‘Humaning’ and the promise of a vaccine: Your Marketing Week
At the end of every week, I look at the key stories, offering my view on what they mean for you and the industry. From Mondelēz’s reinvention of marketing to what a potential vaccine could mean for struggling brands, it’s been a busy week. Here’s my take.
The human league
The latest contender for the most ridiculous reinvention of marketing ever came last week via Mondelēz. It’s now time, according to the chocolate and snacks maker, to stop marketing and start ‘humaning’.
Summarising quite what the made-up verb means isn’t easy. It suffers under scrutiny but it seems the company wants to make a better fist of connecting, you know, with humans.
To my mind, it’s also an exercise in denial. Marketing is, at its core, an exercise in identifying and satisfying customer needs and doing so in a way that generates profit. It’s something consumer goods companies like Mondelēz and its component parts used to do very well without the need for humaning.