De Standaard Online

22-11-06

New Marketing is a Change Management Imperative

I'm looking forward to speaking at the Stichting Marketing Conference on December 2nd in Brussels on "Life after the 30-second spot".

I was recently in front of a senior marketer at a Fortune 100 company. His words to me were very telling...

We're all smart people here. We get that the world is changing. Why then can't we get our acts together and do something about it...

Why indeed.

• Could it be that those who resist change the most are the ones that have the most to lose?
• Could it be the silo'ed nature of organizations - with separated and disconnected P&L's, reporting structures and budgets?
• Could it be that we've created corporate cultures which frown on risk-taking and mistaking-making? Failure is typically punished and seen as a sign of weakness
• Could it be that it's just human...we're programmed to color within the lines, fit into neat little boxes, embrace routines and resist any deviation from the master plan.

Unfortunately for us, our consumers are completely different; diametrically opposed; on opposite sides of a chasm, which is seemingly only getting wider.

Our world continues to get dominated by fewer and fewer, larger companies. Consolidation is rampant. And yet our consumers continue to fragment and split into smaller and smaller groups of like-minded, passionate individuals.

Our consumers are not predictable. They do not fit into boxes and conform to our projected or anticipated cause-effect stimuli (and let not when in the form of a 30-second spot). They are fallible, "non-linear", volatile, fluid...

The New Marketing imperative is about adapting, evolving, innovating, experimenting and essentially forcing ourselves to venture out of our comfort zones. No more, "change is good, but not on my watch"; no more sitting on the fence....this is about change management for communication; it is about closing the book on one way of doing business and opening a new chapter synonymous with co-creation, open source marketing, consumer generated content, transparency, partnership and experience.

Bob Garfield, the legendary Advertising critic in the US, one said: The advertising business is filled with smart people making dumb decisions.

Yes we are all smart...but like Forrest Gump once said, stupid is as stupid does.

It's time to start walking our talk and taking the kind of risks that may very well prove to be the safest bet we've ever placed.

See you in 10 days' time.

Joseph Jaffe

jaffe@getthejuice.com

Joseph Jaffe om 20:35 | Link | 0 TrackBack