The King is dead, long live the King!
Old-style marketing has run its course; intoxicated by power and success, values became increasingly insignificant and consumption increasingly important. How can we rebuild credibility?
Old-style marketing is dead. Gone are the days when companies could dictate what their consumers should do. There’s no longer any need for consumers; the new marketing has prosumers: the constantly disrupted, never achievable individualists of the modern world, who cannot be assigned to any target group. And it is they who will determine who will be successful in future. This new kind of marketing is in effect self-abolishing, focuses on customers’ actual change requirements and no longer targets anyone who isn’t really interested.
Marketing became lazy
Why is that? In an article about the End of marketing (in German only), Mathias Horx says that this problem is due to a real decline in values. Marketing used to be a successful, future-oriented sector that set new standards, stood for trust and continuity and was even considered an art form. It all became too much. Intoxicated by power, it became arrogant and also a little lazy: this led to pseudo-innovations of products that fuelled the consumer culture, while the actual heart of the matter fell by the wayside. Coupled with information overload in which no-one knows what’s really at stake and who’s responsible for what. Today, everyone is somehow sustainable, fair and nice. And if an energy company that handles nuclear power and coal always acts in a green, sustainable manner, then this does not seem credible and results in internal discontinuity.
Honesty and beauty
If credibility has been lost, it takes time to rebuild. Internal discontinuity must be overcome and honesty, the spirit of the company, must be patently clear and sincerely embraced. Experiences can therefore be created that actually meet the needs of the prosumer. Currently, this is certainly related to somehow saving the world. It will be good if we can satisfy these needs and actually develop what may be required.
Image: Pixabay CC0
Published 03.08.2017 © Brandsoul AG
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