This week I am attending FutureM, the Massachusetts Innovation and Technology Exchange (MITX)-sponsored conference that brings together marketers and technologists to consider and discuss the “future” of marketing. The conference is essentially an exploration of the ways in which marketing and technology are integrating and fusing (my term). Over all, it’s a great opportunity to learn from some very interesting people.
When I received the registration materials I was disconcerted by the session titles, most of which asserted that the “Future of Marketing is X (generally something digital or social).” I am not entirely certain that I could say with conviction that this is the case, but it turned out that many of the speakers were just playing off the conference title. So, phew: I’m not as backward as I had thought.
The truth is that earlier this week I wrote a version of this post as a rant against the confident assertions incorporated into those titles. Among other things I wrote, respectfully but critically, about a very distinguished and credentialed presenter who created an entire session around the idea that you have to “bake” social media into your product in order to survive. He showed some elegant applications, including a game whose virtue he extolled at length (and I will admit: it was pretty cool.)
However, the demise of the very same game designer was reported on the front page of the Business section of The Boston Globe the following day.
Whoa. This is not my definition of survival.
But then later in the week I was inspired to start over. I attended two sessions having to do with new research and trends in the behavioral aspects of marketing. In both sessions the presenters talked about the theories of Daniel Kahneman, 2002 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. The presenters commended his recent (October 2011) book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” in which Kahneman describes a framework for decision-making that apparently challenges the idea that “rational” thought and judgment are dominant. (I don’t want to embarrass myself by talking about this in detail without having read the book, which I intend to pick up this weekend. If I find that I can understand it I’ll write about it in the future!)
And then, toward the end of his presentation, one of the speakers made this declaration:
“The future of marketing can be found today in the behavioral science literature.”
He went on to explain various disciplines of behavioral science—Neuroscience, Cultural Anthropology, Psychology, Behavioral Economics, and Sociology—and how they map to purchasing decisions.
It wasn’t difficult to understand this, even the parts that were unfamiliar (like the particulars of how neurons work), because it was deeply resonant with what I know and believe to be true about marketing. Really good marketing contributes to the design and production of goods and services that people will value. (I’m not entirely naïve and idealistic, of course. There’s plenty of superfluous junk out there too, and shameless marketing that hawks it. But I am nevertheless convinced that good marketing tries to contribute to the common good.) Good marketing then finds ways to reach the consumers most likely to have interest, so that they can consider and partake of those goods and services. And, good marketing tries to accomplish all of this at the lowest possible cost.
To do so, marketers use techniques that, as it turns out, are from … the behavioral sciences. They try to understand wants and needs, and how people make decisions. And they choose tools that support their objectives. These tools are generally media vehicles. They are important, but they are only tools.
So there we have it. It turns out that the future of marketing isn’t “digital,” or “social,” any more than it is “print advertising.” Nope. No need to panic!
Because the future of marketing is still people, with all their quirks and inconsistencies. And, thanks to the wonders of modern science and research, fascinating insights that will increasingly make us better at what we do.
