David Weinberger, co-author of the industry-changing The Cluetrain Manifesto, closed Marketing Week’s Digital Day Wednesday with a sobering look at how markets are becoming ever-changing networks of people that aren’t susceptible to traditional marketing tactics.

While it’s no revelation that the Internet has changed marketing, Weinberger’s jargon-free presentation delved into the characteristics of online interaction, making a convincing argument against some traditional marketing philosophies.

“The traditional notion was that a market is a statistical fiction that we made up,” Weinberger said. “It’s a demographic slice, a social group in which nobody’s ever met anybody else. We do this because [marketing] messages work well in demographic groups.”

Now, Weinberger believes markets are becoming more like social networks. Consumers gather online around common issues or concerns, so their membership is in constant flux.

“A network changes in 12 hours. It’s an entirely new market in 36 hours… There is very little stability to them. You simply cannot step into the same market twice in this world,” he said. 

“The basis of old markets was their uniformity, the similarities, so they were all susceptible to the same message. The basis of the new markets is the constant differences among the people involved in the conversations.”

These new markets present strong challenges for the industry that are yet to be solved, said Weinberger.

The hierarchical, uniform brand facade that previously worked for large companies doesn’t translate online, where transparency and honesty are valued above message consistency, he said.

“It’s much better, in a market based on differences, to acknowledge [differences of opinion], rather than to engage in smarmy agreeableness.”