The Internet Changed Marketing From A Military Parade To A Dance Floor!
The Internet changed marketing from a military parade to a dance floor!
Occasionally the business context changes so dramatically that the laws of business need To be reframed.
This happens when there is a massive shift in either a dominant communication medium or a dominant technology. It happened with mass printing, radio, television and now the internet. Likewise it happened with the commencement of agriculture, the arrival of the steam engine, production while the assembly line and now information technology.
But, for the first time, the Internet represents both a new dominant technology as well as a means for communication. Hence, this is by far the biggest disruption to business equilibrium.
Access and enablement are the universal outcomes of the Internet era of marketing. Besides state actors, it is still only corporations, media agencies and tech majors who’ve had access to data and resulting insights. Imagine when the ecosystem has ready access to “all data’. It has the potential to make marketing more relevant than ever before or totally irrelevant depending on how marketers respond to this change.
Prior to the arrival of the internet, marketing was often defined in terms of war. It even used military terminology e.g - target, flank manoeuvre , frontal assault, strengths , weaknesses ,campaign, gain– loss, attack-defend , territory, advantage, tactics etc.
Brands ran advertising campaigns aimed at whole populations sending strong thematic messages. It built strong brand associations ,generation after generation, and gave people a sense of relationship even if they were not buyers or consumers of the given product or service.
With the arrival of the Internet the ‘one-to-many’ motive for any pre-eminent medium was lost forever. The most significant difference between new media and traditional media operators was the wealth of data available with the former. The damage that ‘data – ism’ has done is to diminish the role and relevance of creativity is a subject of deep study. It has also given short-term outcomes more prominence and established this modality in the name of ‘effectiveness’!
Targeting, retargeting, search and social media – many of these have compromised longer term brand fame. Everyone is relying on last-minute targeting. This neglects renown, prominence or talkability and flattens the transformational effects of great creativity.
The metrics and horizons for brand building cannot be the same as those for the quarter, half year or fiscal year of business reporting. Emotional priming, gaining fame and earning and owning of memory structures needs time.
However, we are seeing that the immediate and short-term considerations are of supreme importance. Tactical marketers pander to the ‘short-termist’ majority. They celebrate a lot of jargon and flashy bits of ephemeral advertising.
The very first public stage exposure for this new age was only as recently as 2011 when McKinsey & Company Circulated a report called ‘Big data: the next frontier for innovation, competition and productivity’ . Soon after this IBM, SAP, Oracle, Microsoft and several others began to claim expertise, products and solutions to make big data a commercial reality. There were authoritative articles written about how the CMO was becoming a bigger driver of digital adoption and tech adoption than even the CIO.
For digital centricity, C-suite collaboration critical—from the CEO who presents a unifying vision, the CMO who owns the customer relationship, the CIO, who enables data analytics, the CFO who weighs financial priorities, to the Chief Human Resources Officer, who identifies a talent strategy.
Applied thoughtfully, digital technologies can better connect organizations to their customers, partners, and employees. But tech-enabled interactions must not lack a human touch or connection. Brand building needs a leveraging of technology in ways that enrich, rather than dampen, the human spirit.
Likewise, brands are moving from being isolated entities to being members of far-reaching ecosystems that can address customer needs more holistically. With technology, brands can expand to new business areas by looking beyond industry boundaries to address customer needs, identify opportunities for growth and partnerships, and create new value for customers. Businesses that solve unmet needs through smart, open ecosystems can displace competitors that are unwilling or unable to do the same.
Only very few organizations have the opportunity to involve consumers and communities in shaping, influencing, building, and co-creating brands. Many marketers feel the need to evolve and create dynamic, two-way engagement across all stages of the consumer journey and the product life cycle. Hence customization, community building, or crowdsourcing can turn willing customers into brand ambassadors, influencers, advocates, collaborators, and even innovators. I have had the privilege to do that at Royal Enfield building one of the largest and most engaged social media communities in India besides the huge presence of the same riders on ground.
In an era of connected technology and big data analytics, customers and regulators are increasingly conscious of trust and its sanctity. This may require companies to create a structure that protects customer data and privacy, detects threats to data protections and security, and promotes the ethical use of AI.
The breakneck pace of technological change is not slowing. Companies that embrace change and place the customer at the center of their organizations can make choices that have a win-win impact or they can wait to perish.
Today’s business leaders know that digital technologies hold the potential to transform nearly every aspect of our world. Organizations are exploring advanced analytics, AI, cloud computing, and the internet of things. But they are also learning that these technologies aren’t a substitute for the bonds we share as humans.
