I’m sensing a seismic shift in our business.
No longer will marketing strictly be about finding target audiences and telling clients how to speak to those audiences using traditional primary and secondary research. Instead, our job will be to act as curators of communities of like-minded people. They will become like our friends or like a class is to its teacher. Our role will be to guide them, introduce them to new foods, fun, activities, and thoughts that we think they’ll like or need. Yes, I think the teacher or maybe pastor and flock analogy is best…but our jobs will change.
We’ll become quite good at pulling together these social communities and then protecting them by controlling access by brands. We’ll be like little virtual doormen — only not in as good of shape. But we’ll care deeply about our flock… for without them, we’ll be unemployed. So we’ll take great pains to get to know their inner thoughts, ideas, aspirations and using that data we’ll solicit brands that make sense and review those that solicit us.
Kind of a cool gig if you think about it. It would be a very different world. We’d spend our time acquiring consumers (homogeneous ones preferably) versus studying them like lab rats so we can find how to best inject them with our advertising. We’d truly deliver advertising as a service they’d welcome versus detest or avoid. Hell they might end up actually liking advertising!
I think this new world order is just around the corner. I’m calling it Micro-Content and I’ll share more about the idea and approach in future posts.
In the meantime, tell me what you think about the idea, ok?
Reminds me a bit of the community newspaper that I was part of way back … knowing your audience and providing info that’s relevant. Yet, even a community newspaper made room for something new & different. I am a bit concerned about someone else having such decision power over what it is that would interest me. Individuals are a bit more complicated than a set of stats on what they’ve purchased/looked at previously. Some of us actually like a bit of serendipity in our lives. How will the little virtual doormen account for that?
Anna
Agree that trying to use some automated computer approach to the doorman analogy is likely a huge fail. Instead, I think the doorman will have to be a person that really gets to know their community. One such area, and attribute that will make folks want to remain a member of the community, is that doorman’s ability to bring a bit of serendipity into the community.
Not sure quite how that will happen but would love to hear your two cents.
LMK