Marketers, Tear Down These Walls

We change our identities faster than a chameleon changes color. On Monday, you may be a Hugo Boss suit-wearing salaryman who listens to Adele, reads The Wall Street Journal, quaffs a greasy burger for lunch, and tunes in to Fox News. Come Saturday, out come the tats from underneath the starched collar, you ditch the suit for a Kid Dangerous tee and Vans kicks, you down a tuna poké with a craft beer, and listen to Imagine Dragons while you check out the latest issue of High Times.

Just what lifestyle category do you belong to? Good luck to the marketer who tries to describe you. Today’s postmodern consumer defies categorization – sometimes deliberately. S/he yearns to be liberated from cubicles, labels, “market segments,” and especially those confining walls that restrict him or her from expressing the unique self that’s constructed out of all the lifestyle “raw materials” that marketers of many stripes have to offer.

The postmodern revolution requires marketers to revisit the walls they’ve erected over many years. That’s not an easy thing to do. Conventional marketing strategies are built upon predictability, stability and the comfort in knowing that we can “understand” our customer yesterday, today and tomorrow. We love to put people into categories, and often into super-neat dichotomies – and call it a day. Those walls used to be solid, and marketers relied upon them to build a structure that formed the basis of their traditional strategic worldview. But now many of these walls are crumbling – and fast. They are like safety hazards that threaten successful brands from thriving in the postmodern revolution. And, they obstruct our view of the marketing possibilities that lie beyond them.

In this book, I’ll describe many familiar walls that form the bedrock of marketing strategy and thought today. Then I’ll demolish them. Here are the walls that no longer exist, in convenient alphabetical order:

Arts vs. Crafts

Black vs. White

Body vs. Belongings

Editorial vs. Commercial

Elite vs. the masses

Fake vs. Authentic

Friend vs. Stranger

High art vs. Low art

Home vs. Office

Humans vs. Computers

In here vs. Out there

Kids vs. Teens

Male vs. Female

Me vs. Them

Me vs. We

Offline vs. Online

Old vs. Mature

Owning vs. Leasing

Parent vs. Friend

Producer vs. Consumer

Reality vs. Fantasy

Reality vs. Mythology

Retailers vs. Customers

Sacred vs. Profane

Service providers vs. Consumers

Then vs. Now

Us vs. Them

Work vs. Play

Young vs. Old