Beyond Advertising

Chapter 4Orchestrating Value Creation across All Touchpoints

We believe that great brands are “business strategy brought to life” and deliver a seamless experience across product and service, physical spaces and places, internal culture and communications. Companies like Apple have already set customer expectations and it doesn't matter if you are a bank, a business consultancy, a retailer, or a hotel chain, the message is simple: join up!

— Jez Frampton, Global CEO, Interbrand (2012)

We begin this chapter with perhaps the second-most organizationally challenging change (see the previous chapter for the most challenging): moving beyond a narrow focus on media mix to a more holistic orchestration of every single touchpoint of a brand including, but by no means limited to, what is traditionally known as “advertising.”

The forces of change described in Part I suggest that a continued focus on a narrow notion of what is currently within the purview of advertising and marketing will threaten the life of a brand and its company. Brands need to provide the seamless experience that people are taught to expect by each day's new technology-enabled and insight-inspired pacesetters. Even the notion of “omnichannel,” which is currently limited to the realm of retail, will work within a larger ecosystem as retail and advertising undergo a fusion.

More and More Ways to Connect

In order to reach, serve, and stay connected with people in comprehensive and effective ways, advertising's scope ...