Facebook in Beta circa 1517

In these  times of abundance of marketing “stuff”, bloggs, video content, on line advice and templates, what  we are missing is a deep intellectual understanding of the marketing process.

The tools have changed, but at its core, human behavior has not. We are still motivated by the same things our parents, and their parents were motivated by, it is just that the frills are a different color, and are in different places.

The first modern advertising man was the dodgy monk who first used Guttenberg‘s new fangled printing device to print church Indulgences, effectively  forgiveness for sale, around 1439, leading to Martins Luther‘s 1517 nailing of the “95 Thesis” on the local, Beta version of facebook, the church door.

400 yeas later, enterprising newssheet vendors realised that their readers were a market that sellers of a range of products were prepared to pay to reach, and modern advertising was born, and honed by the Madmen, so beautifully exemplified by Don Draper.

Now we have all this internet stuff bombarding us day and night,  and we seem to have forgotten the basic rule of communication:

The receiver has to do something with the message you send before it is communication. 

The tools have changed, the drivers of behavior have not.