In 2024, talking about digital marketing seems to me to be outdated. Digital is all around us. Making a distinction between marketing and digital marketing means that they’re not really the same thing.
But in both cases, it’s about selling.
Why don’t we just say digital marketing?
Is marketing digital a bad translation of digital marketing? Digital in French means belonging to or relating to fingers. It’s not a totally idiotic idea, given the use of smartphones and touch screens. Like Petite Poucette, the heroine of Michel Serre’s essay, who uses her thumbs to type on her cell phone.
Nevertheless, I opt for the abuse of language version. When digital marketing was born, mobile users weren’t the first target for marketers. Digital marketing was made for people sitting in front of their big desktop computers, not for people on public transport with their necks snapped on their smartphones (they didn’t exist yet!).
Digital humanities: another example of language abuse
In the family of Anglicisms, I ask for digital humanities. It’s the translation of humanités numériques, which is also a translation of sciences humaines numériques. I wonder why, in one case, digital is Frenchified (in marketing digital) and why, in the other case, it is translated correctly. I refer you to the Euphonie podcast episode from the Assonance agency for some answers. It was in this podcast that I first heard the term humanités numériques.