Digital Shift, a quarterly service from Econsultancy exclusively for Enterprise subscribers, is intended as a guide to support strategic thinking.

Focused tightly on digital technologies, marketing and ecommerce, it’s about delivering actionable insight on trends that will be significant in the short to mid-term, and which can be used to generate new ideas, improve business performance and stay ahead of the competition.

The latest report in this series, also available as a presentation and webinar recording (see below), explores the most notable developments impacting digital marketing this quarter. The critical shifts are summarised below:

  • Digital and marketing trends Q2 2017. This quarter’s update is about shifting agency models, revitalised social commerce, reworked consumer journeys, artificial intelligence shopping and mind-reading technology.
  • Avoiding and responding to disruption. What can we learn from the ways in which Amazon stay fresh and agile as they scale? We take a look at the lessons from Jeff Bezos’ latest annual letter to shareholders.
  • The Future of Agencies. We distil the highlights from Econsultancy’s major new piece of research conducted in association with the IPA into the future of agencies. We reveal significant shifts that are already emerging in agency operating models, remuneration, client engagements and propositions and consider what these mean for the future of agency/client relations.
  • Advertising and consumer decision journeys. We look at the latest formats coming from Facebook and ask whether this might help them finally crack social commerce, and consider whether Amazon might be about to steal Google’s lunch. We also take a look at McKinsey’s latest work on the consumer decision journey to consider the implications for brands and marketing spend.
  • AI and ecommerce. The role of AI in ecommerce will inevitably become more involved, and there are already some interesting examples starting to emerge that reveal at least part of what an AI-powered shopping future could look like.
  • Brain machine interfaces. The development of brain-machine interfaces is progressing at pace leading to the intriguing thought that direct brain control over devices and machines may not be as far away as we think.

This hour-long webinar recording features input from Ashley Friedlein, President, Centaur Marketing & Founder, Econsultancy and Neil Perkin, Consultant and Founder of Only Dead Fish.