The traditional marketing model is out of sync with the times. The new realities of the 21st century are radically different from the preceding decades, and significant and fundamental changes must be made to accommodate them. The key to change lies in focusing on the new concept of managing the entire customer experience, both the tangibles and the intangibles.
At the root of this change is the nature of the relationship between the company and the customer, and all the ways in which their mutually inter-dependent relationship is built and maintained.
The 21st century customer
Traditional marketing’s fatal flaw was its inner focus. The customer was anonymous; communication was one-way; the focus was on talking to not talking with; monologues, not dialogues. The emergence of the age of the consumer is changing all that. The customers clearly have the power: this is simply a reflection of the myriad of shopping/buying choices they have. Surfer Shoppers will go wherever and to whom they feel is best meeting their needs and exceeding their expectations by consistently providing a WOW experience.
Moving from the anonymous customer to the identified customer will create a total two-way model of interactive company/customer communication. Mass marketing to micro-marketing to one-on-one marketing will see the move from pre-manufactured goods and services to customized items tailored to the individual needs of high-value customers. Traditional Marketing’s 4Ps will become the New Retailing’s 5Ps: Products, Pricing, Place, Promotion and People Power.
The focus will shift from selling to serving, i.e. from product and place to an enjoyable and rewarding total experience. ‘Total experience’ will broaden to include every phase of the customers’ search, shopping, in-store buying, end use, and after-sales service. Evidence clearly shows that the customer will pay for experiences, particularly those that change them for the better.
The 21st century customer is looking for a total solution. Every purchase is a combination of a product/service as well as information and the actual choosing, buying, and using experience.
Traditional vs. new marketing
Generations of marketers have been born and bred on the advertising and promotional model of client-driven, short-term promotional advertising. The truth is, the traditional marketing model is fundamentally flawed.
* Marketing/communications plans are created to suit client purposes vs. customer insights, total needs and wants, i.e. solutions.
* Advertising is planned in bursts/flights/campaigns vs. the continuous, real-time daily needs of today’s customers.
* Creative is a monologue with an anonymous consumer vs. individual customized segments.
* Media mix is one-dimensional, e.g. mass media vs. media that are co-ordinated, integrated, and interactive at every customer contact point.
* Branding is seen as an advertising graphic, creative activity vs. the Brand As a Statement or who we are and what we stand for, i.e. the DNA of the corporation.
* Marketing/advertising is seen as an annual expense vs. a long-term investment in building the brand, customer relationships.
* Return on investment is talked about but seldom applied.
Customers now award high marks for advertisers such as E-Trade, IKEA, and Victoria’s Secret, whose advertising is both attractive and stylish, sometimes playful and humorous, and sometimes controversial and even bizarre.
Brands like Kenneth Cole, Calvin Klein, Gucci, and Nike use their advertising to explore a range of themes and symbols – many of them sensual, sexual, and/or ambiguous – to help link them with their customers.
Marketers have always known that brand advertising can create share of mind/top of mind awareness, but in the future, the high ground of marketing may well also be about share of soul, share of meaning.
Best new positioning
‘For every generation’ from Gap
John Torella is a senior partner with retail analyst J.C. Williams Group in Toronto.
