Why and How Marketing's Foundations Will Change

Why and How Marketing's Foundations Will Change | This essay rejects the notion that conventional marketing is obsolete.

Why and How Marketing's Foundations Will Change. It does believe that the quick information availability and promise of online networks will profoundly alter the marketing process. The essentials, such as the four Ps, are still important, but they are only the basis for many additional activities.

The brave new world is going to shake things up even though the principles of marketing are still valid and useful.

In summary:

Emerging internet-based technologies and the function of networks have led to the development of 5 new branding activities. Integral Solutions Perspectives' duty is to try to comprehend and have an impact on various actions, and each one is a component and a whole in and of itself. The 5 categories are:

1) A shared understanding of the futures a brand is moving toward is known as brand destiny.

2) Brand density refers to how well a brand comprehends its effect on various, complex, and evolving consumer values.

3) Brand design: making goals attainable, enjoyable, and sustainable

4) Brand desire: developing the tools to satisfy desires, whether or not they are recognised.

5) Brand Delight: Standing out in a sea of constant noise and mistrust

Why and How Marketing's Foundations Will Change

The process of command and control is no longer used to manage a brand's reputation. The conversation is much more likely to be a dialogue, and the firm won't typically take part in it.

Networks

The anticipated change is either currently occurring or is about to. Like most adjustments, the justifications will become clear in hindsight. Two factors will spur a shift away from traditional marketing:

1. Networks' prevailing role and

2. Instant, widespread word-of-mouth sharing using internet-based technologies

The most effective kind of endorsement is word of mouth, as marketers are well aware. The endorsement gets credibility from past interactions, whether through firsthand experience or assumed expertise (for example Greenpeace as arbiter of environmental standards).

Even anonymous online postings carry a lot more weight than online advertisements. Instant access to this social validation will be possible, and it can be utilised in the person's interactions with brands. In the past, a person's reaction to a brand was frequently dependent on their history, emotional connection, and interactions with that brand.

Why and How Marketing's Foundations Will Change

Through promotion, the Brand was also able to convey the desired message; however, networks can now affect interactions in real time. The potential for individual influence is another implication. Rating websites are democratic by nature; each user has one vote, regardless of knowledge, power, or experience.

The websites are motivated to maintain "fairness" by banning "bots," or computer programmes that artificially inflate ratings on websites, as well as trolling (malicious remarks or ratings intended to disparage a Brand). People can remain anonymous—who divulges their private psychographic data online?

However, a person can also have an impact on the Networks. After a year of protesting to United Airlines that they had handled his $3,500 Taylor guitar improperly, Canadian musician Dave Carroll became frustrated. He created the tune "United Breaks Guitars" and uploaded a lighthearted music video to YouTube to go with it.

The video, a viral sensation, received 150,000 views in the first weekend after release and has since received over 6 million views. Significant damage was done to United Airlines' brand reputation, which some critics claimed was responsible for the company's shares falling 10% (a loss of US$180 million in market value).

Why and How Marketing's Foundations Will Change

Have you yet to view Google's Sidewiki? There is nowhere for you to hide on your company's website, and it's free!

The network's power may act quickly and affect brands in both positive and negative ways. Most importantly, they are not under the management or control of an organisation.

If Sidewiki doesn't impress you, check out tedTALKS Sixth Sense instead.

Imagine taking the next logical step, allowing direct input into the web with SixthSense so that Networks may be notified instantaneously without typing.

The dominance of "search" as the main factor influencing our decision-making further empowers Networks. Search engines are being used more frequently by consumers to find and research brands. The user has the option to be as specific or broad when entering a description into a search engine.

The algorithm used by each individual search engine determines the results. Google receives close to 10 million hits per month and controls 90% of the Australian search engine market. In the field of marketing, search and social media are increasingly important forces:

Consumers trust peer recommendations 78% of the time (i.e. their Networks)

Why and How Marketing's Foundations Will Change

Among the more than 200,000,000 blogs, 34% of bloggers share their opinions on brands and products, and of them, 54% tweet or post content every day.

Approximately 25% of the Top 20 Most Valuable Brands' search results link to user-generated content (i.e. not the official organisational Brand message)

These are just a few statistics I gleaned from the fantastic clip by Eric Qualman that you've probably already seen. This and other useful information may be found at his Socialnomics social media blog.

