Why Traditional Marketing is Dying: And New Media is Soaring

The Persian poet Rumi, a deep thinker who lived approximately 1000 years ago, said this:

“When I die I will soar with the angels
When I die as an angel, what I will become you cannot imagine.”

This is how I see marketing today. Traditional marketing is dying – due to technology, the green trend, and most recently, this challenging economy. We are beginning a new era of soaring with the angels of  new media.  And new media as we now know it is just that – something new, whose time has just begun.  Therefore, to paraphrase Rumi, what marketing will become in the next few years is something we cannot imagine. This is exciting to many of us, and it scares the hell out of the rest!

Do you remember when it was exciting to get your name, or better yet, your photo in the newspaper?  Kids today couldn’t care less about this.  Where’s the excitement in that when they have complete access to a multi-media platform through sites that include YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace?  They have grown up with the ability to broadcast their message to the world?  A news story in the local paper is about as exciting to them as a worn out textbook, which is another medium that is changing.  Children today are going places that you and I cannot imagine.  I just hope I can keep up with them because that’s where business, and especially marketing is going too,  I wouldn’t mind coming along.

What then is the best approach to take in business today if you want to be relevant is a revolutionary marketplace?  The lessons will very likely come from your children.  Have you noticed they have very few attachments?  They’ve grown up in a disposable society.  Friends, technology, even experiences all come and go freely.  They have learned to gracefully move through the clutter and turbulence that is redefining how we work and live.  Now, thanks to a new economy and the green trend, there will very likely be less physical clutter.  The challenge may be learning to adapt to renewable marketing mediums that will make the current ones irrelevant.   This is especially significant to marketers whose success is dependent upon keeping pace with what is new, better, and different.

The truth is we can imagine what business will be like in the very near future if we take a shot at it.  That’s what we should be doing more often if we don’t want to get stuck in the rut of irrelevancy.  This is where traditional media and marketers are finding themselves.  You may read in the newspaper that your local editor is “on Twitter too.”  That’s cool – except the problem with that is Twitter is their competition.  They just haven’t realized it yet!  It’s how many of us are getting our news today.  That should be a wake-up call to all of us.  Business is and will continue to change and reinvent itself as we grow with technology and deal with larger global issues.  Here’s the good news:  We all have the same basic capabilities.  Your limitations are only those you imagine.  If you think social media is playtime and not a serious business tool.  You are correct.  If you think you can’t learn the new technology, you are correct too.  If you can imagine soaring with those angels who will be the next generation of new media marketers, then you’re going to be just fine.  And I’ll be right there with you.

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