New focus for Digital Edge

What were the Democratic Alliance and the African National Congress doing online just before the national election in 2014? Why do we get so much unwanted email from insurance companies? Why is online creative so unimaginative? These are some of the recent topics tackled by the Digital Edge podcast’s new presenter, Erich Viedge.

Billed as The Official Voice of the Digital Marketing Space, the show’s sponsor, Native, was concerned Digital Edge had strayed from this vision since it launched in December 2009. “The podcast started overlapping with the tech industry,” says Jarred Cinman, Native Chief Inventor and co-producer of Digital Edge. “We want to re-focus on what matters to marketers in general and digital marketing in particular.”

Erich plans to change focus are twofold. “Firstly, we need to focus the content. It should be about digital marketing, not tech gadgets. There are other podcasts for that. Secondly, we need to broaden the appeal. Since I took over, I’ve started to talk to clients – people who are spending money on digital marketing. If we’re going to be the voice of the digital marketing space, we should give digital marketers a voice,” he quips.

“It’s easy to sit in an agency’s offices and hear nothing but the echo chamber of agency and tech types enthusiastically agreeing with each other,” he says.

“Our job as the media is to be skeptical. And the best way of doing that is to talk to people who are spending money – and ask them where they’re spending it, and why so little of the spend lands up online.

“The agencies don’t like asking those questions directly – and they like some of the answers even less,” he says, “which is why it’s such a fun question to ask.”

Another way to broaden the appeal, he says, is to remember that there are four Ps in Marketing. “Agency people just focus on the Promotions P,” he says. “But the online world means marketers can now come up with online Products, distribute them electronically (the P for Place) and price them skillfully. It’s about all four Ps, not just about promotions, no matter what the agencies say,” he says.

Viedge, a winner of the IT Journalist of the Year award left journalism in 2000 to run an innovation and knowledge management consultancy. He says podcasting is a natural fit for his company’s services.

The Digital Edge podcast is available every Tuesday from http://www.thedigitaledge.co.za. Please pitch story ideas to [email protected] and follow @digitedge on Twitter.