

I am a Visual Merchandiser fascinated by both marketing and interior design.
…obs. Klein’s harsh critique of advertising as addictively manipulative was echoed 16 years later by Tim Wu, whose book The Attention Merchants argues that by demanding their content be “free” and refusing to pay subscriptions or micropayments…
Of course, the issues raised by this controversy were broader than just rebates. Is advertising a relationship business, where accounts are won and lost on the golf course and over three-martini lunches, as had been caricatured for decades? Or is it a creative business, where consumers’ hearts and minds are captured by big, original ideas articulated with aesthetic brilliance, as the doyens of the Creative Revolution claimed? Or is it, increasingly, a science, in which leadership will gravitate to those who can capture and analyze the most data, as Silicon Valley and its digital gurus claim?
In the future, as the very definition of a customer evolves, some companies will need to consider that a customer could also be a thing (refrigerator, piece of machinery, chatbot, etc.) or even a place (household, automobile, hotel). Gartner predicts that by 2018, 6 billion connected things will be requesting support. Think about it this way: Soon your automobile will not only be able to let you know it needs its oil changed, but it could also drive itself to the local auto mechanic to get it done — while you are working. Today, your smart appliances can reorder supplies when needed, like your washing machine knowing it has done 25 loads and needs more laundry detergent, or your air conditioner knowing it has been 90 days since you replaced the filter. While in these examples the machines are still serving people, this changes the business-customer relationship in a profound way.