Working at the end of a product cycle

Some companies don't understand that they're not in the beginning, but at the end of a product cycle. What was once innovative is doomed to be old fashioned at some point. Like a facsimile machine manufacturer who still thinks that a paper fax is the latest trend in communication. It's hard to admit that your product or service is old fashioned. Especially if it's your core business. When I was only 22 years old, I was working for a company called Holland Advertising New Media (HANM). It was located in Den Helder, a neglected, gray and windy city in the North of Holland. Near the harbour there was a big building where approximately 100 people worked. Their core business: selling advertising space on Teletext. For people who have never experienced the pre-internet age: Teletext is the text service that's connected to television channels. HANM also owned a regional television station with cable news programs and programs that promoted second hand cars and houses in still images. Next to my studies, I was working part-time at the marketing department of this company, where I had to write sales letters, brochures and flyers to promote their advertising services. They still seemed to make quite a lot of money at that time, so there was every reason to continue in this business. But of course, their media were the fossils of digital marketing, and the CEO did not seem to notice that. Neither did the rest of the employees. Everybody just did their job, and the big boss always bragged about how innovative their advertising services were. As if he had lost touch with reality. I was only a freshman there, so I wasn't in a position to contradict my boss. Besides, I could use the money. So I just did my work, which was writing about how innovative Teletext and the cable news was. And I kept on working there until I got hired at McCann-Erickson. I had to move on. About a year later, the dot-com crisis struck and made many victims in advertising. This recession was also the final blow for HANM. It was sad to hear that the agency that gave me a chance at real working experience had gone bankrupt. But I guess it was inevitable.