Be ready to reach anyone, anywhere, any time

By William (Bill) Garber

Oh, Really?  Ad Age columnist James Gross got me thinking after I read his opening paragraph.

“In the not-too-distant future, marketers finally will be able to target nearly anyone they want, any time they want, anywhere they want.”

Here is how I replied to his column (  http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/future-timely-content-planned-campaigns/240442/  )

This is a marketer’s nightmare precisely because it is a consumer’s nightmare.  Only Hollywood types want to walk past a thousand cameras flashing at them.

Ambush marketing is a losing game just like Seth Godin predicted.

The future of business is not better targeting, it is the end of targets.  It is the end of war.

Check out business as betterness  www.amazon.com/Betterness-Economics-Humans-Kindle-ebook/dp/B006K5K5GI  … here is the future of marketing as well as society.

Betterness applied to marketing … now that will absolutely exceed in magnitude the historic changes brought about by the automobile and the industrial age.

We don’t need more stuff.  We need a better life experience.

Applied betterness … it is the future of business and its marketing component.

If you don’t want a government drone silently watching your backyard BBQ and hot-tub rejuvenation, you sure don’t want to be associated with a marketing effort that knows someone’s misuse of sunblock, failure to fully cook a hamburger, or whether you recycled your beer bottles properly.

We have too much stuff and not nearly enough of the good life, a result sadly facilitated by … marketing.

I’m not calling for you to change professions, though changing the profession you are in would be most welcomed.  To start with, put the gun down.

But you already knew that … as you your summary infers …

“If you are a brand thinking about the challenges of the age of social media, start by asking yourself, ‘What is different now than in the past and what are the tools that we have at our fingertips?’ If the answers make you feel as if you are treading into territory never documented before, that’s a good thing. As many have noted, the biggest mistake we make in a new medium is mirroring the process of an old one.”

As for community newspaper publishers, betterness is something deep in your bones.  Helping advertisers understand betterness as a business paradigm may well require a change in how we thing about advertising.  If you can help businesses do better by helping them get beyond advertising, your revenue from this new venture should exceed that of advertising.

And just in time.

If you care to share some musings or even a little brag or two in this regard, just email me at bill@ilsw.com