No we’re not talking about Charles VII or his father Charles VI. Instead, we’re recognizing the passing of the baton after years of shifts from traditional to digital media. According to Statista, global ad spend for digital media has officially passed traditional media’s ad spend. This may have gone unnoticed since US ad spend has been favoring digital media since 2019 and only supercharged since the pandemic.
With 2024 just around the corner, and marketing budgets to finalize, you may be asking yourself how much is needed to allocate per medium. Well, if you’re a fan of John Oliver’s LastWeekTonight, this is the point where we say, “Moving on. Our main story tonight concerns the separation of the two media: traditional and digital.”
Traditional vs and Digital Marketing
In the beginning, there was only traditional.
The oldest form of marketing, the first ad dates back to 3,000 BC with print, back when it was on papyrus. Eventually, radio and television entered the conversion making the big three.
Now fast forward to the 90s with the emergence of the internet and the birth of digital marketing. Now those print, radio, and television ads can also be viewed and used on the internet in ways never before seen.
The main difference between them at their core is one is online, that’s all. This isn’t the big revelation or story we wanted to talk about. Instead, let’s review how those two have historically been siloed. They were treated as two different audiences, budgets, and messages and, until the last few years, were never able to fully work together. So it made sense to keep your marketing plans separate and, for many companies, your team or personnel separate, too. Brands (or Advertisers) and agencies alike had traditional teams and digital teams. Today, however, that just doesn’t make sense.
The Marketing Family Dynamic
It’s been long understood that digital marketing is more targeted, and therefore, more cost-effective, while traditional marketing is broad, reaching a more diverse audience. This often causes a family feud about which one is better for your business: traditional or digital marketing. With great pleasure, we answer with just “yes.”
It’s Just Marketing
Dropping the prefix and making it just marketing isn’t groundbreaking, but it definitely deserves to be said again. Television commercials with QR codes can connect linear broadcasts to your website in a trackable way, and podcasts with audio hosts live reads forever living in the content even offline. Those are just two examples of how we’re breaking through the barriers that once created the separation. With programmatic buys of television, radio, and billboards growing every year, what made the difference between them — one being online — is no longer true.
So when you’re talking to your marketing team this year, ask them how each medium is amplifying the other. Are your videos driving web traffic? Does your website have proper tracking to retarget effectively? Are you prospecting to find specific audiences that can be targeted effectively by any medium?
Shameless Plug
If you’re looking to centralize your efforts or just want to know how your already established plans can better work together, check out our capabilities and how we look at every aspect of your marketing. Or not. But, just remember, in 2024 if your marketing isn’t holistic, chances are you’re missing opportunities.
