What keeps you up at night?
This was the question that organizers of the International Startup Festival wanted me to answer (in seven minutes!) on stage at their event this week (it runs from July 15 – 18, 2015). With over two thousand people registered to attend, it could not be a message about the power of marketing, or how important it will be for these startups to figure out a way to create more meaningful relationships with their consumers. That’s critical. That’s core to my work and my standard points of discussion, but it’s not what I wanted to discuss. I thought back to when Mirum (which used to be Twist Image) was a startup. What was it like? How did it feel, sitting in our first, small office dreaming up ways to acquire clients, and to make that dent in the universe. The answer was simple: we were a new kind of marketing agency. A marketing agency for the future, but it was happening today. An agency that would be highly disruptive to the current slate of options that brands have. There was drive, focus and attention. You can head back into the twelve year archive that is the Six Pixels of Separation blog to read about how disruptive our thinking was. We were putting it out there, when very few dared to share how they think, and how they help brands.
How disruptive is Mirum now?
In a word: very. Our three pillars of work (business transformation, marketing innovation and transactions) differentiate ourselves from our competitors (and others) in a big way, but we’re not the only horse in the race. In fact, any digital marketing executive would agree that while the runway for success is still very long (and wide), that we (the disruptors) have been disrupted. Not just by the amount of new digital marketing agencies, and the competitive nature of the industry, but by outside forces as well.
Why thinking about being disrupted matters.
When you’re a startup, the general posture that you bring to business is that you are the ones doing the disruption. This is true. Still, what I have seen as an evolution in the digital marketing industry can easily be adapted to any industry. And, it should be. While you may be doing the disrupting, you may – in fact – also be in the midst of being disrupted as well. It’s not meant to be a tongue-twister or a mind-bender, but it’s true… and it’s important to think about.
Who has disrupted the digital marketing agencies? The list is long, vast and telling:
The struggle is real.
My list of disrupters, is not your list. How my agency will disrupt, is not how other agencies will disrupt. This is much more than simply keeping apprised as to the competition, and much more about understanding how the marketing industry has changed, is changing and will change. This happens from the vantage point of being a disruptor.
The real question is this: how disruptive are you being… and who is disrupting you?
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