Sloth

People don’t live a purely online or offline life, though far too many marketers and ad agencies act as if they do. Online initiatives rarely (if ever) receive offline promotion beyond a throwaway url hidden at the bottom of a print ad where the 800# used to be, despite the fact that people who read newspapers and watch television also use the internet.

The primary reason I hear bandied about for this lapse, from people who readily admit it makes no sense, is that it’s just too difficult to coordinate budgets between the various divisions. It seems the digital budget is separate from the offline budget and don’t even get them started on social media because that’s a whole different group of decision makers and getting everyone on the same page is just about impossible.

It’s a pretty compelling argument. If your end goal is to eventually go out of business.

Otherwise, I can’t imagine it’s all that difficult. Companies that continue to place marketing and related activities like customer service and design way down on their list of priorities are going to pay for it sooner than later as the Service Era makes them seem even more out of touch.

Not to mention extremely lazy.