I have an ongoing war going on ... with ants. For some reason the hills where we live are popular with ants and it is very difficult to get rid of them. I have tried all the tricks, including the removal of food sources (they still find food and trying to keep it away only inconveniences me), poisoning their popular tracks (only works for a short while), poisoning their nests (works longer, but in time they just come back stronger). The problem is, ants leave a phemorone trail that we can't see. It gets reinforced as other ants confirm the merits of the lead and it gets redirected if the route is blocked or disrupted. They are very organised creatures.
Their tactics remind me a lot of modern day advertising. As soon as someone cottons on to a good advertising channel, they lift their heads and chug along with merry amusement written all over their faces, their arms laden with the spoils. Their excitement leaves an invisible trail of enthusiasm or success or whatever it is, which others soon discover .. .before you know it, there is a gold rush as tens, then hundreds, then thousands start to use the channel and exploit its rich pickings.
That is when the fly spray or ant poison comes out. Consumers, quickly irked by the irritation and the abuse that advertising almost always becomes, start to counter-attack. They first try to cut themselves off in the hopes that enough cut-offs will cool the ardour of the passionate marketers out there ... but they are not to be underestimated. As soon as we counter-attack, they shift tactics. Then channel managers attack by putting in software controls and filters. When that fails the government then attacks the nest with legislation.
Then just as it would seem that the battle is lost, they change course and follow a new direction to open up new marketing channels. Then the entire cycle starts again. Unfortunately for the consumer, it normally results in the ants coming on stronger. They learn from failure and reengage with increasing vigour.
In the process, marketers have quietly used sleight of hand to build less subtle channels that are becoming quite pervasive. I think of billboards, internet ads and more subliminal editorial advertising. I am not fundamentally opposed to their passion, because we all have to live. I also doubt whether you can beat them, so maybe you may have to join them.
Join them? What a thought. Can we beat the advertising scourge by actually being part of it? Well maybe yes. Consider that if those channels work so well for free enterprise and if entrepreneurship also guarantees that those highways of commerce will be stay open and if the world is shifting from print or visual media to more universally accessible internet-based marketing, then why is the church so reluctant to engage what Paul would gladly have called an "if by any means they might be saved" phenomenon?
Women have taken to networking well. It is intuitive to them. They have been networking since the dawn of time. But many guys are still in their caves, because they are so uncomfortable with networking. To them let me say, that if we don't harness this beast, many of us will be marginalised by the march of progress.
Modern selling and trading is also facilitated by networking. Good networking is also the best antidote to abusive marketing, so those who do it well will take markets away from advertisers. The real deal-breaker is that many small business owners now tell me that advertising is a waste of money, but networking works and is sustainable, because it trades on the most enduring of all human currencies ... relationships.
(c) Peter Eleazar at www.4u2live.net
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