Digital Media Climbs The Corporate Ladder

One way to measure the increasing importance of digital media within client organizations is to look at the levels of individuals involved in the process over time.

In the early days, it seemed that being on the online team was tantamount to being sent to corporate Siberia. How many times clients used the term 'skunk works' 'under the radar' I can barely count. From irrelevant, invisible and then integral, many of those same people silently went about their day attempting to change the way their companies did business.

Well, in the closet no more. Over the past past few years we have seen the level of client involvement increasing with CMO's more often than not being somewhat involved with the digital media strategies that they ignored in the past.

Anecdotally talking to many of my friends and colleagues in the digital media biz, there seems to be a significant shift happening particularly in the past year.

The pitch process, which usually was a small affair at best, (involving a small client team that would then take their best picks 'up the ladder' behind the scenes) is no more. CEOs of fortune 500 companies are now part of the pitch committee and leading their organizations digital efforts.

All demonstrating that fact that digital media has finally come of age and has made it to the summit of the corporate ladder.