Hugh MacLeod describes the gap in thinking between traditional marketers and the new breed busy “open sourcing” their operations.
The Stormhoek boys were having a meeting with one of their largest customers, a UK supermarket chain.
After a long presentation explaining what they were trying to do with the blogosphere, an exec at the supermarket called it nothing more than “Chatroom Rubbish”.
The guy obviously doesn’t get it. So they sent him a paperback copy of The Cluetrain in the hope that it provides him some food for thought.
In supermarkets, everything is a commodity- the management, the products, the customers, the suppliers, the employees, and of course, the supermarket itself.
It’s interesting to me that a exec in a commodity business would describe conversations between people who spend money in their stores as “Chatroom Rubbish”.
Interesting, but not surprising.
