Danny Whatmough.com

I like a good prediction post as much as the next person and so I was intrigued to read an article by Augie Ray from Forrester entitled: 2010: The Year Marketing Dies…

In it, Ray asserts that, due to a number of factors (including the demise of traditional media, the growth of technologies like PVRs that are rendering TV advertising obsolete and the growth of social media), marketing as we know it is under going a dramatic sea-change.

And 2010 is guaranteed to be the year when social media has its biggest impact on brands to date. The recent real-time search changes will only quicken this as I’ve already suggested and as Ray states:

The search engine changes mean that 2010 will be the year when brands can run but they cannot hide.  Gone are the days when marketers could carefully craft messaging and then broadcast that message in a few channels to huge portions of their audiences.  Oh, you can still spend money that way if you want to but in our transparent world, no marketing budget can possibly overcome the actual experience consumers have (and share with friends, followers and Google) with the product, service, or organization.  It no longer matters what you say;  in 2010, your brand will be more defined by what you do and who you are!

So actual experience will replace the image that brands want to portray about themselves, especially as we all get more involved in social media and climb up the social technographics ladder (see above). What does this mean in practice?

• customer service and customer experience becomes vital
• product development needs to be more user focused
• marketing and PR teams need to be ready to act and react to issues; crisis management becomes crucial, but harder
• marketing and PR campaigns need to focus on engagement rather than trying to enforce brand values
• no part of the business can afford to ignore the audience

Central to all of these is the ability to understand your audience. One line in particular in Ray’s article is fundamental to this too:

“in 2010, your brand will be more defined by what you do and who you are”

It’s a challenge.