As part of looking forward to next year at Quirk, we wanted to share a client’s perspective on digital.

Distell Digital Media Manager, Sean Hidden, spent some time reflecting on the state of the industry to share some insights, challenges and learnings and importantly talk about  what he’s looking forward to in 2012.

Describe what it is that you do at Distell?

I look after Corporate Digital Strategy globally, assisting both Global and Brand teams create and implement their Digital Brand Strategies. I also facilitate the operational side with our three digital agencies and ensure they’re delivering on expectations. 

What is it about your job that gets you excited?

I love the challenge of having new tactics, obstacles and metrics to align to business objectives. Digital is evolving so quickly that the opportunities it offers are continuously growing. It’s also very exciting to be working across such an assortment of brands with such a variety of targets. 

What is the most challenging aspect of your job?

Again, the fact that digital is developing so quickly. It’s incredibly hard to keep up with everything and really be on the ground assisting brands. 

Tell us about your key learnings of 2011.

At Distell, we’ve really focused on defining Digital Metrics and KPIs that relate to both brand and business objectives. We’ve taken a lot of learnings from brands that have run campaigns and are applying them to the rest of the brands in order to make digital more relevant and accessible to non-digital brand teams (including partner agencies).

Digital requires planned and strategically focused content. Many brands operate in a social media environment, but the content is lacking. Once the content is tailored and focused, the results are immediately visible. Once again, it comes back to planning and strategy first, channel second. 

Advice time… what has worked in terms of educating your colleagues about digital?

Go for the low hanging fruit. I am fortunate in that I have a number of brands to work with. By targeting the ones where the brand team and brand aligns well with digital we’ve been able to demonstrate good results. Communication of these results internally and by making them relevant to the older, traditional, less digitally-inclined brand teams has been a way to get them excited about the idea – digital just supports it. 

What is your advice on implementing digital strategy companywide?

Don't try to do it all at once – not all brands should be on digital straight away. Focus on the low hanging fruit and make digital work for you first. Determine which metrics you are going to measure (that are relevant to your business objectives) and then benchmark those. Patience with brand teams and support internally is also critical.

What’s the best way to ensure internal adoption of digital strategy once the board is sold?

Again, focus on the low hanging fruit. Get the brands rocking with digital where you can and showcase the learnings to the rest of the organisation. The more tangible the case studies are, the less excuses people can find why it won’t work for their brand. Also include other stakeholders such as Sales, IT, Consumer Insights, etc. Let them also know what you are doing in the marketing department and get them on your side – it really will make your life a lot easier. 

When it comes to managing agency relationships, what 3 things should a corporate do to ensure the best possible digital support?

Agencies operate on passion, ego and revenue. The better you can manage these concepts, the better your relationships will be. By clearly defining working relationships and boundaries, you cut as much of the cross boundary territory stealing as possible. Once these boundaries are defined, understood and enforced, the ego and revenue focus falls aside and a mentality of the idea that’s best for brand starts to flourish. Each agency can then shine in their particular field and through this, trust amongst the partners is fostered. That said, this only works if you have a strong Brand Manager who is hands on and understand the dynamics. They need to keep hold of the reins and ensure that everyone is working well together – they don't need to be the best at traditional or digital media, but they need to manage their brand.

In terms of trends, what are your predictions for corporate adoption of digital?  

For us, the adoption of digital is there within the marketing department. We’re learning how to make the metrics and results more meaningful to business (but so is everyone else so we’re not alone in this boat). Hopefully more studies will be done on the value of fans, website visits etc. specifically for the FMCG market so we can determine real value. Into 2012, I see a big push for digital presence at as many touch points as possible – this includes our sales teams, Point of Sale/Consumption and BTL activations. More internal departments working together towards a common goal will be what sets companies up for success in this budget-focused market.

Digital also acts as a catalyst, specifically when looking at how internal departments work together. The Digital Lead will need to act as a Business Change Consultant to ensure that processes and policies that may be in place are able to be adapted and updated to allow for smoother flow of information and better ways of working.

What will be the hot digital areas, what will corporates struggle most with, what will they win and fail at?

Mobile’s still hot, but the trick is really finding a way to implement it so it’s useful to consumers.  We all talk utility, but it is very hard to align business goal with consumer utility need. With more focus on mobile and using mobile for specific activities, I think we’ll learn a lot more as to how to utilise this more effectively.

We run a lot of trade promotions that are very much volume driven (this is the typical SMS campaign) – I don't believe that having big digital campaigns to support these is working as effectively as it could be. I’d even go so far to say, that it may end up confusing the majority of consumers. I think focused attention on specific campaigns all with a targeted message will add more value (and therefore highlight digital as a means of engaging with our consumers).

To wrap it up, what’s your message for 2012?

Hopefully my agencies will come up with sh*t hot ideas that will really blow me away and inspire all of us to not just do the boring stuff with digital, but rather come up with great IDEAS that are leveraged digitally. My mantra for 2012… We need to “Do Great SH*T!”