Brands that Worship at the Altar of the Past Will Fade into Irrelevance
In 1955, an American advertising executive named Rosser Reeves came up with a simple but powerful idea: the Unique Selling Proposition (USP).
If a brand could just distil itself down to a single compelling message, it would be irresistible to the consumer.
The model worked brilliantly in a world where audiences sat passively in front of their televisions, consuming whatever was broadcast their way.
But that world no longer exists.
Today, the idea of a ‘consumer’ itself is outdated.
We are not just buyers—we are creators, critics, influencers, and micro-entrepreneurs.
The internet has granted us god-like power, reshaping the way brands must communicate.
The companies that fail to understand this shift—those that still see people as passive receivers of advertising—are already dead.
They just don’t know it yet.
This is the first of five seismic shifts reshaping marketing, a transformation eloquently captured by renowned author, speaker and advisor, Rishad Tobaccowala, in his insights on the evolving consumer landscape.
Let’s break them down.
1. From Consumers to Gods
For decades, brands have seen people as ‘consumers’—a faceless mass to be targeted, segmented, and converted.
But people do not define themselves by the products they buy.
A detergent company may sell the best stain remover on the market, but no one wakes up in the morning thinking, ‘I am a warrior against dirt.’
In reality, people wield enormous power.
They decide what gets seen and shared, they create their own content, and they dictate what matters.
Influencers now command larger audiences than mainstream media outlets.
Marketing is no longer about crafting a brand message—it’s about learning to respond to what people are already saying.
2. The Brand is Dead. Long Live the Experience.
There was a time when brands were built through advertising alone.
Not anymore.
Today, people trust experiences over slogans, employees over executives, and action over words.
Jeff Bezos famously said that Amazon focuses 70% of its energy on product and service, and only 30% on marketing.
The result?
A brand that is an experience, not just a logo.
In an era of AI-generated content and deep-fakes, trust is the new currency.
A brand must be a trust mark, standing for something real and consistent in a world where digital deception is becoming the norm.
3. Content: The Answer Economy Has Arrived
The old internet was an information economy: you searched, you clicked, and you waded through endless pages of text to find what you needed.
The new internet—powered by AI—demands something different.
People don’t want more content.
They want answers.
AI-driven search, chatbots, and conversational interfaces are already transforming how people interact with brands.
The most successful companies will not just create content; they will anticipate and deliver the precise answers people are looking for before they even ask.
4. Data is the New Electricity—But It’s Useless Without Meaning
Companies have spent years hoarding data, believing it to be their golden ticket to success.
But if 90% of the world’s data has been created in the last two years, most companies are drowning in a swamp of digital junk.
Real success comes not from collecting data but from understanding it.
Data must be:
Quality-driven: A swamp is not a lake. Clean data matters more than big data.
Real-time: Ownership is less important than access.
Meaningful: Algorithms are biased reflections of their creators. Data is not knowledge—it is raw material that needs human insight.
Connected: Apple’s obsession with privacy has ironically slowed its progress in AI, while Meta thrives on data interconnectedness. No brand is an island.
5. The Schizophrenic Company Wins
In the 1990s, Intel’s CEO Andy Grove declared, “Only the paranoid survive.”
But paranoia breeds isolation, and isolation leads to irrelevance.
Today, the best companies don’t just fear change—they embrace schizophrenia.
A modern business must run on two tracks simultaneously:
One team optimising today’s revenue streams.
Another team—free from the baggage of legacy structures—disrupting everything, even if it cannibalises existing products.
Companies that cling to old models will wither.
Those that rethink their entire existence will thrive.
Marketing’s New Operating System
The future of marketing cannot be built using the tools of the past.
AI will soon handle the mechanics of targeting and optimisation, rendering the traditional marketer’s job redundant.
The real challenge is higher-order thinking: understanding human behaviour, crafting unforgettable experiences, and anticipating needs before they arise.
For decades, brands controlled the message.
Today, the gods—formerly known as consumers—have taken the reins.
Rishad Tobaccowala has long argued that marketing must evolve from outdated frameworks into a people-centric, experience-driven model.
The companies that worship at the altar of the past will fade into irrelevance.
