Marketing
is increasingly being visualized beyond the context of need + impact + change. We have to know that why there is a need? How the
impact can be made? What change is
aimed at? Aditya Save talked about how great organizations always
articulate about purpose of their
existence and about their vision rather than how they do it and what qualitative they communicate?
We are
in a constant state of flux. Today is outdated already. Pace of change is
faster than our efforts to update ourselves. We have to take a relook at
definition of RELEVANCE. Many
institutions refuse to take note of changing circumstances because of weight
and burden of goodwill, legacy and heritage. Then how to go ahead in future?
‘Creative
Destruction’ is changing the way organizations think about change. Creative
Destruction is a historical concept describing how new technology, new ideas,
business practices, introduction of new methods, products, services radically
disrupt establishment; in industry. Because of failure to adapt to new ways of
understanding/interpreting changes around us; our behavior to approach to
change is very slow.
Change
shapes our mindset to get out of comfort zone by experimenting. Merging old
perspectives with new ones is most important aspect. It becomes more difficult
as we realize that people don’t want to change.
We have
to understand change by i) Deciphering distinct phenomenon/icon/leadership, ii)
Looking for critical mass and iii) How combination of phenomenon and critical
mass leads towards transformation. How the masses are connected to convictions
of great ideas or phenomena? How people-data-things are connected in the framework
of processes which is aimed at attaining human welfare.
Marketing
Process Journey is going through transformation. Understanding consumer
insights—concepts—proposition—composition. 4Ps of Marketing Product, Promotion,
Price, and Place have also gone through some kind of evolutionary mutation. It
has given rise to 4Cs i.e. Customer, Category, Competition, Company.
Now we
should carefully understand how Brands are going through transformation compared
to earlier times.
i) Previously brands were Leaders but today Consumers
are shaping the brand.
ii) Previously
brands were influencing culture but today brands are playing catch-up with behavior
of consumers.
iii) Previously brands-messages were
universal in appeal to population of consumers but now brands cater to individual, diverse
needs of markets.
iv) Previously knowledge about traits and features
of brand were known to all but increasingly tacit knowledge about particular brands is
limited to closed groups.
v) Previously people were following changes in
external features of brands but now brands are following changes in benchmarks
of thinking of people.
Brands
make certain promises to its audiences and then try to learn from them to grow.
These days amidst the scarce resources, brands
are making multiple promises to multiple audiences. This thinking is inspired by
'outliers' and inspiring innovation. Thus
thinking is increasingly being shaped by:
i)
Perceptions of well experienced customers;
ii)
Decreasing attention span of consumers;
iii)
Graphical/Visual/Textual literacy of consumers;
iv)
Preparedness of consumers to accept out of the
way/innovative ideas .
Thus,
marketing and advertising world is learning by listening to Revelations,
Understanding and interactions within their closed group and interactions in open fora.
How
change is triggering markets, societies and how thought leadership in various
walks of life is inspiring people in businesses, marketing, advertising to
think differently is most interesting aspect to think about in this context. Traditional
purchase funnel is being replaced by new type consumer decision journey.
Core role
of marketing is first to create preferences and then move consumer towards
harnessing monopolistic behavior about brand loyalty i.e. to create obsession
about brands. But this is also changing. These days it is more to do about adding
value through the paradigm of RELEVANCE
and IMPACT for target consumer, who is likely to be brand`s loyal partner,
not customer. Norms of collaboration, innovation are transforming notions of
consumers. Increasingly companies are visualizing, allowing consumers to have
equal stake in defining consumer needs, benchmarks, quality criteria, service
parameters and likewise.
Thinkers,
sociologists, journalists, political leaders, psychologists, technologists, lyricist,
scriptwriters, historians, novelists and all type of people who are engaged in
creative—intellectual pursuit of ideas give great insights about how the world
is changing around us. This dynamic perspective about changing world is always carefully,
diligently being watched in business world.
Assumptions
guide our behavior. Therefore we should stop one moment to give a glimpse on
upcoming ideas before beginning any journey. Imagination is definitely
important than knowledge.
As Seth
Godin says, “As an organization
grows and succeeds, it sows the seeds of its own demise by getting boring.” It refuses to recognize the changing needs of the operations people are
interested in. Last few years have seen vanishing of many great companies from
markets. (eg. Xerox, Kodak) On the contrary century old companies like IBM have
redefined their role and transformed themselves from leaders in purely
manufacturing industry to ITES/R&D organization.
Let us take a look at another few
quotations of Seth Godin:
--> “Are you a serial idea-starting person? The goal is to be an
idea- shipping person.”
-->
“Change is not a threat, it’s an opportunity. Survival is not
the goal, transformative success is.”
---> “Expectations are the engines of our perceptions.”
--> “Ideas in secret die. They need light and air or they starve
to death.”
--> “Developing expertise or assets
that are not easily copied is essential; otherwise you’re just a middleman.”
--> “Give up control and give it away
… The more you give your idea away, the more your company is going to be worth. “
---> “Be personal. Be relevant. Be
specific.”
---> “Art is what we’re doing when we
do our best work.”
---> “Good marketers tell stories.
They don’t talk about products.”
Pentagon,
in which sides are: Societal plane, Brand plane, Competitive plane, Product
plane, Category plane; to discover truth or all possible shades of truth engraved in this pentagon is
the ultimate task at hand.
Consumers cannot be isolated from culture, society and historical lineage
they live, travel, think and share. People negotiate about their aspirations on
the boundaries of tradition and modernity. In a sense tradition is being
revived and modernity is being reinterpreted in terms of age old traditions. Many
times festivals are being used for magnifying celebrations, to enter in the
continuous alliance of conservative beliefs and free-market, liberal,
individualistic initiatives.
So, understanding the past, evolving and contemporary
patterns of social context, emotional patterns, language diversity, everyday
political happenings, happenings in art and literature gives immense possibilities
to analyze the situation according to the foresight/planning exercises of any organization,
business or otherwise.
Santosh Desai uncovered many layers of Indian mind when he
discussed various advertising strategies regarding FMCGs. While doing this, he
provoked the imagination in a sense to think like a social scientist while
working on the problems of marketing, advertising, business development,
strategic planning, and foresight analysis.
“Desai
examines everything from the ethos of the Hindi film hero to the place of the
Bajaj scooter in our collective consciousness; from the deeper meaning of
Western vs. Indian-style toilets to a deconstruction of the golguppa (or
bhel-puri); from the semiotics of scratching ourselves in public to our
deep-rooted dynastic urge, in everything from politics to cinema (Tusshar
Kapoor ki jai!) And, refreshingly, when he writes about these things, he writes
not as a scholar, or, heaven forbid, an MBA, but as a kind of poet of social
anthropology. Thus he says of the humble, phut-phutting autorickshaw:
The auto’s
appeal comes from its ability to provide a real luxury; it offers us the power
of individualized motorized transport. When one hires an auto one is placing a
value on one’s own time. Rather than wait for public transport, an auto is
hailed and one’s precise destination is reached. The auto rickshaw’s implicit
deal with us is that while it gives us this wonderful luxury, in return it
strips everything else in the experience that could remotely reek of luxury …
It is both deeply comforting and dissatisfying. It captures the variable and
uneven nature of life in India that is not too poor to have no choices, yet not
so affluent that it can take life for granted … It reaffirms and gives
substance to the Indian belief that life may be hard but there is always a way.”
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