There’s at least one generation out there (probably 2, maybe 3, counting a large contingent of my own generation) that have never heard of Marshall McLuhan. Or, even if they’ve heard the name, they have no frame of reference; no context. So, I’ll provide a way to find that below, for anyone who’s of a mind to.
To my surprise, the first generation to which I refer – “Millenials” (by that I mean the generation born in “the ‘80s” and “coming of age” at the turn of the millennium, as well as those born since) – is nearly as unaware of MarTech as the two prior generations mentioned. I know this from direct feedback I’ve received from “Millenials” when I’ve demonstrated NFC. I’ll explain MarTech and NFC, below, too.
Star Trek needs no explanation. Anyone living in the last half-century has heard of Star Trek, even if they’re not sci-fi “fans”.
What brought all this to mind are feeds; rss articles I receive in my email. The first was “Why the Rebirth of Email Is Coming in 2016”. You can read the article at http://www.convinceandconvert.com/email/rebirth-of-email/, but the gist of it was how “everyone” thought that email was “dead” after the rise of social media. That would come as a surprise to my email accounts. Of course, email was going to kill “commercial” mail. You know, that stuff that still fills your mailbox? Yeah, that didn’t happen either. And neither the internet nor online video killed tv. Which didn’t kill movies. And movies didn’t kill radio, which didn’t kill conversation. Etc., etc., etc.
The second article examined how “‘mobile’ encompasses your product, your marketing, your content, your customer service touch points and every other opportunity for your brand to connect with your customers.” http://marketingland.com/two-mobile-questions-shouldnt-ask-one-really-matters-156156?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed-main. Basically, it’s 3 “truths” just boil down to one point: if you plan to be in business, you have to “get real” about mobile.
So, how do these relate to each other? And to Star Trek, MarTech, and McLuhan? Let’s take it one step at a time.
“The medium is the message.”
McLuhan is most famous (to those of my – and the preceding – generation) for that observation alone, coined in a book he co-authored in 1964. McLuhan postulated that the characteristics of any given medium, itself, rather than its content, shaped and controlled “the scale and form of human association and action”. Each new medium, from mass-production printing (thanx, Johann!) to photography to "moving pictures" to radio to "talkies" to television to the internet to mobile "shaped and controlled" how we communicate. And all are still in use, still "alive" (even "print", 560 years later).
That brings us to MarTech.
Only those “in the industry” are even remotely familiar with the term. It’s jargon. Techno-babble. A “geek-speak” contraction for marketing technology. Now, you might think, depending on which generation you “belong” to (of the three generations discussed), that marketing technology is conceptually new; a by-product of the “information age”. It’s not. Only the term, MarTech, is relatively new.
Paraphrasing McLuhan, you might say that “MarTech is the medium”. More grammatically correct would be “MarTech is the media”, because MarTech encompasses marketing through multiple media that McLuhan never even dreamt of. Websites. WiFi. Social Media. And the supporting characters: geo-location (via GPS); QR Codes; NFC (Near-Field Communications, where merely holding a device close to a “tag” triggers a transfer of information; usable for content as well as for payment) and other “proximity” marketing tools.
The way I see it, MarTech, in terms of “the characteristics” of the multiple media now usable (and used) by “business” to communicate with potential customers (and just as available for small businesses) now shapes and controls “the scale and form of human association and action". "Mobile" is how we communicate, regardless of the content. That makes McLuhan’s observation as relevant to MarTech as MarTech is to Star Trek. And that brings us full circle.
“Live long and prosper.”
Think about this: There’s not much that Spock, Sulu, Chekov or McCoy could accomplish with a “tri-corder” that can’t be accomplished on or with a modern smartphone. Want to know where somebody is? Want to know how many steps you’ve walked? Calories burned? Time it. Give yourself 60 seconds to think of as many tasks as you can that could only be accomplished on a “tri-corder”. Comment your results. It'll be fun to see what I've missed.
You can learn more about Marshall McLuhan at http://www.marshallmcluhan.com/, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message, and http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/mcluhan.html.
Is it worth it? Here’s a hint: To McLuhan, the light bulb was a medium. So is mobile. One of many media known as MarTech.
For more on NFC, email and direct mail (and their effectiveness), and smartphone -friendly content, see this post.
You can learn more about how you can use the latest marketing technology to benefit your small business. We can help you “boldly go” in search of new customers.
No comments:
Post a Comment