Enabling marketing innovation.
For some reason, I’ve had tons of conversations about the role that corporate IT plays in preventing marketing innovation this week. It’s to the point that I only need to say, “and then we took it to the IT department…” and whoever I’m talking to knows exactly what’s coming next. While this isn’t true of every IT department we work with, it’s true enough that I’m fairly safe in arguing that corporate IT departments are probably the single biggest obstacle standing in the way of digital marketing innovation today.
I’m pretty sure that most IT folks aren’t happy about this either and can give me a litany of reasons for why this is the case. However, the fact remains that there is a sharp and bitter disconnect between the fundamental goals and purpose of corporate IT and their daily practice.
As a result of this, it occurred to me that the real genius of programs like Best Buy’s Remix, isn’t necessarily that it will fuel external innovation and generate tons and tons of amateur mashups, but rather that it removes the obstacles to internal innovation. With Remix in place, Best Buy marketing is freed to innovate and experiment without having to go through the pain of a formal business evaluation.
If this is true, I expect we’ll see a lot more of this kind of thing from them.
Best Buy 3D Augmented Reality Ad from Tom Martin on Vimeo.
