(First published in 2016)
In the 1500s, the Spanish explorer Hernan Cortes landed at Aztec empire in Mexico with a team of just 550 people. In just 4 years, the Aztec empire was ravaged. A mere 550 people subjugated an empire of millions, making Mexico a Spanish colony. Within the next 10 years, another Spaniard, Francisco Pizarro landed in South America with a motely crew of 168 people, crushing the vast Inca empire. How did this happen?
In one of the most fascinating books on human history, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Harari traces the history of planet earth and humankind since 4.5 billion years ago.
Despite the ancient scientific traditions of classical Greece, China, India, and Islam, it was Europe that set the perfect ground for the growth of scientific temperament and progress. Until then, empires conquered other lands for amassing wealth or furthering their belief systems. They funded religion or education to reinforce their supremacies. Most of them believed they knew everything about this world that is to be known. In the 1500s, with no significant technological advantage over the rest of the world, European explorers started with a different premise. A critical one. They believed that they do not know anything and there is a vast unknown world out there. They wanted to conquer different lands also for the quest of knowledge. Scientists often joined explorers in their voyages.
In the two decades preceding the Aztec annihilation, Spaniards had completely wiped out the entire native population of the not-so-distant Caribbeans. Neither the Aztecs nor the Incas had any inkling of this, for they never believed there is a world out there. Had they known, they would have been better prepared.
What does all this has to do with marketing and advertising?
Marketing is getting increasingly complex. Four reasons that are not so complex:
- Empowered consumers with more information and choices: In the age of nearly perfect information, and a huge range of choices and distribution channels, consumers are empowered like never before. With a smartphone and perfect information in hand, brand choices flip right in the aisle. Are brands loosing relevance? Researchers Itamar Simonson and Emanuel Rosen think so. In the absence of perfect information, we had reference points while choosing a product—previous experience, brand name, where it is manufactured, and so on. But in a world where there is absolute information, “influencing through relative tactics and indirect clues such as brand and price becomes much harder.” A recent study published by emarketer says more than 72% of consumers in urban India prefer their mobile devices instead of a sales associate for information during an in-store purchase.
- It is Next practice than Best practice: Rapid changes in digital advertising technologies and use of data is keeping the practitioners on toes. By the time a new technology is adopted and before best practices are established and benchmarks set, it is time for next practice. And some of us tend to believe that every new development in digital is one more opportunity to plaster a message, even if the screen is a tiny one on the wrist.
- Technology is making products redundant and life cycles shorter. Today, competition for a brand is not just from the same category. The watch category has to compete with mobile phones, while mobile phones have to fight its own technology obsolescence. While digital cameras in a sense sealed the future of film cameras, mobile phones made point-and-shoot digital cameras irrelevant.
- The rise of a new counterculture. Amid all this is the rise (for the good) of consciousness, conscious consumption, green movement, minimalism, healthy life, the shift from ownership to shared economy, and the likes.
Simply put, understanding consumers’ mind and their motivations are more challenging than ever before. We really don’t know enough.
The best place to start in developing new solutions can’t be better than a humble acknowledgement that we don’t know enough. Like the old European explorers who set a new course for the scientific revolution. To quote a Zen saying, “In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities, but in the experts’ mind there are few.”