Traditional marketing has been taking it on the chin for a couple of years now as consumers show they value as far more authentic the product and service recommendations they receive from those they know, especially via social media. In this opinion piece, Curtis Hougland, co-founder of Ideaology, a not-for-profit social media agency for social good, notes that the rise of ad blockers is symbolic of the tectonic shift in advertising and marketing now underway. (Follow Curtis on Twitter @curtis_hougland.)
The redistribution of power from brands to individuals is the enduring legacy of social media. The recent rise of ad blocking represents a tectonic shift in the balance of power between marketers and consumers. This technology represents more than just a functional way to block digital ads: it represents the very end of marketing as we have known it.
Marketing is culture, and culture is marketing in America. The mass adoption of television, radio and the Internet required everyone to have a co-dependent relationship with marketing, which became ubiquitous, even celebrated.
In days gone by, ads interspersed the pages of LIFE Magazine, punctuated scenes of All in the Family and framed the webpages of Compuserve.com. Last month, they infiltrated the feeds of Instagram. Today, gas station pumps, elevator cars and dentist lobbies beam ambient marketing messages. The march toward omnipresent marketing appears inexorable.
Yet marketing stands at an existential crossroads.
For the first time we can read its epitaph: “Killed by Consumption, Eaten by Cannibals.” Marketing is slowly being ingested and eliminated by the very consumers it ‘targets’ every day.
“As consumers bypass media with greater ease, the social feed is the wormhole to the entire online experience.”
The form and formats of marketing are expiring amid a failure to compete for attention with media, influencers, friends and family. One might say that the seeds of marketing’s demise reside within the 50 billion messages sent by individuals each day on What’s App alone.
The culprit behind this “dysadvertopian” future is, of course, technology.
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The computer revolution of the early 1980s, the Web revolution of the early ’90s and the social media revolution of the early 2000s constitute one irresistible trend realized in three temporal lurches: a greater individual/consumer control of experiences, both personal and commercial.
Technology catalyzed five trends that portend the death of traditional marketing:
- more media and information;
- greater access to this media and information;
- self-organization of this media and information by narrower and narrower affinities;
- control of the means to create and distribute this media and information;
- tools to parse this media and information (and in so doing, our attention) in both public and private communication.
Within technology overall, social media is the fox in the hen house for the acceleration of change.
Social media is far more than a set of networks. It is a behavior, one in which people act on a biological imperative to share and socialize; an organizing principle by which people self-organize by increasingly diverse affinities; and an operating system by which middlemen (such as marketers) are universally disintermediated.
This social behavior is the dark matter that connects all communication, word-of-mouth spelled in 1s and 0s through billions of texts and posts each day. Social media reflects humanity, and as such, it is contradictory: it simultaneously reaffirms what people already believe, while exposing them also to more diverse opinions. It is the friction between more media and fixed time.
So with apologies to John Lennon, I ask you to … Imagine.
- “Imagine All the People”
Consumers are simply outcompeting marketers for each other’s attention. Seventy percent of consumers trust brand recommendations from friends, but only 10% trust advertising, according to Forrester Research.
Everyone understands the power of word-of-mouth to drive purchase decisions. People simply don’t like or trust marketing, an impossible long-term commercial position in the private sector.
The personal brand of the individual sharer commands significantly greater influence than the published brand today.
Given this redistribution of power, brand content is relatively impotent. Corporate brands mean increasingly less as personal brands have come to mean more. Dove Beauty is brilliant marketing, but the campaign pales next to the authenticity of media from Michelle Phan, the self-described “vibe master” and make-up maven.
Set against such trends as these, “marketing” — a term of art — will become an anachronism that follows “new media” (and soon, “social media”) into linguistic extinction.
- “Living for Today”
That consumers bypass marketing with greater ease is irrefutable. In fact, consumers swat away marketing with disdainful regularity.
According to a recent Reuters study, 47% of internet users in the U.S. already use ad blocking technology, and the percentage is higher among younger users. Marketing is increasingly ephemeral against the backdrop of busier, more impatient lives.
Netflix customers evade television ads. Spotify customers access 4,000,000 songs ad-free.
FiOS customers watch new releases from their giant home theaters robbing theaters of overpriced popcorn sales and in-theater advertising. Forums such as Reddit are downright hostile to advertising, and 160 million consumers visit its dark recesses for respite from marketers. Instagram’s massive success has stemmed, in part, from its lack of advertising, which only introduced clickable ads in March.
