Posted by Brian Berg Google+
While marketers today face many problems with the move to mainly digital marketing from a more traditonal consumer or business mailing list, the largest issue is falling behind the consumer as far as technology and communication is concerned. Consumer is king in this digital age and new technologies and platforms are always evolving. Consumers and marketers alike have moved away from the interruptive model of communications. While consumers have moved to these digital platforms easily, many marketers have struggled with ways to engage these prospects in a digital forum. Many marketers are found clinging to marketing tools of the past such as television and radio spots, despite consumers and competitors growing investment in digital platforms.
Kimberly Clark has been a firm that has embraced the age if digital marketing. Instead of thinking in terms of digital marketing, Kimberly Clark has learned to think in terms of marketing in a world ruled by digital technology.
Kimberly Clark uses a digital marketing tactic that is very unique. While many firms have different teams within a marketing department (perhaps one created television advertisements while another works on a digital “sister” campaign), Kimberly Clark’s marketing division works as one, looking to create an idea that solves a consumer problem regardless of the platform, traditional or digital.
Many companies are slow to convert to digital marketing forums as the investment in the status quo of traditional consumer and business mailing list marketing is so great. It is quite difficult to change marketing teams that are use to working in a certain way and seeing certain success. Basically, you can’t teach an old dog new trick. The reason companies are so slow to adapt to the digital age is that investment in the status quo is so huge that it is hard to reform organizations that are used to behaving in a certain way. Kimberly Clark has seen such success in transforming their firm to a digital marketing giant due to their trailblazing CMO, Board of Directors and top management.