Sunrise, day one, year 2000

Communication World, Dec, 1995 by Naseem Javed

To better understand the upcoming global marketing challenges beyond the year 2000, it is necessary to tabulate the overall progress from the early print society to the approaching "hi-tech society." In this major research project, it would be almost impossible to tabulate and group the global trends of different periods of societies of various countries in their relevant regions as a whole, because of delayed influence. Nations and societies, like children, do not mature at the same rate!

Of the more than 150 countries on the globe today, a very large majority is still locked in a turn-of-the-century lifestyle, while a small number of others, regardless of their locations, are moving forward by leaps and bounds. Example: the former Soviet republics, as compared with Singapore and Thailand.

Furthermore, local economies and business monopolies never provided the open arena of competition and competitive branding that has been seen in North America. Indeed, most countries have been locked in socio-political and religious battles, which seriously hampered their evolution of business communication in the free-styled global marketplace.

To get a clear picture, then, the market of the United States provides the most mature arena in which to measure the different segments of North American societies during this Century. From this, one may glean what one can about other countries.

One of these days, you will wake up to the realization that it is day one, the month is January and the year is 2000. You'll be shocked that without any Big Bang or hoopla, you have suddenly crossed over the threshold of the new millennium.

Funny, this so-called high speed, fast-paced life has taken you into a new transition and slowly places you into a different time zone without any apparent change in the human evolution.

However, those who are monitoring the change and its pace will notice that there were some distinct eras in the previous, 20th century, which dominated our behavior. Modern communication has gone through several major "periods." For starters, if knowledge is supposed to be the bond of society, then the printed word was the major breakthrough and the first step.

Every executive of the 20th Century, challenged to survive, knew well that the germination of ideas and words created demand and needs, resulting in commerce. After all, without spreading words and thoughts, there can be no formulation of opinion and the massive need to pursue it.

So how did all of this start, anyway?

Print Society . . . In the early part of the 20th Century, we in the U.S. were still a print society. It was an era of fact-finding, research and writing stories, all of them well-composed and clearly written by the literate few for the select few who could either afford to buy them or had the ability to read them. At the dawn of this period, there was little or no notion that somewhere in the future would be an advanced society that might use some forms of communication other than the written word. In this era, extraordinary effort was spent in thinking and creating written expressions that would convey all the happenings of the period. This society, less than a century ago, was still buried among the medieval scriptures. Sun worshippers were still discovering new gods, and people believed that the moon was not in outer space, but in the heart. In this period, print was power, and it affected everyone. The future was left alone, and the information flow was at a near standstill. In business, "Ma and Pa" founded the small business. Tools of the trade were the latest technology, Paul Bunyan and Davy Crockett were the heroes, and the movies were silent. People bought things out of pure necessity, while they struggled to survive. Work was the biggest motivator, and money the greatest reward.

As business was dominated by men of passion and drive, these entrepreneurs had vision; they had energy; they had innovative and highly original concepts; and they created products leading to corporations of often international scope, many of which have become the stuff of legends. By slapping their last names upon their products, these remarkable men saw their surnames become part of the world's vocabulary: Heinz, Singer, Gillette, Kraft, Ford, Firestone and dozens more. The personality of names of products were created to look fine in print, preferably in the same limited numbers of typefaces available: Gothic, Old English, Times Roman. Names were long so they were able to clearly describe what the business, product or service was all about. And every product found it necessary to assure the customer of its soundness and workability, as the public was justifiably fearful of poor quality merchandise.

Radio Society . . . After centuries of print came radio. The emergence of this audacious and sound-driven society involved broadcasting from the select group to everybody. And, indeed, everybody tap-danced to their work, rocked their heads at the assembly line, and fox-trotted home. The radio had made it possible for any message to be heard, and to receive this new message, literacy was not an issue - and what came over the air was free. Will Rogers provided the humor and Orson Welles demonstrated its power on a Halloween eve with his narration of "War of the Worlds." And everyone drank Coca-Cola.