Version Notes
The dated decision log of the Marketing Helix: what was decided, when, and what it changed.
This page is part of the Marketing Helix development history. It is preserved as an exploration or earlier version, not as the current canonical model.
Dated decisions
| Date | Decision | What it changed |
|---|---|---|
| Before 2026 | The lineage: the marketing funnel, the Gravity Funnel, Fly By Gravity, then the Marketing Helix. | Told at length in the three lineage essays. |
| 2026-08-08 | The Adaptive Brand Management Foundations paper stays on this site. | Marketing Helix holds the research and definitions. Digilu applies them. |
| 2026-10-01 | Figures are diagrams of the model, never scenes. The customer is a straight line and the messages are the helix. | Scene drawings replaced on every live page. The first model in one picture, left to right, goes on the homepage. |
| 2026-10-10 | The customer does not travel the helix. | A figure and an animation that showed the customer riding the coil were corrected or removed. The message moves around the customer. |
| 2026-10-10 | “The Marketing Helix describes what happens inside your funnel” becomes the opening idea. | The funnel is kept. It shows where the customer is in the company’s process. Anti-funnel wording is retired. |
| 2026-10-10 | Thirteen principles become fifteen. | Added: the customer is at the center; marketing surrounds the customer; paid media buys distribution, not the decision. Every old anchor still resolves. |
| 2026-10-10 | Left to right becomes the direction of every explanatory figure. | The funnel lies on its side. Upright treatments remain only as decoration. |
| 2026-10-10 | Figure 1, candidate I1, approved in principle as the canonical opening figure. | One customer, one marketing message, one funnel, three labels. Trust, relevance, and timing are explained in their own figures. |
| 2026-10-10 | Full rollout and this archive. | Every upright explanatory figure redrawn left to right; the earlier figures and concepts moved here, labeled. |
| 2026-10-11 | Fifteen principles become sixteen. | Attention is made a principle of its own: 06, “Attention comes first.” A message has to be noticed before it can be trusted, found relevant, or arrive on time. The reason, in the words of Mike Millett, who created the model: “The full attention needs to be a part of the official marketinghelix.” Every principle from the old 06 onward moved down one number. The trust principle, until then titled “Trust comes first,” is 07 and is titled “Trust is the first test.” Every earlier anchor still resolves. |
| 2026-10-11 | Principle 06 is retitled: “Being there is not being noticed.” | For about an hour Principle 06 was titled “Attention comes first.” Mike Millett, who created the model, corrected it: “attention doesn’t come first. You have to be there to have a chance at getting attention. That’s first.” The model’s order already agreed: Principle 05, marketing surrounds the customer, comes before Principle 06. The order now reads: the customer is in motion; marketing is there, around the customer; the message has to be noticed; then trust, relevance, and timing. The figure kept its drawing and took the new title. The first title, the first body and the first share card wording are kept in this archive. |
| 2026-10-11 | “Pulled closer, or drifting past” is retired in favor of “Noticed is not chosen.” | The newer figure is the same idea with the noticed moment added. It replaced the older one on the homepage, About, Helix vs. Funnel and the model page. The diagram library went from 25 figures to 24. The older drawing is kept here. |
| 2026-10-11 | The flood figure names eight kinds of marketing, in color. | “More messages does not mean more attention” first carried three gray tags: paid, organic, earned. Asked whether there are more than those three, and whether they could be color coded, the figure now names ads, search, social, email, video, reviews, referrals and press, each in its own muted color and each also named in words. Blue is kept for the message that is noticed. The three-tag drawing is kept here. |
| 2026-10-11 | Thresholds and gates leave the remaining pages. | The model page, applications, the post-purchase page, the relevance and timing pages, the glossary and the film pages now describe trust, relevance, and timing as conditions that all hold at the same moment, not as thresholds or gates. The footer line on every page names attention. |
Three corrections that matter most
When “inside your funnel” became central
Until October 10, 2026 the model was taught against the funnel. From that date the funnel is described as useful: it organizes and measures the company’s stages. The Helix complements it by describing what is changing around the customer during those stages and after the purchase. The earlier position is recorded under deprecated concepts.
When left to right became canonical
The films drew the customer moving up. On October 10, 2026 the direction of explanation was set to left to right, so that a funnel on its side and a customer moving forward can share one picture. Upright Helix art remains where it is decoration.
When Figure 1 I1 was approved
On October 10, 2026, after revisions C to I in one day, candidate I1 was approved in principle. The revisions are shown in the figure history.
Not yet updated
The films and Shorts on Videos were made before these corrections. They draw the customer moving up, and two of them are titled against the funnel. They remain published and are to be remade.