The world of digital and online media is at an inflection point where the lines between customer, supplier and internal staff communications are beginning to blur. Far too many brands and companies see digital and technology as a marketing channel and often aren’t aware about how these innovations can solve other business challenges.

In 2012 high-end fashion retailer Burberry took the bold step of reaching out to digitally-minded millennial consumers. The result was a highly integrated and immersive online presence using music and emotion to resonate with younger audiences. This “creative” strategy has gone deeper that the surface of marketing to touch at the core operations, transforming the company into the luxury industry’s digital leader and revitalising the brand – its’s biggest store in London was opened in 2012 is a living incarnation of the brand’s website.

In 2013, Sports apparel manufacturer Nike turned its Fuel Band from just another activity tracker into an award-winning creative campaign that won the hearts and minds of customers, selling out within minutes of going on sale for online pre-order. Global demand for the easy-to-use device has catapulted it from just an accessory to a high-status item.

The data from the Fuel Band has proved so valuable, thanks to its reach, that Nike is using the insights it provides to make highly impactful business decisions around product innovation and launches, contributing significantly to the bottom line.

Brand and business challenges have become increasingly fluid and mutually inclusive in the fast-paced digital landscape of modern business.

This shift is forcing digital consultancies, who traditionally cater to their clients’ sophisticated “left-brain” IT business functionality, to start playing in the creative space, or at least think about the branding aspect of their clients’ business.

To keep up, some consultancies try to work with creative agencies to fill their marketing and branding gaps. However, most prefer to simply acquire creative agencies or build their own skills in-house.

Likewise, creative digital agencies that are known for their supposedly “right-brain” marketing and advertising, are getting closer and closer to core business functions they previously wouldn’t have touched. This means gaining greater insight into clients’ business challenges and the inner workings of their businesses to establish how technology can give their companies, not only their brands, a competitive advantage.