Over the past decade, one of the most overused phrases in our world has been ‘Digital Transformation’. Discussions of ‘Digital Strategy’, for a ‘Digital First World’, have been the pivot around which businesses structured their investments, roadmaps and visions.
A digital first world. A world In which the word Digital doesn’t really mean anything anymore.
The reality is we have been living in that world for a long time now.
And while over time the biggest tech companies have slowly become the world’s biggest companies, most businesses (big and small), have long overlooked the importance of digital experiences.
Sure, most have websites, apps, a social media presence and churn out content like they are the Netflix of their industry, however turn a sharper lens on these experiences and it quickly becomes apparent that the little things (which have quickly become the big things in 2020), are often under-cooked and under-whelming.
And the truth is that these experiences have mattered for years now. It’s not just about the likes, views, clicks and shares, but the emotion behind them, the after-effect they create and the actions they drive long after they have been discarded as a number on some report.
It’s not just about the likes, views, clicks and shares, but the emotion behind them. Picture: Bonsey Jaden, 2020.
One of the most interesting things that 2020 has taught us so far, is that losing pillars of our modern lifestyle (events, retail, travel, F&B), will not stop businesses from delivering their products and services, and it won’t stop people from consuming them.
Technology has proven to be the great enabler, and while we know that one day the old norms will be our norms again, they will certainly not be as pivotal in our day to day lifestyles as they used to be.
And this leaves us in our ’New Digital First World’, which is actually this world we have been living in for many years now. This world in which people trust people more than ads, where it’s natural to search online before doing just about anything, and where we are addicted to more screens that we can look at in one time.
Now that we are experiencing ‘forced adoption’ it seems that a lot of people and businesses are finally waking up to the value of not only digital experiences, but also the value of every digital experience.
So as an agency that specialises in crafting brand experiences for a ‘digital first world’, we are glad that these little social posts, those pages on the website that few visit, those e-mails to niche customer lists and those short E-Commerce videos for specific products, are finally being recognised for what they are – important brand experiences.
And in this ‘New Digital First World,’ every single one of these experiences matter.
