Bespoke is not one size fits all

Digital Marketing is no different.

Tank2Create
Aug 8, 2017 · 3 min read

There is nothing bespoke about the word bespoke.

It’s an overused word across all industries, and whilst the definition is correct, the word itself has become impotent.

Bespoke templates, bespoke rims, bespoke tea; at what point do things stop being bespoke?
Bespoke is banded around a lot in marketing- ironically enough an industry where the majority of ideas are recycled, cannibalized or the bastard amalgamation of two previous pitches that clients didn’t go for.

Mark Ritson tackles the debate about the debate of digital marketing in his article, Polarised Marketing Debate

We seem to have lost nuance, relativity and context. In our search for definitive answers to marketing’s big questions we’ve created chaos. It’s an exciting, fast-moving and emotional chaos. But it’s chaos nonetheless. And I wonder if things will ever calm down again.

His qualms are not with a specific side of the digital marketing debate but the debate in its entirety.
My take away is that everyone is just attempting to debunk the other side’s argument. The problem with this type of debate is it’s attempting to apply facts to a broad problem, when in reality, everything is subjective to a specific client’s needs.

Mark then drops the word “nuance.”
I finally could replace the ugly word bespoke and answer my clients, honestly.

Digital marketing is a set of platforms and with a few schools of thought on how to best manage each platform. We are attempting to ask our industry to provide standarised methods to produce best results for a variety of companies, yet to ask these to be bespoke is oxymoronic.

So we at Tank2 say this: it’s time to go back to clients and provide them with a nuanced approach.
It’s time to focus on the identity, goals, and budgets of each client and suggest what is best for THEM.

Take Instagram, which is fantastically hot: can you create a bespoke content plan for your client on the platform, that will engage new followers and deliver on their goals? Go right ahead!

If your client is a B2B small batch, low budget, wholesale coffee company? Probably not.

In this is the difference between bespoke standards and nuanced. Bespoke says we will reinvent the wheel whilst adhering to “standard” practice. Nuanced says we know best practice, we are creative enough to be bespoke but we understand our clients well enough to know what is actually needed.
Nuanced also allows for growth and less wasted energy. The client who needs a bespoke content strategy for one channel might grow and alter their brand- nuanced knows when to insert their change into a new area. Bespoke starts back at the drawing board, ignoring history, ignoring current assets and labours over something that just isn’t needed.

Be custom, be data driven, find successful pattern and be nuanced with your digital marketing strategies.

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