What is the Future of Marketing? It is a question that has, and does, vex me considerably.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Marketing Leadership prompted by Mark Choueke's call for leadership in Marketing Week. He got a good reception for his article, and rightly so, and he followed it ...
This is a question I’ve been thinking about for a while, and that has caused me some pretty rough times – but they were important to go through, and I think it’s an important question to ask, so I want to share where I’m at with it.
For me, the first ...
In the last couple of weeks, I've discovered and started using 2 innovative new things that both point the way towards helping make 'conservation' a lot easier, more practical and accessible - the 'conservation economy' coming to life in tangible, new ways. The kind of ideas I'd love to see more ...
I read with interest Mark Choueke’s call for Marketing Leadership in this week’s Marketing Week. Mark and I have discussed this topic before and I am delighted that he is taking up a theme with which I have been concerned for a long time. However I would push even further than ...
I stumbled across a few interesting bits and bobs over the last week or two that i'd like to share with you fine people.
Consumption
This article in the New York Times about the psychology of consumption and links between purchasing and happiness is a fascinatnig read and also provided some serendipitous ...
7 ways to have more by owning less: innovative services that help shrink your carbon footprint, save money and de-clutter through the power of sharing.
Zen and the art of protecting the planet: In a rare interview, zen buddhist master Thich Nhat Hahn warns of the threat to civilisation from climate change and the spiritual revival that is needed to avert catastrophe. (Hat tip to Dan Burgess).
A provocative and timely aticle in the New York times – Maths Lessons for Locavores – has sparked a great debate online about the virtues of local food. In response Grist have set up a virtual roundtable – Food Fight – and invited various experts and bloggers to contribute.
A couple of articles, by the Guardian and Scientific American, on recent reearch that attempts to resolve the “Environmentalists Paradox”. Or in other words, “How is it that human well-being continues to improve as ecosystem services decline?”
I had a debate on which picture to choose for this blog, I had a bigger debate on whether to write this blog, and really this blog is all about the biggest debate I have with myself – which I am finding out to be a secret debate that a lot of other people are having as well.
‘I have known it for while, although I keep making excuses, what I spend my day doing is not making the world a better place.’
Making a profit, which allows companies to employ people, so those employees can eat well and put shelter over their head is a good thing; the debate is really about the way they go about making the profit. I have always been a fan of the concept of the ‘Triple Bottom Line’, which states after economic profit, you need to add (or in most cases subtract) environmental and social profit. In this way we can see the true contribution a company is making, and I would argue that most companies would be negative total profit under this measure. You only have to look at the recent BP incident to realise how the environmental impact will be factored into their new ‘bottom line’. And we have gone a long way in recent times to measure environmental impacts; the next push will be on the measurement of social impacts – although that is for another blog post.
People make up companies, and I believe people are at the heart of this debate. It is all about what we choose to spend our days doing. And the choice in your career is often made to appear polar in its characterisation, it is either work for a big corporation or a charity, there is no in-between – I believe this is wrong, and I also believe this is rapidly changing. There are numerous options now to do both, and growing options to do both in the same company, here are some examples in a chronological approach to your career.
Start from scratch: It might be the most challenging, but arguably the most direct route. This route is likely taken when you are already involved in the social sector, as you need to be close to the problems. Fair Finance is a great example of a young person with a passion who is replicating microfinance principles in urban poverty stricken areas, right here in the UK.
From the corporate: Many corporations are keen to be associated with this growing sector. While in your current position, it is possible to start dedicating portions of your time to a social venture. In both the cases of Cool2Care, which started while at IBM, and Teach First London, which started while at McKinsey, we see great examples of migrating from their current employer to running the social venture that they started while fully employed.
Within the coporate: While you are in your job, a number of the big coporations are starting to make it possible to do both while you are there, and Allianz is a great example. This emerging area of the social intrapreneur is interesting, as it points to large corporations hearing the message from the consumer and the employee.
