Many of the ideals you express are supposedly fundamental but as you noticed, have fallen on the wayside. These days, I’m not sure how concerned brands really are about sustainability when everything comes down to the rush to market and instant gratification – for buyer, seller and everyone else in between. As you rightly pointed out, brands are finding themselves sliding down the slippery slope of the price game more often than they’d like. I don’t know if they have much of a choice at this stage, particularly if they’ve invested so much in old-school processes.

Perhaps its an indirect acknowledgement that the very definition of market loyalty has changed, with traditional marketing formulas thrown askew by earth-flattening and time-bending platforms like the Internet and rapidly changing cost structures. Because of the speed of change, companies are behaving more reactionary now than ever before. IMHO, the lumbering ecosystem of today’s big companies can never hope to outrun the phenomenal rate of change of the market, unless the configuration of the standard business unit changes again. Until that hapens, they’ll have to get used to playing more defense than offense, even for top tier brands.

As long as the marketer goes with the intention to exploit or sell as much as possible, they would soon lose trust. But there will always be a role for marketers who are educators, who help customers learn about the solution.

Nice post.