Advertising is Dead, Technology is Alive

How we go to market is as important as who we are.

With the erosion of
competitive advantage, the collapse of distinction and the homogenization of
pretty much everything, it’s time to admit that what we sell isn’t that
different from the competition.

So something has to be.

What’s
exciting is, the explosive growth of channel and device choices, combined with
the connection prowess of the Internet, means that distribution is the biggest opportunity for brands to reach the
right people at the right moment with the right product.

If
you’ve been wondering how to get your products into the customer’s hand, consider
asking a few of these scary distribution questions:

What if we rewarded customers
for planning their shipments months in advance? What if we offered non-monetary
online redemption coupons? What if we had a mobile food truck stationed at
strategic locations? What if we had a monthly subscription program so customers
never had to think about replenishing? What if we had premium delivery options
for impatient people? What if we had a discount aggregator offering daily
deals?

What if we had home pickup
like the milkman from the fifties? What if we had smartphone delivery tracking? What if our
customers never had to leave the house again? What if we had alternate payment
options? What if customer content was the coupon? What if there was no such
thing as a physical retail store? What if we had amazing relationships with
third party vendors that operationalized restocking issues and socialized the
middleman?

What if we text messaged real
time inventory updates? What if we built a bat phone customers could ring
during emergencies? What if we used geotracking to deliver to people’s cars?
What if we used local businesses as pick up depots? What if we created
non-traditional sampling locations? What if we used reverse logistics, invited
customers to fill out their weekly calendars and we delivered according to
their schedule?

Advertising is dead. Technology is alive. 

Distribution
is the new marketing.