The marketing degree of difficulty has exploded, making getting a good score exponentially more difficult.
There used to be a few TV and radio stations, newspapers and magazines by which to reach potential customers, and supply them with the information you thought they needed to buy your stuff. It was mass marketing, with little to no ability to customise, personalise, or engage.
The name of the game was scale.
Scale of capital to control the means of communication and mass produce products for sale
Scale of financial resources to afford the advertising costs demanded by the communication owners
Scale of markets, mass consumers
Scale of intermediaries like supermarket chains, and suppliers of capital and equipment.
Scale had all the power.
In 15 years, less than half my working life, marketing has flipped.
Individuals now have all the power
Marketing has to be personalised, one on one, or it will be ignored
Media channels are now virtually infinite, and the cost can be modest to free
Brands are only as good as the last delivery of value to the individual
However, the objective remains the same, just as with the fancy dive. It is to go through the surface with as little splash and disturbance as possible, a good old fashioned, well executed and relatively simple swan dive can achieve that objective as well as the fancy risky, and hugely complicated combinations of tricks.
Next time you are contemplating a complicated marketing dive with a pike and twist, consider the benefits of simplicity.
