The 3i´s, The Matrix and the 10 Credos

The 3i Model: 

Kotler proposes a triangle of Positioning, Differentiation and Branding as the core of Marketing. Brand Identity is about positioning your brand in the minds of the consumers. The positioning should be unique for your brand to be heard and noticed in the cluttered marketplace. It should also be relevant to the rational needs and wants of the consumers.
Brand Image is about acquiring the consumer’s mind share. Your brand value should appeal to consumer’s emotional needs and wants beyond product functionalities and features.
Brand Integrity is about fulfilling what is claimed through the positioning and brand value through solid differentiation. It is about being credible to your promise and establishing the trust of the consumers to your brand. The target of Brand Integrity is the spirit of the consumers.
It is the main message of this triangle: marketing shall not be regarded as telling lies for selling purposes; instead it should be regarded as keeping the promise to your customers. (Kotler, p. 36)



The "Values-based Matrix"

Kotler also introduces a “Value-based Matrix”. He sees a company’s mission, vision and values as the DNA, where the mission expresses the business you are in, the vision is the picture of the desirable future, and the values are considered the standards of behavior. (Kotler, p40, 41) On the other axis are the hearts, minds and spirits of the current and future customers represented. For a company to be successful, it must practice compassion, proof sustainability and show that it creates a difference in the future. Marketing according to Kotler is about clearly defining your unique identity and strengthening it with authentic integrity to build a strong image. (Kotler, p 169)

10 Credos of Value driven Marketing: (Kotler p 170 – 178)

1. Love your customers, respect your competitors
   Win your customers loyalty by giving them great value and touching their emotions and spirits. Your competitors enlarge the whole market, you can learn from them your own strength and weaknesses
2. Be sensitive to change, be ready to transform
   Business landscape keeps changing, if you are not sensitive to that, your business may become obsolete and eventually die.
3. Guard your name, be clear about who you are
   Brand reputation is everything, people tend to purchase the brand that is stronger in their mind and a company must be clear about its position and differentiation.
4. Customers are diverse; Go first to those who can benefit most from you
   Use segmentation, do not try to address everyone, but make your case clear to those who are most ready to buy and benefit from you
5. Always offer a good package at a fair price
   True marketing is fair marketing. Do not sell anything with poor quality or a too high price.
6. Always make yourself available, spread the good news
   Make it easy for customers to find you. Use of information technology, specially the internet is a “must have”.
7. Get your customers, keep and grow them
   Get to know your customer so you have a complete picture of their wants, needs, preferences and behavior.
8. Whatever your business, it’s a service business
   Whatever your product is, you must have a spirit of wanting to help your customers. Serve your customers sincerely and with empathy to create a positive experience for them.
9. Always refine your business process in terms of quality, cost and delivery
   The task of marketing is to improve quality, cost and delivery. Always meet what you promise to customers, suppliers and channel partners.
10. Gather relevant information, but use wisdom in making your final decision
    We have to continuously learn, learn and learn. Knowledge and experience determine the final decision and the “maturity of spirit and clarity of heart” will enable you to use the wisdom that you inherently have to make the best decision possible.

Marketing 3.0 - from Products to Customers to Human Spirits - part 1

In the next days i will put some parts of my marketing paper on my blog.
The first part of it, is already in my last post about the 4 quadrants of change. Based on this model of change, my suggestion is to beginn marketing on the basis of individual visions, missions and values.
In this post I am talking more about personal visioning and new approaches to marketing.

Personal Vision, Mission and Values

To start the process of a successful company, it is most important to be clear about your personal visions, goals and values. Especially for Start-Ups and entrepreneurs this is the most important step, since the person and the company are virtually the same. Only with strong personal values it is possible to survive in this fast changing economy. Not without reason, Guy Kawasaki dedicates the last chapter of his book “The Art of the Start” to the topic of personal integrity and has praise on the cover saying “Focus on what is real and forget the fluff. And please, read the last chapter first” by Pierre Omidyar, the founder of E-Bay. In his book he describes the Yiddish word “mensch” as a term for a person who is ethical, decent and admirable.
The three foundations of “menschhood” are:

·         Help many people:
a mensch helps people regardless of whether it´s good for this life or the next.

