I was given some pencils the other day, they're Royal Institute of British Architecture pencils and they've got "This pencil is made from recycled video cassettes" on them. My mousemat is made from a recycled tyre - it seems everything today was something else yesterday. But the pencils have really hit me. We're living in such a fast-paced multimedia 3.0 world that yesterday's video cassettes are today's pencils. I remember video cassettes fondly, it was only 7 years ago that I spent endless Saturdays in Music Zone buying £3 videos. It seems that today, both 'Music Zone' and 'Video' have been consigned to the annals of history.
The world is getting faster and faster and it's a sign of our technological advancement fuelling as well as serving consumer need. As this cycle quickens, so does our consumption. Here today, gone tomorrow, NEXT! mentality prevails. I know that the world has grown and advanced more in the past 50 years than it has the last 500 (something like that anyway), and that is quite amazing. Is there going to be a point when we will be writing with some sort of retinal space magnets made out of recycled RIBA pencils?
So what can brands do in this changing landscape? It's important for brands to stay ahead of the game and anticipate change. Once the seeds of the demise of coloured pens and pencils have been planted, Crayola should be one step ahead and apply its equity creatively into the latest area its field is headed, ideally pioneering that step change. This isn't always the case for all brands and they crumble. But as the world gets faster, brands are going to have to be more alert and agile than ever before.
What can brands do?
Adapt.
Some key observers believe that the exponential rate of technological advance will steepen until it is *vertical. They call this the point of *singularity - and expect it to happen in the first half of this century. If it does happen brands & marketing will become completely irrelevant (along with many other things, along the way) - until then, we muddle along & try to stay ahead of the accelerating curve.
Louise Kennedy
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Member since: 03 Jun 2008
Last login: 06 Nov 2009
Total Posts: 94
