Meet any marketing person today and she will tell you how rapidly marketing is changing.
In the world's most competitive market-the USA, where arguably the discipline of marketing is most evolved, it is all about how the emergence of digital is destroying long-running shibboleths and paradigms of media and marketing .
Meet a marketing person in India and he will talk about the emergence of modern retail (there is now a pause in the march of modern retail but before we write it off please take your mind back to the time when mobile services seemed to be a dead-in-the-water category in value-conscious India) and the increasing fragmentation of the media.
However I believe that the paradigm shift that has come to marketing is not in about how people consume media, analog or digital or where people shop (traditional or modern), it is not even about changing demographics (aging societies in US and Japan or the youth-dominated societies of India and China) .
It is about a tectonic shift on how people across the world see themselves and their lives.
This shift is from lives and self-image anchored in stability to lives and self-image geared to change. My 75 year old mother, 3 months ago started ,for the first time in her life going regularly, to the gym in our apartment complex ! My 20 year old son with regularity cannot stand today what he deeply admired just yesterday. And I am quite sure that the marketing services agency business that I own and run, with two other partners, will change its business model every quarter or so, not because it will be badly run but because it will be well run.
Marketing 1.0 was about displaying the wares. With the emergence of mass manufacturing and mass media emerged Marketing 2.0. At the core of marketing 2.0 is the brand. The brand is based on the premise that if a marketer establishes a relationship with a consumer beyond the transactional, such a relationship will become the growth engine of the business. Implicit in the notion is that, in essence, the value system of the consumer seeks relationships. The track record of brands over the past six to seven decades suggests this was true.
However what if today's consumer does not seek relationships but instead seeks change, continuous all pervading change? Would not such a state call for a new kind of marketing?
Premised on the above argument I propose for consideration a new marketing framework. I choose to call this framework: Marketing To Change.
The framework I am now beginning to build is based on a framework for change that
John P Kotter proposed in his seminal book "Leading Change. Why Transformation Efforts Fail".
Kotter's model of change has been created with reference to businesses attempting to change to better meet business challenges.
The essence of the model are the eight steps to change.
Step One: Create Urgency
"If many people start talking about the change you propose, the urgency can build and feed on itself."
Step Two: Form a Powerful Coalition
"To lead change, you need to bring together a coalition, or team, of influential people whose power comes from a variety of sources, including job title, status, expertise, and political importance."
Step Three: Create a Vision for Change
"When you first start thinking about change, there will probably be many great ideas and solutions floating around. Link these concepts to an overall vision that people can grasp easily and remember"
Step Four: Communicate the Vision
"Don't just call special meetings to communicate your vision. Instead, talk about it every chance you get"
Step Five: Remove Obstacles
Recognize and reward people for making change happen.
Identify people who are resisting the change, and help them see what's needed.
Take action to quickly remove barriers (human or otherwise).
Step Six: Create Short-term Wins
"Nothing motivates more than success. Give your company a taste of victory early in the change process"
Step Seven: Build on the Change
"Kotter argues that many change projects fail because victory is declared too early. Real change runs deep. Quick wins are only the beginning of what needs to be done to achieve long-term change"
Step Eight: Anchor the Changes in Corporate Culture
"Create plans to replace key leaders of change as they move on. This will help ensure that their legacy is not lost or forgotten"
The application to marketing of the above model would be to view the consumer as an entity whose purpose in life is to make change happen every minute of her life and the brand's and through the brand the marketer's objective is to enable the consumer in this purpose.
Lets see if we can then work out eight guiding principles of Marketing 3.0 based on Kotter's eight steps.
The "Create Urgency" principle: Can the brand enable the consumer to record and reinforce the change she desires?
The "Form A Powerful Coalition" principle: Can the brand enable the consumer to find and communicate with other people who are in the same frame of mind and do this as the frame of mind changes?
The "Create A Vision for Change" principle: Can he brand enable the consumer to find a pattern in the changes she experiences and desires that inspires her?
The "Communicate The Vision" principle: Can the brand enable the consumer to megaphone the inspiration in order to reinforce it?
The "Remove Obstacles" principles: Can the brand provide outlets to withdraw and vent her frustrations as a step towards overcoming obstacles?
The "Create Short Term Wins": Can the brand set up a self-directed 'pat-on-the-back" system for the consumer?
The "Build on the Change" principle: Can the brand enable the consumer to run a virtuous cycle between change and achievement?
The "Anchor in Culture" principle: Can the brand enable the consumer to recognize her need for change in the need for change in the organization she works in and the society she lives in?
I agree that the above principles are abstract but that is where a new paradigm always begins. You will agree though that the above principles portend a completely fresh brand and marketing templates.
It is also clear that no one brand will embody all eight principles. In fact brands will be positioned by which principle or set of principles they embody. Going a step further maybe the product and service categories of the future will be driven by a matrix of the eight principles and everyday functional needs.
While the first stating of a new paradigm might be abstract but every valid paradigm must begin in reality. I have begun the search for looking for examples of Marketing To Change already happening in markets across the world. I invite you to join the search.