·         Do What´s Right:  A mensch does the right thing –not the easy thing, the money-saving thing, or the I-can-get-away-with-it thing. Right is right, and wrong is wrong.

·         Pay back society: there are many “currencies” with which you can pay back society. Money is only one of them, others include giving time, expertise, emotional support. A mensch pays back for goodness already received – as opposed to pay forward in expectation of return (Kawasaki, p. 211-214)

This is the foundation of business success in these days. Having high personal ethics is the only way to ensure that your company will reflect high ethics in its everyday life. Personal integrity is the only way to ensure that your company will have integrity even when times are hard, and problems are challenging you.
Therefore the first step for every entrepreneur has to be, to get clear about personal goals and values and align the company with these core principles.

New approaches to marketing

Understanding now, how important it is, that every individual is in line with their own personal values and the companies values and believes, I want to give a brief history of marketing, as shown in Philip Kotlers book Marketing 3.0.

As Marketing 1.0, Kotler describes the product centric marketing in the industrial age.  It is about selling basic products for mass markets with the goal of standardizing and up scaling (example: Ford, Model T). Marketing 2.0 is an outcome of the information age. Consumers are well informed, compare products and are very critical. Consumers get segmented and superior products for specific markets get developed. The golden rule is “Customer is King”. Now Marketing 3.0 rises. Instead of treating people simply as customers, marketers approach them as whole human beings with minds, hearts, and spirits. . Customers increasingly want to make the world a better place. They search for companies that address their deepest need for social, economic, and environmental justice in their mission, vision and values. Customers look for functional, emotional and spiritual fulfillment. Companies have bigger mission, vision and values then just serving customers. Marketing 3.0 companies provide answers and hope to increasing poverty, environmental destruction and pandemics and therefore touch consumers on a higher level. (Kotler, p. 3-6)

	Marketing 1.0 Product-centric marketing	Marketing 2.0 Consumer-oriented Marketing	Marketing 3.0 Values-driven Marketing
Objective	Sell products to mass	Satisfy and retain consumers	Make the world a better place
Enabling forces	Industrial Revolution	Information technology	New Wave Technology (connectedness of consumers)
How companies see the market	Mass buyers with physical needs	Smarter Consumers with mind and heart	Whole human with mind, heart and spirit
Key Marketing Concept	Product development	Differentiation	Values
Company marketing guidelines	Product specification	Corporate and product positioning	Corporate mission, vision and values
Value Proposition	Functional	Functional and emotional	Functional, emotional and spiritual
Interaction with customers	One-to-many transaction	One-to-one relationship	Many-to-many collaboration

(Kotler, p. 6)

3 major forces have transformed consumers to be more collaborative, cultural and human spirit-driven. Understanding these, leads to a better understanding of Marketing 3.0:

·         The age of participation

·         The age of globalization paradox

·         The age of creative society

The Age of participation

Since 2000 information technology is in mainstream market and based on that is the rise of “New Wave Technology”, which are technologies that enable connectivity and interactivity of individuals and groups.  3 mayor forces shape these technologies: cheap computers and mobile phones, low-cost internet, open source.
“New Wave technology” allows individuals to express themselves and collaborate with others – people create ideas, entertain them and consume them. One of the leading enablers is social media. There are two broad categories: expressive (blogs, facebook, YouTube, twitter, flickr, etc) and collaborative (Wikipedia, Craigslist, etc). In the new interlinked economy, companies practicing these strategies collaborate with another, with their shareholders, with their partners, employees, consumers and other businesses with similar sets of values and desires.

The age of globalization paradox

Information technology allows for exchange of information through nations, corporations and individuals and transportation technology fosters trade and other exchange in global value chains.  Globalization is full of paradoxes:

1.      While democracy is finding more global roots, the new, nondemocratic superpower China, grows in power. China proves that capitalism does not require democracy.

2.      Globalization calls for integration but does not create equal economies. Many third world countries are worse off than they were.

