Marketing Revolution

Citation

Mesa, W.B. (2009), "Marketing Revolution", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 135-135. https://doi.org/10.1108/07363760910940492

Marketing – either in academia or the marketplace – is in a middle‐aged state. Such an evaluation is the reason why a marketing revolution is needed. Gamble, Tapp, Marsella, and Stone, authors of Marketing Revolution, clearly declare that marketing is in a middle‐aged state and is in need of a dramatic change; a re‐definition of itself as a discipline and as a profession; a re‐thinking on the essential functions of marketing. Change, or more specifically revolution, is needed primarily because the customer has changed. And, if the customer has changed, then notions of marketing, product development, strategy, and basically what and how an entity conducts business, must also change.

Customers, the authors posit, have changed, and the traditional methods of marketing will not effectively provide the returns and growth that companies need in a climate of growing competition domestically and particularly globally. Moreover, competitive structures in the marketplace are characterized by increasing rivalry. Drawing from a McKinsey report, the authors highlight four areas of competitive rivalry:

1. 1.

   Trench warfare, as found in mature industries.

2. 2.

   Judo competition, where an entity can grow but also be replaced by an agile competitor.

3. 3.

   White‐knuckle competition, where industries are shrinking.

4. 4.

   Relative stability, where dramatic change is less threatening. (p. 26)

Market and customer changes bring about conditions to which firms must adapt, and such adaptation will need to be in marketing.

Much of the authors' concern with the marketing revolution is on completely understanding and serving the customer given the context of changing industry behaviors. Consumers have emerged as an empowered group with increasing choices, both of which yield increasing pressures on marketing. Below are key symptoms of the crisis for marketing (p. 29):

• •

  Marketing communication is congested – media is fragmented and messages are constant to the point of being ignored by customers. To make matters worse, there is a decline in the ROI (return on investment) relative to marketing campaigns.

• •

  Marketing seems to have become a battleground – marketing has to justify itself as a producer of revenues in firms.

• •

  Marketing disciplines are fighting each other. As firm budgets diminish given market pressures, increasing internal rivalry between marketing functions intensifies.

• •

  Too many marketers are in love with one instrument. Marketing professionals (as any other professional) tend towards favorite approaches or tools.

• •

  Many internal relationships and client‐agency relationships frequently do not look like partnership. When groups in a firm do team up, there's little alignment of effort since a cogent and practical strategy are non‐existent.

Given the above prognosis by the authors, their book provides an extensive (very extensive!) articulation of what needs to be done and how it can be done. In short, generate a marketing revolution that realigns the firm's competitive resources towards new ends.

Of particular note, is the authors' concept of “customer experience”. Unlike customer satisfaction, which kills an entity, customer experience is the touchstone that energizes a marketing revolution. While a customer can be satisfied, such a state provides small avenues for a “continued relationship” with the customer. Conversely, customer experience means marketing has an interface and interaction with the customer at multiple levels. This is where the revolution is to take place, and this is where marketing recalibrates organizational capabilities. Customer experience captures the customer's journey, and knowing what that journey is comprised of generates for marketing a variety of areas to serve the customer, and ultimately, yield a loyal customer. By capturing the customer's journey, a firm then has insight on not only how and why to continually serve the customer, but it even makes the firm's product or service a way of life for the customer.

Gaining customer insight through the process of measuring and capturing customer experience will be crucial for marketing's revolution because customers will make themselves increasingly less available to marketers, there will be increasing frustration (and hostility) towards the media and marketing, and brand‐building will become more difficult (p. 70).

Customer experience is the central concept on which the book's applicability is constructed. The book is filled with rich diagrams, useful summary lists, numbered and highlighted concepts, and practically written for implementation. The length of the book more than implies that a marketing revolution is not an easy series of “how‐to” step but rather a full reconfiguration of the firm that starts with the marketing function. Each chapter provides in‐depth analysis and explanation on the means to starting and following through with the revolution. Also of use and interest are the case studies at the end of the chapter. They are useful either for teaching or the practitioner needing an immediate picture of some of the applications that the book provides.

On a final note, one must ask: Has not marketing created its own problems and therefore its own need for revolution? And if so, will the above approaches further create a customer who will require a future marketing revolution? And finally, what is the effect on customers where their every whim is met or their very “way of life” is constantly catered? Perhaps the questions appear critical of a marketing revolution, but they are worth reflecting on prior to generating a revolution that does not quite deliver what it promises for either the firm or the customer.