Are There Any New Channels?

Marketing likes to talk about innovation. New platforms, new formats and new ways to reach people.

But step back, and something else becomes clear. Most of what we call new isn’t new at all, it’s familiar behaviour, repackaged, for example…

• Catalogues became websites.

• Classified ads in newsagent windows became, free ad papers and then transitioned to marketplaces like eBay.

• Car boot sales became platforms like Facebook Market Place and Vinted.

• Telly shopping became TikTok Shop and Whatnot.

• Word of mouth became influencer marketing.

The interface has changed, the behaviour hasn’t. People still browse, compare, look for signals they can trust. and buy based on what other people think.

The fundamentals remain intact.

What has changed is everything around those behaviours; scale, speed and precision.

• A catalogue might reach thousands vs a website that reaches millions.

• A recommendation used to travel slowly, person to person vs now it travels instantly, to audiences of millions, shaped by algorithms.

This is where the real shift sits - not in the idea, but in the amplification.

Technology hasn’t replaced traditional models - it’s compressed them, combined them and removed the friction that once limited them.

• TikTok Shop isn’t just teleshopping - it’s teleshopping, entertainment, social proof, and checkout—collapsed into a single moment.

• Influencer marketing isn’t just word of mouth - it’s word of mouth, celebrity, advertising, and sales channel—operating simultaneously.

What looks like innovation is often convergence. Multiple old models, layered into one and underneath it all, the same drivers still apply.

• Discovery.

• Trust.

• Convenience.

• Social proof.

The risk is that organisations chase novelty - new platforms, new tactics and new trends. Believing that change in channel requires change in thinking but if the underlying behaviour hasn’t changed, the strategy shouldn’t either.

The organisations that create advantage aren’t the ones chasing what’s new; they’re the ones who understand what’s constant and adapt how it shows up.

Because innovation in marketing rarely comes from inventing something entirely new - it comes from removing friction from something that already works.

And sometimes, the more advanced a channel becomes…the more it starts to look like something we’ve seen before.