Richard Conyard

CIO of Red Ant, author of planning and managing a digital strategy - http://www.redant.com/digital-strategy-whitepaper/ and faculty member for Rutgers university lecturing in all things digital. You can follow me on @rconyard

Gifting as sales promotion: why giving is good

Last week, Dunkin Donuts announced that the next release of their mobile app will incorporate gifting between consumers, allowing one consumer to buy doughnuts and coffee for another, and have the details of that purchase sent to their friend's phone for quick scanning and payment.

For those of us out on the town this Friday night, the idea of getting a round in is hardly something new and certainly not something that would normally have us reaching for our smartphones, so what's the big deal?

Does your digital strategy suck?

Leviathan Not even just a little? After all, none of us are perfect and we don’t always get things 100% right first time. Aren't we supposed to be the experts and perfect in every way, though?

After all, that's why we get paid the big bucks. We wander in, pronounce some barely intelligible terms, throw up some ever-optimistic graphs and then head off, magic wands at the ready, to make something happen that our clients don't really understand.

But we assure them through Panglossian spectacles that 'everything is for the best, in this best of all possible digital [sic] worlds'.