yes x infinity.

Oh god, so agree.

I agree. Though I think some companies need Digital Strategists. Look at Ford and what they do with Scott Monty, now we can say Ford is one of the most “social media compatible” company.
Plus, Louis Vuitton hired a Digital Content strategist in may in order to work on all the digital projects of LV and to check all the digital contents related to the brand.

@ Johanna and Angus: Thanks.

@ Benoît: No doubt there are people who are digital strategists who are doing great work. Many are friends. Those that integrate and train should find success. Those that silo off (and that is what I see happening) won’t be as fortunate.

I’m glad you brought this up – it’s something I’ve been mulling over the last few weeks. While I think it’ll be important to have strategists with a more in-depth digital focus (Monty, etc), I struggle to see how any strategist should not be savvy to how digital is baked into an overall plan. Again, good post.

I know you’re talking strategy/planning, but as a creative (writer) this makes me weep tears of joy. I always think it’s funny when I see job posts for Interactive Writer. There aren’t Print Writers. Or TV Writers (okay, not in advertising). Just writers. We all use the same alphabet.

“for all of its complexities, the digital world is just another platform that’s part of our world — not an alternate universe.”

Amen!

@ Ryan: Thanks, Ryan. You’re right — we do still need experts. Just part of the overall fold, not somewhere off to the side.

@ Jayson: Ha! Soon enough, there will be 140-character writers.

@ Tom: Thanks for dropping by and providing some inspiration to the original post.

Excellent. The internet is the spine of communication for brands now, and any planner that sees it as something they can dodge, has stopped doing their job. A planner – specialist in knowing where the consumer is and how to talk to them – should be the one telling the rest of the us to be present online, not vice versa.

Great post.

I too am amused by the inclination of strategists to rebadge themselves every time a new media form emerges.

First the digital strategist. Then the email strategist. Then the social media strategist. Then the mobile strategist. Soon we’ll have the augmented reality strategist attending client meetings by hologram. Will.I.Am was such inspiration.

Although I am skeptical, I do play a strategic role at a leading digital agency. I should probably comment on why the term digital should stick.

It has to do with a trend affecting strategic planners. Clients aren’t paying for their services. They’re having a hard time seeing the value. Most strategic planners do not understand the role of software in building brands. They will pay handily for a digital planner to make sense of things.

Until the broader planning community demonstrates it respects the role of software, and takes steps to master the skills of managing brands and creativity through digital media, I’ll continue to enjoy a digital strategy title. It’s assurance that we can get paid.

No. We’re already questioning the validity of traditional strategists, as strategy is more a skill set and practice than should be a profession.

It’s a redundancy.

You either have the ability to find and insight and communicate it, or you can’t. Some creatives, developers…it’s already part of their skill set. There are many people who are trained in both, can do both, and more surely will come.

It’s time to trim and tighten in this business, not compound and complicate for the sake of charging clients.

@ Lori: Thanks for all your hard work. We’ll miss you.

@ Bryan: Fortunately, I’ve only had the pleasure to work places where strategy was valued, intellectually and monetarily. However, the defensive attitude that pervades the annual APG conference probably supports your point.

@ Mishi: Broadly speaking, yes strategy is a skill set. As is creativity though, right? You need not hold the title to hold the skill set. Nor does holding the skill set does earn the position. Not sure I see the redundancy though.

I absolutely agree in concept – digital strategy is something that needs to be integrated with an overall communications strategy. In my view, a digital strategist is a transitional role that’s suited for the time we live in now – bridging the gap between traditional and new media.

There are a few reasons why I think it can be useful to have a digital “specialist” on the team (in 2009, at least):

1. Digital technology is much more fragmented than traditional media ever was. In addition to hundreds of devices (cameras, the Kindle, netbooks, mobile) that fundamentally change how consumers interact with brands, not to mention all the different web platforms that change constantly. Just keeping up with all of this can be a full-time job (and something that some — not all — traditional media strategists can have trouble with).

