Last February, a discount retailer stumbled with a campaign conceived as an integrated audio, mobile banner and full-page ad experience on Pandora’s iPhone app. As an interaction model, it seemed so simple: users would tap on an ad and download a coupon! The experience would integrate with their lives! Right?

No. An article in Mobile Commerce Daily details the campaign’s horrible execution. When users tapped an ad, they were whisked to the company’s website, not a mobile-optimized landing page. They had to pinch and zoom. And then they were encouraged to print the coupons, which they couldn’t. Phones don’t come with printers yet.

While trying to promote in-store groceries, they promoted mediocrity.

Eventually the company fixed the problem—offering a mobile optimized iPhone app and a scannable coupon—but not before it missed the opportunity to deliver an optimal user experience.

Done right, web and mobile optimization provide genuine user-utility and a positive buying experience. Done wrong, it annoys us. We just came to buy bananas, not give ourselves the pinch and zoom vertigo, aka “the zoomies.”

The campaign misstep is emblematic of a major transformation in marketing strategy. As traditional agencies fail to deliver cumulative desired experiences across multiple platforms, more and more large brands are shifting their budgets from traditional to digital. They’re dropping their old partners in favor of creative firms who run on innovation, design and utility.

Granted, the landscape has shifted so much so fast that this new multidimensional marketplace can overwhelm traditional agencies who simply aren’t versed in web and mobile-optimized brand interactions. Their crystalline structures don’t allow for the fluidity necessary to optimize consumer/brand interactions.

And that’s why we updated our “Digital” is Dead guide: to help you understand the way predictive and unpredictive models shape consumer experiences, so you don’t make the same mistakes the discount retailer did. “Digital” is Dead 2.0 outlines how brands should foster meaningful consumer relationships in today’s marketplace: delivering integrated user experiences, and focusing on innovation, design and utility to give them something cool they’ve never seen before. “Digital” is Dead 2.0 provides valuable insights into the complex world of online, offline and hybrid brand experiences.