I’ve been in marketing for 20 years now, navigating through a lot of ups and some downs. Building great brands, engaging innovation, wonderful equity building programs, and what not. Fun all around. But wow, marketing has surely changed BIG TIME over that period of time!
A couple of years ago I recognized that I had to throw away what I’d learned in university in order to make it in marketing now and in the future. I had to re-educate myself, read everything I could, follow blogs, observe brands in a different way, and think about the marketing discipline itself. And so I did, and still do every day. (Hence this marketing fb blog if you want).
My conclusion so far is that there have been 3 MAJOR SHIFTS in the marketing discipline over the last 20 years:
1) Move to consumer-centric marketing.
20 years ago – when I started working in research and then in brand marketing on the FMCG side – we were focused on company and brand growth in a very different way than today. What happened was: a company would pluck some brilliant marketers straight from university and let them go creative within a very well defined box: whatever defined by WHAT WE CAN MAKE. And we did great; building funky campaigns, innovating on line extensions that WE thought were great ideas, executing what Mr. Kotler had taught us. Looking back, all these things seem very small.
Today, I my opinion, you got a very different picture: we have really moved on to consumer-centric thinking. And the tools are there to make it happen, whether through new research techniques, crown-sourcing, open innovation and the likes. We put the consumer first, the idea next, the brand third and then execute as flawlessly as we can. It’s not all fun anymore though. There’s a lot more “science” in the game these days. But net net, everybody wins – company and consumer. That’s a BIG SHIFT!
2) An understanding of who owns the message. The consumer!
We used to just “blast away” – put the message out there, as fiercely as our budgets allowed it. Measuring the impact on a consumer level was rare. If sales were going up, the campaign must have done what we thought it would do. What fools we were!
Today, I think everyone agrees that we don’t own the message at all. We never did. Consumers own the message. Consumers own the brand. They live with it, talk about it, love it or hate, adore it or trash it, pass it on to their friends or advice them not to buy. And today -and here’s the BIG SHIFT – they have a VOICE. And it’s a damn loud one as well. The internet has changed everything. Social media have given power to the people, in many many ways. The only thing we as marketers can do is (1) be nice, and try to be “part” of the conversations that are happening anyway, and (2) give consumers exactly what they want so the love it and pass it on. In return, almost as gratitude, they “might” buy our products and services.
And so marketing went “full-circle” if you ask me. We got taught, way back, that word-of-mouth is the most powerful tool you might want to influence. Thing is, we didn’t know how! So, blasting-away the message was the only thing we could do. Make great commercials, make great packaging, if you can say it – sing it… these were the mantras. Now, full-circle, we do understand that word-of-mouth is making the difference. Being part of the conversation is exactly about that: trying to influence word-of-mouth. How great to observe this come-back after so many years. I think we finally got it. And that is fun and exciting ! The media world will tremble on its feet in the coming years as the power will shift from tv to social. That’s also fun and exciting 😉
3) Measuring until you vomit.
Don’t get me wrong, I think measuring is necessary. If you can’t measure it, why do it? If it is your own money, wouldn’t you want to know whether you’ll see returns -short or long term? Sure you would. And we are measuring a whole lot of things these days: from the early start to identify what market to go after, then to check and recheck our ideas that might plug the whole and address a consumer need, then to check and recheck and checking some more how first months are going, then to check and recheck and checking some more how our next innovation works – and round and round we go…
With that comes a BIG SHIFT in marketing again: we measure and we report more than we think and create. Marketers spend more time behind their desk these days than in the field, or with consumers. They should be spending their time with their agencies, creating like hell. Instead they are chained to their chairs, managing upwards to justify what they do, to justify the numbers, … to justify their job. The right thing to do? Well, I need to think about that. Finding a better balance is probably in order.
All in all, I have to admit, marketing has become a much more “deep”, well-grounded, sophisticated. We live in very very exciting times. And unless we have a major global electricity crisis that shuts down all our computers, this eras marketing is here to stay.
Talk to you in another 20 years. Let’s see what I have to say then 😉
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Check out http://branduniq.com/2011/as-the-branding-world-evolves-2/
Hi Kurt,
Great article. Thank you for making reference to my blog.
REBLOG : http://blogs.terrapinn.com/customers/2011/06/13/3-major-shifts-marketing-20-years/
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