IAB Engage speaker report: “Digital is key to solving social ills” – COI boss
- Added:
- Nov 12, 2009
The IAB Engage lunchtime address by Mark Lund, COI chief executive, was entitled "Citizen 2.0 - how government can interact and engage in the digital age."
Lund started by saying: "Levels of trust in politicians is at an all time low, because trust is at the heart of good communications and the health of democracy." He believes that "society faces serious ills as a result of our prosperous society and the choices we make. Digital is at the heart of behaviour change and to make the revolution we need."
He talked of the challenges facing the COI: "the COI has to talk to the widest range of people in the UK" and how digital is central to tackling societies issues: "our view is of digital as a pivotal media of the future". He continued:"it's [digital] a joiner upper, an enabler of government and other media channels. It's the plasma that runs through media ecology." "The end results is we want to join up citizens and government better."
The COI did its first digital work in 1999 with the unveiling of its website. Its turnover in digital spend has rocketed three-fold since 2006, an increase of 200% in the last three years.
Lund outlined the challenges his department faces: "The COI can't choose its audiences; government has to deal with every individual and every business." He went on to cite social issues such as obesity, smoking, binge drinking and climate change as the big challenges for behaviour change: "we're changing habits, whole ways of life, starting things and giving things up. If we can change behaviour we will make a huge difference to society. Digital communications is at the heart of that."
Lund believes that conversations are the key to changing behaviour through digital channels: "Conversation creates the possibility of giving voice to the voiceless and power to the unempowered [sic]. Digital allows a first step in behaviour change."
He also placed critical importance on social media at the heart of the COI's digital strategy. He used the example of the RAF campaign of "Afghan Diaries," which saw video diaries created by servicemen posted on YouTube in what Lund described as an "unmediated and unvarnished view of what it's like to be in the RAF."
Lund championed the need to link up all channels: "it's not enough to do digital by itself - you have to link it."
On the next phase of development for the newly installed CEO, Lund sees trying to change the way that government and citizens interact as a primary objective: "I want people to get involved when policy is being created." He added: "whether it's for education, policing, health or power stations, we want to let people into the process of government... get big numbers engaged in a debate."
Lund ended by inviting the assembled industry audience to get involved, asking them to "come with us" and also to "show us the way". "London is world capital in social media. Within this room there is the capacity to make a huge difference."