The most frequent form of communication in the entire world is text, which marketers have not effectively penetrated at the same scale.
With each encroachment of marketing into social feeds, consumers move to darker (more private) channels with different permissions and languages. It is a cat and mouse game in which the winner is bound to be the individual. Features such as Facebook’s auto-play violate the basic tenet of consumerism today: The user is in control, and his attention is his own.
- “Above Us Only Sky”
Consumers no longer need to seek marketing and media. Marketing and media come to them.
Everything arrives and then commingles in feeds and streams, where the flora (media) and fauna (people) of social media reside.
Despite being organized chronologically, the feed is fundamentally non-linear and unpredictable.
The success of marketing depends on reaching people when they are emotionally engaged.
Despite the promise of social advertising and programmatic media buying, these emotional moments are largely unknowable to either marketers or even to individuals themselves. Creative cannot keep up with data, because marketers create advertising rather than narratives.
“Every feed in social media represents a mega Walmart, or rather 7,000,000,000 superstores, designed by the individual himself or herself. E-commerce is recast as “everywhere-commerce.”
The right message at the right time on the right channel is a chimera. Human actions and human self-knowledge simply don’t align sufficiently to reach the goal of marketers. What humans want and what they do are simply not (always) the same.
Ad-tech is ultimately a tool of users to filter out marketing, which cannot truly understand the complexities of consumer intent, which is by its very nature mercurial.
- “I Hope One Day You’ll Join Us”
Every emerging marketplace matures quickly today. Brands are proliferating at an exponential rate, because social media drives everything toward narrower affinities and presents more open access to choice. PepsiCo, for instance, markets more than 25 brands of Mountain Dew alone.
In addition, the Internet and social media have proved wildly efficient at disseminating information. Ideas surface quickly with few barriers to entry and facile access to capital. Choice is only ever a click or a gesture away. Consideration is won and lost in the exchange of a link in a text between friends. Loyalty, one of the primary attributes of a brand, fades in the face of this digital proximity to other choices.
Marketers are quickly eating all the whitespace in the current technological and visual paradigms.
Consumers cannot handle all of this choice, but they do not have to, because technology is empowering them to filter marketing out of their existence.
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Ironically, this death of marketing at the hands of its customers is great for business. Each of these trends maps to a point in the future in which marketing loses mindshare.
This future arrives in four easy installments:
- “Living for Today” (in the Feed)
There is only one channel: you. Your feed is your persona, your intent, your avatar. Personal and professional, commercial and social, all blend in the feed.
The individual accesses these experiences visually like the paragon of a Visual RSS Reader. This feed understands what the individual wants, because the individual instructs it, and the feed learns to differentiate between intent and marketing. It maps intent to location, affinity and authenticity. And as ad-tech becomes a tool of the user, not the advertiser, the feed turns endless choice into actionable choice based on the individual’s intent.
- “Imagine All the People” (All Online)
As consumers outcompete marketers for each other’s attention, every piece of media contained in the feed is not only shareable, but shoppable.
The functionality resides within the media itself to buy all of the products and services featured in the video, photo or post. The consumer bypasses the unwanted border fences of YouTube hotspots and Zappo’s site with ease. E-commerce loses the requirement to uproot the buyer from their media and direct them to a sterile form in an altogether different digital location to purchase.
Every feed in social media represents a mega Walmart, or rather 7,000,000,000 superstores, designed by the individual himself or herself. E-commerce is recast as “everywhere-commerce.”
- “Above Us Only Sky” (not Networks)
As the individual controls the marketing experience, communication shifts from public to semi-private.
In the social media 1.0 world of Twitter and Facebook 2015, the excitement of being able to share with everyone resulted in an initial urge to, well, share with everyone. This openness acted as an invitation, or permission, for marketing to participate in everyone’s social experiences.
As the feed orients the social experience around the individual, and less around the network’s rules, experiences can become more personal, and as a result, more immersive. The fear of missing out leads to a joy of missing out, because the individual, you, are now in control, not the network.
This is the legacy of Snapchat, in which consumers find darker, more private places to elude the weird uncle that is marketing. Ephemerality of content actually increases its value today. Teens continue to create their own vernacular. It is tete-a-tete between consumers and brands, in which the more the brands infiltrate social experiences, the more the individual seeks darker, more personal channels.
“Marketing itself is a product no one likes or trusts, but which consumers could not avoid. Consumer control is a tectonic shift, not a trend.”
