Abstract
The purpose of my paper is to make marketers go back to creating value and have less focus on functional subjects such as promotion, brand and communications. These are all things they have to do. You have to go beyond these. Creating value will disrupt your marketing thinking and help you be a disruptor in the marketplace.
The paper will discuss creating disruption using a value creation mindset, and also how you can win in a disrupted marketplace, using Mahajan’s 7As of value creation, which I will discuss later.
The modern marketing orientation or the marketing concept emerged in the 1950s. Characteristics of the marketing orientation were meant to be: Thorough understanding of the customer’s needs, wants and behaviours should be the focal point of all marketing decisions.
Unfortunately, marketing has evolved to a ‘better’ selling opportunity, and so branding, product management, etc., have taken over. The eye on customer value is not the big focus.
Phil Kotler has been saying, and I quote from the Journal of Creating Value:
I think that too many marketers have too narrow a view of marketing. Many see their primary job as advertising and promotion. They are called in after the product has been created. Their job is to help sell the product rather than to participate in making a great product with the right price, features and distribution. Outstanding marketing companies see marketing as intrinsically involved in
I would add marketers have to be disruptors, and innovators and manage in a disrupted marketplace. All disruption is not huge. You can disrupt marketing thinking in your disrupted marketplace in small ways. Can we sell this product where no one else has thought of? To different people? Can I bring new products in?
Having said this, what is value creation (which is the role of marketing)?
Creating value is executing normal, conscious, inspired and even imaginative actions that increase the overall good and well-being, and the worth of and for ideas, goods, services, people or institutions including society, and all stakeholders (such as employees, customers, partners, shareholders and society), and value waiting to happen.
An example is looking at nature and coming up with something new. We call this value waiting to happen. By studying how geckos stick to walls, scientists were able to come up with a tape to close wounds during surgeries!
In 1948, Swiss engineer and amateur mountaineer George de Mestral went hiking in the woods with his dog. Upon arriving back at his home, he took note of the burrs that clung to his clothes and he wondered if such an idea could be useful in commercial application. He studied a burr under a microscope only to discover that they were covered in tiny hooks, which allowed them to grab onto clothes and fur that brushed in passing. And he developed this into Velcro.
Max Bazerman of Harvard Business School said:
We’ll use the word ‘ethics’ similarly to how utilitarian philosophers use the term: to achieve the greatest good by creating as much value as possible for all sentient beings in the world. By creating more value, you will be better and do better. Our goal will be to identify concrete steps to access our capacity to create more value and reach what I’ll refer to as our maximum sustainable level of goodness. (From Max Bazerman’s book, Better, Not Perfect: A Realist’s Guide to Maximum Sustainable Goodness, reviewed by Bharat Wakhlu in Journal of Creating Value, vol. 6, issue 2.)
So as value creators, we have to imagine the new normal, and get ourselves ready for it through baby steps, where we adjust to the changing present normal and disruption and become ready for the coming normals (note the use of the plural). Doing this requires our becoming more aware of value waiting to happen, that is what new happenings are possible. Will there be flying phones and devices, will we be wired, can we teleport ourselves, will we have to decide when to die? Can we open up our products to new markets and users?
Some background realities have to be noted:
Money and power will remain the number one motivator and normal People want to belong and conform We seek to go back to the old ways of thinking, though some change could become permanent.
We will forget the pandemic forced disruption and new future, which did not become a new normal. We started to put less stress on the environment, we stopped rushing around, which was for the greater good but we have gone back to our older ways and older normal, without disrupting our lifestyle for good of the environment.
What it tells us is that
Yet we know the new normal creeps up on us, and we have to start accepting them such as the telephone, cell phone, data and its ubiquity. It took several years for these innovations to become universal.
Some new normal happen fast, like the change in length of women’s dresses, below knee, above knee. Slower was the acceptance of Western dress in Korea, Japan and elsewhere where it has become the new normal, because people want to belong and conform.
How can we create better ways in this environment?
I had written about the short term new normal:
Coronavirus or COVID-19. Such disruptive events happen often. In public life, it is like a world war, or the financial meltdown in 2008. In private life, loss of a job can be disruptive. Someone’s death may be disruptive for the survivors. For companies, such as Boeing, the 737 Max tragedy was disruptive. They all destroyed value.
I would like to introduce my 7As thinking which are
What are the lessons we can learn? Often these disruptive occurrences can be destroyers of value, but they are also an opportunity, to create value. How do we do this? For example, the driverless car can cause destruction for some (drivers, car repair shops) and creation of value for others such as insurance companies.
