CHICAGO — Much of the success of the Web is based on its newness, and successful marketers will need to be prepared when that changes, according to Bill Toliver, managing director at Think New Ideas Inc., Seattle. Toliver spoke to direct marketers on Friday at DM Days 2000, sponsored by the Chicago Association of Direct Marketing.
“Homegrocer.com, like a lot of other dot-coms out there are getting a massive amount of leverage over their dot-coms, but in five years time — heck, in two years time — when I think about Homegrocer.com, they better have really done a good job on the home grocer side because the dot-com of that is a novelty,” he said.
When the novelty of the Web wears off, marketers’ success on the Internet will rely on their ability to recognize and respond to the fact that consumers make purchasing decisions based on their value systems, Toliver said, and added that trademarks will become trust marks. For example, Harley-Davidson owners’ demographics can be strikingly different. On one hand, there’s the “vagabond full of tattoos” and on the other hand is the lawyer who “has more discretionary income than God” looking for a new hobby. But a sense of rebellion is what ties the two owners together.
“A Harley owner in Frankfurt, Germany, has more in common in Fresno, CA, than [he does] with even [his] next-door neighbor,” he said. “There’s no communication of Harley-Davidson of any kind that does not reflect that, does not show that.”
