Change is Afoot: The New (De)Marketeer

In our town we have something called an Animal Control Officer (ACO).  This is the person who presumably controls animals, especially the kind that pester residents.  Unfortunately, it doesn't work quite that way.

Resident: "My cat is stuck in a tree."  ACO: "Get a ladder."

Resident: "There's a skunk ruining my yard."  ACO: "Buy a trap.*" 

Resident: "I bought a trap and caught the skunk."  ACO: "Well, then, you don't need an Animal Control Officer anymore, do you?"

You see?  An Animal Control Officer seems to put a lot more effort into controlling people than he or she does animals.  It's a title that may have worked 100 years ago when cows and horses were busting through their fences round here, but isn't doing us much good for cats and skunks.

I noticed a recent Wall Street Journal article that featured a soldier, a Religious Programs Officer Specialist 2nd Class, who just happened to be an atheist.  That's a little bit like an ACO who doesn't control animals.

I can sense the same kind of change afoot in the discipline of Marketing.

"Evangelist" has become a common title to describe a person whose job it is to market, sell and create buzz.  It's an interesting choice given that some part of the public has long associated evangelists with snake oil salesmen (often on TV), or well-dressed young people who knock on the door on Saturday afternoon and won't go away.  "Evangelist" is a title that works, but only just barely, and only just recently.

In fact, it got me to wondering if an "Evangelist," who might have been called "Director of Marketing" or "Marketing Communications Manager" or even "Inside Sales Rep" at one point in the not-so-distant past, might not be an indication--like our Animal Control Officer--of a metamorphosis in the entire Marketing equation.

We know that sometime in the 1880s, with the Civil War industrial machine transformed and now pumping out oodles of consumer goods, that businessmen and government officials came to a startling conclusion: Americans would have to begin buying stuff much more aggressively if the country were to remain prosperous.  Thrift and resourcefulness, values upon which the country had grown, were passe.  It became an American's patriotic duty--the mark of a good citizen--to buy more stuff.

Of course, with the standard of living rising rapidly, Americans were only too happy to oblige.  Hence, there came about the seminal change from American citizen to American consumer, and the resulting success stories of companies like Montgomery Ward, Sears, A&P, and Ford.

This was also the beginning of the discipline of Marketing, giving Marketeers a simple mission: Get people to buy more stuff. And, for purposes of your year-end bonus calculation, more of our stuff.  (As one of my professors used to say, "marketing is the art of separating a person from his loose change, and getting him to like it.")

For over a century, then, there has been solid alignment between the various "Marketing" job titles and a central job description: Get people to buy as much stuff as possible.

And in most cases today that still holds true.  But it sure feels like change is afoot.

I haven't been in a hotel room in a couple of years that hasn't had a message asking me to use less water and less towels.  It's a sure sign that sustainability is driving Marketeers to have to develop a brand new set of skills: getting us all to use less.

This "Demarketing" (like "defriending") is still in its infancy.  The hotel room sign asking me to use less towels is a begging kind of message that appeals to my good sense and care of the environment.  How quaint.  Conventional Marketing gave up on appealing to our better instincts way back in the 1920s.  Until I see a sign that says "Use less towels and we'll reward you with a free trip to the breakfast buffet," then I'll know Demarketing has not yet come of age.

It means that, perhaps, Marketing has (or needs to have) two separate heads: Evangelizing and DeMarketing.

If we were as good at Demarketing as Evangelizing, for example, we'd have a lot more people commuting by mass transit.  We'd see a lot less bottled water, and probably a lot more brown lawns with dandelions.  We'd be reducing our screen time, not increasing it.  We wouldn't be such an obese nation.  And maybe it wouldn't be so darn hot around here.

Save the planet?  Right.  Save my life?  Sure. Good idea.  But if you want me to use less, or behave better, the American consumer says, then how about some free coupon to Six Flags, or maybe 10,000 more Skymiles?  For a century you've trained me to receive instant gratification if I bend to your Marketing will.  Now you want me to give up something, have less, and my reward is saving the planet?

You're kidding, right?  

There is currently a fantastic opportunity to demarket people away from grocery eggs to purchasing locally.  If Demarketing had all the pedigree and power of Evangelizing, we might expect a real change in habits.

In fact, as we see the limits of our world, we need to get people to change their habits and reduce--sometimes in ways that don't involve a lot of instant gratification.  So, the role of the Marketeer is changing.  One path is Evangelizing, reflecting a century of experience.  The other is something new and different.

It'll be fascinating to see if a discipline steeped in a century of driving "more" can change gears. 

Resident: "There's a bat in my house."  ACO: "Open the door and wait."

Resident: "There's a squirrel in my house." ACO: "Open the door and wait."

Resident: "There's a snake in my house."  ACO: "Call a marriage counselor."

All I know is this: If our Animal Control Officers can do it, our Marketeers have at least a fighting chance.

(*Havahart traps, of course!)

Posted by Entrepreneur Generations

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