Marketing has to stress the new even when talking to people who are happy with the old.

A woman asked me to dance last night at the Toppled Bollard dance club.

“I can’t dance with you any more,” I said.

She looked unhappy at that. “What are you trying to hide from?” she asked.

“The future,” I said.

And my point is that hiding from the future is not at all uncommon.

Most of us like the familiar, the known, the normal world around us. Which is not surprising, because we have evolved as beings who originally tended to stay in our home territory, protecting our land against intruders.

Now we live in a world of hyper change. Many of us hanker for what we had before, while knowing that we have to change to adapt to the new.

If we can express that in our advertising and let teachers know that what we offer is both new and innovative (thus bringing better results), and yet very familiar (and thus acceptable), we’ll offer them the best of both worlds.

A bit like a toppled bollard. You know what it is, but you wonder what it’s doing there.