Power with the individual, not the company
“Shut up and listen!” Not any more, the golden days of interrupt broadcast advertising are ending. If information is power, the web has democratised it.
When the internet first emerged, the phrase “information wants to be free” envisaged a world where access to information would be inevitable – for good or for ill.
Google (and it predecessors) made the web searchable, and the emergence of Web 2.0 technologies has taken things a step further, allowing people to create web content, share their opinions and create their own networks.
Social media tools such as blogs, forums, social book-marking tools, along with the power of search engines make it much easier for individuals to share information and discover ‘the truth’ about companies and products. People are less likely to believe everything experts say, when there are easy ways to quickly check the facts themselves.
We as marketers need to understand that we are dealing with consumers that are better informed than ever before, and far less willing to take our words as gospel.
We must therefore either produce exceptional products and let them run, or at least have an exceptionally web campaign.