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7 Things That Are Not Dead

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“Marketing is dead.”

“Brand loyalty is dead.”

“TV is dead.”

It feels ballsy to proclaim something dead. It’s a prelude that makes uninteresting regurgitations of pop-marketing, slightly more bearable.

Starting an article with “________ is dead.” makes you feel like ‘The Ancient One’ from the Dr. Strange. Trust me, I just did.

Fanart

Ancient One fanart by @ymhuang_illos. For those of you are not familiar with the character, she’s a centuries-old master of mystical arts with the ability to bend time and space.

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    I’m ready to bet anything that you’ve encountered someone that has claimed something to be dead. Maybe you have done it. I’ve certainly done it when I was younger and stupider.

    Anyway, here’s a list of 7 things that are not dead.

    1. Brand loyalty is not dead

    Credit: Applied Brand Science Blog

    People don’t care about brands the way marketers think they do. That shouldn’t be misinterpreted as the death of loyalty. Loyalty is, for the most part, insignificant. But no. Not dead.

    2. TV is not dead

    Nope. Not dead.

    Source: TechCrunch, 2020 data

    However, there is a minority who don’t watch broadcast television. I own a TV. But I don’t have a subscription for broadcast or network tv services. I can imagine a world where everyone can go about life without access to broadcast TV. But that doesn’t mean TV is dead. If at all, it means that TV is dead to me.

    3. Mass marketing is not dead

    This is a popular myth that the modern digital ‘gurus’ propagate. There are significant long and short term gains to be had from mass marketing.

    Source: Towards Data Science blog

    Instead of saying ‘“mass marketing is dead”, say “higher creative commitment leads to higher marketing effectiveness”. That is, higher the number of channels you invest in, the better your marketing effectiveness is.

    Mass marketing is not dead. But we’re killing creative commitment. Source: Peter Field and James Hurman, The Effectiveness Code by Cannes Lions and Warc.

    4. Facebook is not dead.

    “Facebook is dead” is the digital marketing alternative to “TV is dead”.

    Still the most used Social Media Network in the world. Source: Statista

    Facebook is reaching maturity. According to Statista, it’s grown by 19% since 2019. In terms of growth, the platform is in 4th place. And that’s a good thing (for Facebook). Investing in Facebook marketing is still a good idea.

    At this point, I want to remind you that this is not a evaluation of the relative good/bad of the channel.

    For reasons I’ve mentioned here, don’t listen to people when they say these next three things are dead. They are not.

    5. Advertising is not dead.

    6. SEO is not dead.

    7. Account planning is not dead.

    It is not easy to kill these things. Death of these things would mean that people change the way they behave drastically. But we are creatures of habit. And changing habits take longer than we would like to admit.

    Think about me when you come across the next article about something being dead.

    Have I missed anything? Comment below.


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