The end of regional marketing or repeating past mistakes

This is not directly related to the issue of older consumers but might have a tangential impact.

Marketing Week reports Sir Martin Sorrell saying that brands will dump regional marketing teams. Well it is a bit more than that since he lists some impressive global companies where this has already happened.

I wonder if this is not yet another repeat of convulsions that companies go through every so often when they lurch from one organisational structure to another - only to reverse the decision in a few years time having called it something different. Most of these changes are to do with the where the power is situated, local or remotely.

What is interesting is that Sir Martin Sorrell excludes the BRIC countries from this generic marketing model. In his view they are different due to their size and diversity. Brazil has 200 million people and 27 states. China's population rises to 1.3 billion people spread over 32 states.

Interesting to speculate how companies handle 'the ageing thing' in these new structures. In some ways it should make it easier since it removes some of the silos and barriers to change. Dick Stroud