How Not to Survive the Future

By Doug Stephens

Today I came across this ad from the United States Postal Service.  They’ve adopted a self-preservation strategy that attempts to convince us that snail-mail’s low tech nature is actually preferable to digital communication because it offers protection from viruses and hackers. “An online virus has never attacked a cork board.” the voiceover says.  Isn’t that a little like saying  a horse would be better than a car because a horse never runs out of gas?

The ultimate goal of the campaign appears to be to convince rational adults who run real-world companies that sending paper statements to their customers makes more sense than digital billing and that customers actually prefer mail!

This is the best the USPS could come up with?  This is the strategy that will assure them their rightful place in the future?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oysFmSVzCnM[/youtube]

Unfortunately, this sort of reaction to imminent obsolescence isn’t unusual.  For example, instead of innovating, the record industry chose to simply sue individuals for downloading music.  Instead of innovating, Blockbuster merely tinkered with late fees on DVD’s. Instead of innovating, book publishers and sellers tried to convince digital readers that they were somehow betraying the sanctity of the written word by using a Kindle.  In the process, they all wasted precious time and energy that could have been dedicated to real innovation and reinvention – things that might have saved them.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that reinventing a company, a business model, or an entire industry, for that matter, is easy or even possible, in all cases.  There are some notably successful reinventions however; brands like Hyundai, Apple, HP and Gucci are just a few that come to mind.  Many more, of course, have faded into obscurity despite their best efforts.  There are no guarantees.

What is absolutely certain though, is that deception, scare tactics and tinkering don’t cut it when you’re being annihilated by devastatingly disruptive technology.  You have no choice but to innovate aggressively and radically to create a new and relevant proposition.  You have to find a remarkable reason for existing.

So, if your company ever finds itself behind the eight ball and someone at your agency suggests a campaign like this one from the USPS, fire them.  Then sit down and start the difficult but exhilarating work of innovating.