As consumers start caring more about how their own social values rank goods and services than how Google ranks them via PageRank, search is likewise shifting. As a result, the mysterious Google algorithm may soon be replaced with rankings created by users along a variety of criteria, including sustainability, political position, popularity, and obscurity, to mention a few. Consumers will find a brand when and where they want to, not through traditional promotion, whether they use Google or another search engine.

Why and How Marketing's Foundations Will Change

In other words, instead of using the traditional marketing strategy of creating a need and then promoting their Brand as the solution, customers will first have a need and then search Brands based on their criteria to satisfy it.

Basic Brand Theory

What is the result when networks and new technologies act as the catalyst? I put out a brand-new marketing strategy that both takes into account the brave new world and the traditions of earlier marketing strategies (such as the 5 Ps). ISP, or Integral Solution Perspectives, is the abbreviation I use for this paradigm.

Large brands have historically been associated with higher sales, which led to larger expenditures, larger promotions, and higher sales overall, which led to brand expansion.

Even if it were actually possible, the idea of unending expansion in a sustainable world is absurd.

Why and How Marketing's Foundations Will Change

The Network now defines bigger (or more premium, or popular, etc.) as only one option among an infinite number of criteria set by consumers rather than your organisation, and the business itself may wind up becoming a liability (as discovered by Krispy Kreme). One can measure the size of the brain, but not the size of an idea, as size is an ill-defined concept for immaterial beings. The underlying assumption is that brands achieve ISP when they place more emphasis on their depth than their size.

Logo Edges

As a mental model, brands have edges that consumers frequently engage with. What is necessary for your Brand's existence, we ask?  will help you identify a brand's edges. Or, what distinguishes your Brand and makes it special? Name is one factor for all brands, and brand reputation is another.

Since there may previously be two brands with the same name, search engines have raised the value of names (usually in two different countries). Due to global searches, two identical brand names could now compete with one another or provide business opportunities. Visit YouTube at utube.com.

Additionally, reputation is earned rather than generated, inferred, or grown inside the agency because of the influence of networks and rating websites. Only a select few strong brands have distinguishing features, such as distinctive design cues, packaging, or catchphrases. Your competitive advantage will finally be revealed by asking "What do people say about your brand (and you) when you are not in the room?"

The Brand edge cannot be thought of as fixed; in fact, marketing finds it frustrating that a clear boundary will rarely be established around the Brand. Now that different settings can be conveyed instantly, the companies' official statement is merely one among many other points of view. Depending on the reputation of the brand, the edge must be viewed as flexible and at varying depths.

Why and How Marketing's Foundations Will Change

As the adage goes, what is measured, is accomplished. Additionally, a lot of brand metrics concentrate on elements outside the (more important) Brand edge. The marketing benchmark, market share, measures size rather than brand recognition.

Being "Number 1" is not the deciding factor when evaluating a brand; in fact, it could be a major turn-off. Studies on usage and awareness (U&A) provide an assessment of how frequently a brand is used as well as the words that are associated with it. Once more, these do not indicate which of these words is more useful. Looking outward is no longer the best strategy because consumers now have the power of decision and immediate access to greater information. Spend more time reflecting within.

The consumer's position

The consumer will now determine the quality of your brand's relationship with them, which is a major development. People who want to choose how and when they are contacted will continue to be incensed by interruption-based marketing. Brands that disregard the change in the power dynamic will continue to suffer. More and more, consumers will set the standards for their life. They will next do a search to find Brands that fit those requirements (using technology and information that squarely deliver the advantage to them).

As recently stated on the MediaHunter Blog:

As a result, I believe clever marketers will devote a lot more time in 2010 to creating important messaging that will grab the attention of their target audience. To reach a more niche audience, they will start purchasing their media through those means. They'll reconsider their internet strategy, get rid of the brochure-style website, and start a conversation. They'll give the information that clients desire most after optimising it.

Why and How Marketing's Foundations Will Change

The era of inbound marketing, engagement, and relevancy is about to begin.

Quit interjecting ".

