In the 1980s, advertising and marketing was all gut and feel and there was little quantitative back up. It worked. There were less number of products. The media options were limited. The pace of life was slow. The consumers were easily satisfied.

In the early 1990s, we came across the word clutter. Computerisation was adopted. Mass media proliferated. There were multiple satellite channels. Brands galore. Markets were competitive. There was globalisation. Traditional marketing and advertising was stretched to a breaking point. There was advice on breaking the clutter.

Internet revolutionised the whole scene. The whole world  changed. E-commerce and e-tailing, new methods of payments, mobile telephony and social media all descended on us in quick succession. It was not a downpour, it was a deluge. It was a deluge of information — a mass distraction hither to unheard in human history.

Prior to the advent of internet, advertising was already disrupted by bifurcating itself into distinct creative and buying functions. WPP  and its clones focused on media planning and buying. All this was highly quantitative and optimisation models were the order of the day.

Creative agencies did design highly creative campaigns but the dissemination of such communication became the sole preserve of the media agencies. These agencies worked out the targeting (of messages to audiences ), how efficiently the audiences could be reached and how media buying could be done in bulk so as to extract the best and lowest prices for the clients from the media owners.

This brave new world of the last 30 years has new challenges. It is necessary to keep the brands alive. Consumption is the king and brands unite the consumers. Despite the clutter, consumers spot what they want. They spread the word. They in fact own the brands. They market them. Social media facilitates this consumer-driven marketing.

Even today, marketing cannot sell a bad product. The challenge is not marketing but product management. The product should be so compelling that marketing and selling are rendered superfluous. The job of marketing is to inform the consumers that what you need exists. This should be done in as exciting a way as possible.