How Global Brands are Plotting Digital Drive

Most major brand owners will enhance their digital activity this year, but concerns remain about establishing meaningful metrics.

In Nigeria, brands are yet to harness these as most companies do not even have an idea of what digital marketing involves and yet to integrate it in part of their marketing mix or budget spend. Below are extracts from various executives from Adobe, General Motors, Sears, Wrigley’s & Kimberly Clark about their thoughts on Digital Marketing.

“If built and used correctly a sound digital strategy allows a marketer to ‘fish where the fish are,” – Scott McLaren, General Motors’ director, global digital marketing, CRM and web operations.

“It is truly the only medium that allows one to map marketing to consumer behavior in a measurable way. It can constantly be tested and refined all the time. It is no surprise that the majority of marketers are planning to increase their investment in digital, What marketers haven’t admitted to yet, is that they still harbour hopes of digital and social being able to lower the cost of their overall marketing investments.” – Patrice Dermody, vp, media, digital and social networking, at Sears.

“Most recently, we are concentrating on building out our customer database, SEO and upgrading our social media infrastructure, We will continue to invest in optimising our website/e-commerce infrastructure as well as our social networking infrastructure.” – Ann Lewnes, Adobe’s svp, global marketing.

“In other mediums, average copy can at least deliver average returns, In the digital world, the creative has to work harder to rise above the clutter and gain traction. “Over the past few years we have experimented and learned a lot. While not everything has been a success, along the way we have produced some hard working branded content for Orbit and Juicy Fruit that has driven consumer engagement levels.” – Victor Mehren, Wrigley’s senior marketing director.

“Digital measurement, especially in social media and mobile, will drive future investment shifts, While engagement metrics are getting better, it is still an area ripe for development.”  – Jeff Jarrett, global director, digital marketing, at Kimberly-Clark.

Do you lead your Marketing team? Are you still skeptical about digital marketing or don’t have clue yet  how it works?