Marketing 3.0: It’s time to make a change

Meenambekai Raveendren - Jaffna University

The American Marketing Association in 2008, which defined, “Marketing is the activity, set of institution and processes for creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that have value for consumers, clients, partners, and society at large”.

Marketing is still about developing segmentation, choosing the target segment, defining the positioning, providing the four Ps and building brand around the product.

However, the changes in the business environment such as, recession, climate concerns, new social media, consumer empowerment, new wave technology, and globalization will continue to create a massive shift in marketing practices.

These kind of major changes require a major rethinking of marketing. Whenever the macroeconomics environment changes, so will consumer behaviour change and this will lead marketing to change.

Over the past 6 decades, marketing has moved from being product-centric (Marketing 1.0) to being consumer-centric (Marketing 2.0).

Today we see marketing as moving once again in response to the new dynamics in the environment. The companies start to expand their focus from products to consumers to humankind issues.

Marketing 3.0 is the stage when companies shift from consumer-centricity to human-centricity and where profitability is balanced with corporate responsibility.

The idea of Marketing 3.0 was first conceptualized in Asia in 2005 by a group of consultants at MarkPlus, a Southeast Asian-based marketing services firm led by Hermawan Kartajaya. After two years, Philip Kotler and Hermawan Kartajaya enhanced the concept.

Marketing 1.0 is still in practising by many of today’s marketers, some practice Marketing 2.0, and a few are moving into Marketing 3.0. Marketing 1.0 or product centric era implemented during the industrial age.

The core technology in the age is industrial machinery and marketing was about selling the output of the factory to who would buy them.

The products were fairly basic and were designed to serve the mass market. Standardization and lowest cost of production were the goals of the business. Price of the product kept at as possible as lower and made more affordable to buyers.

Marketing 2.0 evolves in this information era. The core is information technology. Several similar product offerings available are in the market. “Customer is king” is the golden rule of many companies.

Consumers are well informed and can easily evaluate and compare the products. The product value is defined by the consumer. Consumers differ greatly in their preferences.

So, the marketer must segment the market and develop a superior product for a specific target market. The marketers try to touch the consumer’s mind and heart.

Unfortunately, the consumer-centric approach implicitly assumes the view that consumers are passive targets of marketing campaigns.

This is the view in Marketing 2.0 or the customer-oriented era.

Now, we are witnessing the emergence of Marketing 3.0 or the values-driven era. Instead of treating people simply as consumers, marketers need to approach them as whole human beings with minds, hearts, and spirits.

Consumers are looking for solutions to their anxieties about making the globalized world a better place. In a world full of confusion, they search for companies that address their deepest needs for social, economic, and environmental justice in their mission, vision, and values.

They look for not only functional and emotional fulfilment but also human spirit fulfilment in the products and services they choose. Marketing 3.0 also aims to satisfy the consumer.

However, companies practising Marketing 3.0 have bigger missions, visions and values to contribute to the world; they aim to provide solutions to address problems in the society.

Marketing 3.0 lifts the concept of marketing into the arena of human aspirations, values, and spirit. Marketing 3.0 believes that consumers are complete human beings whose other needs and hopes should never be neglected. Therefore, Marketing 3.0 complements emotional marketing with human spirit marketing.

Three major Building blocks of Marketing 3.0

1. New wave technology

It leads to the rise of social media. Social media can be classified in two broad categories. Expressive social media- blogs, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, photo sharing sites like Flicker, and other social networking sites.

Collaborative media- Wikipedia, Rotten Tomatoes, and Craigslist.

Collaborative marketing is the first building block of Marketing 3.0. It refers Companies cannot do the changes alone. In the interlinked economy, they must collaborate with one another, with their shareholders, with their channel partners, with their employees, and with their consumers.

2. Globalization paradoxes

Especially the Sociocultural paradox, influence not only nations and corporations but also individuals. Individuals have started to feel the pressure of becoming global citizens as well as local citizens.

As a result, many people are anxious and carry conflicting intertwined values in their minds. Therefore to satisfy individual customers, companies need to address their cultural backgrounds also. Because every individual has different culture, norms, values and customs.

So it’s difficult to satisfy them with a standardized product or service package. Companies practising marketing should understand community issues that relate to their business. Hence cultural marketing is the second building block of Marketing 3.0. It is an approach that addresses concerns and desires of global citizens

3. Creativity

Creativity makes human beings different from other living creatures on earth.

Creative people constantly seek to improve themselves and their world. Creativity expresses itself in humanity, morality, and spirituality. It is found that psychospiritual benefits are indeed the most essential need of consumers and perhaps the ultimate differentiation a marketer can create.

Therefore in today’s’ marketers need to target customers spiritual satisfaction.

It means customers are wanted to be satisfied their self actualization needs.(according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs). Companies also should think about their self-actualization beyond material objectives.

They must understand what they are and why they are in business. They should know what they want to become. All these should be in the corporate mission, vision, and values. Profit will result from consumers’ appreciation of these companies’ contributions to human well-being. This is spiritual or human spirit. This is the third building block of Marketing 3.0.

Finally, to implement marketing 3.0, companies should follow a values-based matrix, where, on one axis, the company strives to occupy the minds, hearts, and spirits of current and future customers.

The other axis takes into account the company’s mission, vision, and values. While delivering performance and satisfaction to the customers at the product level is essential, at the highest level, a brand ought to be seen as realizing emotional aspirations and practising compassion in some form.

It must not only promise Profitability and Return Ability to current and future shareholders, but also sustainability. It must also become a brand that is better, different, and that makes a difference to current and future employees.

This value based matrix will help organizations to successfully implement the Marketing 3.0.