Its People, Not Products, Stupid
by Steve on 10/30/09 at 12:52 pm
Today more than ever, people are what matter; not products and trends. Companies, slow to catch on to the changing world in front of them, are just now starting to figure this out. They have traditionally been more accustomed to dictating that world, not responding to it. It wasn’t long ago when the latest trend drove everything. And who drove those trends? Often it was the companies that were behind them telling us what we wanted to buy, wear, eat, drink, etc. Today the consumer is driving more and more of the trends, and more of what becomes (and what doesn’t become) popular.
Prior to the twentieth century, it was geography and local custom that controlled and dictated commerce. Everything was geographically/custom based, and the many multiple markets were determined by those contraints. However, during the twentieth century the company as we know it today was born and became the primary determinant of what was taken to market for sale. Popular culture was created, and since the 1940s that popular culture, driven by people in corporations, dictated commerce in our world.
The primary producers in any given industry had the power, through limited media that was so expensive only the large, well-funded corporations could afford it, to tell us what to like and buy. They could dictate what was available, and faced with a shortage of real options, we took what we could get. In fact, we ate it up, believing we were part of something larger than ourselves. And, we were – we were part of a commercial-driven trend.
However, today that is changing. With the advent of the internet, and in particular social media and individual-driven consumer demand, people have begun to dictate their own preferences and choices more and more. Today anyone can broadcast their experiences (both bad and good) to thousands of people instead of just the 100 people immediately surrounding them. And, its free.
However, it is not the fact that it is free that makes it so powerful. In fact, that is a small part of the new playing field that everyone is doing business on. After years of corporations hiding the ball to keep consumers from having the power of choice, there is a new game in town. And, the buyers brought their own ball to play the game with.
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