Industrial dinosaurs

The modern organisation grew out of the huge changes that were created by the industrial revolution which focused on scale economies and process and efficiency driven business.

As we commence to reap rapidly diminishing marginal returns from process and efficiency improvement, we need to look elsewhere for sources of competitive advantage and it is easy to discover where. In relationships with our customers.

Was marketing in the twentieth century an aberration when a focus on economies of scale forced mass marketers to sell mass products to mass consumers using mass media?

There are many who say yes.

Social media technology has allowed millions of people, of customers, to talk to one another like they did for centuries in the meeting places, the pubs, and campfires of their time.

Customers are individuals.

As the mass marketing dinosaurs fall into the tar pit of our time the new marketers, more nimble and more adaptive are embracing social media as the tool enabling the marketing of the future.

Trust and word of mouth was both the past and the future of marketing.

Markets are conversations. Get talking.

(This post was inspired by comments by Pam Sykes - thanks)