The end of marketing: a prediction.
Two themes are converging.
1.) The increasing focus on customer experience and usability within companies.
Smart companies now realize that their core offerings shouldn’t be wrapped with a customer friendly veneer. Instead usability and experience should be built in from the ground up.
2.) Marketing’s move from creating images towards creating experiences.
The best marketing today are tangible proofs of company values and ideals. People look past propaganda and focus on what companies actually deliver.
If you play these themes out, it’s clear that the need to support two separate structures within companies is wasteful and counter-productive. I predict this will become evident within the next few years. A progressive fmcg company like P&G or Unilever, will make headlines by reintegrating the marketing function.
What then becomes the role of the agency? Interesting to ponder.