In the Interactive Marketing space, there are a lot of buzzwords being thrown around....

“Synergy” has been replaced by “Experience”—and having a differentiated brand seems more important than ever these days. Then of course there’s the customer. We want to do things that are “customer-centric”—which hopefully leads to delight, demand and ultimately loyalty. It all sounds great.

Now that I’ve established some “credibility” by throwing a few choice buzzwords around myself—allow me to get to the heart of the matter. Effective Interactive Marketing can hypothetically be boiled down to executing against three truths:

1. Draw the customer in—get their attention.
2. Reward them with meaningful interactions that somehow influence their lives positively.
3. Provide them with valuable experiences they want to use and are inclined to share with others.

...And of course all of this all needs to be measurable and results-oriented.

I’ve left some parts out intentionally to keep this really simple. But here’s the food for thought. Who are the kinds of people needed to do this type of work? And how can they work together?

Let’s see—it’s interactive, so you need people that live and breathe technology. Since technology is involved—it has lots of moving parts. This means you need people who know how to design experiences and understand things like usability. But it’s also marketing—so you need folks who understand insights, brands and the art of storytelling. The list goes on and on...

Point I’m making is that a great deal of true collaboration needs to go on behind the scenes in order to end up with the coveted “delighted customer.” And I have a hunch that marketing/advertising firms are grappling with getting the “brand-types,” “design-types” and “technology-types” to all work in sync as we try help our clients grow.

Sure, this sounds peachy—but in reality authentic collaboration is messy business. Have you ever been in a meeting with a creative, techie, and brand strategist mixing it up? It’s like the tower of Babel—everyone’s speaking a different language.

But when this all does come together—the end result is powerful and difficult to ignore. Point in case: nikewomen.com. Too early to tell how this will be measured—but the combination of brand engagement, commerce, design, entertainment, etc. enabled by technology all adds up to a delightful experience.

As agencies evolve and disciplines become increasingly blurred, something tells me that the quality of what we’re seeing in digital spaces is only the tip of the tower so to speak. Hope that last part didn’t get lost in translation.