You’ve heard of course Aesop’s fable about The Hare and the Tortoise. An ancient story with a moral that may be hard to apply to the world of business today.

About 50 years ago a lot of companies could act like tortoises and still be successful. Product lifecycles were long and competition was limited. Sales reps had the time to visit all customers and prospects before anyone else could come up with a better offer.

But business got faster. Markets were divided into more and more segments to better satisfy customer needs. Time to market grew in importance, as did adaptation to the market. A classic example is Facit AB, who was world-leading in mechanical calculators and did everything to prevent the progress of digital calculators. But around 1970 digital calculators took over and in 1972 Facit was already on the brink of bankruptcy even if it took until 1998 for the company to be put into liquidation.

An important milestone in marketing was when Al Ries and Jack Trout launched the concept of positioning in 1972 in a series of articles in Advertising Age. Being first on the market was key. And if you weren’t first you had to invent a new category (“raise a new ladder”) where you could take the lead. Or to put it another way: Better to be a fast, high-leaping hare than a slow, low-profile tortoise.

Without doubt it’s the hares that win today. The web has changed the pace at which news and campaigns spread and goods, services and ideas break through. Now it only takes a few hours. Take for example, BP’s chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg, who happened to say,  “We care about the small people” in front of the world’s press. Only a few hours later someone had done a parody on the Berlitz ad concept “Improve your English” with Svanberg in the main role.

The hares stay ahead, get attention and gain influence. And probably that’s the way it’s going to be.