2. Unlike any other medium, the web is a science lab. You can’t spend 6 months developing a campaign, release it, and never touch it again (as was the tendency with TV/ print/ radio). Advertising on the web needs constant nourishment to be successful – this is something that traditional strategists (and most clients) may not yet understand.

3. Communication is bi-directional. I know I’m preaching to the choir here, so I’ll keep it short: consumers now have the ability to react to, talk about, and communicate with your brand in ways that they never could 15 years ago. Successful marketing strategies must take this into account (the best leverage it to their advantage).

It’s important to keep in mind that the digital world is still relatively new. We are still seeing fast paced changes on a regular basis. In 5-10 years, could a traditional strategist cover this role? Hopefully. But right now I don’t think it’s realistic to expect it.

An equally valid question is – ‘does the world need strategists?’.

Most strategists are digital immigrants, trained in brand thinking & planning for a monologue communications world (RIP, 1950 – 2000). Digital strategists are trained & experienced for a world of dialogue-based, flexible communications (Hello New World, 2001 & onwards). I know which skills I’d prefer to have right now and moving forward. And I believe it’s fundamentally easier for a ‘digital’ strategist to learn necessary traditional skills than vice versa.

Of course, a split in strategy development makes no sense long term. But, right now, it’s a product of a huge skills deficit in ‘traditional’ strategy & the speed of development of digital. The two probably won’t meet fully again until 2015 – and it’ll be the digitally adept thinkers who lead.

Just wanted to add another point, which is that you are absolutely right that digital strategy can’t be siloed into its own department for this to work properly. Separate P&Ls kill integration. At my company, I am fully integrated with our strategy team — just like some team members have specialties in certain industries or demographics, my expertise is in digital.

Interesting post. It raises not only the fault on agencies constantly trying to create separated/independent departments every time some new “trend” appears but the fact that is much easier to “create departments” then evolve and change their perspective of the business and the world surrounding them.

It is just another proof that people have hard time dealing with changes.

@ Marci and Jim: You guys are 100% right. My friend Amber accurately noted in the original post that while strategy should not be separate, the sad truth is that a specialty is required in the present and near-future, since “traditional” planners are not as prepared as they should be.

@ Pedro: Amen.

couldn’t agree more, aiming for a strategy group that is made up of hybrids feels like the right way to go for how the business is changing. and agree with the point that this applies to creative too.

thanks for sharing.

This is a an agency point of view right. And limited to a brand perspective. I assume you have the same view of direct marketing, sponsorship and PR….which from a brand perspective you will. Problem you have is that agencies are hired to serve one business unit function, and largely for brand purposes. But the internet is a sales, service, process re-engineering and platform channel. And whilst agencies can shape and reshape themsleves all they like, there is a more fundamental problem – agencies are built on supporting a marketers needs for brand strategy, and creative ideas for media channels that are broadcast and loosing importance. And whilst they would like to claim they have staff that can offer some expertise in the channel, most don’t. In fact, ask an agency about security risks, tech contract risks ets and they will stare blankly. Your vision is interesting, and the support promising, but it doesn’t justify the inegration of digital. Unless you are arguing the same for all marketing and corporate affairs services?

[...] Does the world need digital strategists?

@ Avin: Thanks for swinging by. Much appreciated.

@ Nick: Man, you opened up a whole new can of worms! I can’t fully answer your question without droning on about Naked, but suffice it to say that our model is predicated on bringing unbiased planning across all comms channels, with advertising being just one small sliver of that pie. That often leads to business planning, corporate affairs, and beyond. I’m not sure that addresses your entire concern (we don’t handle security risks and a caseload of other issues), but it takes us way beyond selling one business unit function.

I agree with your views.
One of the most serious reprecautions is that planners, feeling left out, often present insufficient strategies that incorporate online to clients.

