Graphic Designer's Perspective: Technological Innovation + ROI = Marketing Oxymoron?

by Gale Grimmenga, Principal at Creative Impulse (www.creativeimpulseinc.com) Marketing technologies may change, but the goal remains the same: to capture the attention of and make a connection with a specific audience in order to inform, promote, educate, or influence -- increasing return on investment. Or is it? We used to develop innovation to a forecasted demand or anticipated need. But now that we are in a media and technology frenzy of evolution, we must sense and respond to demand 24/7. Whether you are trying to keep your company current with leading-edge equipment, digital technology, or marketing opportunities, you probably are asking, "Where are the controls to drive this baby?" The swift, fast-paced, immediate, no-editing (or correct spelling, for that matter) marketing media vehicles are difficult to forecast because they change with the blink of an eye. The speed of trends coming and going make it difficult to plan and comprehend. Whoever thought we’d need to be SEO’d, or want to go viral or be in a fishbowl where the public reads our downloaded thoughts and Internet filter bubbles know our preferences before we do, and our faces are digitized into face recognition software at homeland security and we can be visually and genetically tracked from here to there and back again? Whoever thought we’d want to send our avatar to virtual office meetings in Second Life or that programming nerds would be king? We are in a topsy-turvy world. As a creative consultant and designer of brand identities and marketing communications, I see digital/social media marketing as PR on steroids. As clients request social media as a part of their marketing mix, I conduct initial online research and their names may already exist in the ethers with good and bad reviews. If any press is good press, then this is great, but how does this affect ROI? How does one plan and forecast and measure results? How does one market in the crux of a speedy innovative technological evolution? Historically speaking, there has been continual innovation and the quest for ROI. Whether you are the tribe's storyteller (perhaps you were given a chicken), a scribe illuminating manuscripts (to share the good news), posting a decree on papyrus (talk about 21st-century sustainability: papyrus was an Egyptian’s paper, food, medicine, fuel, and basket-making material), printing a book (Gutenberg sought his profits in papal indulgences), or placing the first newspaper ad (delivered ROI for P.T. Barnum) -- the quest has always been to use the technology of your time to market something to someone for some purpose. As I write this, an Adobe e-blast arrived: 'New Survey results — 2011 Digital Marketing Trends.' Wow! An answer to my ROI query? The oxymoron dissolved? They will tell me ‘where businesses worldwide are putting their digital marketing dollars and which tactics are working.’ Well, I guess the goal does remain the same. It got my attention, made a connection (could the timing have been better?), and I’m a specific audience. Once I open this and give them my contact data, I will no doubt be informed of, promoted to, educated by, and obviously influenced — and it will increase their return on investment. (I’m already Adobed up the wazoo!) On the other hand, my ROI I'm still pursuing.