数字营销前路漫漫

    现在是2014年。谷歌（Google）、Facebook和Twitter主宰了世界潮流。平面媒体和电视正在逐渐消亡。大家也许认为，我们现在已经弄明白了如何利用数字媒体来开展营销。

    实际并非如此。

    作为今年七月科技头脑风暴会议的预演，《财富》在本周一晚上邀请了三位来自大型企业、才思出众的智囊来到拉斯维加斯，共同探讨科技和营销之间的互动关系。而你一定不知道，来自Facebook、福特汽车（Ford Motor）和Adobe的三位营销主管就科技时代推销产品的话题达成了共识，他们一致认为：我们还有很长的路要走。

    发言的背景是一年一度的消费电子展。随着时间一年一年过去，硬件极客们在这个盛会上已经不见踪影，取而代之的是其他行业里科技至上的高管们，包括营销人员。三位营销主管，也就是Facebook的卡洛琳•艾佛森，福特的吉姆•法雷和Adobe的安•鲁恩斯，在《财富》社交媒体和数字化营销专家杰西•亨佩尔的步调引领下赞美了传统媒体向新兴媒体转变带来的好处。之后，他们指出了这个缓慢变革的过程中出现的大量问题。其中，顾客在数字媒体上花费的时间仍然跟营销人员在数字媒体上投入的资金不相匹配。此外，高管们还表示，营销部门与信息技术部门的合作依然有所欠缺。两者都止步不前。从企业营销到顽固不化的广告公司，两个行业的人才都没有跟上形势。而营销的定义也在缓慢扩展，一方面，人们采用各种传统营销手段试图提高麦片粥的销量，另一方面，人们利用数据分析这种方法来增加企业利润。

    Facebook的艾佛森认为，社交媒体公司只不过刚刚挖到了金山一角。她表示，它们所欠缺的是像Facebook等公司那样赢得顾客对网页广告的好评，从而像电视一样影响顾客决策及其他因素的能力。业界术语将其称作“多点归因”。艾佛森认为这种归因并没有出现在需要的时候出现。“我对客户说：‘如果你认为我们没有推动这项产业，你们不用给我们一分钱。’”为了做到这点，Facebook需要赢得应有的认可。

    比Facebook历史更悠久的公司，如福特和Adobe，普遍都在关注对尚未习惯数字媒体的员工进行培训的问题。福特的法雷表示，他们的一线品牌经理在推出新款车型这类关键时刻，仍然想采取“保险”做法。换句话说，他们还是希望把大多数预算花在购买电视广告上，而对数字媒体只是浅尝辄止。至于Adobe，鲁恩斯表示，尽管这家软件制造商如今把75%的营销预算投到了数字产品，却在训练数字媒体营销的新员工上依然举步维艰。她说：“老实说，很多人都不愿意参加再培训。”Adobe也聘用了新型人才，包括分析数据以预测购买模式的计量经济学家。她说：“Adobe以前从未有过这类人才。”

    数字化革命仍然在影响着营销行业，只是变化不会发生在一夜之间罢了。（财富中文网）

    译者：严匡正   

    It's 2014. Google (GOOG), Facebook (FB) and Twitter are kings of the world. Print media and television are dying. You'd think we'd have this marketing-with-digital media thing figured out by now.

    We don't.

    As a preview to our Brainstorm Tech conference in July, Fortune gathered three of the sharpest minds in big business in Las Vegas on Monday night to discuss the interplay between technology and marketing. And wouldn't you know it, the heads of marketing for Facebook, Ford Motor (F), and Adobe (ADBE) landed on a common conclusion regarding the techno-age for pushing products: We've got a long way to go, baby.

    The setting? The annual Consumer Electronics Show, where hardware geeks are with every passing year getting pushed out by technology-oriented executives from other industries, including marketers. Taken through their paces by Jessi Hempel, Fortune's social media and digital marketing ace, the three marketing execs -- Carolyn Everson of Facebook, Ford's Jim Farley, and Ann Lewnes of Adobe -- celebrated what's good about the shift from old media to new. Then they identified the many shortcomings of the slow-motion revolution, in which time spent digitally by consumers still isn't matched by money spent digitally by marketers. There still isn't enough collaboration between the marketing department and the IT group, the executives argued. Each is stuck in its way. Talent, from corporate marketing to hidebound advertising agencies, isn't getting with the program. And the very definition of marketing is expanding slowly, with pushing levers to sell more cereal on one end of the spectrum and slicing and dicing data in profitable ways on the other.

    To hear Facebook's Everson tell it, the social media company is barely scratching the surface of what it could accomplish in terms of making money. What's missing, she says, is the ability of companies like hers to get credit for advertising that runs on its website that, in turn, affects buyer decisions alongside other factors, like TV. The industry jargon for this is "multi-touch attribution." Everson says it's not where it needs to be. "I tell clients, 'You shouldn't give us a single dollar unless you think we're moving the business." To do this, Facebook needs to be given credit where credit is due.

    For companies older than Facebook, such as Ford and Adobe, retraining non-digital natives is a common concern. Ford's Farley said "front-line" brand managers still want to take the "safe" way out when introducing something as important as a new vehicle. In other words, they want to buy TV ad spots with most of their budget and merely experiment with digital. As for Adobe, Lewnes said that even though the software maker now spends 75% of its marketing budget on digital products, it still struggles with training the new personnel necessary to market in the digital world. "To be frank, a lot of people didn't want to be re-skilled," she said. Adobe also has hired new kinds of people, including econometricians to crunch data that predicts buying patterns. "These types of people didn't exist before at Adobe," she said.

    The digital revolution is still coming to the marketing industry. It just isn't happening overnight.