Predicting 2014, aka What I Want To Do In 2014

The tough part about leading an agency creative team is that you have to set the direction and the vision for the work that you will do.

The great part about leading an agency creative team is that you get to set the direction and the vision for the work that you will do.

Digital marketing in India has come a long way since I defected from traditional advertising in 2009. Fewer marketers are talking about digital being the future; they're beginning to see it as a de facto way of life. I, for one, believe we've entered a post-digital age, and that all marketing efforts going forward need to accept and leverage that reality.

I think we need to go beyond looking at digital as Internet and mobile. I think we have to look at digital marketing as an intersection of three worlds; and that intersection doesn't always need to reside in the virtual world.

Digital marketing is an intersection of three previously distinct worlds.

Forgive me, but I'm going to repeat three buzz-phrases you've been hearing for a while. They're the absolute truth.

• Content is the new communication. You can't be a marketer and believe that you'll achieve brand engagement with a 30-second TVC.

• Data is the new oil. Because digital allows us to capture what people are actually doing, versus the focus groups that capture what people claim they're doing.

• Mobile is the new TV. It's belittling to call the first screen you look at every morning, the only screen you carry wherever you go, and the last screen you look at every night a "second screen".

The other thing we need to practice is data-driven marketing. If you've managed to get past information overload and get someone to actually click through to your content, you aren't doing yourself justice if you aren't setting up to reach that person again. Every piece of engagement that you run needs to help you understand something more about your audience.

Marketing today isn't scientific unless it's driven by data.

If one understands these shifts, it's not difficult to see where digital creativity is going in 2014. Here's my bucket list for the year to come.

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