FreshNetworks Blog

Alan Kimmel, Professor of Marketing at ESCP-EAP, kicked off the day with a session about the old and new worlds of marketing. How communication used to be easy (you got the 4 Ps right and the rest followed) but this is no longer the case.For him we are moving from a consuming species to a connecting species and marketing needs to shift to recognise this. But with two main caveats:

1. Traditional media aren’t dead
2. We need to make sure not to oversell new marketing techniques

One example of this would be the false emphasis some people put on WOM and the thought that if you can target one super connected person the rest will follow. This just oversimplifies the situation - it’s as much about the environment as the person and as much about the people that receive and respond to word of mouth as those who instigate it.

So new marketing techniques are not making things easier. I suppose that was a bit over-optimistic to hope for…