The era of social media (public) gives way to the era of experiential media (semi-private).
- “I Hope One Day You’ll Join Us” (in a Marketing Free Future)
As marketing matures toward extinction amid a maturing consumer landscape, two types of marketing survive like cockroaches after the apocalypse.
First, discounts and sales persist: Buy 1, Get 1!, Free, Must Go Now!, 40% off!
Any direct marketer can relate how “free” trumps other messages.
Second, sponsorships such as “Maxwell House Presents The Cavalcade of Starts,” in which the relationship between marketer and media is transparent, and the individual receives genuine value in return also persist. The digital Gazprom signs witnessed on television around the Women’s World Cup arena in Vancouver are here to stay.
Content marketing evolves into an exercise in commissioning rather than creating. Influencer marketing reigns, because it represents the midpoint between crappy brand content and user-generated media. Brands have largely failed at content marketing, and cannot compete with technology or creators in this future.
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“You May Say I’m A Dreamer, But I am not the Only One.”
Of course, this article is not solely about the future. It strives to outline an emerging marketing cosmology about how marketers should behave today; the ways in which we can future-proof ourselves against these trends; and how we adapt in the short term to greater consumer control and more deeply immersive media. Too many marketing departments are operating business as usual when they should be fighting for survival.
The Internet of the future and the Internet of the past do not destroy markets outright. Death often arrives by a thousand (or in this case a billion) cuts. It is difficult for marketers to see the endgame, because the competition from consumers is fragmented into so many small acts.
Marketers’ false sense of confidence is logical in a way. The industry benefits from better data, a larger creative palette and more discerning customers. Today’s golden age seems incongruous with a gradual decline. So, marketers respond to their decreasing share of attention with what they know — even more marketing. But as supply grows, demand ultimately shrinks.
Ultimately, any path forward for marketers is based on capitulation to, not competition with, the consumers.
Marketing is at an inflection point in a battle it cannot win without joining the other side.
Marketing itself is a product no one likes or trusts, but which consumers could not avoid. Consumer control is a tectonic shift, not a trend. This balance of power has shifted, irrevocably. Technology and individuals represent an unbeatable team.
So … imagine there’s no marketing.
It is easy if you try.
Join The Discussion
15 Comments So Far
Geoff Ingall
Sorry Curtis, but you seem greatly confused: marketing is the creation of goods and services to solve consumers’ problems or enrich their lives. This will always happen. What you are referring to is advertising. Yes, advertising is confronted with some major challenges but it will always exist. Word of mouth is not exactly new, Curtis, all that has happened is that it is now instant and far reaching but the key word is the ‘word’: someone has to create it in the first place, and that will come from advertising. It may not be via a 30sec TV spot, although television remains a popular medium, or a page in the New York Times which doesn’t, but, believe me, the communication (ad) industry will find a way because consumers need it to and want it to. People actually like new. By the way, Curtis, the next time you drive down the highway, try blocking out the billboards.
We’ll always find you no matter how ‘dark’ you are. We have ways of making you listen.
Gene Pinder
Sorry. I don’t buy it either. Geoff Ingall has it right — marketing is not advertising. And besides, advertising isn’t dead. It’s just mutating to match the times and the new avenues. Do I think there’s too much advertising? Yes. Do I think most of it works? That is, does it drive sales? No. But as long as there are products and services to sell, and as long as people think that advertising can impact the bottom line or influence purchasing decisions–advertising (whether we like it or) is here to stay. Social media isn’t going to change that fact. In fact, if anything, social media providers see it as their best revenue source (i.e. Facebook and mobile). Enough with the “marketing is dead” rant. It wasn’t true 50 years ago and it’s not true today.
John Byrne
Well, I guess selling isn’t dead, given the breathless prose in this article and the author’s unceasing evangelism for his vision of the future (that must be some kool-aid he drank…). But I’m not buying what he’s selling, at least not entirely. Rumors of marketing’s demise have been, quite literally here, exaggerated.
First off, the author seems to confuse and conflate marketing and straight-up advertising, and they’re most definitely not the same. For sure, advertising ain’t what it used to be, if it ever really was all that (sorry, Mad Men fans). Not many are mourning its long, lingering death. But its incarnation on digital and social media is an unmitigated disaster, even without the specter of ad blocking.
