How the digital revolution has changed marketing

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How the digital revolution has changed marketing The Telegraph UK By Kate Solomon 28 Aug 2015 No longer comprising just billboards and brochures, a career in marketing is now a chance to work at the sharp edge of tech innovation The internet has changed many industries but few have changed as drastically as marketing. If you’d told marketers back in 1995 that, 20 years later, they’d be able to tweak campaigns based on their results in real time, they’d have laughed – and that’s before you even get started on augmented reality or the concept of Shazam. Those were the days of all-powerful television ads and static billboards. There was no SEO, no community management, no Spotify tie-ins and no Facebook ads. The internet wasn’t old enough to handle much more than a flashing text box in Netscape Navigator. Even 10 years later, “Thefacebook” had only just become Facebook, neither Twitter nor the iPhone existed and although SEO did, marketers were barely scaling the tip of the Google iceberg. Thanks to the rise and rise of digital, a career in marketing is now far more than just a career in marketing, explains Sammy Andrews. She’s head of digital at one of the UK’s biggest independent record labels, Cooking Vinyl, and has been working in the area for more than 10 years. “It’s a chance to be at the bleeding edge of tech innovation,” says Andrews. She and her team run bespoke marketing campaigns for artists including The Prodigy and Marilyn Manson, while she also runs an independent consultancy working with Annie Lennox, Robyn and others. As well as keeping her finger on the musical pulse, Andrews needs to be up to date on all forms of new technology. She cites targeting, data analysis, video production and advances in mobile tech as just a few of the tools she uses in her campaigns.

If you want to be at the forefront of digital, you need to be innovating all the time and being aware of what trends are coming up “I started out by self-teaching HTML but then learned new tools as technologies developed,” she says. “But you never stop learning – the advances in technology are almost daily now.”

So as well as using what we think of as “traditional digital marketing” – SEO, display advertising, social media – Andrews is on constant lookout for new ways to use technology. “I’m always striving for innovation and new tools that have never been applied to music marketing before,” she says. “You do use all sorts of skills. It’s a constant learning experience, and you’ll need an ability to adapt and think creatively using what’s around you. "If you want to be at the forefront of digital, you need to be innovating all the time. Reading about the latest tech, watching other industries and being aware of what trends are coming up.” The question of where the blend of technology with traditional marketing might go is a big one. Video is still on the rise – “we’re just at the start of the potential there”, says Andrews – and brands are starting to experiment with messaging apps and virtual reality while getting to grips with ever-more intelligent targeting and analysis tools. It sounds like a lot of hard work, but the payoff is a rewarding career that never gets stale. Plus, there’s the added bonus of flexibility. “The very nature of being digital is a bit of a double-edged sword,” Andrews warns. “I can be contacted anywhere, anytime so I can work anywhere, anytime. There’s a real shift away from office working, which is great. But as much of a digital advocate as I am, old-school things like holiday and sleep are invaluable!”