News 

Businesses are not seeing the digital light

Damian Ryan says companies are not maximising digital potential

A new report shows digital media accounts for nearly 50 per cent of daily media consumption and is the preferred medium for receiving marketing messages.

UK brands are still failing to monetise their digital media strategies and campaigns are often in direct competition with traditional print of TV advertising campaigns, a new study by analyst Redshift Research on behalf of Oxygen8 Communications reveals.

The research shows while consumers are interested in accessing more services from organisations on their mobile phones, businesses are failing to make the most of digital opportunities. Two thirds of organisations recognise that consumers are less receptive to traditional advertising and 76 per cent of marketers feel that Internet advertising is more effective than both TV and print.

Over 80 per cent of media companies feel that SMS and email is more effective than the traditional channels, while only 13 per cent believe traditional media is still more important than digital media. Over 20 per cent of brands feel traditional media is more important.

The study also shows 40 per cent of companies cite budgets as the main barrier for using digital media more frequently, while 23 per cent cite lack of experience as the main barrier.

However, 60 per cent of companies think it would be very or extremely useful to have one single CRM database combining traditional and digital media campaigns. Over 60 per cent collect and analyse campaign data in separate systems, making them unable to gain a full view into any cross media campaigns' performance.

---

Damian Ryan has been at the forefront of the Irish media and advertising business for many years. His current role is as a specialist investor and dealmaker in the mergers and acquisitions business. He is the co-author, with Calvin Jones, of Understanding Digital Marketing, to be published by Kogan Page in January 2009

Story added Oct 30, 2008