Andy; Not so much the death but rebirth, I think. As I say, to consider that traditional marketing is actually a synonym for conversation is sub-optimal at best. In that sense marketing is already dead.

lifeless. sterile, barren, brain-dead, the lights are off, nobody is home, and the dog's run away

I think the point that Chris makes is that we now have the means, the motive, and the opportunity to engage in actual conversations with real people. That's enough for a conviction in 28 states.

This may be the death of many marketERS - who just don't wake up before the 16 tonne weight falls on them - but it could be the rebirth of MarketING

Something that offers useful insight into not just the readily measurable statistics on the current state of the market of interest, but enables you to inform yourself about what your potential customers are thinking, what they want, what they're getting from your competitors and substitutes, why they value it, what's missing from it, what they hate about it, etc, etc,

by actually talking and listening with them directly



Jeneane: Has anyone ever told you your name just doesn't roll off the keyboard? Took me 3 goes to get it right.

"Getting it Right" is important. I'm into my empathy and compassion phase for the week now, so I'm wondering what it's like to have your phd in general psych, your MBA from Harvard, and your 16 years worth of ad agency whoring (sorry, career excellence), and be told by some gonzo nobody who posts to a website in Uzbekistan that you and your whole industry are just completely fucked up beyond repair.

Not even good enough for landfill.

Give toxic waste a bad name.

Might be faintly amusing to the more bohemian types, and let's face it, marketing is nothing if not bohemian.

I liked your gonzo mirror, but I most appreciated the examples you gave of clients that actually liked the output from your gonzo marketing think.

I like to think that given ONLY the theoretical concepts that we're talking about they'd probably shudder with horror and politely ask you to leave - but! - faced with the reality of superior output, they just might let you hang around to make a difference, and might even spark up some interest in how you came to produce such material.

When you get ready to buck the system then you'd better be right. A few of my managers over the years have been persuaded that it's easier to ask for forgiveness than to get permission, but the unspoken message was always clear: "Only when you're right!"

I've had loooooong experience with having to wait for time to prove me right during my working life, so I know what that's like. Like playing a round of golf, you have to endure great eons of disappointment and frustration to achieve that one shining glorious moment of complete beauty as the ball sails straight up the middle of the fairway, bounces once at the edge of the green and drops into the hole.

Much like sex, I suppose . . . . . . . .

Lighten up, yeahhh! Great fucking ideas, ideas about being fucking great, ideas that are fucking great, ideas about great fucking, whatever.

"not congruent to creative thinking" - nice phrase Jeneane. You know that the internet exists because the Department of Defence recognised that their centralised command and control heirarchy was their greatest weakness?

Talk about a totally unexpected and wholly unintended but very revealing piece of self awareness!!

Don't worry about it jen, the marketing industry usually follows the military by about two millennia. That's why they had amazon women with enormous breasts selling empire building to Roman legionaires while the admeisters have just got around to using them to sell cars to bohemians like me.

Don't get too depressed, your time will come.



Chris: Rock on, Tommy. Mark Knopfler could beat his guitar over my head and I wouldn't complain.

. . . much