Source: shesnuckingfuts
Every Tuesday I offer up a classic proverb and decide whether it is relevant to modern business.
Today’s proverb:
“The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
For centuries, this proverb was an accurate reflection of culture: you were generally born to a family with distinct values, and you learned the family trade; your last name might even reflect this trade (Shoemaker, Smith.) A family, then, was like a very large tree on flat land.
At some point, this changed: with more mixed races, last names that mean nothing, and the rise of the school system, we identify less with a family heritage and more with our consumer goods: I’m not the descendant of a Welsh immigrant, I’m an iPhone user. I’m not the product of my hometown, but the product of my university.
The updated version of the proverb, today, would be: “The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree, but squirrels will gather them up all the same.”
What this means for your business: In the b2c world, customer profiles currently take into consideration age, ethnicity, and geographical location. While age is still relevant as it relates to adoption of technologies, location and ethnicity are becoming less important: as Penelope writes, we have more in common with people of similar finances than those with similar locations. With the mainstream adoption of Facebook, customer profiling should focus on the consumer goods the customers identify with – how would you market differently, for example, to an iPhone user versus a BlackBerry user?