The brand manager's responsibilities

If marketing (as we know it) is no longer relevant, then what do marketers actually do? Some contend that engagement—"involving clients in all communications"—is the key. Others believe brand managers are changing into brand advocates who are "charged with ensuring that what local managers do is consistent with the brand equity and strategy, charging centralised global brand strategists with the responsibility for rapid adaptations of global brand platforms and programmes." (???).

Your workday will still begin with the traditional marketing tasks, but you will now be expected to perform more. Brand management implies a level of control that is no longer present because consumers now determine relevance and reputation, not brand managers.

What can a marketer do as a result?

Future-focused marketers will:

1. Questioning

1. People in your company will have brilliant, underappreciated ideas;

2. Let them share them with the world. 

3. Scanning the surroundings for anticipating and responding to social media feedback as it occurs.

2. Be active

a. Quit outsourcing planning, creativity, research, design, strategy, engagement, and permission; these are marketing professionals' purview (not the agency)

b. Persuade the company to launch the ideas that will pay off in three years from now (when they aren't as viable)

c. Be able to foresee a variety of futures and respond to them when they materialise.

Why and How Marketing's Foundations Will Change

3. State again

a. Constantly assess what the brand represents and sincerely inquire: Is that accurate?

b. Design with aim and purpose to make your brand "denser," 

c. Focusing on the internal elements of your brand that can be used to judge it.

d. Gain knowledge from your tests and broadly disseminate it (even with consumers)

4. Consolidate

a. Do what is required better than required.

b. Recognize when to stick with something and when to move on to the next chance.

Traditionally, the brand manager's responsibility has been to communicate (to express thoughts, feelings, or information easily or effectively). It's still crucial to carefully write your words before putting them on packaging, websites, press releases, etc.

The ability to converse with two or more entities is thus required in the new reality, which is conspicuously lacking in this world of legalistic, political, and managerial double-speak (See a Don Watson book for a long list of instances.)

The 5 D's

1. Brand Destiny 

Brand planning is by its very nature stagnant and backward-looking. Even if there is a growing body of data and sophisticated modelling, Brand plans only consider one possible future. To compare it to navigation at sea, glance down at a map and only look up when you reach your (hoped-for) destination. Looking to the stars (a fixed point or destiny) and adjusting to the ever-changing surroundings is a much more effective strategy (the sea or business conditions).

Why and How Marketing's Foundations Will Change

Brand vision has a poor reputation, and for good reason. What you, the brand manager, think is essentially immaterial when your brand is engaging in a two-way conversation with customers.

Hard effort is Brand Destiny's problem. Fixed targets will be replaced by mobile goals. Marc Pritchard, a P&G executive, defined their budgeting and planning procedure as "Additionally, budget flux has taken on a life of its own. Because of the market's turbulence, we now at least look at things once a month, and sometimes even more frequently ".

Your purpose must be:

1. Intentional, deliberate, and overt

2. Differentiated

3. Interesting & talkable

4. Employee acceptance of and inclusion within the organisation

5. Considering multiple potential possibilities at once

6. Boosting

According to Seth Godin, you can own something that is difficult to duplicate in order to generate a durable competitive advantage (like real estate).

You can accelerate the pricing and scale curve, making what you do cheaper for you since you have an advantage.

You can impose switching costs so that switching to a less expensive competitor would be so difficult and expensive that it would not be worthwhile.

You can create a network (which may take many different shapes; natural monopolies are businesses where the market benefits from having just one of you).

You may create a brand (shorthand for relationships, beliefs, trust, permission and word of mouth).

You may build a company that innovates frequently and attracts and retains exceptional employees.

Why and How Marketing's Foundations Will Change

The 5 D's are not in place of other marketing theories, as I have been stressing; rather, they work in tandem with them. Simply put, Brand Destiny is most important for the last point.

2. Brand Density

the extent to which a brand comprehends and investigates how different, numerous, and constantly expanding consumer values are affected.

How thick (or deep) your brand's components are is something that Brand Density constantly and internally probes. The carbon footprint is what? Price in relation to rivals? consumption of water labour standards? ratings of client satisfaction? Recyclability? Facebook remarks: Questions of the past?

Because of instantaneous and mobile information, consumers will be better able to evaluate brands based on a variety of factors, even at the point of sale. Retailers are joining the movement; one example is the global sustainable product index from Wal-Mart.

