“The Answers Have Changed” – obviously Albert Einstein was right
Why digital marketing absolutely demands authenticity. How do I get my products and services to my customers? How can I convince them? These questions should be well known. But what’s the answer? In this chapter, I would like to show you why the answers have changed – and why authenticity is so important.
- How do I get my products and services to my customers?
- How can I convince them?
- These questions should be well known. But what’s the answer?
- In this chapter, I would like to show you why the answers have changed – and why authenticity is so important.
Why digital marketing absolutely demands authenticity
The story is told of how Albert Einstein one day gave his students a final exam that was a year old. In fact, Einstein had given his students the exact same final exam the year before. His assistant noticed the “error” and timidly made the famous physicist aware of his mistake. Einstein looked closer at the newly distributed sheet and answered: “You’re right, these are the same questions as last year – but the answers have changed.”
In marketing, this is true today, as well. The problems are still the same – but the answers are not.
We are in a time of fundamental change. What we are witnessing today is probably synonymous with the invention of the steam engine in the 18th century. Just as then, the lengths the new invention will span cannot be estimated; then, it was the steam engine; today, it is the Internet.
Digitization currently drives almost the entire economy. Existing business models were suddenly turned upside down and backwards – even those that had been around for a long time. Just think of Uber, the company that became the world’s biggest taxi company within a short time; or Tesla, the Silicon Valley carmaker. Both are typical examples of how sectors, which had very few fundamental changes in recent decades, suddenly started to move – with a breathtaking pace.
Traditional Marketing is suffering from self-inflicted misery
Marketing has not been spared from this development. But part of the change that’s taking place today has causes that are the fault of marketing, itself. The last decades have been marked by increasing dishonesty, exaggeration, and yes – of outright lies. But people are not stupid. Not only are there smart people on Madison Avenue – the Mad Men – but there are bright consumers, too.
Thus, a general awareness has developed that marketing basically lies. This development has created an increasingly high hurdle and made marketing expensive and inefficient.
With digitization, the simple consumer now has a variety of ways available to verify the truth of marketing claims. Thus, marketing has been caught virtually standing on the wrong foot, and it’s now pretty rough.
At the same time, a new generation has grown up, referred to as …