Cavemen marketers would have done really well in social media. I am by no means an anthropologist, but I think that the level of trust that exists in today’s society is very similar to what it was tens of thousands of years ago. In modern society, especially in marketing, there is very little trust among people. And I bet that in caveman society there was the same scarcity of trust.
Today there isn’t any trust because technology and society have developed to a point where we interact with so many people with whom we have absolutely no connection. We have adapted to become distrustful of these interactions. In caveman society there wasn’t any trust because, well, you probably only lived 20 years, and every day of your life was spent just trying to survive. Cavemen probably didn’t trust anyone who they didn’t directly depend on.
I doubt there were many cavemen marketers, but I bet there were cavemen who had a specific desire for a certain thing (food, rock, cave, wooden club) and tried to trade something else to get it. It’s not that different from modern society where we have a specific desire for money, and try to trade products or services in order to get it.
If a caveman wanted to trade with other cavemen from a different community, he couldn’t just barge into their cave and try to sell his wares because the other cavemen wouldn’t trust him. The other cavemen would probably perceive him as a threat or enemy. Cavemen didn’t trust other cavemen they didn’t know. He probably would have to be friendly and sociable, and prove he wasn’t an enemy before he tried to trade anything. He would have to engage with the other cavemen, and build some sort of trust-based relationship. He would have to be a fellow caveman with similar interests and values before he could have a chance at being a successful marketer.
Modern day marketers face many of the same challenges that cavemen marketers did long ago. We need to be an ally of the consumer, not the enemy, if we hope to connect with them in a value exchange. Social media is a valuable tool for building these trust-based relationships, and I bet a caveman would have been great at using it.
