The Future of Marketing DA: Contextual Report

Concept:

I approached the Futures Cultures Digital Artefact wanting to create something that I was passionate about and that would be useful for my own future. As such I decided to create a blog post series focused on exploring the future of the marketing industry (a topic highly relevant to my career aspirations).

Methodology

Research topic –> Create Content –-> Monitor feedback loop –> Iterate –> Repeat

The researching phase took the longest time during this project, as I wanted the blog posts to be as informative as possible. Writing was another long process as there was so much information and I wanted to keep the post length short and digestable.

Background Research:

One of the key takeaways I have taken from the subject lectures is the concept of possible, probable, and preferable futures, which I discussed throughout all of my posts.

During further research of the 3Ps (often known now as the 4Ps with the inclusion of ‘plausible’), I came across the Futures Cone (Voros, 2017; Swanson, 2021). However, Joseph Voros also identifies ‘the projected future’. This idea of a projected future seems to be something I have come across a lot in my research into the future of marketing. Voros’ ‘Futures Cone’ was a useful tool to explain my opinion on the likeliness of different future realities.

Utility:

Initially I planned to create 7 mini blog posts on my WordPress blog, however time constraints meant that I had to change my original plan. Ultimately, I developed 5 blog posts that each explored key ideas/ trends emerging that were projected to affect the future of the marketing and advertising sphere. I designed the blog posts to be easily consumable using less than 400 words, audio transcripts simple language and classic blog post structures such as lists. I believe they provide a utility for my audience as they are concise summaries of some of the key discussions taking place about the marketing world’s future. The information I provide is informative, and interesting to my main audience, industry professionals and marketing enthusiasts.

Trajectory:

The project’s overall trajectory of the Digital Artefact was fairly neutral although each post did draw new visitors to the site.

Limitations:

The main limitation of my Digital Artefact is that it only provides a very small insight to some of the major trends/theories about the future of marketing. Due to limited resources, I was not able to discuss as many concepts I had hoped.

Furthermore, audience engagement was another limitation of the project. Despite making a lot of effort to entice readers and increase audience engagement the variety of changes and iterations I made did not seem to have a significant impact.

Success:

Overall, I am happy with the quality of the blog posts and the effort I made. Throughout the development of my Digital Artefact, I was able to practice my digital skills and focus on content production. I experimented with a range of blogging techniques including ‘catchy’ titles, hashtags, search engine optimisation techniques, audio transcripts, and blog structure (short lists vs paragraphs).

This project has increased my critical thinking skills and taught me a lot about creating digital content as well as provided me with a better understanding of the projected future of marketing and what it could look like. Ultimately, I would call it a success.

The future?

Moving forward, I plan to continue to monitor future trends and possibilities regarding the marketing industry and add to this blog series. Hopefully this will add to my professional portfolio and encourage more visits to my site.

References:

Voros, J 2017, ‘The Futures Cone, use and history’, The Voroscope, weblog post, 24 February 2017, viewed 01 May 2021, <https://thevoroscope.com/2017/02/24/the-futures-cone-use-and-history/&gt;

Voros, J 2017, ‘Futures Cone’, image, 24 February 2017, viewed 01 May 2021, <https://thevoroscope.com/2017/02/24/the-futures-cone-use-and-history/&gt;

Swanson, J 2021, ‘A Tool for Exploring Plausible, Probable, Possible and Preferred Futures’, Students at the Centre Hub, weblog post, 24 February 2021, viewed 01 May 2021, <https://studentsatthecenterhub.org/resource/tool-exploring-plausible-probable-possible-preferred-futures/&gt;