The Demise of an Empire, A New Sun Rises
Beyond gold and spices; every kingdom, dynasty, and empire has sought one thing above all: power. Offerings of earth, water, men, and women reinforced a hierarchy in the minds of those fortunate enough to live under the sword with sickle in hand, and reminded them of who was in power.
Power, much like the very tributes offered to those inebriated by it; is an exclusive and finite resource. In order to have more, someone has to have less.
Before, empires were known by the name of the conquering nation; the Mongol, the Ottoman, and the Roman empires represented the epitome of power in their time. Today, empires are known by their corporate name. These contemporary empires continue to follow imperialistic best practices, consolidating power and demanding tribute; no longer in search of earth and water, but rather vast fields of brand real estate and flowing rivers of customers.
Legacy brands have done all within their reach to consolidate and maintain power over the markets. Before the rise of the digital marketing realm, when marketing real estate was physically limited: magazine adverts, primetime spots, billboards, and the likes; aspiring brands had little chance of challenging these empires in the markets. Lined with deep pockets, legacy brands took the lion’s share of media real estate; diverting the rivers to their fields and leaving crumbs out on the table for the rest.
It is said that we now live in a democratized world, the times of offering tribute to a distant crown are long gone along with the rolling heads of feudalism. Free from the pain of parting with the fruits of their labor, a fresh breeze called digital kissed the sweat off of their tired foreheads and dispensed their first taste of freedom.
The computer in-pocket (“smart” phones) allowed the internet to penetrate deeper into our lives, now the internet was with us at all times, no longer bound to the phone jack on the wall. This new frontier, the land of the barbarians, was tamed and colonized by “big tech”, that is to say Father Google and Master Facebook, building the necessary infrastructure for the everyday internaut to casually stroll Main St. and turned it into a powerful resource for business: e.g. “Should I get a webpage?” “How do we use this social media thing?”. Quickly, we discovered that its expanse was limitless, unable to find its boundaries, the digital realm lay infinite: no conquering army large enough to occupy its entirety, no budget large enough to own its expanses like in the physical world. Suddenly, the empire buckled at the knees.
I frequently find myself letting out a sigh of disappointment after I enthusiastically depict a world full of prosperity and freedom, but most importantly, overflowing with purpose; just to hear the 101 reasons to rationalize not venturing out from the restrictive hierarchy and the same two reasons to validate blind complaisance to an imposed and antiquated agreement: you create innovative solutions and I capitalize on the opportunity.
To a certain degree, we can comprehend the fear of venturing out of the traditional value chain structure; each link fulfilling a definitive function to produce consumer goods. To a certain degree, we can comprehend the fear of not knowing how to perform the other tasks along the value chain like marketing and distributing products directly to consumers. Without a sliver of a doubt, we can comprehend this fear twenty years ago, when in order to successfully promote a product you needed adverts in the hottest magazines, rent out billboards around the busiest parts of town, purchase spots during prime time; in order to distribute your products you needed a fleet of trucks, acquire the necessary insurance coverage and permits as well as qualified drivers, and a customer satisfaction department to manage orders. A very well grounded fear in a time when it was impossible to reach hundreds of thousands of potential customers, manage inventory, payments and shipping with a few clicks.
Today, breaking out of the traditional mold and restructuring business models doesn’t carry the same risks that it did a couple of decades ago; we have much more freedom to test markets and products with minimal capital and scale accordingly when we strike a winning market-product match.
Albeit, this type of freedom and prosperity has its price; the price of talking with our consumers. The price of building and marketing our brand.
Some have told me: “I save that sort of money by simply being a supplier and having somebody else absorb the costs and worry about distributing and selling.”
The one billion dollar question is: “Are we in the business of saving money, or are we in the business of making money?”
The time has come to drop the shackles that have given us a steely cold sense of security for the last decades, lay a stake in the ground claiming our brand’s real estate; and finally, taking our share of power.
And with it, find the freedom to pursue our purpose.
