What we lived through was not a crisis, but a “button-down”. The world went through a reset of economies and finances that completely affected consumption. We were living in the upgrade era and we halfway returned to the replacement era. Everything changed.
The complicated thing is that most marketing managers and brand managers are still in Kotler’s 4Ps, and with rare exceptions, they still talk about media mix and market share. The language they learned about marketing has become obsolete, the world has changed too fast to keep up with it. Moreover, they have not invested enough time and money in understanding it. They have fallen behind and are failing to recognize it. In the meantime, agencies choose to do what they get approval for, as very few have managed to stay relevant.
From business ebullience, they have become cautious, and from advertising waste to under-execution. In the midst of the depth of the crisis, while the world’s entrepreneurs surfed the waves, people continued their accelerated change. No one has stopped to wait for marketing, so now marketing needs to catch up. At full speed you have to hit the streets and live with people today, take flights to Austin, Cannes or Buenos Aires. Without further delay, it is time to understand the Internet café and what is happening on the cell phone. Everything converges and that is how we must understand it.
The north in the gps of the brands is not digital, as some point out, but precisely the one that I note first in the title of this entry. Nothing new but more relevant today, nothing that others have not said before and something that I reiterate, the coordinates all point to convergence, a simple concept that today is more relevant than ever.
Convergence between new and traditional media, between traditional and interactive promotion, convergence of lifestyles and forms of influence, in an evolution that must coincide in the added value of the brand. Map design today has 3D and holography, with legitimate dialogue and the most powerful word-of-mouth ever. Technology is the great accelerator of creativity, and awareness is the megaphone to the sky. It all converges and boils down to one idea: whoever best interprets it and translates it into concrete actions will win.
History repeats itself: we all have the same information. However, few will be able to interpret it, decide and take the lead, because the complexity must be reduced to simplicity and the bullion to an easily understandable note. Otherwise, they will continue to talk marketing and continue to fail to connect with the people who changed.
In our group we are all learning, for no one in the world knows enough. None of us is as good as all of us, and because of this, clients and creative, accounts and design, promo and digital, we are all focused on understanding the market signals, to focus on a path of convergence.
The bet will continue at a fast and sustainable pace. We do not know the name or the precise coordinates of the destination. However, we are moving forward cohesively in a direction that we anticipate will lead us to continue to be among the winners.
