“The Economist”:http://www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3785166 *The claim that ‘the customer is king’ has always rung hollow. But now the digital marketplace has made it come true, says Paul Markillie*
bq.. With consumers becoming increasingly empowered, how can the marketing, advertising and communications firms that companies use to promote their products hope to get their messages across? And what does it mean for media businesses relying on advertising revenue, the traditional channels for reaching this increasingly elusive audience?
…So what will that future hold? “For the first time the consumer is boss, which is fascinatingly frightening, scary and terrifying, because *everything we used to do, everything we used to know, will no longer work,”* says Kevin Roberts, chief executive of Saatchi & Saatchi, part of Publicis.
p. This can be seen at work, right now in Pakistan. As multinationals have moved into every household product possible, their adds are becoming increasingly annoying and tuned out by the consumers they are targeting.
I think the days of content less advertisements are numbered[1]. A good example is Telenor’s recent launch – for weeks they had advertisements on the front page of every major newspaper. After all that expense most people still had not idea what they were selling. When I told my family that I was switching to Telenor, despite having seen the adds for weeks, nobody had any idea what it was. Branding is well and good, but when no one knows that that brand is selling it’s pointless.
fn1. to some extent.