Extreme Makeover : Digital Marketing Edition

“The architect should strive continually to simplify; the ensemble of the rooms should then be carefully considered that comfort and utility may go hand in hand with beauty.” – Frank Lloyd Wright

Apply the same idea behind Wright’s quote to digital marketing. Marketing is like building a beautiful structure, then filling that frame with purpose—utility and comfort .  “A place for everything, and everything in its place,” so to speak.

Essentially: don’t engage in marketing simply for marketing’s sake.

Facebook’s Home is an example. The platform hasn’t done much to elevate the Facebook brand. Given the user reviews, it may have even taken away from it. A recent article in Wired describes it as a “triumph in mediocrity.”

Facebook Home is like a floral couch cluttered with plaid and polka dot pillows.

In contrast, Pizza Hut may be on to something with its new app, which allows Xbox users to order pizza from their couches using their game controllers. It’s unclear how successful this approach will be, but what is clear is that it makes sense. Pizza Hut’s demographic probably spends a lot of time on the couch eating pizza and gaming, so why not seamlessly combine the two?

As you develop your own digital marketing strategy, imagine the breadth of it as a structure, with each component of the strategy representing a room and each element of a particular component representing that room’s décor. How cluttered is it? Are the elements in each room complementing that room’s purpose and lending insight into the structure as a whole? If it’s not serving its purpose, or if something feels out of place, it may be time to remodel.