Search threatens theory, practice of traditional marketing: SES keynoter

By Giselle Abramovich

December 5, 2007

Don E. Schultz professor at Northwestern University and president of Agora Inc

CHICAGO – R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Search is challenged by traditional marketing management and a lack of respect, according to the keynoter at the Search Engine Strategies Conference and Exhibition held at the Chicago Hilton.

That assessment came from Don E. Schultz, professor of integrated marketing communications at Northwestern University and president of Agora Inc.

“There is little search theory,” Mr. Schultz said. “Most expertise is built on experience and actual practice. Search threatens the theory and practice of traditional marketing because it reverses everything.”

He said that marketing was always thought of as pushing out messages to the consumer, in hopes that someone would end up buying. Search changes all of that. It is consumer-driven. The consumer is the one pushing the message out, changing the role of the marketer.

With search the responsibility of the marketer is to respond, rather than base its efforts on an outbound model that everyone has come to know.

“Search is a reverse, a change of roles,” Mr. Schultz said. “And guess what? People don’t like that. People like what they are used to and that’s behaviorist psychological assumptions otherwise known as traditional marketing.”

However, so much clutter has been created that consumers have begun to find ways to shut it all out because it isn’t relevant to them. An example is TiVo, which allows users to fast-forward through commercials.

“Search is relevant,” Mr. Schultz said. “But how does one go from pushing out to pulling in?”

The answer is a system where the consumers have the control, not marketers. The answer is a customer-controlled communication system that “just drives traditional marketers crazy.”

But how does a company do that?

Go from static to dynamic first, Mr. Schultz said.

“Stop putting out the same thing everyone else has already done in hopes that someone will listen,” he said. “Be the one that listens. Listen to what your consumer wants and needs.”

Marketers also need to develop networks and not linear models.

Mr. Schultz said it is very important to build brand equity and think of marketing as media consumption and not distribution.

“Understand that customers control the media systems,” he said. “It’s a transition that must occur and marketers need to remember to provide solutions, information, value and access.”