But marketing (all 4 Ps of it and more) will out; always has, always will. In fact, the author even admits as much, even if only a little when he accedes to how discounts and free stuff can be effective ways to market and drive sales. His swipes at ineffectual content and incoherent branding also seem to ignore that, when done well, branding and content can be incredibly effective at driving consumer behavior.
He also doesn’t give due props to the mercurial nature of consumers and the role they will play in killing one or more of our current major social media channels in the next few years (I’m betting on Twitter, but I could be persuaded toward Snapchat)… in part because of abysmally executed advertising but also because of our inherent nature as consumers to move to something that’s “new” or even just something that’s not more of the same — an ethos that marketing historically has understood quite well…
In the end, the author makes a convincing case for the fact that marketing as we know it is changing, even “tectonically.” But didn’t we already know that? I don’t buy the notion that the only future we have to look forward to in terms of our consumerism is in our own heads or as one of 7 billion little Walmarts. Yikes! That’s just terrifying…
Bruce Philp
I wonder if anyone perpetuating the ‘marketing is dead’ trope has considered for a moment what the world would be like without it. Marketing subsidizes media, effectively democratizing it (including the internet). Brands, and the principle of choice, give consumers some agency in capitalism, however slight it sometimes seems. And the economic development these things enable has been the single greatest generator of wealth equity and quality of life in the history of mankind (I refer you to the work of Oxford’s Max Roser at ourworldindata.org for the abundant proof). My distaste for bad advertising is paltry compared to my distaste for a world in which only the wealthy can consume media and affect marketplaces. I find this sort of rhetoric naive when I’m feeling generous, and cynical click bait when I’m not… the irony of which I’ll let speak for itself. I’m sorry, but I respectfully disagree.
Philip Kozloff
It might be an error to react to this thought-piece while ignoring the adjective “traditional” before the noun “marketing.” On the other hand, all that precedes us in time is not necessarily “traditional.” The author’s implicit point that times are achanging cannot be ignored by anyone professionally interested in “marketing.” But I don’t think that is the case. Self-interest and relevance must converge both for buyer and seller or risk being part of history some might call “traditional.”
Alex Filip
You should have taken this article down a while ago. Someone who is put forward as insightful into the world of communications, who doesn’t know the difference between Marketing and Advertising, should retake his freshman classes. Keeping this article posted erodes your credibility as a knowledgeable source.
FYI: I’ve done communications work for 50 years and put simple definitions on my website: AFilipCommunications.com. You don’t have to run this ad, but you should not publish articles from people who don’t know what they are talking about.
Bruce Philp
Philip, ‘digital’ marketing platforms have been a feature of my career as a marketer since before there was a web, more than half my time as a marketer. I have no biases, so long as a tactic is effective. My problem has always been that many of those with a vested interest in digital have felt compelled to sell it by positioning it as a wholesale replacement for something that has become obsolete. Some affect an almost fundamentalist zeal that old is bad and new is good, passive is bad and interactive is good, analog is bad and digital is good. Increasingly, though, this rhetoric is becoming marginal. Even Google has adopted an orthodoxy that says you can’t sell until you create desire, and you can’t create desire until you create relevance, and you can’t create relevance until you create awareness. When you think about ‘marketing’ in this more practical and, frankly, professional way, the traditional vs. digital distinction becomes silly, and the desperate hallmark of someone who doesn’t really understand what marketing is at all.
David Corkindale
I agree with the criticism of this piece. I live in Australia where cigarettes have to be kept hidden in a cupboard by retailers and can only be sold if requested and they have to be in ‘plain packaging’ that actually means all surfaces contain pictures of the ill affects of smoking, i.e. no conventional branding. Advertising in the media and promotions were banned years ago yet the marketers in tobacco companies still market them quite skilfully – mainly through new product variants and price manipulation. Marketing in the proper sense of the word is not dead.
Bill Huey
What ??? Social media is the “dark matter that connects all communication”?
Does that mean I’m outside the universe because I don’t use Twitter and will never, ever have a Facebook page, even though I shop almost exclusively via Amazon and other online channels?
And: “Choice is only ever a click or a gesture away.” Doesn’t the author realize that you are more likely to survive a plane crash or complete a Navy Seal training program than you are to click through an online ad?
This is fanciful stuff, to put it charitably.
Anonymous
Geoff Ingall and Gene Pinder have the right views about what marketing is. I just hope that we can “Image all the people, speaking for (real) marketing”
Kevin Horne
2009 called. It wants its (overly long) article back.