Let us take examples:
Will studying in home and by net make more people more robotic and increase the influence of AI and technology and less on human thinking?
All these will lead to disruptive opportunities. First, are we aware of these, how can we take advantage of these? For example, chatbots to make it convenient for people to get information.
Our idea of management and of work has to change. Why is it necessary for office workers to concentrate in an office? For better communication? Efficiency? Our ability to manage and ensure people are working? Are on time? Are disciplined, are following the rules?
Changing this thinking, may bring the same level of efficiency with lower stress. Commute time will be reduced. Infrastructure stress on roads, on mass transport crowds will reduce. People will learn to do things remotely and probably become more self-reliant.
How do we become aware of opportunities and use them? For example, at home delivery of food and goods, home offices and supplies.
This is an opportunity to bring in new apps, services and ideas.
Internet payment and services will increase, because people would prefer less personal contact.
Thus, we have e-challans and e-payment systems. Does your system have this? Are your IT and marketing coordinated?
The idea of globalization modified by glocalization may not be the path for the future. Globalization is more for suppliers and manufacturers. By and large the consumers are local, although they are made to feel global because they buy goods made globally, China, India, Mexico, etc. Does it matter if a local product gave the same value?
How do we make that happen?
Maybe our concept of manufacturing of scale is outmoded. This requires huge manufacturing facilities and even larger distribution and supply chains. Movements such as eat local, grow local; closer to home trade are starting.
What are the products we can make through distributed manufacturing? We may have to use technology such as 3D printing or innovative manufacturing and assembly techniques. An example is machines that can manufacture furniture on demand. They are programmed to manufacture different furniture, a table, a chair and select the raw materials. Inventory and distribution costs are reduced. Scale is no longer important, and just-in-time will increase by putting up local satellite plants, giving us a local advantage. Even today, computers made in China are branded to make people feel they are buying a local product and can get local service.
How can we change our thinking?
Everything will need a hard re-look.
In design and architecture, should homes be designed for social distancing, for ease of sterilization, and also how to allow homes to work well for people working from home, and make them energy efficient and self-healing and self-repairing? Infrastructure. A great time for us to rebuild and re design and better transportation, not more rails but aerial transport or single on demand transport using the rail system. Sharing economy, hotels (which sold rooms) moving to Airbnb, Uber, etc., which shared services. An example of something that will disrupt marketing is prevention of customer value starvation. Stop long waits on the phone, and prevent irritation to customers, create value for them and you will disrupt your competition. We will all have more leisure time and less hectic activity. Is this a wakeup sign that the rat race may not be necessary? A slower economic growth may not be a bad thing. Can we re-invent ourselves and our lives? Can we find more time for each other? Can we become more caring?
Make it fun for people to do business with you, and to enjoy life.
Will this lead to a happier, more balanced society?
How can we create value in this sector? How can we market in this disrupted marketplace?
Reduce economic inequality which can happen to less educated/less trained as technology eliminates jobs. This means more racial and social justice is needed, including a new definition of capitalism, which now is thinking of creating value for all stakeholders.
Can you build a new elite?
What are the lessons we can learn?
Often these disruptive occurrences can be destroyers of value, but they are also an opportunity to create value. How do we do this? First and foremost, our thinking has to change from bemoaning the disruptive event to seeing how we can convert it to our advantage, without impacting our values (that is doing bad things like charging more for masks or hand sanitizers).
Ask yourself, what I can do differently for the future. What is my purpose or what is the purpose of my company? How can I succeed in the future by creating value, and turning value destruction and disruption into an opportunity? Re-examine what my purpose is or what the purpose of my company is?
This is our global opportunity to re-invent ourselves and move from value destruction to value creation.
To do all of this, we need to use my 7As of value creation: curiosity and Awareness. Without this we cannot look beyond the obvious; we have to use our Ability to see, to change and win in a disrupted marketplace; We need the speed or Agility to make changes and grab opportunities; and must have an Attitude to make things happen; Anticipation of what to do and what competition might do, an anticipation of the future; Adaptability to circumstances and to change is necessary, and we may have to sell our ideas to others; and Ambidextrousness to handle the present and the future. Use these 7As to change the future and win in a disrupted marketplace.
This is our global opportunity to re-invent ourselves and move from value destruction to value creation as marketers in a disrupted marketplace. Become winners!