Value isn’t what it used to be. It is being reborn, and with this rebirth, we are witnessing the death of Marketing as we knew it. Fundamental changes are redefining how marketers must think and the tools they use. And their role in the organization will change as a result.
Once upon a time, marketers could define value for their category, tell consumers why it constituted better value than the alternatives, and then stand back and watch. Sometimes, the value was a functional improvement over alternative products, but much of the time, it was a psychological difference, or some combination of the two. Crest had fluoride and the reassurance of the American Dental Association’s seal of approval. Consumers, for their part, essentially had two choices: buy or not.
Consumers were segments, reasonably homogeneous groups with some common characteristic. You analyzed segments, picked one and made your pitch. If this sounds easy, of course, it wasn’t: in increasingly cluttered markets, matching offerings to segment needs was a constant balance of hard science and subtle art.
No more. While Marketing was never just about communications, the emergence of Web 2.0 has rocked the field to its foundations. The emergence of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, blogs and similar technologies has put power in the hands of individual consumers like never before. The conversation with consumers has changed from orderly one-way traffic to the chaos of an Italian roundabout.
Consider the sad case of United Airlines. In 2008, when musician Dave Carroll and his band, the Sons of Maxwell, were flying on United Airlines, his guitar was smashed by United baggage handlers. After a year of frustrated efforts to get the airline to compensate him, he posted the first of three videos on YouTube in July 2009. By August, it had been watched five million times. Carroll, once a lone disgruntled customer, was now a celebrity as well. A red-faced United offered to compensate him, but it was too late: as United had smashed his guitar, Carroll had smashed – or at least severely damaged – United’s brand equity.
The emergence of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, blogs and similar technologies has put power in the hands of individual consumers like never before. Few world-weary travellers will waste much sympathy on United. Carroll spoke for many of us when he said “the voice of one person is no longer ‘statistically insignificant’”. Anyone can bring down a brand that has taken decades, and millions of dollars, to build.
With so much power in the hands of consumers, Marketing is no longer about providing value to passive recipients, but about working hard to understand them, intimately. Marketing is now about creating products, services and experiences that solve problems for consumers, and about engaging in an ongoing dialogue – or ‘multi-logue’ – with them. This implies a very different attitude, and a different toolkit, than many of us are accustomed to. In a former time, brand managers would analyze endless tables in Usage and Attitude studies, Segmentation studies and the like to find statistically significant differences; they could fool themselves that they were seeing “real” consumers by going to the occasional focus group
where perhaps a small portion of the story would be heard.
Now, there is a need to build true intimacy with consumers, to develop empathy, the ability to walk in their shoes. Value is not provided, but co-created: marketers need to work closely with consumers to understand their problems and to work closely with their organization to understand what it can accomplish profitably. The task of marketing is to bring consumers and organizations together in an intimate relationship.
What matters now are judgment, rigour, openness and curiosity. Today’s brand manager needs to be a critical thinker, capable of constructing a mental model and appreciating the brand’s flaws, and able to work with consumers, trade partners and colleagues to improve it. This means having the judgment to understand which model of the market makes the most sense, the rigour to be relentless in pursuit of the truth, the openness to alternative ideas, and the curiosity to seek out new and different perspectives.
Quantitative skills are still important, but no longer good enough: in the old model, numbers were everything. Qualitative research was “fluff”, with much of it worthy of the scorn heaped on it. But numbers don’t get you closer to customers, and poorly conceived qualitative research can be just as misleading. Marketers need to be rigorous in using methods such as ethnographic observation and depth interviews to understand consumers’ lives. Then in using the right thought tools to interpret their findings.
Smart marketers have known this for some time. Companies like Procter & Gamble and Steelcase are embracing design-based problem-solving that emphasizes reflective problem-framing, consumer intimacy through ethnography, user engagement and rapid prototyping of solutions. With methods like these, they are rethinking the business thought process itself, revolutionizing Marketing, and assuring it a place at the boardroom table.
Marketing, as we knew it, is dead. The body has been embalmed, the casket closed and the remains committed to the flames. It’s time to hold the wake – not to speak ill of the dead, but to celebrate the new order. Long live Marketing in the new world!
David Dunne, an award-winning educator, holds the University of Toronto President’s Teaching Award and the prestigious 3M Fellowship. David has an extensive background as a marketing manager in Europe and North America. He consults in marketing to leading companies and has taught in North America, Europe and Asia.