Posts tagged ‘consumer revolution’
Are The 4 Ps Dead?
(The following is an excerpt from the Introduction of the upcoming book Marketing From the Navel: How to Become a Company Worth Talking About and Arm Customers to Spread the Word)
The 4 Ps
In 1960, a concept was introduced by E. Jerome McCarthy that identified the four basic tenants of marketing as Product, Price, Place, and Promotion or, as it is more commonly known, the 4 Ps. Anyone who has ever taken a marketing class from then until now is taught the 4 P’s as the basic overview of marketing. These simple questions are what make up the basics of marketing:
-
What kind of product are we going to produce?
-
What is the right price for this product?
-
How are we going to distribute this product?
-
How are we going to promote and sell this product?
The purpose of McCarthy’s model was to further the understanding that marketing is much more than selling and advertising. In actuality, Selling and advertising only make up the promotion component of McCarthy’s model. According to McCarthy in his book Basic Marketing: A Global-Managerial Approach, “The aim of marketing is to identify customers’ needs – and to meet those needs so well that the product almost sells itself.” Easy enough, right?
The truth is that today many marketers are declaring the 4 P’s dead, or at least no longer relevant. There are many marketers who have even added more P’s to the mix, such as people, process, physical presence, or (as the word-of-mouth/social media crowd like to say) participation. The big question is can any product almost sell itself, or are there other critical factors in the new reality of the consumer movement?
The Missing Ingredient
While the 4 Ps offer a good basic framework for understanding the all encompassing nature of marketing, they are missing one key ingredient that has been made blatantly apparent by the consumer revolution – the consumer’s involvement in the process. The 4 Ps are segmented like an organizational chart, chopping up the functions of marketing in 4 bite-size chunks. But what about the fickle nature of the consumer? What if what meets their needs well one day doesn’t the next? What if your product is priced correctly, but so are the other 123 options on the market? What if the best person to design your product is the consumer? What if the consumer discovers your product is manufactured in sweat shops in India by 8 year-olds because someone walked in with a camera phone and then posted it on YouTube, their blog, and their Facebook page?
As I mentioned before, the world has changed since advertising’s glory days in E. Jerome McCarthy’s 1960s. However, many marketers have not. I have had the opportunity on many occasions to guest lecture in a university marketing class or judge a high school or college marketing class and am disappointed, to say the least, to see that our marketing education has not kept pace with the changing nature of marketing. Marketing educators still spend the majority of their time on the 4 Ps (with some attention paid to segmentation) and then dive into advertising. Some might say that this is indicative of the average age of the tenured professor, the fact that so few educators are practicing marketers within the wild west of the last 5 years, and some might even say it is a flaw in the system.
According to the existing system, educators lump this new reality of the consumer revolution into “interactive marketing”, because a significant portion of it occurs online. What they fail to see is that we need to re-address the underlying models upon which marketing is based. It goes beyond adding more “Ps”, but needs to address the new reality that we as marketers face today. We need a model that helps us understand the X factor that the consumer plays in the marketing process. We need a model that helps us connect with and engage the consumer in ways that they are most comfortable with. We need a model that helps cut through the clutter that exists in the commoditized markets in which we compete by tapping into the ability of human beings to influence each other.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=259e020b-e396-485b-8dc6-d87b1bbe0619)
The Evolution of the Revolution
This is a concept I often discuss in my presentations, but I thought I would outline it here since I believe that a) it is extremely relevant and b) we may be on the cusp of another revolution.
Revolutions have littered human history as the tired, the worn, and the downtrodden have risen up and taken back control of their lives. The American Revolution, the French Revolution, and even the Russian Revolution are prime examples of the disadvantaged masses exercising their right to self-governance. As Wikipedia defines it, “A revolution… is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.”
There have also been several non-violent revolutions that occured that have fundamentally changed the way marketing works today. These typically occur because of some technological advancement that gives the masses broader access.
The first of these is the Learning Revolution. The technological advancement:
The Gutenberg Printing Press
Before the printing press, the collective knowledge of humanity was held by a select few. Books were created through a laborious handwritten or block printing process, therefore, there were only a few of them existed and they were well guarded. It is no coincidence that the Renaissance coincided with the invention of the Printing Press. This allowed books and knowledge to be mass produced and mass consumed, creating a revolution in the education of the masses.
The second revolution was the Information Revolution. The technological advancement:
The Television
Although the radio was the first mass communication device, the television ushered in an entirely new level of information. It’s as the old saying goes “a picture is worth a thousand words”. Now scenes from all over the world could be broadcast instantaneously into millions of homes. Ordinary citizens had access to images that, before, were seen by only the select few. Television also provided an incredible opportunity to reach mass audiences with marketing messages.
The third revolution was the Consumer Revolution. The technological advancement:
The Internet
With the advent of the Internet, consumers had unprecedented access to information. As Richard Saul Wurman said in his book, Information Anxiety, ““A weekday edition of the New York Times contains more information than the average person was likely to come across in a lifetime in seventeenth-century England.” In addition, a 1987 report estimated that “more new information has been produced within the last 30 years than in the last 5000.” Think about how much information has been produced since 1987 when that report was written and 1989 when Information Anxiety was published.
At the same time, the information overload has caused a consumer backlash. 3 of the top selling technologies of the last 5 years are the iPod, Tivo (or DVR), and Satellite Radio – all advertising avoidance technologies. Consumers now have it within their power to control when they recieve information, how much of it to receive, and when they will receive it. Consumers have taken back control of their lives and the Internet has proven to be one of the primary weapons in the fight.