Are you aware of your Brand's position on the issues? Does that meet your needs? Is it pertinent? Are the requirements getting better all the time? Are they generally accepted? Who "controls" brand density?

Brand density does not indicate self-introspection or seclusion from the consumer. Indeed, it is crucial to comprehend what buyers value. The most precious asset a brand has is its reputation, yet marketing professionals still believe they have control over it. Reputation management is outside the purview of an organisation.

3. Branding

Bridgette Engeler Newbury, a colleague of mine, receives a severe D. She challenges traditional design thinking by claiming that "creativity (design) is no longer the exclusive domain of a separate "creative class." (Similar to the statement that marketing is "too crucial to be left to the marketing department's")

Aside from that, "Good Brand Design creates curiosity while actually engaging its audience. Additionally, it conveys the intentions and dependability of the business that developed the Brand. Customers' experiences should be enhanced by a brand while yet being open to their own personal additions. It is meant to serve as a catalyst and a guide. We go over how a brand's appearance, texture, and the feelings it arouses are strategic and crucial elements of the customer's understanding of value.

Design can go from rigid definition to accepting diverse viewpoints, from the look and feel of a website to a Brand's visual identity. The notion of crowdsourcing design is already in use, in which Brands submit direct creative briefs to Networks, which then compete for a small prize to be integrated into a Brand.

Making intent tangible, purposeful, wanted, and sustainable is the goal of design.

4. Brand Want

The cost of gasoline is a sensitive topic in Australia.Due to price trends that follow a predictable weekly pattern and questionable consistency in local gasoline prices, gasoline sellers are accused of colluding. No illegal behaviour, such as retail price fixing, was found during the 2007 ACCC examination into the price of unleaded gasoline. They observe:

1) The biggest companies in the retail industry use the electronic membership service Informed Sources to acquire information on prices being charged by every retail location that competes with their own virtually in real time.

2) They have a significant advantage over consumers thanks to this information-sharing relationship.

3) If one of the major retailers wishes to raise prices, they will be able to rapidly deal with it and modify their pricing since they have access to enough virtual real-time information to know what their competitors will do in reaction.

4) This appears to lessen incentives for price reductions.

5) It is preferable to wait for a rival to move

No other product should be used in place of the word gasoline. Give the information to any customer (free of charge). alter the shopping environment?

Even at the point of purchase, consumers have immediate access to Networks, which eliminates the conventional control of shops over price information and value estimation.

The offer will be obvious to consumers.

Retailers will have inexpensive access to the same information and be compelled to offer equal prices.

Suppliers will feel pressure to discount exclusively. And price will level out and become unimportant.

So what will the focus be for the price-obsessed customers, retailers, and suppliers?

Why and How Marketing's Foundations Will Change

Brand Aspiration

In the future, consumers will make decisions "in terms of fulfilling needs, desires, and self-perceptions...doing what they picture as being beneficial for themselves...recognizing hedonism, goals, comfort zones, and incentives." Price will not simply short-change behaviour; instead, the more nuanced emotional interplay outlined above will. What hope do Brands have in exploring this when the majority of consumers would be hard-pressed to recognise this in themselves? Nowadays, the most valuable marketing skill is self-awareness.

Label Delight

Over 25,000 online shoppers from 50 different countries participated in the Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey (2009) "The most dependable types of advertising worldwide are personal referrals from friends and consumer reviews posted online. 70% of online users throughout the world believe user reviews, whereas 90% of users trust recommendations from individuals they know."

In response, a business must change its emphasis from "the selling of a collection of products and services, to a philosophy of delivering Delight." The success of Brand Delight highlights the preceding Ds as well as the significance of becoming and becoming visible:

1. Create a distinct identity

2. Provide a pertinent advantage

3. Invoke feelings

4. Aid in brand recall; 5. Break through the "noise" barrier

6. Be who you claim you are, and 7. Keep your promises.

8. Train customers to serve as your brand ambassadors

So how can you defend your pay? To paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 's 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech, a brand needs to actively work to better itself in a variety of ways so that consumers who evaluate it according to their own standards prefer its character's substance to its colour. You have to make that happen.