Sono ammirato dalla lucida visionarietà di Christopher Locke. Mi chiedo se non debba essere lettura obbligatoria nei corsi di marketing.
“Business created mass markets through broadcast advertising, the same stentorian voice of command-and-control it used on workers, but in this case applied to the marketplace. “Shut up and do what you’re told” is not that much different a proposition from “shut up and buy our product.” The “shut up” part was built in to broadcast, as there was never any back-channel — never a way to ask questions. The 30-second jive-and-jingle TV spot was never an invitation to converse.
The Internet brings something different into the world. It has connected people person-to-person, and the people so connected are today talking among each other about things they truly value. People are telling stories. With the advent of the Internet, markets have again become open, unconstrained conversations. Free talk. And the best conversations, the ones people gravitate toward, are based on stories. If the pitch is the epitome of broadcast, the story embodies the essential character of the Web. Stories, like conversations, don’t have targets, fixed goals, Q2 objectives. They circumambulate their subjects. They explore. They don’t have mission statements.