The more things change........

Please keep in mind I am Gen X and from where we sit things today are a bit amusing. The term "Digital Native" always cracked me up. Especially when recruiters were using it as an age filter for people like me. We weren't born with a cell phone in our hands so how could we possibly know what it's like to truly experience mobile technology?

These kinds of "New and improved" milennial-isms have recently been cropping up more and more in marketing. What is even a little more amusing is when you get a chance to discuss what it was like say in the 80's and 90's before the brave new age, they often times seem to be in awe as to how similar it is to what we are doing in marketing today.

Here are a few examples;

Back in the late 90's Francis Gaskins talked about a cutting-edge company on NBC cable that was placing servers in shopping malls for consumers to connect to the internet through for free using dial up. The concept was the user would insert their Mall Perks CD into their Home PC and dial into the server at the mall. They would be greeted by the malls homepage and from their could either browse deals from each store's sunday paper ads or go out to their favotite web site. They could shop their favorite store in the mall and pick their order up either at the customer service counter or the malls info desk or have it delivered by Cosmo, WebVan or eventually FedEx home.

Fast forward to today where that server is available to each retailer. Only it is now the size of a wad of gum and can beplaced all over the store, the mall, a city, a venu, you name it to allow the customer to not only shop the store in person but also get info on products and services via the web using beacons. I will assume you know the rest of the story with delivery options. Since COVID this is all new and exciting and a brave new era for shoppers. Imagine my surprise.

Privacy has also become a big concern. back in the day ads were still everywhere and advertisers would use any kind of data they could get their hands on to try to reach the holy grail of right time and place with the right ad to the right person. It was a little clunkier using transaction data on big clunky tapes or worse carbon copies of purchases in order to see what a consumer might be in the market for. A/B studies were done on groups of people and by changing end caps, displays and more in store.

Some of that may sound familiar with end caps and displays. Only thing new there is they now have the ability to know you viewed them by your Mobile Ad ID and in an instant show an ad that is more personalized or offer a discount right to your phone instead of having to carry around a coupon. The thing is marketers are still getting the data they were getting back in the day, just quicker and if (big if) they have the infrastructure in place they can act on it faster. Much like "the old days" retailers are still trying to manage large amounts of data and trying to tell a story and act on that data , all while trying to stay within budgets and not hurt the bottome line.

Let's talk "Loyalty Programs" next! Aren't those great? people signing up to get points or "rewards" for shopping and spending money. Every dolar spent equals points or dollars returned towards your next purchase. Its all a great new way to get shoppers back in the store and shop more..........or is it.

Back in the day we had "affinity programs and groups" aka "audiences" "segments""loyalty groups" "channels". These were people that we fans of certain sport teams or products, airlines, you name it. Nearly everyone was building their own affinity groups to offer them credit cards with points or rewards for being in the group. Dare I mention the Mickey Mouse club that the cereal brands latched on to as a way to market sugar bombs to kids like me. None of it is new, yet we still fall for it because the delivery has changed and it more instant for this generation.

Yes, marketing has certainly changed since the late 80's and early 90's. I mean the delivery methods may have changed a bit. We don't cary our cell phones in large bags (or do you) anymore, and now they have screens giving us more than the number just dialed. Marketers are still cllecting the same data just faster and we are able to get our purchases delivered, just a bit faster. Come to think of it maybe marketing hasn' changed all that much. it's just moving faster and is enabling marketers willing to make the investment in infrastructure and data able to do things quicker and personalize them more. When its done right it's magic. When its done sloppy or on the cheap it rapidly becomes a privacy concern and an annoyance. Just like those unwanted postcards in the mail.