In a couple of months the weather will warm up and people will go to the ice shops to buy a sundae – ice cream, whipped cream, and toppings. If you love ice cream, you are looking forwards to buying at least one sundae. What if instead of ice cream, the shop put in meatballs? not the results you were looking for – Seth Godin in his book Meatball Sundae published by Portfolio Books, NY, 2007 saw many companies and organizations were producing meatball sundaes in their marketing execution. The reason is all the wonderful attributes of the web are added, except the organization had not changed to use and embrace what the web brings and does not bring.

Marketing is we make what we sell. Markets spread ideas, tell stories people want to hear and believe. Translate emotion into action to close the sale and make things people want to buy. The best available medium to reach the right people at the right time is used.

Trend 9  Direct Communication and Commerce between Consumers and Consumers

eBay is the beginning of a significant consumer to consumer connection in the marketplace. Consumers will gravitate to each other informing each other and pressure organizations for more of what consumers want.

Trend 10  The Shifts in Scarcity and Abundance

Your organization is based on exploiting scarcity. Create and sell something scarce and you can earn a profit. But when scarce things become common, and common things become scarce you need to alter what you do all day.

What use to be Scarce – luxury items; hard-drive space; manual labor; overnight shipping; airtime; shelf space; long distance phone service; knowledge about people

What used to be Abundant – spare time; attention; ability to pollute without consequences; trust; sufficiently trained workers; open space, clean water.

Think about the companies that had to change and the ones that adjusted there are many.

Trend 11    The Triumph of Big Ideas

In the factory based organization little ideas are the key to success. New Marketing in the noisy marketplace demands something bigger. It demands ideas that force people to sit up and take notice, but it needs to be embedded into the experience of the product.

Trend 12   The Shift for How Many to Who

Marketers can focus on who is hearing (and talking about) their message and no longer have to use the mass audience.

Trend 13   The Wealthy are like Us

We either do not care about the best then we want the cheapest or we want the best, which means the companies in the middle are having a hard time.

Trend 14  New Gatekeepers, No Gatekeepers

It use to be in order to get bigger, you need to work with the big companies, and big companies like to work with other big companies. The path has changed.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, the internet and how we use the internet to buy has altered many companies. It will continue to do so, but that does not mean companies can not adapt to take advantage of the internet. Does your company make it easy to find your services and products and can easily meet customer demand wherever they are? In most businesses, who the customer is? allows you to narrowly define it. In politics, everyone has a somewhat equal say with one vote – are you doing politics or business? Business maybe harder, but it can be more exciting because the people who you serve really love what you do and that is a good thing. Making a profit and paying a dividend is also a good thing which is why it is hard to find companies doing it over and over again.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.