Is Adobe’s Latest Digital Marketing Report a Sign of Troubled Times Ahead?

In Adobe’s latest digital marketing report, it showed a huge movement away from the concern for Customer Experience, CX, and towards more technological aspects of marketing such as responsive (mobile friendly) websites and creative web designs. That is a troubling metric for many in the marketing arena because the customer is, after all, the reason businesses survive, even through troubled times. Could this be an ill omen for the future? Here, digital marketing company Single Grain offer some insight into why this could spell trouble ahead.

A Brief Look at Those Results

From 2012, Adobe has been conducting a digital marketing survey of industry professionals. For the first time ever, the majority of respondents didn’t say that the CX was the major focus of their marketing strategies. Mobile friendly websites and social media seem to have taken the most votes and although those are very important aspects of a marketing strategy, they would be nothing if it weren’t for the very customers who are loyal to a brand. Moving away from their wants and needs could lead to the downfall of many a business. When you get so caught up in technology that you forget the human element, no good can come of it.

An Example to Ponder

How many websites do you visit in a day that have those annoying advertising popups that block out the entire screen? It would be interesting to take a survey to see home many people actually read those popups and how many people summarily X them out. There are a series of popups now circulating the web that actually insult the reader’s intelligence. They are offensive and more than one site is known to employ them. Instead of the usual X at the top right or left of the box, there is a question at the bottom asking for your email address. The affirmative isn’t all that bad. It simply says, “Yes, I’d like to learn more about ‘whatever brand or product being promoted’ and you click on the link and are taken back to the article you had wanted to read.

Offensive Popups

However, the negative response is highly offensive and it is angering more people than those brands would like to count. They read something to the effect of “No, I don’t want to get out of this hell hole I live in by making $1 million this year.” While they are not worded quite as offensively, the innuendo is there. If you don’t want to learn about this company’s product you are stupid and will remain a loser for the rest of your life. Whoever thought of that didn’t take into account all the educated visitors to that site. Popups take some getting used to as it is, but one worded as offensively surely doesn’t say much for the brand or the marketing company employing such a juvenile tactic.

Is Adobe’s latest trends in digital marketing report a sign of troubled times ahead? If it is a prediction that marketers will be moving away from Customer Experience to show off digital enhancements and innovations, then yes, we are in for some rocky roads going forward through 2017.