Interesting article by Accenture, but I do wonder how much of this is "just" Accenture telling us what services they have to sell us.

We (DLA that is and maybe you?) see there are more fundamental issues to be solved than some of the "stuff" mentioned in this article?  Shiny new object syndrome maybe?  Because if we are going to have Blockchain project as a business first we must have a business reason to have one and second we need the money to pay for it.  And I have to ask myself a question; isn't this all about technology and a technology provider with a solution that is looking for a problem?

There are some more fundamental issues we are seeing which is that "marketing does not work anymore" this is not something, as a supplier we are making up, but something that is feedback from CMOs in the field.  We are also seeing CMOs in the field being fired as they are spending budget on "old world" marketing activity and it just does not work.

Let's unpack this.

Nobody looks at adverts anymore.  Advertising, which is a technology from the 1930s has become noise.  It interrupts us and we don't want this.  We all have busy lives and nobody believes it anyway.  Which is why 2 Billion (yes Billion) people use ad-blockers and this is growing at 30% year on year.

Since the introduction of GDPR the interruptions from cold calling and unsolicited emails have also fallen off a cliff.  Again, unwanted interruptions that we are just too busy for.  And as we know, why would you make a cold call or send an unsolicited email?  Because you are desperate, you know that, we know that and so do your clients know that.  As you cold call and send unsolicited emails, you are just advertising to the world you have run out of ideas.

Of course, I have the technology to block you, I blocked a cold caller on my iPhone, just this morning.  With the power of GDPR behind me I can also report you to the ICO.

So let's slow down for a second and resolved some of the digital issues we have, right here, right now, because if we don't fix sales and marketing now, there will be no money for that Blockchain project.