Marketing Strategies for the New Economy

It is now quite a few years ago that several newspapers across the world described an interesting study, which showed that households in the developed world typically had 60-120 electromotors. Most people who read those articles were probably a bit surprised: 60-120 electromotors seemed a lot, particularly when you considered that most people have probably never actually walked into a shop and asked for an electromotor. 'Yes Sir, we have a special offer this week. You can get 12 electromotors for the price of 10.' Never happened.
But check it out for yourself, and you will probably find that this (now old) information was credible after all. Wrist watches, hi-fi equipment, alarm clocks, electric toothbrushes, fridges, VCRs, camcorders, etc. They all had electromotors. Most readers of this book probably have more than 200 by now.
Electricity is a way of moving energy. It was utilized initially to provide power to factories, but it didn't take long before smart people thought of taking it into private homes. Many business executives originally thought that only wealthy households would have electricity, and that the power lines would lead into a single, central machine in each house, which you could use for different purposes. The Sears Roebuck catalogue featured, for instance, such a central 'home motor' in 1918. That's not what we got, though. The power lines went into the households all right (wealthy or not), but then into every second room, and then every room, and then to several plugs in each room. And we guess that's how we ended up with 60-120 (or 200) electromotors in a household, powered by power lines, solar panels, batteries and a host of other ways.

So why do we find this so interesting? Because we believe the same will happen to the Internet and other online networking. The Internet will be available via wire lines, cable, terrestrial wireless, satellite and mobile phone networks. Data will flow as freely as electricity. No: it will flow more freely, since we can transmit data through air and space, while our power supply can travel only over physical wires. The Internet will be an integral part of our lives whether we get the content in current form (streaming) or stored form (cached or saved).
We believe that one day, perhaps 20 years from now, we will read in the newspaper that every household has 60-120 (or 200) Internet connected devices, and then we will show our children an old, dusty book that we wrote for John Wiley & Sons back in 2001. 'See, kids. We knew that we would get Internet anywhere!' (Perhaps 40 years from now it might be our 200 computers that discuss the newspaper while we are hiding from them in the cellar. But that's another story).

The Internet is a way of moving data. This book is about how this ever present flow of data to all these connected devices is changing the rules of marketing. We don't assume they will change all the rules, of course, and there are probably a few industries where they will have very little impact, if any. But many rules are changing, some in a dramatic way. What we are describing in this book is the new marketing paradigm evolving in a connected world, where branding, intellectual capital and time to market are the keys to success.
- Lars Tvede & Peter Ohnemus, Zug, Switzerland

Lars Tvede holds a Master's degree in Engineering and a Bachelor's degree in International Commerce. He spent 11 years in investment banking before moving to the high-tech and telecommunications industries in the mid 1990s. In 1996 he co-founded The Fantastic Corporation, a broadband software company that was taken public on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange by Goldman Sachs less than three years after its foundation. Lars Tvede has also been a seed investor in other successful high-tech / new media start-ups, and sits on the board of several of these. Previous book titles written by Tvede include: International Marketing Planning. The Psychology of Finance, Business Cycles - from John Law to the Internet Boom and Data Broadcasting - the Technology and the Business. He is a frequent speaker at international congresses on broadband, new media and convergence. Peter Ohnemus is one of Europe's most successful new economy entrepreneurs. He has been part of four different start-ups that made their way to the IPO-COS, Sybase, Logic Works and The Fantastic Corporation, where he is co-founder and Vice Chairman. He also works closely with standards bodies, universities and research institutes around the world to drive the development of broadband multimedia. In 1999 he was awarded Entrepreneur of the Year' of Switzerland. Peter Ohnemus is a frequent commentator in trade and business press as well as on television. He currently sits on various boards, including Rothschilds Bank, CommerceOne, Go4Equity.com, Remote-1, MediaGateway and Fantastic.

Introduction; Beginnings; Technology; Time; Value; The Digital School; The Essence; Appendix A: Cooperation Possibilities in a Networked Ecosystem; Appendix B: End-User Segmentation Criteria; Appendix C: Important Field Research Methods; Appendix D: Input from the Marketing Audit to the Strategic Marketing Plan; Appendix E: Marketing Control Methods; Appendix F: Information Input for the Marketing Audit; Appendix G: Leading Marketing Schools; Appendix H: Sources on Traditional Marketing Schools; Appendix I: Sources on the Digital School of Marketing; Index.