Marketing in 2007: Baking From Scratch

Forget what you did in marketing this year or previous years. What would you do in 2007 if you were baking up some new marketing strategies, programs or ideas from scratch?

I know that’s tough. History and patterns provide a comforting framework to plan next year’s budgets and activities, but the past too often becomes an albatross preventing breakthrough change and success. The ready-made marketing ingredients of 2005 or 2006 are tempting to use again. Repackaging previous paradigms and budget categories will save you time in 2007. Those 2005 and 2006 ideas have already been accepted and assimilated. If you employ old ideas, they won’t have to be resold to management. By using a previous year’s marketing recipe, you won’t have to fight your way through the gauntlet of naysayers, doubters and scrutinizers that seem ever ready to disable new ideas.

The problem with using old ideas is that 2007 will be substantially different than those previous years. Change always happens faster than our past-influenced perceptual cocoon allows us to see. The future is a snapshot yet to be taken and our view of it is heavily influenced by the picture of the past. Marketing people who get locked into an archetypical approach to planning and implementation lose sight of how quickly the marketplace evolves. Think fresh.

Media consumption is rapidly changing. Online is ascending. Technology and a host of new options obfuscate how we define radio, TV, newspapers and magazines. The old way of advertising was so easy. Hire an agency…produce advertising that raises brand awareness…rake in the profits. Look around. What year did that stop working for most advertisers?

Consumers are armed with a tremendous array of tools to avoid advertising: remotes, TiVos, satellite radios, downloadable music, consumer generated content, etc. Due mostly to the Internet, consumers are in control and for advertisers, it is no longer a seller’s market. In fact, consumers are also armed with a tremendous array of tools to avoid mainstream media companies altogether: blogs (54.7 million and counting), RSS that brings the news to you, podcasts, YouTube and citizen journalism are prime examples.

Relevancy has replaced reach & frequency for advertising most high-involvement products. Narrowcasting is the new order unless you are a solid market leader with a brim-full marketing budget and money to burn.

Consumer engagement in your brand and customer insights that lead to measurable results is replacing simple brand awareness as the order of the day. Show me a marketer who doesn’t have solid data to prove or improve his or her marketing efforts, and I will show you a budget or person that will soon be gone or inconsequential.

There is a whole quarter left to affect what you do in 2007. Bake it from scratch. Start with marketing that will return knowledge and insight as well as sales. There is greater risk in using old recipes than new ones. While you may think it is dangerous to be out in front of the crowd, keep in mind that the crowd might already be in front of you.