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Basically, in the new world of marketing communication, the future will be a lot less about what you say and much more about what you do. Thus, brands now live and die by how they perform for their customers, because the Internet permits those customers service stories to be amplified and shared. The power of those experiences is already starting to eclipse anything that marketers can do with advertising. We've seen this in the positive case of Zappos sending flowers to a bereaving customer and we've seen it in the negative, as in Jeff Jarvis's Dell Hell. I agree Brian, Jeff and John. This is the future, and we'd better get ready for it. Here is why:
* They will know. Like it or not, almost nothing that happens to or in or around companies is secret anymore, particularly if anyone involved has any interest in having it known. You can't hide anymore. The ability to forward emails has seen to that. If a company's customer service is bad, the customers know that and are certain to share it. While their only recourse in the past was a letter to the editor, which was rarely if ever published, today they can post it on blogs or YouTube for all to see. If a company does something terrific, it is just as easy for those delighted customers to share that information.
* Bald puffery doesn't work anymore. Consumers are getting more sophisticated -- and more cynical -- by the day when it comes to commercial communication. While many companies and their PR firms try to game this system, and create fake blogs or pay for blogs, more and more they are being outed. Consumers are getting better and better at judging authenticity, and taking more and more pleasure catching companies trying to trick them.
* More competition. Whether you want to point to the growing global economy, or the opening up of low-cost distribution and logistics systems, or the power of the Internet to help any marketer interact with virtually any consumer, every company in the world is facing more competition today than it used to. Thus, there is almost always someone out there who wants to be sure that any bad experiences that you have had with your customers is reported quickly and distributed broadly. There's nothing like competition to get bad news around fast.
Is the age of the brand slogan and advertising ending, about to be displaced by the "age of authenticity" and conversational marketing? I don't think that it will be that extreme, but I certainly think that the most important brand slogans in the future will be those uttered by marketers' customers, not those that marketers broadcast at them. What do you think?
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The problem is that there seems to be no way to convince brands with nothing meaningful to say to just shut up and go home.
The first Are Ads the Only Advertising? here http://linktosocialutions.com/?p=53
And
Will Advertising Methods Shift? here http://linktosocialutions.com/?p=57
Both match up with your perspective and hopefully add value
Corporate egos kill this simple concept and complicate unnecessarily the way to profitability. Plan well in the beginning with untainted Voice of The Customer research, Delight the customer with the product or service, and Deliver customer service beyond expectations. Anything short of this creates an over spend of marketing dollars trying to convince customers that your product or service deserves to be on their shopping list. The minute companies star to cry "we just need to get consumers on our shopping list" is a clear sign they have an inferior product or service and have failed at the basics. There is Genius in Simplicity! The Internet just uncovers the fakes!
I think the key issue is that the lack of authenticity never worked in the long run. Information sources are better now, and people find out sooner when a company does something bad or good.
Good marketing implies telling the truth and being authentic. Therefore, if companies do the fundamentals right, their strategies will work. If they take short cuts, cheat or exaggerate and lost the trust of their target audience, the market will find out about it and punish the offenders.
The remaining problem is protecting your reputation when people using blogs, e-mails, and other viral methods spread inaccuracies that are mistaken for the truth. This is why companies need to learn how to respond to rumors and factual mistakes in a proper way.
In the US at least there is a rich direct marketing / mail heritage that we don't have here in Australia.
It sounds like a nonsense that marketers are being challenged because, shock horror they actually now have to be authentic to cut through!! Sad aint it!
New online & interactive platforms have given marketers the best opportunities that we've ever had to prove how good we really are. Instead of hiding behind big advertising budgets (or bemoaning the fact that we don't have one), we now have the chance to directly engage with consumers & prove why they should buy from us instead of the next suburban stall-holder.
Yes, we're now selling in markets that go beyond polished positioning statements, marketing plans & coiffured models. It's bare knucks stuff where only the strongest, smartest & most empathetic will thrive.