Musings from GroupM: Crossing the Chasm - Cary Tilds - MediaBizBloggers

The most difficult step is making the transition between visionaries (early adopters) and pragmatists (early majority). This is the chasm… Geoffrey Moore

There are several converging trends in the digital media space currently perplexing agencies, clients and publishers alike. These changes are driving the need to think differently about how to guide, support and plan agencies, clients, and publishers for the digital future in an effort to cross the chasm. Here are some of the issues and ideas at the core of the debate:

• The speed at which the media landscape is changing does not allow for a full replacement of the existing structure staff
• The complexity of new media is built on a foundation of technology, a layer in which most media professionals on both the client and agency sides are not well versed
• The media itself requires technology to stay current, buy, account for, analyze and optimize at scale
• The speed of optimization requires technology to be intuitive, in place, and always on
• The media partners all speak in terms of technology jargon, themselves often hampered on creative flexibility by roadmaps of "product releases" driven by the technology departments and their flexibility/inflexibility of infrastructure
• The golden ideas are most often praised by those who leverage new and unique technology angles to drive engagement with consumers in a way that no one had thought of before, and that no one had even thought possible—no one but the "techie geeks"
• The basis for rating a good job at media is whether we keep pace with the "building blocks" of digital while keeping a pulse on the cutting edge.

If we assume that everything will be digital sooner than we are ready to accept it, we also need to understand why our industry is at a significant chasm. In order to cross the chasm, we must think differently. Thinking differently means supporting differently. It means having a guiding structure and process to make the change; one that is fostered by commitment, clarity, framework and rigor.

There have been a few who have made the commitment to the kind of structure and resources that are needed to cross the digital chasm, mostly those in leading digital high-tech industries who knew and felt this change much earlier than the mainstream advertising world. What they did for product development evolution is now what we need to do. The focus in our industry should be to support elevating the digital knowledge of everyone, or the change won't happen. The chasm won't be crossed.

We need to devote time and resources to support the growth of media planning and buying in a fully digitized world not by the stand alone channel it was, but as the converged channel it is….as required by the changes in consumer habits that already exist.

Cary Tilds is Leader of Digital Media Operations for Mindshare North America.Cary can be reached atcary.tilds@mindshareworld.com
Read all Cary's MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Musings from GroupM - MediaBizBloggers.

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