Adobe Digital Roadblock Report 2015

Changes—whether they be envi­ron­men­tal, emo­tion­al, behav­ioral, etc.—have been a source of dra­mat­ic uncer­tain­ty since the begin­ning of time. Debris on the motor­way affect­ing your morn­ing dri­ve? Air tur­bu­lence chang­ing the com­fort of your recent busi­ness trip? Your moth­er in law’s pres­ence chang­ing the dynam­ic in your house­hold? The frus­trat­ing road­blocks that too often crop up in life can almost always be pin­point­ed on some ele­ment of change.

And so too for mar­keters, as I’m out every day speak­ing to top brands across Europe, the resound­ing theme I hear time and again is how busi­ness­es will be able to adapt to and suc­ceed amidst change. New and evolv­ing tech­nolo­gies are too often to blame for the dig­i­tal road­blocks fac­ing Euro­pean mar­keters today—and as the leader in dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing technology—Adobe has once again tak­en the pulse of mar­keters across Europe to bet­ter under­stand how they are being impact­ed by these dra­mat­ic changes.

In the Adobe Dig­i­tal Road­block Report 2015, we sur­veyed 1,311 mar­keters across the UK, Ger­many and France—with top insights emerg­ing around:

Mar­keters are see­ing their indus­try trans­form­ing at a rapid pace – the face of mar­ket­ing is changing

The reac­tion to these changes is over­whelm­ing­ly positive

Marketing’s busi­ness influ­ence and impact is seen as increasing

New tech­nolo­gies are trans­form­ing how mar­keters inter­act with their audi­ences; mar­keters must mas­ter these tech­nolo­gies to stay relevant

Mobile is most impor­tant to mar­keters now. Wear­able and the inter­net of things will be cru­cial in the future.

Tech­nol­o­gy has changed how mar­ket­ing effec­tive­ness is measured

Mar­keters are open to imple­ment­ing tech­nol­o­gy (64%), and tak­ing risks (57%) – how­ev­er there is reluc­tance around adopt­ing tech­nol­o­gy that is not yet mainstream.

Although these changes are wel­come and many feel opti­mistic, there is still con­cern around both their com­pa­nies and their own abil­i­ties to meet these changes

I think we can all relate to these themes and, at Adobe, our job is to help knock down the dig­i­tal road­blocks of today—partnering with you to build a dig­i­tal roadmap to help you cap­i­tal­ize on marketing’s gold­en age. Check out the full report below for more infor­ma­tion, and let’s con­tin­ue this con­ver­sa­tion as we com­bat dig­i­tal change.

@mrzablan

Front cover

Adobe Digital Roadblock Report 2015

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Key Find­ings

Most agree the pace of change in mar­ket­ing is accel­er­at­ing, but they are divid­ed on how that change is happening:

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7 in 10 claim mar­ket­ing is com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent today than when they began their career:

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… with more than half feel­ing chal­lenged and opti­mistic about indus­try changes:

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The mar­ket­ing func­tion has increased in influ­ence in the past five years, most notably in France:

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Influ­ence on cor­po­rate strat­e­gy remains strong, with a quar­ter nam­ing mar­ket­ing as the largest con­trib­u­tor to future revenue:

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New tech­nolo­gies are a dri­ving force behind indus­try change:

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These tech­nol­o­gy changes affect per­son­al approach­es to marketing…

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…And feed the expec­ta­tion that mar­keters should keep up with advance­ments in tech, mobile, and social.

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Con­sumer expec­ta­tions are high­er than ever –imme­di­ate respons­es and com­pelling con­tent are need­ed to deliver:

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Mar­keters feel they have the nec­es­sary skills and are pre­pared to imple­ment new technologies:

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37% of mar­keters wor­ry about their abil­i­ty to keep up:

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Many orga­ni­za­tion struc­tures are not well set up to meet mar­ket­ing changes

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A suc­cess­ful mar­keter is seen as tech savvy, how­ev­er only a third of mar­keters describe them­selves as such

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Mar­keters vary in the chal­lenges they are faced with­in trends and technologies

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Deliv­ery chan­nels are bound to change in the future – near­ly 7 in 10 believe that wear­ables will be impor­tant in deliv­er­ing qual­i­ty service

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The need to adapt is imme­di­ate: mobile mar­ket­ing, e‑commerce, and per­son­al­iza­tion and tar­get­ing are pro­ject­ed to be less impor­tant in 3 years

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Tra­di­tion­al mar­ket­ing is where mar­keters feel per­for­mance is strongest

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Lack of resources and bud­get are the key bar­ri­ers hold­ing mar­keters back

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Change in the indus­try is seen as an oppor­tu­ni­ty and the begin­ning of a gold­en age of marketing…

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53% claim to have heard about a new mar­ket­ing chan­nel or term with­in the past month

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Mar­keters are wor­ried about their abil­i­ty to keep up, and even more so about their company’s abil­i­ty to do so

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Unsur­pris­ing­ly, rough­ly 1 in 3 cite short­ages in tech and data relat­ed roles. Dig­i­tal Mar­keters and Mobile Mar­keters are still high­ly sought after

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Most mar­keters believe in the impor­tance of deliv­er­ing for mobile web­sites and com­put­ers, but there is a dis­con­nect in solv­ing for these devices

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For new tech­nolo­gies, mar­keters’ con­fi­dence in pre­pared­ness to deliv­er falls below actu­al performance

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Areas iden­ti­fied as most crit­i­cal in the years to come are the areas where per­for­mance is lowest

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2 in 3 mar­keters feel they have the nec­es­sary skills to per­form successfully

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Still, they real­ize the need for skill devel­op­ment – 44% plan to learn from attend­ing train­ing seminars

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Com­mu­ni­ca­tion across chan­nels and with cus­tomers rise to the top as key for effectiveness

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Almost 2 in 5 believe that part­ner­ships with sales are crit­i­cal in mak­ing dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing work…

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…And inte­gra­tion across busi­ness func­tions can be improved

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Method­ol­o­gy

Slide 2 Methodology

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion and region­al breakdown

Please view the full report on Slideshare