This thread is being started with the sole aim of discussing the evolution of marketing and ways of coping with the same. This will help gain a better understanding of where Marketing is headed and thereby provide us with the required edge. A bunch of eruditely articles will be presented about the same.
All in all, a must read for all present and future mangers/leaders.
In August last year, a group of marketing theorists gathered at Bentley College in Massachusetts, US. Among them were the grand viziers of marketing: Kellogg's Philip Kotler, Emory University's Jagdish Sheth and Wharton's Jerry Wind. The professors hadn't come together for another routine seminar discussing the intricacies of marketing. They had come together to discuss the future of the discipline itself. Why was marketing in such trouble? And what could be done to fix it?
In his luncheon speech, Kotler called for a greater attention to ethics. This, he declared, would help restore public confidence in marketing. Wind presented a paper on challenging the mental models of marketing. Sheth argued for an upgradation of marketing education and a certification programme for marketing practitioners. Rajendra Sisodia, professor of marketing at Bentley College and the symposium's sponsor, presented a study on the image of marketing done jointly with Sheth. That highlighted another area of concern - marketing's image has taken a beating, contributing to rising consumer resistance and declining confidence within companies about their marketing departments.
Some others were even more strident, arguing that the function needed to reinvent itself. This was the first time that so many had put forward so radical a set of suggestions.
Ironically, though the past few years have seen some great marketing successes, the function itself is in trouble. Within organisations, the function no longer enjoys the same clout as before. Outside them, competition has heightened, the media has fragmented, and retail has consolidated. At the same time, the consumer has become much more demanding.
In November 2002, a Businessworld cover story titled 'Why Is Marketing Not Working?' reported on this rising disenchantment. Initially, academics were reluctant to accept that marketing needed a radical overhaul, not mere nips and tucks. However, that realisation has sunk in gradually. And between 2002 and now, work on a resurrection has begun.
These efforts have partly centred on helping marketing departments do their job better. Some academics feel it is time to junk Kotler's four Ps - product, price, promotion and place. It's not built around the customer. Sisodia and Sheth have suggested an alternative framework called the four As - acceptability, affordability, accessibility and awareness. This, they say, is far more consumer-centric.
With marketing and his old framework under fire, Kotler offers two propositions. His new framework, holistic marketing, is an attempt to focus on the "whole consumption chain, the life-space of the customer, and the surrounding competitive environment" than just the product or service. Also, agreeing that the four Ps are the wrong starting point for marketers, he is now telling companies to first covert the four Ps into four Cs - customer value, customer costs, customer convenience and customer communication. That is Kotler's prescription for making marketing more customer-centric.
The thread of customer-centricity runs through the work of Venkat Ramaswamy and C.K. Prahalad - but with a slight twist. In The Future of Competition, the two professors at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business argue that product and service differentiation are passé. Competitive advantage lies in meaningful customer experiences. Then they go on to propose that companies shouldn't even try to guess what experience customers might find compelling. Instead, they should innovate a process that enables every customer to create the product or service experience he wants.
As concepts go, co-creation has been around for a while. But by focusing on the consumer's experience, Prahalad and Ramaswamy have shown how to use it for achieving the attractive proposition of mass personalisation.
Not all are obsessed with grand frameworks alone. Some, like London Business School's Nirmalya Kumar, are more bothered about the immediacy of market realities. His major concern is the shifting balance of power - from brand owners to retailers. In another new approach, Harvard professor Gerald Zaltman is borrowing from neurology, sociology, cognitive science and psychology to understand how consumers contemplate needs and evaluate products.
In their recent best-seller, Blue Ocean Strategy, INSEAD professors Renee Mauborgne and W. Chan Kim suggest that companies should focus on creating uncontested market spaces instead of competing in overcrowded spaces.
They are training their guns on another marketing staple: segmentation. According to them, by concentrating on the differences between different consumer groups, companies have over-segmented some markets. To succeed, they say, companies should focus on the commonalities, and not the differences, among consumer groups. By doing that they will be able to cater to a larger market.
All these ideas represent one cluster of approaches.
Sheth, the originator of the four-A framework, has another, more daring proposition. Do away with the traditional definition of the marketing department, he counsels. Expand its role. So far, companies' marketing departments have focused on just one stakeholder - the consumer. According to Sheth, they should address the needs of not one, but seven, stakeholders. They comprise the three primary stakeholders of customers, employees and investors, and four others: the community within which the company exists, suppliers, the media, and government.
