Creativity in New Marketing

Leaders in the development of new technologies, such as Adobe, Google, IBM, WebTrends, and Yahoo, are currently locked in a race to create powerful analytics tools in the field of digital marketing.

Thanks to their innovation, the business data available to organizations becomes more detailed every day, allowing for the creation of extremely reliable market research campaigns.  In just minutes, these new platforms deliver comprehensive customer profiles, evaluate the quality and appeal of web content, detect digital consumer interactions, and much more – all in real time.  These powerful tools are super-effective for making decisions and solving complex marketing problems.

In the face of these limitless technical possibilities, one unique human skill is now allowed to take center stage: creative development.  It is no longer enough for marketing professionals to simply craft intelligent campaigns, design exciting concepts, or effectively convey emotion.  Instead, marketers face the new challenge of using detailed data to develop a distinct message that is valuable and attractive to thousands, or even millions, of unique individuals – all of whom are looking for something both innovative and attention-grabbing.

By leaving the numerical work to technology, businesses now have more space for imagination and talent to flourish.  As a result, achieving excellence in the vast ocean of web content is no longer the privilege of a small group.  These days, anyone who wants to develop their creative skills can do so at any time, thanks to these powerful new analytics tools.

SOPA: A Closer Look

Seemingly overnight, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) proposed by the U.S. Senate has rocked the online world.  The controversial bill inspired a 24-hour outage of numerous U.S. websites, including Wikipedia, and has even been criticized by President Barack Obama.  Many of the president’s advisors claim the bill will only make online businesses more vulnerable to lawsuits, while also impeding legal activities and endangering freedom of expression.  In the midst of all the emotion, it’s important to ask…What are the arguments against this “soup”?

First and foremost, under SOPA, the U.S. Department of Justice would have the power to investigate, prosecute, and shut down any individual or company accused of uploading copyrighted material, both inside and outside the country.   The law would also compel U.S.-based search engines, domain hosts, and advertising companies to block services to any site under investigation by the Department of Justice for breach of copyright.  As a result, many analysts predict that this legislation would prompt cloud computing and web-hosting companies to move their operations outside the U.S., in order to avoid lawsuits.   In addition to the economic consequences, all the above would also pose serious threats to Americans’ first amendment right to freedom of expression.

The public outcry and numerous protests surrounding these concerns have so far had one major consequence: the Senate has decided to indefinitely delay its vote on this controversial bill.  For now, SOPA will have to wait.