With VCRs, remote control and hundreds of cable channels, it is becoming very difficult to reach people with television commercials. The same is true of space advertising. The desktop publishing revolution has created thousands of new, highly-targeted publications and reduced the influence of general-interest publications. Newspapers are becoming increasingly irrelevant in people's lives as individuals learn to get in-depth, up-to-the-minute written news from the online services. Current weather information, colorful photographs, complete stock and bond prices, comic strips -- anything that is available in a newspaper is available immediately online. It's delivered when you want it, where you want it. You don't have to worry about it piling up on your driveway when you're out of town--and it doesn't get soggy on rainy days! Many local newspapers are developing their own online services just to survive.
The old model was "You look at our advertising and we'll let you watch this show" or "You look at our advertising and we'll let you read our newspaper." Now, instead of allowing themselves to be patronized and catered to by a few large broadcasters and publishers, people are able to seek out their own entertainment, news, and information -- on their own terms.
This presents a dilemma for marketers. The traditional mass media outlets for advertising are quickly losing their viability.
At the same time, advances in technology are producing an explosion in the variety of products and services available. Just a short time ago, there was only one long distance company. Now there are hundreds. I remember not too long ago when I would ship Mexican hot sauce from here in Texas to my friends in other parts of the country because they couldn't get it there. Now there are dozens of different types of salsas sold in stores nationwide. Look at all the different beers, vitamin products, computer software programs, exercise machines. There is astounding variety in the marketplace. It is so pervasive that the simple act of going shopping often turns into a confusing, frustrating experience.
And yet personal service has become a thing of the past. Go into your big, local super mega discount warehouse and start asking questions about products and features. Chances are, you will be more informed than the "sales" person who is assisting you (if you can even find someone).
Just at the time when marketers are losing their forum for reaching people en masse, there are thousands of products coming on to the market. The problem is that there's no way to inform consumers of these new products using the traditional mass media. This creates a bottleneck in the marketplace -- an information bottleneck.
The information infrastructure, marketers of products and services are able to get product information to the exact people who are looking for what they're offering. Conversely, by searching online, consumers can find the exact products and services, no matter how obscure, that will meet their specific needs.
There is no way to reach such highly fragmented markets better than information-rich marketing, where the message is able to find its market. You might say that the market itself is doing the marketing, since consumers will seek out information on the goods and services they desire. One additional benefit. When consumers find products and services in this way, they become highly loyal and tend to readily recommend the products to others. Through the information infrastructure, these consumers are connected to other people like themselves, people with similar needs. It's clear that this is a very powerful model for highly targeted, effective marketing.
© 1995 Ralph S. Marston, Jr. All rights reserved.