The Future Of Marketing: Having Becomes Doing
Click the above picture for full-size, think about what it says to you, and then read this blog post and look again. Does it say the same thing, or something new?
As the anti-capitalists love to crow: marketing these days is focused on having things. When radio was king it was about “being” things, but with film and television its been about “having”.
We’re talking about having the flashy car, the hot clothes, the new music, the fastest computer. It’s not a question of whether or not you’re living the life you want or can get by with what you have, but whether what you’ve got is good enough.
Well, that’s the way we’ve kept the machine running for a few decades now. It’s a buying frenzy. People would rather buy a book than get it out of the library, for instance. Isn’t that odd? Still, many attribute this phenomenon to all that is good and holy and healthy about capitalism, and that anything else is unwashed-hippie-communism that will lead us all to poverty and death and destruction… or something.
STOP: Just in case you were considering skipping down to the comments to tell me now unlike other consumers you are, and how you look for specific things in your advertising to make your buying decisions, and that everything you have is perfect and you need nothing else and you’re a wonderful exceptional person and so I must suck etc etc etc…. please accept that I’m intentionally making sweeping generalities here about the current focus of marketing. Is that ok? Yes? Good… now where was I…
Marketing. We’re about to see a big shift, largely due to what works in the new mediums of our age. While possession-envy marketing isn’t really leaving (just as “being cool” never stopped being a marketing ploy), we’re discovering a new way to reach people now: the experience.
Think about amusement parks. People will drive for hours and hours and dedicate their entire vacations to visit these places. Often people make similar sacrifices to visit monuments, go to concerts, the theater, the zoo, skiing, camping, or to see the giant ball of twine. If it were possible and financially viable, every brand on the planet would dot the landscape with fascinating things to do - because experiences are far more potent than teasing someone with something flashy.
Now the rules have changed. You can create an incredible, memorable experience for people at a reasonable cost and make them available in people’s homes through virtual spaces. People will not only remember the experience, but drag their friends over to it and say: “check this out! Isn’t this cool?” while standing next to your logo.
In the future, the message won’t just be “you could have this”, but also “you could be doing this… right now!”
