South Africa, Jan. 1 -- "It took millions of years for man's instincts to develop. It will take millions more for them to even vary. It is fashionable to talk about changing man. A communicator must be concerned with unchanging man, with his obsessive drive to survive, to be admired, to succeed, to love, to take care of his own." - Bill Bernbach

Any article dealing with marketing trends is almost always prone to that increasingly prevalent marketing malady: novelty bias. We just love new stuff. We tend to see current states and ways of doing things as automatically stale, and mistake newness for real innovation that results in growth.

If we only did new stuff, goes the logic, our brands would grow we would be admired for the mavericks w...