The future of marketing

About 6 months back, I wrote a note on the biggest changes I have personally witnessed in marketing in the last 20 years. You can read it here. I’ve been on the watch-out since then to keep track of not what has been, but what seems close to happening. The future of marketing as I see it… 

 
From my observations and experiences, here are the 10 consumer and business challenges I see for today and tomorrow:

1-Consumer is more complex than ever. Chameleon behavior is a given. Result: consumers are difficult to “pin down” (read: target) – a nightmare for the old-style marketer. They are everywhere and nowhere. They lead 20 different lifestyles. They can’t and won’t except to be “clustered” or “boxed in”.
2-Consumers and businesses are dealing with the economic downturn in complex and different ways. And leadership around that is chaotic at best. The jury is still out there in terms of where all of this will land in the next 5 years.
3-It’s a flat world – everyone is connected to everyone. Open source, in its various expressions, is becoming the standard operating principle in technology, marketing, innovation and business as a whole.
4-Exponential social media growth; importance of mobile over computer; resulting in truly empowered ‘netizens’. With that, consumers are also the ultimate “little marketers” (with experience!!) – they are used to market themselves, are exposed to a massive amount of marketing to them, and are experts are filtering, judging and deleting!
5-New consumer values (trust, eco, doing good, etc. as “expected” of businesses and brands)
6-Consumer is all about “me“, “now“, “I decide“. If you are not authentic, relevant and current, then forget it. Consumers want it all, and they want it within reach. The modern-day consumer has grown up used to having it all, no questions asked. “Everything” is becoming a “minimum” – if you can’t deliver that, and more, then you have no role to play in business.
7-Massive marketplace fragmentation. Disruption of traditional sales channels. Online as a growing platform. Consumer created and owned selling places, where traditional supply/demand paradigms are being broken. I call it The Amazonisation, The Ebay-isation of the sales place.
8-Rising regulatory rigidity. Governments and law-makers are more sophisticated than ever, and want to be “in control” … businesses are being targeted left, right and center. Time to adapt.
9-Everything is visual. Everything spreads. Everything is touch. Everything is connected. Design is part of the fabric of life. iPad, iPhone, Android and the likes thrive on visual intuitive interactions.
10-From short product life cycles, to extremely short cycles. Case in point: we are in the 3rd generation ipad; only after a good 2 years!

And guess what, all of the above 10 are interlinked, interdependant, correlated, in many many ways!

The future of marketing, as a business discipline, will, in my opinion, be primarily characterised by:

1- The “Digital Hurricane”. The current data overload is massive. Marketers that possess the ability for strong data-based decision making, seeing the trees through the woods, will rise to the top. Linked to that, there is a strong need for “sophisticated measures” beyond the basics of acquisition, conversion and equity.

2- ROI will become part of “brand basics”. It’s not about the ROI of a particular campaign, or of a promotion. ROI is to become much more of a brand centric thing: what is the added value my brand creates, over a certain period of time (say a year), incorporating all investments in sales, marketing, infrastructure? That has in theory always be the case, but only know can we put together the relevant pieces of the (data) puzzle to calculate ROI and learn from it.

3- Marketers, of whatever background, trade or in whatever industry they work can’t do without some new brand paradigms : brand advocacy and engagement systems, renewed interest in WoM and what that means in terms of social media deployment, growing disloyalty, experiencial marketing. A whole lot to chew on.

4- Related to nr 3: earned media is gaining from bought media. Guess what? It’s not one or the other. Both go hand in hand, amplifying each other. Good to know what button to push when. 

5- It’ll be all about content, content, content and most importantly user-generated-content. Consumers want bits and pieces of content on many many of their “passion points” in life. Brands have to ride those waves, and deliver that content.

 6- New shopping channels. The time of traditional shopping lists is over. Shopping will go online in different shapes or forms.

7- Constant (brand) dangers are more than ever around the corner; with viral backfiring as the culmanation of that. Legal departments need to be part of the deal, not as manadatory hurdles, but as partners.

8- Neuro-science and neuro-marketing, today still in infancy, will have a great role to play in the future. I think this is where consumer insights will be revolutionalised. See here.

 

As a marketer, you have to try to constantly reinvent yourself, to constantly try to do things differently in order to adapt to the above. Here are a few tips on how to achieve that:

i. It’s all about mindset. There is a mindshift needed: FROM “telling and selling” TO “relationship building” … with consumers, customers, regulators, and other stakeholders.

ii. It’s about building “Marketing Ecosystems“:  brands give consumers “experiences” across multiple touchpoints -whether through product, services, content, or intangible benefits.

iii. Think SCREENS. We need to be moving away from tv as the lead medium. This is not to say we need to drop/delete tv. There is just a rebalance needed in how we approach communication across all “screens” (tv, youtube, outdoor billboard, mobile phone, packaging, etc etc)

iv. Real-time-marketing will become a reality. Tracking and adapting what is going on with your brand at the speed of light will define your win over competition. Think of how “real time” your brand can go. That’s not an easy one, because it involves resources, infrastructure, freedom in different places, and much more. But – those who do it now, are ahead of the curve and geared up for the future.

v. Go fast into co-creation and crowdsourcing. Make consumer-content-creations a part of (brand) life, whether it is on the product (innovation) front, in how communication is being built up, in how you shape the future of your brand. Bring the consumer inside -in each one of your marketing processes. A scary thought! But a necessary one.

vi. Storytelling is a must. More than ever, consumers are hungry to hear what story a brand has to bring. It is a great tool to create necessary distinction versus competition, and to capture consumers in non-commercial language they can really understand.

vii. As marketers, we need to become good at multi-agency team management. The old days of a one-size-fit-all-and-do-all agency are over. As marketers in a multinational we need to become great at managing specialities and differences. A great example on how to do this is the famous Cirque du soleil, that truly is being managed as a “circus of differences”.

viii. There is grave danger in brand fragmentation with the many many new media/social channels around. And hence, brand consistency is more important than ever!

viv. In order to cope with the data overload, capture the consumer in real-time, understand fragments of life, deal with chameleon-multi-targeting, a proper CIO-CMO integration is a must.

I believe these are the most fundamental changes in approach and thinking. They don’t discard other must-do’s that haven’t particularly changed: managing profitability, managing premium and niche properly and simultaneously, understanding shopper vs consumer, etc.

NET NET
If you read through the lines, then one conclusion and truth will surface: «the consumer is ahead of us». For a business, a brand, and a marketer, the question then becomes: how to stay tuned-in (ideally), not lag behind (at best), or… stay ahead (for the happy few) !

 

Thank you for reading this blog post. I’d like to hear your feedback and comments, on twitter, Linkedin or facebook!

 

Tagged as: 2012, 2050, art, change, consumer, digital, foresight, future, gutfeel, innovation, internet, marketing, online, science, shopper, social media, strategy, success, transformation