James Cherkoff of Modern Marketing has a new and interesting take on David Ogilvy’s admonition, “We sell, or else.”
That most crucial aspect of markets and marketing, the Point-Of-Purchase (P-o-P) is changing quickly and in some very surprising ways. In doing so, this shift is throwing light on some long-standing weaknesses of the marketing industry, whilst throwing down new challenges.
Even the forward-looking games sector has been surprised by the skewing of the P-o-P. In his must-see presentation at this year’s DICE, Jesse Schell, a game design professor at Carnegie Mellon University, summed up the rapidly changing nature of transactions. He explained how the games development industry has been caught completely off guard by the rise of social gaming, and particularly virtual currencies.
These days there are plenty of ways that you can roll out a campaign one morning and just listen out for the Kerching of the online cash tills later that same day. So if you are still only measuring media to understand the impact of your consumer insights and creative excellence, you may be missing out on new expanding markets.
Cherkoff is saying that digital marketing may be missing the boat if there’s no sales funnel in place. While digital is clearly a place to build brands (via immersive experiences), I like the idea of bringing it all home in the form of a sale. With the right digital strategy and execution, you can pitch a product or service, create community around the brand and complete the sale.
