Values-driven marketing kotler

Marketing 3.0: Values-Driven Marketing
Philip Kotler, Kellogg School of Management Hermawan Kartajaya, MarkPlus Inc.

As the world changed over the past decades because of the technology evolution, so did marketing. Long ago during the industrial age—where the core technology was industrial machinery—marketing was about selling products to a target market without considering the needs andwants. This was Marketing 1.0 or the product-centric era. The famous saying of Henry Ford marked this era: “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.” In Marketing 1.0, there were many misconceptions of marketing. Marketing was considered as mere selling, an art of persuasion, and even cheating.

When it comes to today’s information age—where the core isinformation technology— the job of marketing is no longer that simple. Consumers are well informed and can compare several value offerings of similar products. The product value is defined by the consumer. It is a must for marketers to identify unfulfilled needs and wants and convert them into profitable opportunities. This is Marketing 2.0 or the customer-centric era. Marketing continues to have abad name in many circles because many marketers are simply after profit and carry on tricks in pricing, bait and switching, packaging, and false claims without really putting an effort to focus on the customers.

We will soon witness the rise of Marketing 3.0 or the human-centric era where consumers will be treated as human beings who are active, anxious, and creative. They will request moreparticipation in value creation. They will demand their deepest anxieties and desires—not traditional needs and wants—identified and fulfilled. They will ask for their creativity to be appreciated.

The Age of Participation and Collaborative Value Creation The development of computing has rolled out in five major waves.1 The first one came in the 1960s, as mainframe computers advanced into thecorporate world and became essential business tools. The 1970s saw the wide adoption of the minicomputer. This signifies the second wave. Then the personal computer came in the 1980s, as the symbol of the third wave, followed

in 1990s by networking and the internet, and the spread of distributed computing, as the symbol of the fourth wave.

The fifth wave resulted from the unprecedentedcoalescence of three powerful technological forces: cheap and ubiquitous computing devices, low-cost and omnipresent bandwidth, and open standards. It offers access to limitless connectivity and interactivity of not only corporations but also individuals.

It is no wonder that CEO, Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems once argued “We have moved beyond the information age to the age of participation.” Theheavy growth towards technology that enables participation justifies this statement. In the age of participation, people create news, ideas, and entertainment as well as consuming them.

The growing trend towards participative customers has affected the business. Companies must now collaborate with their consumers. The initial form of collaboration is when marketing managers listen to consumer’svoice to understand their minds and capture market insights. Marketing managers aren’t in charge anymore. Consumers are. Across the globe, millions of insightful, passionate and creative people are helping to optimize and endorse breakthrough products and services, sometimes without the companies’ buy-in.2

A report on Asian Wall Street Journal cited that U.S. companies are using new Blogsanalysis tools to figure out what customers really think about their products.3 A minivan maker, for example, learns that little kids love minivans while teens want SUVs from a blog conversation. Also from blogosphere, a drug maker finds that poor drug trial does not necessarily have negative impact to the company’s image.

A more sophisticated collaboration takes place when consumers are actually...