, revenue streams etc. Clients often rely on these guys but naturally that poses a problem since the specialists are still trying to come to terms with the digtal mix (also, agencies aren’t exactly environments where you’ve got lots of time for training and orientation if you crossover to digital) as well. Not to mention digital media or solutions sales staff focus on hitting their targets and add to the confusion as some clients get swayed into buying into these yet not seeing much results or good.

3. Prospect of losing authority.

There are some whom are of the opinion that educating, knowledge sharing and being transparent with their clients as a scary prospect simply ‘cos it might mean the client not needing them or relying on them as much. Basically they’re afraid they won’t be looked at as the ‘guru’. This often results in sharing knowledge or presenting data, statistics, research to prove their own theories, proposals and strategies. What could be done perhaps could be higher visibility and clarity on the situations, industries, tools etc. involved and researched before coming to the strategies or proposals.

OK, before I start getting death threats from everyone in the agency and consultancy world, clients aren’t completely innocent in all this. If you’re buying a can of soup in the supermarket, every can on the shelf claims to be the best, but it’s up to you to know what to believe isn’t it? Say what you want, many clients just haven’t taken the time to be trained nor bothered to spend the time to get familiar with the digital mix. Ask any recruitment company and they’ll tell you digital jobs are still the hardest positions to fill. Why? Most marketing communications professionals have cut their teeth in splashy ads in magazines rather than flashy rollover banners online. Witty 1 line copy taglines that float across a television as opposed to 25 characters in a Google text ad title, 500 – 800 word advertorials in a daily than 140char tweets… well you get the picture.

So agencies, design firms, consultancies, providers etc. have a part to play, but clients can do quite a fair bit as well.  Help Us… Help You. ;)