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Some of us have been playing in the digital space for, well, rather a long time. For ye editor, it’s been more than twenty years. We recall some of our quaint efforts in the nineties to drum up enthusiasm for online promotion in the advertising and marketing industries — they all wanted to pick our brains but no-one wanted to spend much money on this still youthful medium.

We’ve come a long way, baby. Now digital has become mainstream and is a significant part of most marketing endeavours.

And yet, and yet.

For many marketers it still feels like half the challenge is getting the organisational buy-in and the necessary resources to start taking online marketing seriously.

Typical problems can include:

• turf wars over digital responsibilities;
• a lack of understanding by senior management; and
• difficulties for traditional marketers over activities outside their comfort zone.

Good news, if those are some of the issues facing your organisation: the next Jericho Brainy Breakfast, from 7-9am on August 25 is going to make your day!

What’s a Brainy Breakfast? It’s a combination of a sit-down brekkie and a stimulating hour or so listening to leading Kiwi (and sometimes international) experts talking about the latest digital happenings. The Brainy Breakfasts, sponsored by email specialists Jericho, have been running for quite a few years now (about once every six weeks) and are a stimulating way to start the day, even if you’re not much of a morning person.

This next Jericho Brainy Breakfast, organised as usual by the NZ Marketing Association’s special interest group on matters digital, The eMarketing Network, has arranged for three expert speakers who will cover:

• how organisations are overcoming the digital/marketing divide and structuring integrated teams
• how to build organisational knowledge around digital
• how to educate senior management and win over traditionalists
• how to recruit the right skills for digital marketing and up-skill traditional marketers
• the importance of selecting the right agency partners

The speakers:

Tui Fleming, Multichannel Marketing Manager, The Warehouse, will talk about “Starting the digital journey – fresh learnings from The Warehouse”

• getting buy-in from sales and marketing teams
• understanding the independencies, overlaps and tensions
• making the transformation from silo to integration across the business
• learnings from how a digital team operates

Rebecca Smith, Marketing Consultant and former Head of Business Communications, Telecom New Zealand, will take us through “Identifying and overcoming barriers when making the digital shift; how Telecom embraced social media marketing”

• consider what you need to stop doing in order to shift gear into social media marketing
• influencing and getting buy-in from across the organisation including senior management
• how team structure and digital focus has evolved for a big corporate
• overcoming obstacles: sceptics, headcount, resource, money, knowledge

And Richard Manthel, Managing Director, Robert Walters, will cover “Recruitment needs in digital marketing: sorting the tweet from the chaff”

• resourcing: how organisations are structuring digital teams now and what skills they’re looking for
• how the New Zealand employment market is reflecting the boom in digital and social media marketing
• where the current recruitment needs lie within digital marketing
• how the employment market is likely to evolve in the next 12-18 months
• Richard will show NZ employment trends within a global context (from the perspective of a recruitment organisation with 38 offices in 18 countries)

This Jericho Brainy Breakfast takes place in a couple of weeks (on Wednesday the 25th of August) at Auckland’s Crowne Plaza Hotel. Marketing Association Members pay $65 + GST, Non Members $80 + GST.

For more details and to book your seats, head to the Marketing Association’s website at http://www.marketing.org.nz/cms/Events_and_Training/7020

Disclaimer: Just so you know, Marketing Week editor Michael Carney is Chairman of the eMarketing Network.

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