Has Marketing Gone Full Circle?

“Good afternoon Farmer Giles” remarked Fred the Farrier as Farmer Giles rode his bay mare Bess past on the cobblestones, the click click of the iron shoes ringing loudly. “ that shoe still looks pretty tight, you know that’s something that all Thunder’s progeny have is that soft white strip on the near fore, actually made a special shoe to compensate you know”

“And a jolly good job you did too, Fred” answered Farmer Giles.

A pretty normal conversation a hundred and fifty years ago. Every village craftsman had an intimate relationship with his customers. They had probably been doing business for generations, knew all the issues and all the personalities. This relationship was built on conversations and trust.

If something went wrong you can be sure that the whole village knew about it and the issue debated in the pub that evening, good service was also shared along with the gossip about that brazen milk maid.

The industrial revolution changed all that. The focus was now on production and efficiency and because the cost advantage so persuasive mass production took the centre stage.

Is it possible however that we have maxed the gains to be found in productivity and now we are producing and buying parity products and with all this choice out there where are we going to find new sources of sustainable competitive advantage.

Modern communication tools have turned the world into a village, we SMS, Twitter and blog ourselves into the daily lives of thousands, with even less effort than going to the pub we can talk about our experiences during the day and products and services with hundred maybe thousands every day.

The new source of competitive advantage is found in personal relationships. Intimate relationships with customers with whom we have conversations.

The new marketing is about these conversations.