Marketing to the Zeitgeist

Two years ago, I wrote a couple of posts in this blog where I discussed the new principles of Marketing that the readers should look for in order to spot products and companies with potential to become lucrative investments. These articles where "Cracking the consumer code" and "Consumer values to look for". The practices and values these posts refer to remain as valid today as they were two years ago. However, there's more to the story. It's not only the way to do marketing what is changing, but fundamentally, the very nature of branding itself and what brands today need to represent for the consumers. I even submit that venerable and seemingly sound concepts like 'target consumer' are, at best, outdated if not outright archaic.

As I continued studying today's consumers' values and the brands that have done the best job in becoming uniquely relevant to them, I coined a concept that I think captures and explains the distinctive marketing approach that separates the brands that are destined to endure the test of time, versus those that will likely fizzle as quickly and soundly as they once grew. I call the concept Marketing to the Zeitgeist. The following diagram explains it in a historical context. It's meant to represent how marketing and branding thinking has evolved through time, and how the required new thinking for today is that, in order to thrive and survive, brands need to embrace and stand for elements of the zeitgeist, or 'the spirit of the times'. I will elaborate on this in my next post.