The Message is the

Medium Venkatesh Rao

Twitter: @vgr

European Trend Day, March 19, 2014

“Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two–and only two–basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business.”

-- Peter Drucker (1967)

^

and keep

Grand Unified Theory of marketing today…

Marketing by this theory is almost 100 years old….

the BIG assumption The medium is the message (Marshall McLuhan)

how a message spreads shapes what it means

Medium is the Message in the 1960s

Radio listeners thought Nixon had won

Television watchers thought Kennedy had won

Producer context: studio Consumer context: living room

The message is the medium what a message means shapes how it spreads

but what if…?

Message is the Medium in the 1960s

Message: “Social Object” Jyri Engestrom,

2005 Tupperware party

Party is consumer context

Producer context: product Consumer context: party

Producer context Medium is the message

Consumer context Message is the medium

Two contexts for all marketing…

The Internet is a planet-wide Tupperware party. On Steroids.

Producer context Consumer context

Revenge of the 99%: Increasing reach share

1970

2014

2030?

I’m the CMO, I’m in charge here!

CMO budgets now exceed CIO

budgets!

Do you feel in charge?

And that gives you power over

IT?

“Phil doesn't just go on one date with Rita, he goes on thousands of dates. During each date, he makes note of what she likes and responds to, and drops everything she doesn't. At the end he arrives at -- quite literally -- the perfect date….But at the end of this perfect date, something impossible happens: Rita rejects Phil.”*

-- Jeff Atwood, Coding Horror

* http://blog.codinghorror.com/groundhog-day-or-the-problem-with-ab-testing/

3/16/2014 Venkatesh G. Rao 13

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.”

– John Wanamaker

100 Years Ago…

Now…

“99% of the money is wasted, but we know EXACTLY which 99%”

– Ghost of John Wanamaker

Increasing certainty in execution

Decreasing certainty in objectives

1890 1920 1950 1970 1990 2010 2030

Cer

tain

ty

Yellow Press

Vicks Salesman

Mad Men

Al Ries

P. T. Barnum

Seth Godin

Radio

Mature Press

TV

Internet

Tim Ferriss

?

Hypothesis: Peak Attention ~1970

Ed Bernays

AdBusters

Whitaker and Baxter

Medium is the Message in 2014

If you try to increase control of consumer context by increasing investment in producer context, you get a race to the bottom

Focus less on episodic campaigns Focus more on persistent presence

Finite game: goals lead to episodic behaviors

Infinite game: persistent behaviors lead to goals

Producer context Consumer context

1970: Customers as babies – parental authority (0-12)

2014: Customers as teenagers – peer pressure (12 – 19)

2030: Customers as adults – personal choices (19 - ?)

Why?

High Speed

Low Effort

High Control Slow Marketing

Three Infinite Games in Marketing

Pick two out of three

Growth hacking Manage the stage that contains the consumer context

Examples: Tim Ferriss, Ryan Holliday, Patrick Vlaskovits

Scene hacking Steward language evolution in the consumer context

Examples: O’Reilly media, Maker movement, Andreessen-Horowitz

Slow marketing Be the True North in the consumption context

Examples: Google, Paul Graham, Elon Musk

the purpose of business is to create and keep a customer

-- Peter Drucker

v 2.0 to catch and release v 2.1 to tag and release v 2.2 to recognize and release v 2.3 to arm and release v 2.4 to equip and release

Acknowledgements: Seb Paquet, Patrick Vlaskovits, Rob Salkowitz, Jeremy Epstein, Marc Andreessen and many others.

Thank You! Blog: ribbonfarm.com Twitter: @vgr Email: vgr@ribbonfarm.com