Post-corporate: This is the most traditional method for non-profits and charities to attract senior business people, for both board and CEO roles. Successful corporate people, who are financially secure and want to now give back to society. They find the idea of sustainable business models operating in social areas, even more interesting. One such example is the CEO of Café Direct, who retired from a very successful career to move into the CEO role of this exciting social venture.
Today you will find employees and in particular new graduates from university screaming inside not to have to make this trade-off; they want to be able to do both, and it will be the companies that deliver all three types of profits that will be successful at the end of this century. And as I researched this blog, I found that this is not the first time business folks realised this. A quote from one of the biggest business gurus of our time:
“Social responsibility objectives need to be built into the strategy of a business, rather than merely be statements of good intentions.” Source: Peter F. Drucker, Frontiers of Management. New York; Truman Talley Books, 1968.,
The debate will rage, and in the end it is an individual decision. Although one debate is over for me, it is our purpose and our responsibility to help others, this is not a choice. Everyday you should be making the world a better place.
What is the Future of Marketing? It is a question that has, and does, vex me considerably.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Marketing Leadership prompted by Mark Choueke’s call for leadership in Marketing Week. He got a good reception for his article, and rightly so, and he followed it up with “Join the Marketing Plan for Marketers” which is worth reading.
The need for credibility is undoubtedly crucial and we need to avoid our industry turning inwards and defaulting to the seemingly age old, ”we’re not wrong, we are just misunderstood” excuses. We must not default to the position that the solution to any lack of standing as a profession is solved by just needing to “market” marketing within businesses and “to the board”. We need new ideas and a vision for marketing’s role with the organisation.
As I mused on this I turned to my almost untouched (shame on me!) copy of “The Future of Marketing” for inspiration. This beautifully produced book was recently published by the Marketing Society for its 50th Anniversary. My depression deepened as I read the collected thoughts of 50 CEOs, from the “world’s most successful companies”, no less, in answering the question “What role will marketing play in the future success of your business?”
Guess what the answer is? A lot of “consumer is boss”, a truck load of “digital”, some “it’s all about growth” and shockingly little on sustainability (apart from good old Unilever). Andrew Marsden’s introduction boils it all down to “absolute agreement about one thing that will not change” – the battle for consumer’s trust.
What’s interesting about these snippets from these CEOs is that, by definition, what these CEOs think is the status quo. They extrapolate from the current trajectory of the world and their businesses to predict the future. Envisioning a radical future is hard for anyone but it is impossible for them. Incidentally this is compounded by the shocking lack of diversity in the group. Strikingly there were only 2 women and 2 non-white males in the group of 50!
I think marketing is on a collision course with the future. Our current marketing paradigm is inextricably linked to the driving of consumption and the creation of habits of consumption. This is the economic purpose of marketing: to ensure that demand outstrips supply permanently and profitably in a world of plentiful energy and resources. Economic growth has been the single minded outcome upon which we have built our brands, our marketing models and our rasion d’etre.
But unabated growth cannot continue. Rising populations, increasingly “middle class” and consumerist, means that there will be increasing competition for scarce resources. And marketing is already at some level becoming the thing to blame.
My hunch is that the future of marketing is not merely, or even, a “more consumer focused / digital / growth oriented / sustainable” (delete as appropriate) future but a complete reversal of the current paradigm:
We’ve been used to selling more stuff, the future will be about selling less stuff.
We’ve got great at creating new propositions, the future will be making things last.
We’ve become expert at making people value “goods”, the future will be helping people value what is “good” in every facet of their lives.
We’ve used advanced techniques to satisfy consumer wants, the future will be balancing outcomes for the common good.
Just big boned
And lastly we’ve become hooked on helping our businesses, our economies, often our customers, and in turn our wallets grow “fat”. The future of marketing will be helping people enjoy being “thin” by consuming less and conserving more.
This is an exciting opportunity for those businesses and brands, and their marketers, to move into a completely new and fundamentally more future oriented landscape.
