I’m heading out to the GRAMMY’s with my wife and my business partners tomorrow. We’re really looking forward to it and we’re actually staying right across from the Kodak Theater where they film the Idol finals. We even got invited to Ne-Yo’s after-party. We’ll let you know how that goes…

Anyhow, as I was packing, I was reminded of the last time I flew on a plane, a few weeks ago when I was coming back from France. I had so much time on the plane I actually ran out of things to do, watch, read etc, so I resorted to the airline’s shopping catalogue…in german.

I saw an image very similar to this one:

Now I can tell you, I would be willing to bet that the first time that the tobacco companies in the EU were told that they would have to start using this label on their tobacco products, they probably weren’t really excited about it. We can be they felt blindsided and had a lot of emotions. This is a very far departure from the cigarette commercials of old that used to have Doctors giving testimonials on the benefits of smoking (seriously, here in the U.S. too). I know what you’re thinking, “Wow, I sure am glad that I don’t have to deal with that in my industry. That would really kill my sales.” But instead of just dismissing the notion for a moment, let’s play it out in our heads.

Many of us rely on the way we are doing things right now, and assume that nothing will change. We find strategies that work, and rightly so, they become easy to rely on– you might say as easy to rely on as testimonials from Doctors when selling cigarettes– but, at some point, something will change, that will affect one of your key strategies.

I know, I know, the people who relied on cold-calling consumers to sell products didn’t think that the “Do Not Call Registry” was a real threat…until it became law

and yes, I know, I know, marketers who were sending out faxes, like they were going out of style, never thought that fax broadcasts would be banned…until “junk faxes” became illegal

I’m also sure that those of you who have started to discover text messaging in your marketing, are also not excited about some recent propositions for businesses to start paying a “tax” on each and every text message they send out marketing their products and services. This free media, is about to become not so free.

I’m not here to be “Mr. Gloom and Doom,” but I do want to remind you to be conscious of the fact that things always change, and sometimes when you least expect them to, so be sure to have a plan B and continue to test new and different methods of reaching your market, even when things are going great with what you are currently doing!