It’s raining cats (not dogs)

Rebecca Harris leads off her cover story in the April 30 edition of Marketing Magazine with a quote from Alan Hallberg, Cisco‘s senior director of worldwide advertising, that pretty much sums up where the marketer/consumer relationship has gone:

“Consumers have gone from being dogs, who are responsive, eager, needy and when you whistle they come running, to being cats who have a life of their own, and not nearly as needy and come to you when they feel like it.”

It’s just another one of those great quotes that makes me wish I would’ve thought of it first, and if I did, that someone would’ve bothered to listen. What I like most about it as we can all relate – I’m sure that many of us have had (or known someone who’s had) one of those cats with a mind of its own that its best to just leave alone.

The tricky part is, as marketers, it’s now our job to do exactly the opposite…