Joho the Blog: Marketing in the age of the miscellaneous

October 19, 2006

Marketing in the age of the miscellaneous

In a couple of hours I'll be the lunchtime presenter at the Canadian Marketing Association meeting in Toronto. I started out thinking I'd give a version of the marketing presentation I gave in Maastricht last week, but that one was pegged by the organizers around Cluetrain. This one I seem to have given the title "Marketing in the Age of the Miscellaneous." So I spent the morning (6am-11am) rewriting. Since I'm running out of time to rewrite, this seems to be the outline of what I'll be saying:

The digital world is blowing apart our traditional structures. This gives us the opportunity to put it together in ways that are more thoroughly ours.

An example of how marketing is not ours and is in fact hostile to our interests.

Marketing's 100 Years War against its customers:

(Cluetrain stuff:) We've confused building a business with building a fort. The walls try to control customers/employees/partners by controllling the flow of information. But the Net has knocked those walls down.

The Word of Mouth Marketing Association refreshingly puts ethics first. But ultimately it's about influencing conversations, which puts WOM marketers' interests at least a little out of alignment with those conversations. I therefore have mixed feelings about it.

A first step towards engaging in market conversations: Blog. Or at least keep your hands off of blogs.

What blogging isn't: About cats. Journalism. About individuals in isolation. Simplicity. You the marketer

So, P2P is undoing the century of broadcast. But the change is deeper, molecular.

Three orders of order: Things, paper metadata about those things, and when content and metadata are all digital. The third (miscellaneous) order changes the relationship of what's ours and what's theirs. (Yes, after 100 years of war, it's us vs. them.)

We're of course generating our content. But we're also organizing our way. In physical stores, the owner of the merchandise also own its organization. In the miscellaneous order, we own the organization. See Del.icio.us . And, by fortunate chance, the top post at Del.icio.us today is about a product, Dove.

This doesn't just let us focus on what we want. In the third order, metadata beats data. We go to Expedia instead of the American Airlines site, and we go to Kayak.com instead of Expedia. The miscellaneous pulls apart stores.

We're also now getting to own authority. E.g., Wikipedia. Not only are Fort Business' walls down, but businesses now are the last people we'll trust about their products...unless they establish that they're on our side. CraigsList is on our side. Google is. (We can fight about this later.)

Can marketing be on our side? How?

[Tags: marketing cluetrain]

Posted by D. Weinberger at October 19, 2006 12:41 PM

Comments

Might I refer you to an interesting Z-lister post today, Competing Messages: PayPerConversation (Dave Rogers)

"But advancing the idea that "markets are conversations," has done much to help blur the distinction between the commercial and the social, making it seem natural and desirable that the social sphere serve the commercial one. Certainly, it gives those engaged in the competitive marketplace the justification to extend those competitive practices even more into the social sphere, under the popular though fallacious justification that "markets are conversations." It's not that this hasn't been happening all along, it's just that this especially corrosive metaphor has made it easier, and more difficult to resist the competitive pressures that compel commercial activities to intrude into the social sphere.

[snip]

The competitive pressures and economic rewards of the commercial sphere compel it to expand, to try to seize any available attention and energy in any sphere that may afford a competitive advantage. It's pretty thoroughly entrenched in the political sphere now; and there are no parallel incentives or natural activities in the social sphere to counter the economic incentives and competitive practices of the commercial sphere. Other than, perhaps, the individual protests of people who don't see their own interests advanced by the notion that "markets are conversations."
"

Posted by: Seth Finkelstein | October 19, 2006 03:13 PM

Hey David...we think so, but for it to happen, the scales have to be tipped in a new direction:

http://citizenagency.com/blog/2006/10/17/balancing-the-scales/

I'm trying to achieve this with the Pinko Marketing movement (now over 200 marketers strong worldwide). As unpallatable as the name is for some people (and I think it was subconsciously done that way), it really is about putting people in charge...not to do your 'bidding' or your work for you (I abhor the word crowdsourcing), but as those who will work with you, if they choose, to create something that benefits everyone. (www.pinkomarketing.com)

Sounds utopic, eh? I'm reading this amazing book by Ori Brafman, The Starfish and the Spider: the unstoppable power of leaderless organizations. It's a pretty amazing look at the power of decentralization.

I wrote a post in response to an essay by Doc a while back that said marketing isn't 'dead', it just needs to shift:

http://www.horsepigcow.com/2006/07/its-not-us-vs-them.html

As per my change of the direction of the influence:

http://pinkomarketing.pbwiki.com/Pinko%20Marketing%20Manifesto
(a very very rough beginning)

to the changing role description of a marketer:

http://www.horsepigcow.com/2006/03/marketers-your-new-job-description.html

it's about embracing the idea that mutual respect will win out over 'targeting' and 'branding' and 'positioning' anyday. Even the conversation is only the beginning. I see so many companies 'conversing' these days...but doing so with the same attitude and from the same ivory tower.

Too bad we didn't get more of a chance to talk at FOO...I left a terrible impression. Even though we are working on a small movement, it is getting stronger everyday. And, our own company, focused on our clients' clients is doing very well. Almost all of our clients have fired their PR firms (I know, that sounds mean, but they've come to realize the power of taking that money and putting it back into creating great experiences for their customers rather than spending it on getting articles in newspapers) and focus on helping their (as Kathy Sierra says) "Users kick ass".

To me, that's where marketing is going...and I hope someday soon, my role will be obsolete. :)

Posted by: Tara Hunt | October 19, 2006 06:29 PM

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