Burns mentioned two campaigns that demonstrate the best of digital and where the channel is headed.

One is the campaign Bing launched around Jay Z’s biography in 2011. A perfect example of multichannel execution:

 

According to Burns, while the crux of the campaign was the different geographical and physical elements of Jay Z’s new book (every page of the book was made public across different cities in every form imaginable), they only worked because the digital channel tied them together and allowed customers to engage them as a whole through maps, online search, gaming and social media.

The second one that has been well covered is Tesco’s campaign in Korea creating a virtual supermarket in the subway.

Both campaigns demonstrate the perfect blend of digital and physical channels coming together to deliver something completely innovative for customers and both have crystal clear business results to show for it.

Integrated Marketing Week and where digital marketing is headed to next

According to Burns one of the bigger trends in 2013 will be social media becoming ‘real’:

By that I mean the novelty factor has worn off and companies will get very serious about finding more measurable value in the space. This means social will become fully integrated into the more traditional ‘nuts and bolts’ of marketing and that will force a divergence in how social is used for different purposes.

For more on multichannel and how brands will use social media moving into 2013 check out Integrated Marketing Week from June 11-13 in New York.

Speakers include Seth Godin, Brian Solis and representatives from Macy’s, American Airlines, Mastercard, Google and much more. Register today at imweek.org.