A Message to Marketers: Learn how to sail !

Steve Rubel has a perfectly fitting metaphor for the situation a lot of marketers are in today:

With consumers pumping oodles of content onto the Web, marketers have already lost control of their brands whether they like or not. They need to deal.

Marketing today is much more like sailing than driving. Your boat is the brand. If you point your boat in the right direction, follow the winds/currents and steer, you will get the boat to go where you want it. Marketers should become the wind, but accept that they're at the mercy of the currents and weather. Word of mouth marketing, when done right, is the wind.

Well, I would say, word of mouth is always the wind - no matter if it is done right or not. But with their marketing activities, companies can decide if this wind wrecks their boats or brings them efficiently where they want them to be.

And just in case you need another reason - besides customers are in control now - for marketers to care about sailing instead of driving around in these big motorboats, they are used to, here it is...

The amount of money you need today to power an "ad-fueled" speed boat is much higher than what it was years ago. At the same time, the mileage you get out of this has dropped significantly.But if your company still has unlimited budgets and doesn't have to care about cost efficiency: great - start your engines.

If not, you better learn how to set sails...