"Front End Thinking"

While the marcom world obsess with all things interactive, who in the organization is doing the "front end thinking'? Really though, as we chase after the coolest web site or web 3.0 application, who is taking the time to see if the insights that are driving the overall organizational communication plan are sound, differentiated and actionable within the environment it operates?

I have met so many web firms, interactive specialists, web n.0 people, and this is all great as it is indeed the current "center of influence" of marcom. However, all this effort around content and the latest way to deliver it, is useless unless someone is minding the overall organizational brand "insight and strategy" store.

When did you last ask, "how do we generate our insights". Are they really insights or just verbatims of what some really tired consumers or customers told us in the last research we did.

If the insights are weak, then the strategy is flawed. If the strategy is flawed then the ideas that spring from it are less than big. If the ideas are not big then the content flowing from it, offline or online, will not be differentiated. If the content is not differentiated then you have little movement in customer action or your bank account.

So while you are being impressed by the latest of the online world, remember to ask about your organisation's "front end thinking".