Date: 2009
I’m the CEO, and one of the founders of Ascentium: a 600 person, $100M mixed marketing and technology agency1 that we started in 2001. We’re one of the bigger independently owned agencies, and we have grown very quickly, at from 60-100% per year.
Someone asked me a question about two years ago, when I described the depth and duration of this economy, and what it would do to the agency world. I described the failure of the trial and error method of advertising on the web. The drop in funding for media. The general economic conditions and what that did to buyers. That question was “If we aren’t marketing the way we should, then what should we do instead?”.
I just didn’t have a clear enough answer. And I decided to do something about it.
For the past year, I have been working on a way of looking at advertising and marketing. I’m calling it a Pure Theory of Marketing. It’s a little different way of looking at the world. But then, our world is different enough that we need a new way of looking at it. Not just at our tools and channels, but at what it is we’re saying to people, and how we say it. And we need to understand WHY so we know WHAT it is we should be doing instead, and why it will work.
And I started this blog to talk about it with whomever will listen.
Of course, I’m putting out a book, because, that is what one does for legitimacy in the current environment. But a book is not citizen of the web, despite the web’s effect on the citizens and book industry. It’s static. It doesn’t change quickly. It cant be revised. It isn’t a dialog. (You know some of the great philosophers didn’t write much down, and they walked and talked instead for a reason.) I’m a citizen of the web. Our business is a web-business. The world still changes too quickly for print. Blogging is so much more rewarding if you appreciate discussion.
Marketers pride themselves on building a wide audience. On appealing to many people. But that’s not what I’m trying to do. And I couldn’t if I tried. Instead, I want to reach CMO’s, CEO’s, Senior Agency talent, and frankly our own talent, and that talent that might want to join us. And I want to help people understand the future of 1-to-1 marketing, as something very different from the era of big media.
We’re in a new and different world. And it’s a better one, if you know how to make use of it.
- Think Razorfish — except they’re owned by Microsoft, and we aren’t, and we predominantly use Microsoft technology, and they don’t; a fact we find somewhat humorous at all three companies. [↩]
From: www.puretheoryofmarketing.com (offline)
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