The Right Question
When I was working on the Nayi Disha project to create a free and prosperous India, one of the most eye-opening insights I encountered was this: poverty is the default state of the world. It requires no explanation because it is where everything begins. What demands explanation is prosperity—the creation of wealth and systems that enable progress. As Per Bylund succinctly puts it: “What causes poverty? Nothing. It’s the original state, the default and starting point. The real question is, What causes prosperity?”
This insight has a powerful parallel in the world of marketing. Just as poverty is the natural state in economics, AdWaste is the default condition in marketing—a chronic inefficiency that drains resources and stifles profitability. More than a century ago, retail pioneer John Wanamaker articulated this enduring challenge: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” Despite the advent of advanced tools and digital marketing, this inefficiency persists, with 70% of marketing budgets wasted on misdirected targeting and unnecessary reacquisition, resulting in a staggering $500 billion in annual AdWaste globally.
If prosperity in economics stems from understanding and enabling wealth creation, then marketing prosperity must stem from addressing the root causes of AdWaste. The solution lies not in incremental optimisations of acquisition strategies but in a fundamental rethinking of how we engage, retain, and monetise customer relationships. It’s time to stop treating the symptoms of AdWaste and start focusing on its antidote.
The parallels run deeper. Economists once focused on explaining poverty instead of understanding how to create wealth. Similarly, marketers have become fixated on optimising acquisition rather than mastering retention. Complex systems have been built to chase new customers, while the art of keeping existing ones has been neglected. The real question for marketers isn’t, “How can I optimise my ad spending and lower CAC for new customers?” Instead, it should be, “How can I maximise LTV and monetise my existing customers?”
This shift in perspective is transformative. Just as Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations laid the intellectual foundation for Classical Liberalism and economic prosperity, the marketing industry needs its own philosophical framework to escape the cycle of endless acquisition and AdWaste. We need a set of principles that prioritise retention over acquisition, relationships over transactions, and sustainable growth over fleeting gains.
This essay outlines NeoVisM—a New Vision for Marketing. Like Classical Liberalism’s role in economics, NeoVisM provides the intellectual foundation for a fundamental transformation in how brands approach growth. It represents a paradigm shift from the costly cycle of continuous acquisition to the sustainable practice of building lasting, profitable customer relationships.
The stakes are enormous. Just as understanding the causes of prosperity helped lift billions out of poverty, embracing retention-first principles could redirect hundreds of billions in AdWaste toward innovation, customer experience, and sustainable business growth. The future of marketing lies not in better acquisition but in mastering the art of retention.
