The Difference Between Old School Marketing and Neo-Marketing

I had a great lunch conversation today discussing how marketing is transforming. We got right down to the core point – (word of mouth is the most cost-effective marketing method) and its corollary (the best way to get word of mouth is to have something worth talking about). I felt the need for something a little more succicent.

Thankfully, Kathy Sierra at Creating Passionate Users put together an excellent chart comparing and contrasting traditional marketing and Web 2.0 marketing. It’s an image – convenient for printing out or making your desktop image. But that’s somewhat contradictory to the whole open/sharing attitude she describes. So, I thought I’d take the liberty of turning it into plain text.

Old-school Marketing Neo-Marketing
marketers/advertisers do it everyone does it
focus on how the company kicks ass focused on how the user kicks ass
marketers have the power users have the power
advertising evangelizing
tightly-controlled “brand message” brand “hijacked” by users
one-way broadcast two-way conversation
company-created content user-created content
he who outspends, wins he who out teaches, wins
mass markets selective, focused users
one-size-fits-all personalized, custom-tailored
focus groups user feedback & contributions….betas
deception transparency
bullshit authenticity
development often independent from marketing impossible to separate development and marketing
the story must be compelling, but can be fiction (“buy this and you’ll have more sex”) the story must be compelling, and must be real (“buy this and you’ll take better pictures”)
30-second spots are king word-of-mouth is king
focus on branding focus on passionate users
get the customer ot believe in it YOU believe in it