In the meantime, the author might consider listening to newer music. He might even find a few social media sites that could help him in that regard,,,
Blake Escudier
Of course this article doesn’t take into account that as people active in today’s society are bombarded with more than 30,000 message exposures every day.
Think about – around 1960 – how many message exposures you might have seen?
• Watching TV – maybe 4-5 per hour (Back then families watched together and only for about 2-4 hours per day)
• Radio – 6-10 per hour (maybe a couple hours of drive time?)
• Print – Newspaper were the largest exposure vehicles – some magazine and maybe a catalogue (Where – at home or Doc office only)
• Bill boards – very few
• Brand Name on products – very few
• Brand Name on clothing – very few
• Outdoor advertising – very little
• Signs on Stores – pretty much same as today – yet some today are brighter, bolder, larger
• Exposures at Work? – NONE – unless you had a promotional coffee mug!
Yet today – we are exposed to images of brands and company slogans, as well as digital contacts. There are company names on everything around us, from clothing to building walls.
In the late 70s when cable started, and the billboard explosion took off due to each state making laws bout Interstate Highways allowing them – we talked about “Promotion Pollution” or “Visual Pollution” – it has come true in most cities and now due to the digital revolution – it has become personal through OPC (On Person Communications)
So – giving the power to a person to control what they are exposed to – sounds reasonable to me.
I’ve been talking about the possibility of “Advertising by Choice” (ABC) – where a person watches a television set, and is able to use a pointer to select something they would like to know more about – no commercial breaks – but companies would pay to have their products used in the shows – and viewing would be “on demand by choice of the viewers” (Show stops and screen opens with commercial or more information about the product)
Similarly – I can see the future having visual digital controls. Since we will have self-driving vehicles, driving and looking at the world outside the window will no longer be a problem – Blatant exposure to ads would be against the law – but special viewing glasses would be available which would allow a person to view the world and if they see something they want to know more about – they would look at the item and give a signal and their digital glasses would show them an advertisement about the item. (Things would need to be coded or/ visual recognition by the glasses would be required – which means the advertiser must pay to have their items on the data base.
These are possible – yet this would not help small business who can’t afford the technology advertising. But there are other ways to reach people.
There is too much visual pollution and it is very distracting for many people. Their brains are being filled with too much “product” information – and not enough “life” information.
Don’t get me wrong – I love marketing and promotions – yet I do believe there is too much exposure.
The most complicated yet effective form of promotion has always been personal communications (word of mouth) – we tend to believe what people say as we lose trust in those on the media – many people can’t distinguish a news show from drama, comedy, or fiction. Yet if our Dog Walker says this or that supplement works – we tend to believe them.
Social media will be corrupted as we will learn to distrust this channel as we have the news. Think about this – how many friends does one person really have? – Maybe 100? – So those with more listed – do we really know if they are people or fiction from company? – We use the word Avatar as representation of a human – and yet one of the first uses of this word was “avatar mouse” where human tissues were injected into a mouse to test medical therapy. Thus –“Avatars” are being injected into Social Media as replicas of humans to inject information. And not always for the good – many companies inject Avatars to spread negativity about their competition.
Marketing is more than communications – yet without the link between a company and consumer – there would be no company. An ignorant consumer has no clue they want greener pastures than the ones they have or their neighbor has. People will use social media as a tool to share their pasture. Companies need to be ready to provide as those who see/hear from others and want what others have are willing and able to buy.
Whether the information is communicated through traditional channels, or through social media avatars, or direct sharing from real people, – the spread of product knowledge must take place. Information must flow: from companies to markets (“Brand” is here for you), from consumers to companies, (so companies may adjust production), and companies must be ready to provide when consumers are ready and able to buy. The real essence of marketing.
Reality – a true (and honest) politician is the pure form of company. A politician says: “I am here to represent you, so tell me what you want.?” – The public (all of them not just those who voted for the politician) voice their ideas and opinions. Politicians drive policies, regulations, laws in accordance to what the public wants. (Being sure to care for those who are unable to care for themselves!) – The public then talks to each other (social Media) and if positive in nature – the politician is doing what they are supposed to do – “satisfy the market.” – If the communication is negative – the Politician must change – or the public will decide to make changes themselves with the next election.
Of course this only works if there is no false economy (Lying Politicians with their own agenda) – Which is what we have with companies who mislead the public (ie. Volkswagon?)
