Some out-takes from our interview:
In one of your articles you say that marketing has historically always been considered inefficient – often causing waste of resources and communication. Why the practice has not evolved at the same speed of other areas in business and what the best way to get left behind also in the next ten years?Other areas of business came under pressure earlier. (1) Japanese firms had automated in the 1930s and in the 1950s and America and Europe needed to automate to stay competitive with Japan. From the 1960s to 1980s, automobile manufacturing was automated due to pressure from Japan. (2) In the 1970s to 1990s supermarkets demanded better supply from consumer products manufacturers who turned to supply chain automation. (3) In the 1990s consumer services (banking, utilities, travel) became more competitive and automated extensively to reduce their costs and make them faster and more responsive. Global financial trading caused merchant banks to automate. (4) Marketing been under less pressure until recent years but now in 2010s it will inevitably change due to the growing complexity and workloads of internet marketing. Globalisation will also force marketing to automate more and introduce collaborative technologies.
What are the main scenarios and challenges in marketing for the year 2020?
We will see fewer marketing staff, more “robotic” solutions and automation. Agencies will turn into factories or laboratories. Integration of customer contact points will remain difficult as the number of touch-points continues to grow, but gradually we will see more integration with giants like Google becoming the integrated data factories of the future. Privacy will grow as an issue, as will security, and consumers will use aliases and proxies as secret selves. Activist consumers will become the new terrorists and mercenaries and suppliers will wage war with them. Computer viruses and spyware will get worse and worse. Advertising in traditional media will vanish and TV content will vanish too, replaced by low-cost aggregated content from social media channels. Consumer goods and services will be advertised less and brands in many areas will be replaced by unbranded goods from reputable supermarkets and internet stores.
