Aligning Digital and Traditional: The Little Things Matter
Anyone who’s worked in large business settings has undoubtedly complained countless times that the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. In today’s world of aligning online to traditional media, this phenomenon is even more apparent.
Attention to detail and a constant stream of communication are vital in any enterprise, large or small. A simple misstep resulting in a critical communication breakdown or the smallest typographical error can have far-reaching ramifications.
Case in point: Denny’s restaurants. Their new dinner menus printed and distributed last fall feature a CTA to Join the conversation on Denny’s Facebook and Twitter pages, and their corporate website. One small problem: the wrong Twitter ID is listed.
According to a recent CNET News report, menus distributed to around 1,500 Denny’s locations nationwide list a Twitter ID belonging to a man in Taiwan. Denny’s is reportedly working with Twitter to assume the ID, which has been inactive for over six months.
This incident exemplifies the need for communication between the digital and traditional arms of marketing. Granted, most folks sitting down to dinner probably aren’t going to be looking up Denny’s on Twitter while sitting at the table. But this kind of snafu in any other context could be catastrophic.
It might have seemed safe to assume that Denny’s would have registered twitter.com/dennys, just as they have dennys.com. But they didn’t, and you know what they say about what happens when you assume.
What if the same error were made in a TV spot or print ad? Or on a direct mail or email postcard or newsletter? Marketing and Communications must be in direct, constant contact with Interactive in order to prevent this kind of mistake from undermining even the best interactive marketing efforts.
Printing new menus might not appear to call for the input of the Interactive team. But now even the most old-school business tools feature some element of digital, such as URLs. Both arms of communications–traditional and digital–must be involved in the planning process of any project to ensure a unified front.