Marketing will never die until the day when we have invented replicators and no longer use the exchange process for acquire things. Yet I think marketing will still exist – as people will be marketing themselves as the politician does. We market ourselves in our work life and we market ourselves in our personal life (How do you get that person to like you?).
Until a day when people no longer need material things and we no longer have economics – commercial marketing will continue to exist. It will exist while adapting to the tools available for communication.
Cheers,
Blake
Geoff Ingall
LATE NEWS
Curtis, I thought you might find this interesting.
TV remains draw for young
19 November 2015
GLOBAL: The TV set continues to dominate millennials’ media consumption, as they not only watch live television for between two and three hours a day but also devote most of their video viewing time to this device.
TV organisations from 14 countries have brought together a range of statistics to mark World Television Day on Saturday 21 November, the focus of which is younger viewers. And while these bodies may measure and report TV consumption in different ways, it seems clear that young people are still watching a lot of TV.
So, for example, in the USA, 18-24 year olds watch an average of 2 hours, 33 minutes of TV a day, rising to 3 hours, 50 minutes for 25-34 year olds. In Canada, 18-34 year olds watch 2 hours, 43 minutes of linear TV daily.
In Europe the figures are similar: in the UK, 16-34 year olds watch 2 hours, 23 minutes of linear TV every day, in Italy, 15-34 year olds watch an average of 2 hours, 33 minutes daily, while in Germany the figure is 2 hours, 21 mins for 18-34 year olds.
And while video services like Netflix and YouTube have become popular, they have yet to displace television in the affections of the younger generation.
TV accounts for 65% of video consumption by 16-24 year olds in the UK, for 74% of that by 14-29 year olds in Germany and for 70% of that by 15-24 year olds in France.
And in the USA, 18-34 year olds spend more time online with ad-supported TV brands (39 minutes) than with Google, AOL, MSN and Yahoo! combined (25 minutes) or with Facebook (23 minutes).
Similarly, a proliferation of devices means television can now be viewed anytime, anywhere, but most millennials are, for now at least, sticking with the traditional TV set.
In the UK, for example, 70% of 16-24 year olds’ total video consumption – 65% of which is TV – takes place on a TV set.
Finally, millennials are well disposed towards TV advertising in many territories, with 16-24 year olds in the UK saying they find TV advertising more enjoyable, memorable and humorous than any other media.
Fully 54% enjoy TV advertising, compared to 16% for social media; and 69% say TV advertising makes them laugh, compared to 24% for social, while 73% say TV advertising is memorable, compared to 17% for social media.
In Italy two thirds of 18-34 year olds claim they pay attention to TV advertising and they are also more likely than average to consider it useful.
Data sourced from Thinkbox; additional content by Warc staff
Curtis Hougland
I had refrained from commenting, because the reaction to the article was so fundamentally different from the reaction in other channels and other speeches. The point of the article is not the death of marketing (I did not write the headline), but rather that marketing becomes something wholly different from what it is today, because the power to market shifts from brands to individuals. Marketing becomes indistinguishable from word-of-mouth when everything is not only shareable, but shoppable from the feed. Social media is simply a mirror of this trend. It is a behavior, not a channel for those that require this basic explanation. The entire rise of social media reflects the shift in power from white male academics to the actual people who consume products. I agree with John Byrne that “the most complicated yet effective form of promotion has always been personal communications (word of mouth).” So, it was, and so, it will be again.
As I re-read the comments, most of them actually seem to be confirm my point of view. Geoff Ingalls claims that the intent of marketing is to “solve consumers’ problems or enrich their lives,” which is a utopian thought only achievable by individuals, not bottom-line oriented corporations. Very few companies combine product development and marketing, sadly. Gene Pinder draws on a semantic argument that marketing is different than advertising, when the point of the article is to communicate that these terms become indistinguishable as brands fail to compete with consumers, and all “marketing” becomes word-of-mouth as it was in the past. New media went away. Social media will go away. Marketing will go away too. I know that the marketing industry will fight this thinking tooth and nail. Your comments are so different than what the social theorists believe.
Geoff Ingall
Curtis, you still don’t get the difference between marketing and advertising. Marketing will only stop if the world stops creating new products and services. See how quickly my utopian world becomes a dystopian world should that happen. As for a return to word-of-mouth communication, have a word with a buyer at Walmart or Macy’s and see how they feel about listing products with just word-of-mouth support; believe me, it just won’t happen.
I don’t know in what part of the theoretical world you live, Curtis, but you really should get out more.