Adobe Digital Roadblock Report 2015 — Germany

The speed at which mar­ket­ing is chang­ing and thus dri­ving dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion in com­pa­nies is tru­ly immense. Today com­pa­nies are more and more oblig­ed to tack­le dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, if they want to be still suc­cess­ful in the future. Something we have known from work­ing day-today with our cus­tomers, and now con­firmed in the **Adobe Dig­i­tal Road­block Report 2015: Ger­man mar­keters are right on track. **Through­out Europe they have already laid best the foun­da­tions for a dig­i­tal future.

Check out below the com­plete Adobe Dig­i­tal Road­block Report 2015 and let us con­tin­ue to remain in tight exchange about dig­i­tal transformation.

Adobe Digital Roadblock Report 2015

Germany

Read the EMEA Adobe Dig­i­tal Road­block report here.

Ger­man mar­keters see the indus­try chang­ing rapid­ly; they’re opti­mistic and see it as an opportunity

• Though Mar­keters feel con­fi­dent in their skills and abil­i­ties (67%), they are less excit­ed about the changes than their Euro­pean coun­ter­parts (DE 34%, FR 52%, UK 46%)
• Adapt­ing to new tech­nolo­gies (73%) , orga­ni­za­tion­al change (59%) , and deliv­er­ing more com­pelling con­tent (80%) are impor­tant to stay­ing rel­e­vant as the indus­try evolves

Though tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ments are seen as nec­es­sary, Ger­man Mar­keters pri­or­i­tize privacy

• New tech­nolo­gies are seen as impact­ing how audi­ences are reached and how mar­ket­ing effec­tive­ness is ana­lyzed (63%) . How­ev­er, Mar­ket­ing is still seen as inter­rup­tive (34% [wel­come],) and mar­keters are not embrac­ing hyper per­son­al­iza­tion – (52% [embrace])
• Mar­keters agree it is crit­i­cal for mar­keters to be skilled in mobile (69%) . Despite their pop­u­lar­i­ty, the need to deliv­er across wear­ables (45%) is not as important
• Ger­man mar­keters are mixed about how they use data — while some pri­mar­i­ly rely on data when mak­ing strat­e­gy (37%) , oth­ers pri­mar­i­ly rely on intu­ition (42%) . Still, big data and mar­ket­ing mea­sure­ment are seen as crit­i­cal mar­ket­ing func­tions 3 years from now (46%)

As IoT enables mar­ket­ing to per­me­ate con­sumers’ lives, mar­keters are look­ing to adapt to new tech­nol­o­gy to stay rel­e­vant for consumers

• Deliv­er­ing a con­sis­tent cus­tomer expe­ri­ence on mobile and wear­ables will be more impor­tant in the future for Ger­man mar­keters (92% apps, 91% web­sites, 83% social media and 71% wearables)
• Ger­man mar­keters are ready to imple­ment new tech­nolo­gies to stay ahead (UK 58%, FR 68%, DE 67%)

As the mar­ket­ing func­tion increas­es in influ­ence and new tech­nol­o­gy dri­ves changes, Ger­man mar­keters see a shift in priorities

• Ger­man mar­keters see marketing’s influ­ence on strat­e­gy grow­ing (FR 73%, DE 63%, UK 61%)
• The increase in influ­ence of mar­ket­ing in the past five years (71%) is appar­ent; new tech­nol­o­gy imple­men­ta­tion is key to suc­cess (79%)
• Dig­i­tal Mar­keters are the most under­rep­re­sent­ed role (33%) – and this role con­tin­ues to be the top area for hir­ing need year over year

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

… with almost 7 in 10 feel­ing chal­lenged and opti­mistic about indus­try changes

New tech­nolo­gies are a dri­ving force behind indus­try change in Germany

…And impact per­son­al approach­es to marketing

The advance­ments in tech, mobile and social under­score the impor­tance of change and adaption

Tech advance­ments also dri­ve the change in con­sumers’ expec­ta­tions as the need for more com­pelling con­tent grows

As such, new tech­nolo­gies are key to success

The mar­ket­ing func­tion has increased in influ­ence in the past five years

• 73% of EMEA note an increase in mar­ket­ing func­tion influ­ence in the past five years

Influ­ence on cor­po­rate strat­e­gy remains strong, with a quar­ter say­ing mar­ket­ing con­tributes most to future revenue

Ger­man mar­keters are more wor­ries about their company’s abil­i­ty to keep up than their own

• 43% of EMEA is wor­ried about their company
• 37% of EMEA is wor­ried about themselves

Mar­keters strug­gle with a mul­ti­tude of trends and tech­nolo­gies with big data being most challenging

Unsur­pris­ing­ly then, 1 in 3 cite short­ages in tech and data relat­ed roles

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

53% of EMEA says it’s impor­tant to deliv­er a con­sis­tent cus­tomer expe­ri­ence on wear­ables how­ev­er only 9% are cur­rent­ly solv­ing for it

There is a dis­con­nect between impor­tance and deliv­ery in cross-plat­form consistency

7 in 10 see deliv­ery of con­sis­tent cus­tomer expe­ri­ence on wear­ables to be impor­tant in 3 years

The need to adapt is imme­di­ate: IOT and native adver­tis­ing are pro­ject­ed to be more impor­tant in 3 years

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

Lack of resources and com­pa­ny resis­tance are the key bar­ri­ers hold­ing mar­keters back

• Lack of resources/budget was also the top con­cern in 2014

Changes are seen as an oppor­tu­ni­ty and the begin­ning of a gold­en age of marketing…

Ger­man mar­keters feel they have the skills need­ed and are pre­pared to imple­ment new technologies

49% claim to have heard about a new mar­ket­ing chan­nel or term with­in the past month

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

Ger­man mar­keters see their com­pa­ny struc­tures as well set up to meet mar­ket­ing changes

• 66% of EMEA believe com­pa­ny struc­tures are well set up

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

Tra­di­tion­al mar­ket­ing is where mar­keters feel per­for­mance is strongest

80% of Ger­man mar­keters feel they have the nec­es­sary skills to per­form successfully

• 66% of EMEA believe they have all the skills and resources need­ed for suc­cess as a marketer

Still, they real­ize the need for skill devel­op­ment – 46% plan to learn from attend­ing train­ing seminars

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

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

…And inte­gra­tion across busi­ness func­tions can be improved

Method­ol­o­gy

• Online sur­vey among a total of 1,311 Euro­pean marketers
• Research man­aged by Edel­man Berland
• Field­work: March 31- April 16, 2015
• This study is a refresh of research con­duct­ed with a com­pa­ra­ble audi­ence (350 Euro­pean mar­keters) in May 2014

View report on Slideshare