3.      Globalization creates diverse cultures: tribalism and globalism. It creates universal, global cultures, while also strengthening traditional cultures as a counterbalance.

The age of creative Society

Creative, right-brainers work in sectors such as science, art, and professional services. According to Daniel Pink, creativity is the highest level of social development in human civilization. Even thought the numbers are small, their role in society is increasingly dominant.  Kotler states that:
“Creative people are, in fact, strong believers in the inverted Maslow pyramid. The definition of spirituality as “the valuing of the nonmaterial aspects of life and intimations of an enduring reality” really finds its relevance in creative society. Scientists and artists often abandon material fulfillment in pursuit of self-actualization. They seek beyond what money can buy. They search for meaning, happiness, and spiritual realization. […] Like creative people, companies should think about their self-actualization beyond material objectives. They must understand what they are and why they are in business.” (Kotler, p 19, 20).

For the Future of Marketing, Kotler sees 3 mayor trends that will help companies to regain the trust of consumers that they have lost over the past 60 years. Consumers now gather in their own communities and co-create their own products and experiences. Kotler predicts 3 cornerstones of future marketing that companies must understand in order to be successful: customers increasingly appreciate cocreation, communitization and character.

•  Cocreation: the new ways of creating products and experiences through collaboration by companies, consumers, suppliers and channel partners connected in a network of innovation. Companies need to create platforms, allow users to customize the platform and then incorporate the feedback into the platform. Example: Open source, Nike – design your shoe http://nikeid.nike.com/nikeid/index.jsp
• Communitization: Technology allows for more connection and the concept of communitization is closely related to tribalism as coined by Seth Godin.  Godin argues that consumers want to be connected to other consumers, not to the company. Consumers are either connected to one another (webs), to a leader (hubs) or an idea (pools). They do not exist to serve the business, but the members.
• Character: Companies need to develop an authentic DNA that reflects the brands identity.  When consumers view a brand, they can and will immediately judge whether it is fake or real. Therefore companies need to always be real and deliver experiences that come up to their claim.

4 Quadrants of Change

Based on Ken Wilbers “Four Quadrant Model” (from: Building a values-driven organization – Richard Barret, 2006) , you can see, how every change has to start from the internal change of individuals. (Based on Ken Wilbur. A Brief History of Everything. New York: Shambala, 1996; p. 71.)




The four Quadrants show the 4 different persepectives that one can have on a system:

• Internal, individual—personal values and beliefs (top left quadrant)
• External , individual—personal actions and behaviours (top right quadrant)
• Internal, collective—cultural values and beliefs (the bottom left)
• External, collective—social structures, systems, processes, actions and behaviours (bottom right quadrant). (barret, p 3)

In an organizational setting, the values, beliefs (top left quadrant), and behaviors (top right quadrant) of the leader and the leadership group significantly influence the values and beliefs of the collective (bottom left quadrant), and the behaviors of the collective (bottom right quadrant). In other words, the leaders’ values, beliefs and behaviors significantly influence the culture of the organization. To be even more precise, the culture of an organization is a reflection of the values and beliefs of the present leaders and the institutionalized legacy of the values and beliefs of past leaders as reflected in the structures, systems, processes, policies and procedures of the organization.




Four Conditions must be met, for a whole system to change successfully. These four conditions are:

• Personal alignment: There must be an alignment between the values and beliefs of individuals, and their words, actions and behaviors. This is particularly important for the leadership group. It is important that leaders are authentic and walk their talk.
• Structural alignment: There must be an alignment between the stated values of the organization, and the behaviors of the organization as they are reflected in the structures, systems, processes, policies, incentives and procedures of the organization. It is important that the values are institutionalized.
• Values alignment: There must be an alignment between the personal values of employees and the stated values of the organization. It is important that all employees feel at home in the organization and can bring their whole selves to work.
• Mission alignment: There must be an alignment between sense of motivation and purpose of all employees, and the mission and vision of the organization. It is important that every employee, manager and leader has a clear line of sight between the work they do each day and the mission or vision of the organization, so they know how they make a difference. (Barret, p 105 – 115).

So, Go Out and Change Everything!!!
 

