Old School
Many of us are old enough to remember a time before the Internet ruled the marketing world. A few years ago, Dean wrote a book on Tourism Marketing and a chapter in that book was called Old School.
The idea was that you should keep an open mind about traditional media. Today, many younger marketeers derisively refer to traditional media as “Old Media”. Yes, it is true that newspapers have been around since the Gutenberg Press, perhaps there is a reason for that longevity.
The truth is that older media doesn’t die when replaced by new platforms. Think of it like an onion: peel back a layer and you’ll discover more underneath… much the same as what can be seen from outside.
Think about this: word of mouth was the very first form of marketing. When signage came along, did word of mouth die? When radio became prime, did newsprint die? Why not? Why would anyone read a newspaper when you could get up to the minute news on a wireless right in your parlor?
Would anyone bother advertising in the newspaper if they no longer worked? Yes, today newspapers are under stress, but like radio, they will adapt once a new formula is found. Why? Because there is still money to be made advertising in the newspapers. We no longer listen to hour-long dramas on the radio and Craig’s List is bringing great harm to newspapers.
Change is, and will continue to be, the constant. What is not normal is to see one form of communication destroy the prior. The Internet will destroy nothing and is simply the next layer in the onion.
The message here is that you should not be afraid to try new things. Despite the old media slander, the truth is that the single most persuasive media is television. If you need to fill up a parking lot this weekend, television is the answer with radio coming in a close second.
Notice we didn’t recommend that you run out and make a flight buy for TV spots. The point here is that so much of marketing, including this video series, is so focused on Internet campaigns that it becomes easy to be myopic and miss real opportunities.
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