Consumers are changing fast...
Technology is changing faster...
And marketing efforts are struggling to keep up.
Blogging, RSS, Podcasts are Social Networking are still pretty new concepts to traditional marketers - yet they have all been around for a couple of years.
Most Marketers may know what RSS stands for but haven't used it to connect with their customers. Blogs are a no brainer- they know what they are - but they don't have any time to spend reading what all of the pajama clad bloggers have to say - they may now be considering the pro's and con's of advertising on blogs but it is unlikely that they contribute to a blog and doubtful that their company manages a blog to communicate with their customers. My Space--- unless they peaked over their kids shoulder they have never seen it and don't get the attraction at all. Wiki -- thats a drink with an umbrella --right??
If we consider the "modern" era of the internet is now just over 10 years old - we can say that RSS and Blog technology have been in use for nearly 30% of the life span of the internet - yet most marketers still seem pretty thrilled to skin their same old internet site with a little bit of flash to look up to date.
The resulting marketing efforts are missing their mark and as a result consumers are opting out of marketing messages.
"The traditional marketing model we all grew up with is obsolete,"
-James R. Stengel, Chief Marketing Officer, Procter & Gamble
If we look around corners we are going to see a huge convergence between what technology allows us to do, what consumers are comfortable with and what tools marketers use to peddle their products and services. This quote from the post on Building a Web Business-
The promise of new media has always been about convergence : the digitization of everything that makes possible a combining of text, graphics, video, audio -- delivered through another convergence that combines television and computing.
If the past few years are any barometer - we can project that consumers will be much more adaptable to new technologies than will marketers. Not all Consumers are there yet ...
"There's a lot of sound and fury targeted at people who aren't especially good customers while everybody waits for the real customers to catch up."
But they are catching up fast.
Marketers are a very smart group and as they begin to break down the traditional marketing mix -- I predict that we will see a huge acceleration of marketing efforts-- and the emergence of an entirely different marketing culture and marketing mix.
As new technologies continue to come out of the labs - marketers are not going to have the time for another round of catch-up - The entire playing field is going to look different.
"The stuff in the labs today, with speech recognition, visual recognition, ink recognition, reading everything online and new devices that enable that -- in five years, that will just be common sense,"
-Bill Gates.
In addition to the really cool stuff that Gates talks about we are going to have a very basic Convergence of Connectivity = (phone lines + broadband internet access + cable television + wireless routers + cell phones) that will fundamentally change our communication habits at home and at work.
The Convergence of Connectivity will radically change consumer media habits- when phone calls, television, music, and internet- all access your home in one big pipe- are stored very inexpensively - check out this great article in the Denver Post on the acceleration of micro storage (cheap and small) - and shared wirelessly through the home or office.
More on how the new media environment may look and how it will impact marketing to come...
Recent Comments