How marketing can delay the digital disruption in your industry
The music industry died due to digital
The music industry almost died due to not adapting and adopting the change imposed by digital technology.
During the nineties home computers were capable of producing quality music and after 2000 the Internet gave people the channel to distribute music at a low cost.
The newspaper missed the Internet
The newspaper industry is dying due to all the blogging and the available free content – even in real-time – on the Internet.
The Internet gave people the possibility to blog and micro-blog creating quality or specific content. The Internet is both production apparatus and the distribution channel.
TV broadcasting industry could be the next prey
The next industry is probably the TV broadcasting as more and more people are switching over to streaming video content from YouTube, Vimeo and others. For the consumers is has the advantage of on-demand content instead of sequential content to wait for.
Additionally the TV industry model is nearly completely dependent from advertising which can flip over to any other medium almost instantly.
The movie industry is an experienced survivor
The movie industry is already a survivor as it survived the TV competition during almost 50 years.
The movie industry is doing its’ utmost by proposing 3D movies that give audiences a new experience (with the hurdle of the goggles).
3D movies make it harder to download over the Internet due to the larger volume of data and the difficulty of creating the same experience in the living-room. Even though 3D TV sets are coming to your home soon too.
In the movie industry a phenomenon like Paranormal Activity has shown the production apparatus can be owned by anybody due to the low cost of equipment (<$1,000) and making a low budget movie ($15,000)
Still Oren Peli needed the marketing power and the money of Paramount Pictures for the marketing and distribution of the movie.
It is clear the movie industry still has some time to keep on going and they have a plan: 3D that seems successful.
The Internet changes industries: your industry too
Each of these industries (except the Movie industry) have collapsed or are collapsing due to the change in the ownership of the production apparatus and the distribution channel: from a controlled environment to the open market of the Internet where anyone can compete.
Many services and systems will be replaced by online systems using the Internet as the channel for both access and distribution.
The Internet will cause disruptions in many industries.
Your industry too can become under threat one day.
Maybe your production process will not be under threat, but the distribution, the marketing, the sales process, the customer service or the administration will be.
Your competitors could just take advantage of the Internet in one way or another, making your company old fashioned and obsolete.
Marketing can delay the threat
Marketing is best placed to use messaging for delaying the digital disruption by:
- Claiming quality compared to the Internet offerings
- Personal service instead of an automated service
- Appropriate or suiting products or services instead of generic solutions
- Creating fear: fear of the unknown, fear of lacking security, fear of less quality
Fear will probably have the biggest effect and last the longest as it relies on subjectiveness and is in most cases intangible.
Although marketing can delay the threat, eventually marketing will not be able to circumvent it as the Internet will also step into your industry and impose changes.
How big are the digital challenges for your industry ?
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