My concerns are greater now that we are seeing agencies dividing their online departments to traditional online and social media online. These steps are taken by agencies as a way to generate income, however it opens a wide gap among the online teams, who do not have a hollistic online strategy and approach but 2 different ones, with different objectives and visions.

In my observation digital strategists tend to really be analysts and tacticians in the “web” space. A task that is important, but not true, deep strategy or planning aiming to understand and shift/feed human behavior around a brand.

Some environments do need a digital champion, someone to enlighten and sell through the opportunities of the space. But the best know it is just a component of a bigger picture.

Personally, I’d take an information architect or user experience designer over a digital strategist any day. At least if I was a client, that’s where I’d rather see my money spent.

How a planner in this day wouldn’t use digital tools as part of their trade is beyond me. But I guess some exist. Though I’ve yet to meet one…

@ Napoleanskid (great name, by the way!): Most definitely. And “insufficient” could mean so many things, including unachievable in real life.

@ Brett: I’ve been hemming and hawing whether or not their ought to be a spinoff post about appropriate titles, and the divide between strategists vs. tactician would be at the heart of it. Ultimately though, I think we’re probably all aligned in the functions that are needed.

sweet post, Jared, though I might argue that a team of planners with individual specialties is not a bad thing at all and may actually be the best (most realistic) thing depending on the circumstances. We should all be so lucky to be expert in all forms of communication, but in truth we are usually more adept at one medium vs. another. It’s that old question whether one prefers to know a little about a lot of things or a lot about a few things? If I have a large enough team, I’m in favor of the latter more often.

It’s akin to plenty of other business models that require expertise in multiple areas. For instance, a foreign policy think tank does not often find analysts who have an expert degree of knowledge about every region or country; it hires an analyst who has a concentration in West Africa and another one for Eastern Europe, Central America, and so forth. They are united hopefully by their analytical philosophy and approach.

The same can be said for a planning department. And because not all media can communicate a given strategy equally, such a model is even preferable. The way I see it each channel does what it’s best at to express the comms plan – all are components of a greater narrative (the notion that every channel communicates the entire strategy/narrative is a all too common myth). If there are several members of the planning team who each have an in-depth understanding of their respective channel of expertise (haha, that sounds way too legitimate), all the better will the executions and campaign be for it. And as long as the team is united by their philosophy and approach there shouldn’t be any decentralizing of the strategy…

I’m with @ Marci and @ Jim, and they nicely summarise a bunch of previous people, and this all supports you. I take @ Nick’s point to mean that your clients – businesses – also need a coordinated internal role for the whole brand experience (or brand behaviour we could say).

My analogy inside for the agency structure goes back to far too many years ago when I was hired to start up a new “IT Audit” function for a large corporate. To put this is perspective this company is now #1 in its global industry segment – so it required solid thought and execution.

At the time, and everywhere I turned e.g. the major banks, the “IT Audit” groups were a separate empire from Internal Audit. There were some huge departments, 3 floors of a building, but on a different plant to Internal Audit yet apparently part of Internal Audit.

My solution was very different, and fits with your solution. I declared that every IT Auditor would work as part of the existing regional audit teams – mainly accountants but some engineers and waste loss specialists. I would be the only IT Auditor working outside the team, and reporting to the Chief.

So I set strategy, methodologies, training, took part in recruiting, performance reviews, kept abreast of trends etc. And I also went into the field as part of regional work assignments to ensure I had my feet on the ground.

I also developed skill ladders and development paths for the IT Auditors, who were fully integrated into the regional teams.

Actually this kind of model is used for many corporate functions such as IT, or finance in large companies.

This is more effective and efficient for the business, less costly than empires in the lines of business, and the specialists themselves feel more a part of the individual teams, yet overall strategy is aligned. Actually they can also build new career paths which are more encompassing than the niche where they started.

As you said, no rocket science here. As to some comments about why social media strategists etc – these types of skills are needed until any new field or approach becomes fully integrated into the “way of life”.

Walter Adamson @g2m
Social Media Academy, Australia