Stay liminal

Marketers like to split into two camps. One defends the proven fundamentals, the other says digital has changed everything. Rob Estreitinho, a senior strategist at the London agency VCCP, borrows a term from anthropology for this state. Liminality is the ambiguous middle of a rite of passage, when you are no longer who you were and not yet who you will be. According to Rob, the whole industry is stuck there right now, and both camps are right, just at different levels.

You'll learn why digital feels more complicated than it is, why organic reach on social media mostly talks to people who already buy the brand, and why media mutate rather than die. Rob shows how to separate KPIs from "FYI" metrics and why different communication jobs need media bought in different ways. He illustrates it with work for Cadbury: Oreo with the influencer Arron Crascall, the YouTube series Families Reunited and Donate Your Words with the charity Age UK.