SINGAPORE – “In the next 15 or 20 years, there will be a big shift going on in the history, not just of human beings but in the advancement of the marketing world, it will be disrupted,” said Amir Kassaei, Global CCO of DDB Worldwide.
“The first age was when we were connected to each other. Then we entered the second age, when we see that we are connected to people, on social web,” he said at Spikes Asia 2014, during his talk on the evolution of digital.
“There is no social media, I believe that digital is an infrastructure,” Kassaei said. “The reason that 99% of everything that we are doing in online is failing in the marketing communication is because we are still treating it and defining it as a new media,” he added.
We, according to Kassaei, are misusing the tools for digital. “Facebook is not a TV channel, it is a connected social network and we have to treat it that way, and if we do it that way, we can gain a lot of potential,” he said. He also said that not a lot of people use it that way.
He said that in 20 to 25 years, we will enter a new age of digital. We will not need a specific device because everything is part of one big infrastructure. “Because of the fact that that will happen, the people will know everything in real time,” he said on the connectedness of everything.
Once we enter the third age of digital, everybody will know everything in real time. “We cannot bullshit anymore,” he said. That will change the whole marketplace for everyone. He said that we must be prepared for this. We must have the right answers, strategy and structure for it.
But the age of digital is not about using technology as the idea to be able to market things.
He said that we must intersect creativity, humanity and technology. If we intersect the three, we will create influence. He stressed the fact that with influence, we can move and engage people. We must be able to deliver a substantial experience that is relevant to every touchpoint.
Creativity, defined by Kassaei, “is not about making funky ads. It’s about creating the most innovative solution to a marketing problem.”
Humanity is what needs to be focused on, because that is what makes things relevant, and technology is just a tool to implement an idea.
It still comes down to engaging the market – that is the goal of the business. If you’re not relevant, even the biggest budget in the planet will not do anything for you.
“The biggest recognition is the success in a marketplace,” he said. “The consolation is the recognition in the industry.”