I remember reading something about how best to use your time in relation to Climate Change. It said that it’s more effective to lobby your MP than recycle your rubbish. This is because if we all worked to change our MP’s minds which got them to change legislation, this is a far more productive way to tackle Climate Change than recycling bottles and tins of beans.
This kind of logic is exemplified perfectly in this TED talk by the impressive Jason Clay from the WWF.
He looks at the data and very quickly demonstrates that you can get an awful lot done by talking to just 100 companies who are responsible for a large minority of the world’s commodity markets which have the greatest environmental impact.
He talks about making sustainability a ‘pre-competitive issue’. You do this by getting major commodity producers to produce/extract their commodities in a sustainable which will help drive an entire commodity market to be sustainable. This means that consumers won’t have to choose between the sustainable and the non-sustainable option, because it will all be sustainable.
And it’s probably easier to convince 100 producers to ‘Supply Green’ than to convince 6 billion consumers to ‘Buy Green’.
Fastcompany report that California is close to passing a statewide ban against plastic bags.
Oscar winner Jeremy Irons has narrated a mockumentary, “The Majestic Plastic Bag” for Heal the Bay, a 25-year-old nonprofit based in Santa Monica. It’s part of an effort to highlight the importance of passing AB 1998, which would ban single-use plastic bags from grocery stores and other retailers. If passed, the bill would make California the first state to ban plastic bags.
I stumbled across a few interesting bits and bobs over the last week or two that i’d like to share with you fine people. Consumption This article in the New York Times about the psychology of consumption and links between purchasing and happiness is a fascinatnig read and also provided some serendipitous links to a [...]
A. The light bulb was fixed in place by powerful forces beyond your control – you can’t change it. And you must never try. Instead, you must make the darkness work for you. Courtesy of PIRC. Not saying I think it’s entirely accurate, but it’s certainly thought-provoking.
I read with interest Mark Choueke’s call for Marketing Leadership in this week’s Marketing Week. Mark and I have discussed this topic before and I am delighted that he is taking up a theme with which I have been concerned for a long time. However I would push even further than Mark suggests. I believe the [...]
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve discovered and started using 2 innovative new things that both point the way towards helping make ‘conservation’ a lot easier, more practical and accessible – the ‘conservation economy’ coming to life in tangible, new ways. The kind of ideas I’d love to see more of, that come from the [...]
There’s a criticism coming my way a bit at the moment, that my stance on these issues tends to be more academic than pragmatic. It’s fair, up to a point. So, given we are where we are, what do I suggest we do about it? Part of my answer is that we simply have to [...]
Caux Initiatives for Change Conference
Week-long conference with workshops etc for people from around the world working on the shape of a new global economy
Climate Change Justice
David Weisbach from Chicago University speaking at the RSA putting forward the provocative and original argument that the best – and possibly only – way to get an effective climate treaty, which will improve the welfare of people around the world, is to e
Resurgence: To be a pilgrim or a tourist?
Satish Kumar (editor of Resurgence and cross between Gandhi and your grandad), Peter Owen Jones (BBC2 How to live a simple life), Caroline Lucas and others at a day of discussion and entertainment in Kensington, October 30th, £25
katylindemann: RT @leylandrichard: WorkSnug needs a digital/creative genius to turn a dull written concept into a full on double rainbow of animated, visual joy. Please RT 4 days ago
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katylindemann: right this cold that I appear to be getting can just FUCK RIGHT OFF please thankyouverymuch. despite appearances it is allegedly august... 5 days ago
tomfarrand: RT @what_matters: 3 drivers of social enterprise: 1 [ICT and SOCIAL WEB], 2 [CLIMATE CHANGE, PEAK RESOURCES and POVERTY] and 3 [BEYOND GROWTH ECONOMICS] 5 days ago
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dansolo: roasted leg of salt marsh lamb and a bottle of red. would usually be mumbling around at sancho panza at this time. no sign of wee nipper 3. 5 days ago