Surely, a churn is underway. Much of marketing theory was dominated by Kotler till now. Its future is now up for grabs.
All in all, a must read for all present and future mangers/leaders.
In August last year, a group of marketing theorists gathered at Bentley College in Massachusetts, US. Among them were the grand viziers of marketing: Kellogg's Philip Kotler, Emory University's Jagdish Sheth and Wharton's Jerry Wind. The professors hadn't come together for another routine seminar discussing the intricacies of marketing. They had come together to discuss the future of the discipline itself. Why was marketing in such trouble? And what could be done to fix it?
In his luncheon speech, Kotler called for a greater attention to ethics. This, he declared, would help restore public confidence in marketing. Wind presented a paper on challenging the mental models of marketing. Sheth argued for an upgradation of marketing education and a certification programme for marketing practitioners. Rajendra Sisodia, professor of marketing at Bentley College and the symposium's sponsor, presented a study on the image of marketing done jointly with Sheth. That highlighted another area of concern - marketing's image has taken a beating, contributing to rising consumer resistance and declining confidence within companies about their marketing departments.
Some others were even more strident, arguing that the function needed to reinvent itself. This was the first time that so many had put forward so radical a set of suggestions.
Ironically, though the past few years have seen some great marketing successes, the function itself is in trouble. Within organisations, the function no longer enjoys the same clout as before. Outside them, competition has heightened, the media has fragmented, and retail has consolidated. At the same time, the consumer has become much more demanding.
In November 2002, a Businessworld cover story titled 'Why Is Marketing Not Working?' reported on this rising disenchantment. Initially, academics were reluctant to accept that marketing needed a radical overhaul, not mere nips and tucks. However, that realisation has sunk in gradually. And between 2002 and now, work on a resurrection has begun.
These efforts have partly centred on helping marketing departments do their job better. Some academics feel it is time to junk Kotler's four Ps - product, price, promotion and place. It's not built around the customer. Sisodia and Sheth have suggested an alternative framework called the four As - acceptability, affordability, accessibility and awareness. This, they say, is far more consumer-centric.
With marketing and his old framework under fire, Kotler offers two propositions. His new framework, holistic marketing, is an attempt to focus on the "whole consumption chain, the life-space of the customer, and the surrounding competitive environment" than just the product or service. Also, agreeing that the four Ps are the wrong starting point for marketers, he is now telling companies to first covert the four Ps into four Cs - customer value, customer costs, customer convenience and customer communication. That is Kotler's prescription for making marketing more customer-centric.
The thread of customer-centricity runs through the work of Venkat Ramaswamy and C.K. Prahalad - but with a slight twist. In The Future of Competition, the two professors at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business argue that product and service differentiation are passé. Competitive advantage lies in meaningful customer experiences. Then they go on to propose that companies shouldn't even try to guess what experience customers might find compelling. Instead, they should innovate a process that enables every customer to create the product or service experience he wants.
As concepts go, co-creation has been around for a while. But by focusing on the consumer's experience, Prahalad and Ramaswamy have shown how to use it for achieving the attractive proposition of mass personalisation.
Not all are obsessed with grand frameworks alone. Some, like London Business School's Nirmalya Kumar, are more bothered about the immediacy of market realities. His major concern is the shifting balance of power - from brand owners to retailers. In another new approach, Harvard professor Gerald Zaltman is borrowing from neurology, sociology, cognitive science and psychology to understand how consumers contemplate needs and evaluate products.
In their recent best-seller, Blue Ocean Strategy, INSEAD professors Renee Mauborgne and W. Chan Kim suggest that companies should focus on creating uncontested market spaces instead of competing in overcrowded spaces.
They are training their guns on another marketing staple: segmentation. According to them, by concentrating on the differences between different consumer groups, companies have over-segmented some markets. To succeed, they say, companies should focus on the commonalities, and not the differences, among consumer groups. By doing that they will be able to cater to a larger market.
All these ideas represent one cluster of approaches.
Sheth, the originator of the four-A framework, has another, more daring proposition. Do away with the traditional definition of the marketing department, he counsels. Expand its role. So far, companies' marketing departments have focused on just one stakeholder - the consumer. According to Sheth, they should address the needs of not one, but seven, stakeholders. They comprise the three primary stakeholders of customers, employees and investors, and four others: the community within which the company exists, suppliers, the media, and government.
Surely, a churn is underway. Much of marketing theory was dominated by Kotler till now. Its future is now up for grabs.
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