Being direct... AdVantage Sep 2002
Survival is Not Enough ...
Time to Get The Message!
Those of you who read my column in June this year will remember me writing about a trip that I made to Boston in February to attend an international conference on Instant Messaging. This opened my eyes to the huge potential of one-to-one communication, carried by the connectivity of new digital channels, and the idea of linked 'presence'. We'll, I've just had the opportunity to make another short trip - this time to Potsdam - Germany, to be exact, to undergo some product and technical background exposure to a newly available (in SA) software product called 'Message-Master'. Now, the world of one-to-one here in SA, is poised to take a mammoth leap forward!!
Before going into more detail about some of the communication concepts behind Message-Master, I want to establish context by quoting Seth Godin (of 'Permission Marketing' fame) and his latest book: 'Survival is Not Enough'. This book describes his contention (with which I wholeheartedly agree) that: '… most of us see change as a threat, and survival as the goal. Yet we work too hard to see just getting by as our primary goal…' Then, as part of the book's foreword, he paraphrases Charles Darwin, who wrote about the concept of evolution - many years ago. I guess that I usually always recommend that my readers buy their own copy of the books that I quote, so if mere survival is not enough of a future for you, then I seriously suggest that you buy a copy of this book, and get the detailed low-down for yourself.
Suffice to say that Darwin wrote as follows: 'If we look to long enough periods of time, geology plainly declares that all species have changed: and they have changed in the manner that my theory requires, for they have changed slowly and in a graduated manner... we (humans) are always slow in admitting any great change of which we do not see the intermediate steps…The mind cannot possibly grasp the full meaning of the term of a hundred million years; it cannot add up and perceive the full effects of many slight variations, accumulated during an almost infinite number of generations.'
Godin suggests therefore that: '…Evolution is a fundamental force of nature, and this force can be unleashed in any organisation. The first step is to eliminate 'the anti-change reflex' that's genetically coded into all of us. Once a company learns to embrace change without pain, it is more likely to evolve. And a company that evolves can become ever- more profitable!…'
He goes on to say: '…we can't work more hours. We can't absorb more stress or endure more anxiety at work. We can, on the other hand, radically redefine what we do at work and create organisations that are designed to succeed regardless of what our ever-changing futures produce…' This suggests that even if we can't individually or even corporately 'change the world', we need to set ourselves up to be more flexible in how we handle the ever-changing environment that 'happens' to us.
One example of this perhaps 'reluctant' change is that there has undoubtedly been a shift in the relationship between marketers and their consumers. In the past, when people were relatively 'unconnected', marketers decided when and how they would communicate with their consumers mostly through the mass media. Godin reminds us that we built our entire consumer culture around the idea that repeated television and print advertisements could profitably entice consumers to spend money. Businesses that invested in interrupting people became incredibly profitable. Marketers were in charge. They controlled the marketplace, and consumers were sheep. He now decrees that those days are over. Businesses can no longer manage consumer attention - consumer attention manages them! You can't manage change…change manages you!!
If we think of a world in which the control of information dissemination is moving from a broadcast (or outbound) mindset, to a demand-based (or inbound and reactive) mindset, then we recognise that the consumer is becoming more and more 'in control' of a variety of channels that can provide content on demand. So, we need to be able to deliver information content as requested - and irrespective of the channel chosen by the consumer. This requires a robust and integrated 'Messaging' platform. This technology has been in development in Europe for over six years, and is now available here.
What exactly do we mean by Messaging platform? Well, the primary development of this technology came from the world of mobile digital devices, and combines a number of technologies to place 'control' in the hands of mobile requestors. Examples of these technologies are SMS, WAP, GPRS, and in future will include UMTS. In addition e-mail SMTP and web-server HTTP standards are supported, as well as ODBC connectivity to information and transactional databases. This means that any consumer with a mobile phone, Personal Digital Assistant, Internet, or any other digital connection can use these technologies to connect to brand-related data and information sources, and control their consumption of such information sources.
The other side of the coin of course, is that astute marketers will set up on-demand information access points - using this kind of technology to create the right kinds of impressions amongst their customer- and prospect-bases. Examples of this are automating web-content (whether connected by Internet or PDA-facilitated by GPRS), and then sending confirmatory SMS messages to consumers that may access the website. Another is to integrate incoming e-mail to service-agent's mobile phones, and allow customers to check on service status via their own cell-phones. It can also transmit product/service information as requested. The way that this works is to provide a set of interface modules that re-packages all consumer interfaces into a common format, and then to have a message 'rules' engine that transfers the content packages from one interface to another.
Our associates have recently worked on a number of examples of this approach to communication packaging, and the effect on the consumer is absolutely amazing. For example they created a facility for members to make a simple points-enquiry to one of our live loyalty programme databases from their cell-phones using SMS technology, - and the empowerment response from our consumers is astounding.
If we relate this new capability to the evolutionary world of Seth Godin, then we will recognise that the kind of empowerment allowed by these technologies, is in line with his idea of providing mechanisms for consumers to 'control' your attention to their needs. It's time to get with the program - and use these available new tools to move beyond survival, to the next small step in the process of marketing communication evolution. C'mon…it may even be time to radically redefine what YOU do at work!!