The Promise of the Book

The introduction of the book suggests the "marketers" (whoever "they" are), are unable to keep up with the consumer and technological changes that brands face today.

I agree.

What's worse is that as an academic that has taught e-commerce for what is now the 10th year, I have to admit that for the most part "we" (i.e. academics) are further behind.

It's not that I don't try to keep up. I tweet, facebook, blog, text YouTube (is it OK to use these nouns in a verb tense?), and so on. But I still have a hard time even keeping my website updated. It's simply too much.

So, I don't blame "marketers" for being behind (and I don't think it's just Madison Ave (p. xiv), since almost everybody else is too.

Perhaps the way to keep up is a new form of organization. I rely on my TAs to bail me out, students who have deep knowledge of a technique that eludes me, a host of really smart guest speakers to talk about the topics that I simply cannot know everything about, and books like The On-Demand Brand to try to bring some sense to it all. The need to find some organization is somewhat akin to Bedecarre's quote (p. xv), "...you need to have software engineers and technology people as part of the creative team...." Yeah, we do need to think broader if we are going to operate in this world that is now networked via the internet as much as it is networked through personal connections.

So, 10 rules provide an approach to make a brand be "on-demand." It's a pretty steep promise given that Mathieson is building his foundation on the same shifting sand that has created the chaos that he presumes to provide directions to navigate. But all the same, in my first reading of the book, it makes sense--or at least it seems to do what it portends: link marketing and technology change in a way that is useful to marketers.