I can walk into a car dealership with the exact price the dealer paid for the car – including rebates. I can compare your prices in an instant with hundreds of other retailers, both online and off. I can read hundreds of reviews of your product or service that will inform me of almost any issue that I might have during its use. I can research any media story to see if you are telling the entire truth or omitting key facts so that the story reads according to your own political leanings.We are connected globally in ways that were never thought possible (see my post about Web 2.0 bringing the world together)
This has forced marketers to fundamentally change how they connect and engage with consumers. They can no longer talk at them, but with them.
Finally, the current revolution is what I am calling the “Publishing Revolution”. My friends Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell wrote what I believe is the seminal book on the trend called Citizen Marketers. It started with blogging but quickly spread to photos, video, audio, and social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Even social tagging and voting networks like Digg and Delicious allow consumers to comment on what others publish. What is fascinating is that this revolution brings us full circle back to the days of the Printing Press, except now the consumers are the publishers.
Recently, I came across a company that now combines all of these technologies into a single digital publishing platform. YUDU Media is a UK based company that offers a bureau service converting existing printed publications into digital publications for major media publishers such as Metro in the UK. They launched a product called YUDU Freedom in about April of this year that offered the ability for anyone to upload PDF files in order to self publish a digital publication. This week, they just launched their public beta of their YUDU Plus product which now combines digital publishing with social networking, tagging, reviews, comments, and multimedia.
The Testicle Cookbook on YUDU - You heard right...
I was invited to review the new site and, to say the least, I was extremely impressed. In my opinion, this could be THE tool of the publishing revolution. I can upload PDFs, Word documents, and PowerPoint presentations and then add video and audio to the publication. I can tag and pull in web pages into my library and make my publications public or private. I can even search the library to see other’s publications and YUDU even has a mechanism for selling my content should I so choose. Wouldn’t it be fascinating if this were the next evolution of the blog?
To see how YUDU works, click on my presentation on the Consumer Revolution below:
How do you see the Publishing Revolution evolving?
*Disclaimer: I actually liked the YUDU product so much, I picked them up as a client.
Reality TV Reflects Demand for Transparency
Bad hair, loud mouth, interesting business challenges - the right ingredients for reality TV
My name is Brian and I am an addict. “We love you, Brian”
Seriously though, there must be a support group for my addiction. I am addicted to Reality TV. I know that, for many of you, puts me at about the same level as WWE fans and Dungeons and Dragons nerds, but I can’t help myself. The reality (no pun intended) is, I think reality TV is like boy bands, we all make fun of them but when you are alone in the car and their songs play on the radio, you can’t help but sing along. I believe that deep down inside, we are all reality TV fans.
I didn’t realize I had a problem until I sat down and counted out all of the shows I enjoy
- The Apprentice
- American Idol
- Last Comic Standing
- The Biggest Loser
- Supernanny
- The Moment of Truth
- Baby Borrowers (great new one on NBC filmed here in the Boise area)
- Celebrity Circus
- The Amazing Race
- The Bachelor
- Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
HOLY CRAP! I have a problem. Granted, I don’t catch every episode of these and I also enjoy the good stuff like Lost, The Office, Heros, and Chuck. However, you can’t tell me that you haven’t caught an episode or two of one of the above shows.
I can understand Hollywood’s fascination with reality TV. Low budget and great ratings. But what is the secret behind America’s fascination with reality TV?
I believe it comes down to what I have mentioned several times before. Consumers are demanding transparency in everything from the products and services they buy to the TV shows they watch. Now, everyone knows that fancy editing and dramatic music are added to reality TV to spice it up and lead the viewer in a specific direction (my favorite was the regal fanfare that accompanied an entrance by The Donald). However, there is something to be said for watching real human beings going through unique experiences and feeling the raw emotion right along with them.
If you doubt what I am saying, do a Google search on any one of these shows and 90% of the listings will be fan sites, blogs, message boards, and comments from viewers and fans experiencing the show right along with the participants. It is called reality TV for a reason, it’s real. As a society, we have been fed propaganda for so long by corporate marketing departments, Hollywood, and news bureaus that we are all looking for a little reality in our lives.
What can marketers learn from the reality TV craze? Put a little more reality into your marketing. Implement Web 2.0 tools to give customers and prospects a bird’s eye view into your organization. Think of it as your own company reality TV show. Show them the good and the bad. Give them a reason to become engaged.
If this type of approach scares you, maybe you need to take a look at what your organization would look like to an objective observer. If your organization resembles Joan Rivers (rotting corpse covered up by a lot of Collagen injections, stretched skin, and make up), maybe you have some changes to make. With the explosion of social media, the truth will get out; whether by your employees, customers, or outside observers.
What kind of transparency would you like to see from some of your favorite brands?
The Blogging for Business (B4B) Conference
Recently, I was asked to speak at a conference in Salt Lake City on June 6th called the Blogging For Business Conference. Now I must be honest, I had never heard of it before, but as I found out more about the conference, I became impressed. You can find out more about the speakers and details here and you can visit the main website at www.bforbconference.com.
I have long admired GM for their leadership in blogging and social media. I have used them as a case study on multiple occasions. The B4B conference is lucky enough to have Christopher Barger, GM’s Director of Social Media keynote the conference. There are also sessions on SEO, Building Customer Evangelists, and my session on how the consumer revolution is driving transparency in marketing.
While blogging has taken off as a consumer journaling tool, it appears to still be in the early adopter phase when it comes to businesses adopting blogging as a marketing tool. I think there is some great content in this conference to showcase the value of blogging in a business environment.
If you are in the area, stop by and attend the conference. If you are not in the area, there is always that whole telepathy thing. Also, I will post a blog afterwards with some of my thoughts and observations. Feel free to keep checking the conference website as well.
