Marketers going through the motions online – McKinsey Global Survey results

McKinsey’s latest worldwide survey of marketing execs canvasses their views on digital marketing, but in staying focussed on the marketing view of things, misses the bigger point on the slow take-up of digital channels.

According to the survey, after a decade working to integrate digital channels into marketing, the majority of mainstream (non-dotcom) companies are stalled at the entry to the digital age, relying heavily on company websites and email for customer interaction. And looking forward, while most marketers expect mobile and social media to play a much larger role; today social media engagement is largely experimental.

You get a sense that many are going through the motions.   Unfortunately having set up the problem, the study doesn’t explain why organizations are failing to properly harness the digital age for commercial advantage.   The real explanation is more about leadership or lack there-of.  Adoption of digital channels requires significant change right across the organization – yet the digital age is too recent a phenomenon for most CEO’s to have mastered and integrated into their commercial vision.  As members of the digital generation, the coming crop of CEOs, should remedy this.