In the 1980s and early ’90s — what some call the heyday of marketing — everything was about size and volume. Agencies chased bigger clients, companies searched for the largest pools of potential customers, and buyers wanted to be associated with the “big name” brands. But all of that has changed. In fact, it has not only changed, it has reversed itself completely. Now, instead of it being about bigness (in marketing, we have creative license to create our own words!), it is all about getting smaller and smaller. Everything and everyone has been or is trying to be categorized into a niche.

Want proof? Go to your local big-box bookstore and check out the magazine section. There are magazines for poodle owners, Zen gardens and extreme rocketry. And I am not even mentioning the really bizarre topics.

We live in a world where everyone is struggling to belong to something. We all want to “brand” ourselves. We want to be unique individuals. We want to indulge our passions. And thanks to digital printing, the Internet, text messaging and other wonders of technology, we can.

But what does this mean to us as marketers? How can your product or service be served up within this new mindset? How should you talk about it differently? How will or should this alter your customer experience?

If you haven’t already kicked these questions around, you might want to bring this column to your next marketing department or senior management meeting. How is “smallness” affecting your marketing efforts? If it hasn’t already, do you think your product/service category is immune, or are you just lagging behind?

Drew McLellan is Top Dog at McLellan Marketing Group and the author of “99.3 Random Acts of Marketing.” He can be reached at Drew@MclellanMarketing.com.