The New England Direct Marketing Association just concluded its annual conference, which was held in a suburb of Boston. The conference’s theme was “What's Next?” One well-lubricated attendee suggested, a bit too loudly, “The Red Sox will blow the World Series again.”
My sympathies to his next of kin.
If one is willing to sidestep baseball, it becomes a considerably safer question. Hints to the answer are found by considering what has caused the biggest changes in the admittedly young 21st century. After nearly 20 minutes of painstaking study, I have concluded that the answer is the increased importance of online media in courtship. With another ten minutes of research, I have concluded that its impact will go far beyond direct marketing.
The online revolution has already claimed one victim: pop music. Wooing conducted through traditional mail has inspired a number of hit songs, including “Please Mr. Postman”; “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours”; “The Letter”; and “Return to Sender,” to name a few.
This has changed, as the U.S. Postal System is no longer the channel of choice for the hormonally driven. Instead, romances are being kindled via online dating services, and fostered through e-mail communication and text messaging. And folks “pinging” each other, or text-messaging such sweet nothings as “Wanna d8?” “K: What RU up 4?” aren’t inspiring poetry of the heart.
But popular music is small potatoes compared to online media’s more insidious effect. Throw out your Darwin: Natural selection itself is about to swerve sharply off the road due to e-mail and IM-based courtships.
Consider this: In the past, people coupled largely based on two criteria: Plumage and affluence. But as folks turn to online matchmaking systems, the key determinant has become whether both parties have strong Internet connections. Such couples will also have faster access to the thousands of enhancement product offers that flood e-mailboxes.
As a result, future generations will be determined by which segments of society have access to T1 connections.
This begs another question: What will happen to those folks who insist on still using the slower, balkier dial-up connections? The answer is obvious to anyone who has ever studied evolution: Their genetic branches are going to wither and die like the Cro-Magnon. In a few generations, Homo sapiens will mourn the loss of its less-adaptive cousin, Homo dialupus.
You heard it here first.
To respond to the opinions in this column, please contact rlevey@primediabusiness.com
