BROWNE INNOVATION GROUP

Monday, March 18, 2013

BIG’s Blog: Trend No. 8: Trusted Intermediaries Will Rise To Prominence

Max Kalehoff is one of those people who is followed by many in the marketing/tech world. He is currently VP of Product Marketing at Syncapse… one of those fairly unheard-of tech companies that is really changing things.

Max recently published a paper for the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School’s Future of Advertising 2020 Program. His paper entitled 11 Big Trends That Will Reshape Advertising In 2020 And Beyond has garnered a lot of attention.Over the next few blog posts, I will attempt to take each one of his eleven points and give it my interpretation from the nonprofit Development perspective. Let’s take a peek into the future together.

8. Trusted Intermediaries Will Rise To Prominence.  Until our intensive consumerism retreats, we can bet that a dizzying array of choice and noise will continue to rise. It’s a tax on our attention. Of course, this is why marketers argue for investing in their brands’ equity in the first place. However, to fight attention deficit and fatigue, consumers will increasingly look to trusted intermediaries to make better and faster choices. Consider a successful wine shop, where the merchant serves customers by getting to know them intimately. He then helps them quickly navigate thousands of confusing choices — and then provides relevant products for a fair price. This wine merchant will not only help customers find what they’re looking for, but help explore and discover value which customers were not looking for in the first place. Consumers will increasingly look for similar, trusted intermediaries in all areas of their lives.

This one is huge for nonprofit fundraisers.

Let’s be honest.  Everybody (including me) needs to sell his or her product or service to stay in business. As David Scott reminds us, however, in his book Real-Time Marketing & PR, with the advent of Search (read Google), everyone has access to all the information . . . and because of this newfound power as a consumer, our consumer ethos has changed – Information Good / Selling Bad. We don’t want to be sold.

While having access to all the competitive information helps educate us and narrow the field, we still want to talk to those we really trust to get that final opinion before buying.

The new currency is trust.

Now, if you don’t think that applies to your charity, I’ve got four words for you: Jim and Tammy Baker.

Trust for charities is the whole enchilada.


-Mike

Welcome to BIG's Blog!  Please feel free to forward this post to your friends and coworkers...and email me a comment at: mike@big-db.com

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