Welcome to the era of NIMBLE MARKETING...

And so it hits me in the waiting room of the car dealership while getting my car serviced...the problem with marketing is that it is slow-moving.  Slow based on the timelines of a TV ad or a print ad.  It is a system that precludes a finite conclusion.  We set out to do this piece of marketing and then it's done.  It's about the end and not the means to an end.
The reality is that this system doesn't line up with the pace of the world.  Or the pace of the consumers living in this world. Now, I am not advocating throwing the baby out with the bath water.  What I am advocating is a dual-layered approach - one that takes into consideration long production times and another that creates its own system of nimble marketing.
Nimble marketing itself comes in two flavors:

1. Nimble Activation: A platform that creates - in real time - new consumer engagements where they are, when they are, in the media they use.
2. Nimble Content Creation: A platform that empowers consumers to create - in real time - their own engagements with the brand...their interpretation of their brand.  Not yours.

The reason nimbleness is so important is it accepts the reality of the playing field in how consumers really engage with brands.  They don't just sit back and accept what is being given to them, they want to be an active participant in their relationships.  As goes for human interactions - the healthy ones being built on a common understanding of mutual give and take - so goes for the human/brand interaction.  Each is allowed, encouraged even, to express their own opinion.  The biggest hurdle to this is that brands don't often own that last stage of the "one-on-one" interaction to both seal the deal and provide the comfort of a personal relationship.  (This was the awakening for Apple to close the loop of the brand experience by owning the final stage of the sale by opening up the Apple store.)
This is where the digital interaction pays huge dividends in being able to efficiently aggregate and accommodate a personal dialogue.  I, get to profess my love for the brand.  I, get to vent about a problem I had with the brand.  I, get to engage with other lovers of the brand so WE can have a mutual admiration society for our greater intelligence and better taste BECAUSE we are brand lovers.  I, get to hear from the representatives of the brand to fix my disappointment and turn it into delight.  Now, the solution is not always a digital engagement that will function as a proxy for a personal relationship.  Sometimes it is a personal phone call or an invitation to a special event, anything that makes me feel special again for choosing you instead of another to be a part of my life.

So the reality of a brand today is to build into their marketing plans an interwoven platform (one that blends long-term projects and one that creates a real-time feedback loop on continuous dialogue between consumer and brand) that empowers the pursuit of a personal relationship by accepting the nimble nature of consumers by being nimble themselves.

My question then is this: What part of your marketing platform is nimble?