Digital Distractions

25/11/16

The drive to digital can be bold – just don't go too fast

Returning from an India trying to come to terms with a mostly cashless society, Alistair Strayton sees parallels with the more evangelical end of the digital revolution...

Having been an Englishman in India for the past fortnight, the biggest shock wasn’t the perseverance with a hapless Ben Duckett in the English batting line-up, but rather the news that the Indian government had decided to withdraw the 500 and 1,000 rupee notes from circulation.

The decision to make 85 per cent of the Indian currency worthless overnight came as much out of the blue for the Indian populace it did for travelling cricket fans. It was motivated both by the government’s stated aim of tackling the sprawling black-market economy that fosters tax evasion and corruption, and a desire to turn the aspiring superpower into a digitally savvy, cash-free society.

In marketing terms, it’s a bit like Apple unilaterally trying to save us from the tyranny of headphone wires by binning the 3.5mm jack on the iPhone 7. Yes, both physical cash and device connections will at some point become anachronisms. And yes, a bold push might be needed to reach that point – but there is a time and place for everything, and the question for those of us responsible for evangelising the power of digital is when and where that is.

There's a balance to be found between reaching the destination and causing too much pain on the way

In India, look beyond the interminable queues at the banks lucky enough to have cash and the gallons of newspaper print given to bemoaning the situation and you’ll see enterprising solutions to hard-currency shortage. Cinemas have tackled the massive drop-off in ticket sales by offering two-for-ones to those customers who book through a mobile phone app, while at the cricket punters were being given free tickets for sharing their love of the Indian cricket team via the followon.in app.

But these are, at the moment, niche solutions and the infrastructure to support a cashless society simply isn’t there. Even the most digitally developed western societies are taking a gradual approach to the cashless dream, and India ranks only 91st on a 2016 list of digitally ready countries. (Though with trailblazers like this guy, the only way is up…)

The drive to offer digital solutions can be bold, but you can push too far… your market has to be willing and – more importantly – equipped to follow you down the digital road you want to take them down.

There’s a reason why marketers are resisting the urge to throw all of their budgets into a VR-shaped basket, or why Apple’s decision to abandon the headphone socket generated so much interest/controversy. Your goals may be laudable and the direction of travel might indeed be inevitable, but there’s a balance to be found between reaching the destination and causing too much pain on the way.

After all, as a wise Indian yogi said to me in the hot Visakhapatnam sun, you can indeed lead a cow to water and make it drink, but don’t be surprised if it shits on your shoes a couple of times on the way.

(Or at least, I think that’s what he said – we were seven wickets down at the time and a few beers of indeterminate strength had gone down at lunchtime.)

Forward

by Ali Strayton

Head of comms

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