The Leader's Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative, Revised and Updated

5.1. MARKETING IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

For much of the twentieth century, branding and marketing consisted mainly of crafting and communicating one-way messages to a mass audience. By mass-marketing the same product in roughly the same way to all consumers, companies could reach the largest potential market at the lowest cost. Moreover, they could interrupt whomever they wanted with any message they cared to transmit. And buyers were forced to watch it because there were only three television channels. And there was no easy way for customers to talk back.

5.1.1. Why the Model Changed

Four changes help explain why this model is less and less operative today.

One is the shift in the balance of power in the marketplace from sellers to buyers. ...