Value Driven Marketing - A Mind Game

A big amount of Start Ups do not make it passed the first four years of their life. Research by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that nearly six in ten businesses shut down within the first four years of operation. http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2005/05/ressum.pdf

Why is that?

Researchers give many reasons for that. Every reasearcher has its own take on it, every business paper its “Top Reasons Why Start Ups Fail”, every author its take on it. One thing is for sure: Business fail. All the time, and it’s always bad when they do.  And most of the explanations focus on the business or the market. Poor Execution,  no viable market, too much leverage, the wrong place, the wrong idea, the wrong staff.

But I think the most impotant component lies outside of the Company. The question is: Is this the right thing to do for me now?

http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html

http://www.squidoo.com/starup_failures

A mind game:

Its clear, that most of the businesses go out of business, because they do not have enough money.  It would be safe to say, that they do not have enough money, because they do not have enough sales. Most of them do not have enough sales, because they do not have enough customers. They have to few customers because they are not good on selling their product. Mostly because they cannot communicate what makes the product special. This is often because the company does not know what makes it special, what is its USP? And my assumption is that this is because the leader, the boss, the entrepreneur is not clear on who he or she is.

Therefore I think successful marketing starts with the entrepreneur knowing who he is, what his or her values are, and where he wants to go with his life. After that, he needs to find out how the company reflects his own values, which values the company needs to have, how it helps him to accomplish what is most important in his own life. After that, the entrepreneur can start thinking about the customers. Which customers think like him, have similar values, and understand what the company stands for.

1. Who am I as a person?
   What are my values, what is my vision, my goals in life?
2. Who are we as a Company?
   What are the companies values? How does it contribute to a better world, what is our vision, mission and goals?
3. Who is our customer?
   What do they value? How do we contribute to their goals?
4. What is our product/service?
   How does our product/service help the customer? How does it make the world a better place

The Egg Laying Wool Milk Pig

The Egg Laying Wool Milk Pig

There is this word in German that literally translates as Egg-laying wool milk pig.
What is it?
The egg laying wool milk pig is an animal that lays eggs, produces wool and milk and has meat to eat.
But it does not exist.
Why?
Because it is not specialized in anything.
It does everything, but nothing really good.

Everybody in Marketing knows that. Marketing 101, Lesson one: define yourself, your product and your customer group. And still, if you walk around and ask small business owners and entrepreneurs what their product is, who their customer is, they say "Everybody". They cannot say "NO", they cannot say "this is not my business", because they are afraid to loose a customer, to loose money, to loose their reputition.

Know who you are
People "know" that you cannot be everything to everybody, and if you try, you will be nothing to nobody. But still. Its the fear of missing out on something, the fear of loosing your customer that drives many companies to do stuff that is not actually their business, and weakens their strategy. Most important for every business is to know who you are, and who you are not. Be honest to yourself and your customers. Be transparent. Let them know what you can do for them, and what you cannot. Your customers will value that and reward it with more trust in you.

Focus
In "The Disciplin of Market Leaders", Treacy and Wiersema define 3 strategies to focus your company on:

• Operational Excellence
• Product Leadership
• Customer Intimacy

None of them is superior to the other, and deciding for one will always make you loose customers in another area. BUT, and thats the big one, by focusing on one of these areas you can become a leader in it and your customers will value you for that, will come back to you for that, and stick with you. Leaders choose one of them - best total cost, best product, best total solution - and build there organization around it. Keep that in mind when you think of your own company

Have Integrity
You are a great webdesigner. Great. Stick with it, if it makes you happy. But don´t start designing posters, just because this one company needs a poster, and you need money.
Be honest to yourself. Is that what you want to do? Is it representing your values, goals, highest exitments in your life. If  the answer is "YES" -do it! If it is "NO" - don´t do it.
It sounds simple, but often these are the hardest choices for a company to make, especially when you want to grow and need money (like we all do)

In the end it all comes down to one single thing:
Know what you want and do it!
in your private life - in your workplace - in your company.

Marketing PLan 101

So, I am doing a self directed study now. Actually my first self-directed study ever. And I am getting a little bit nervous on day two already.

I gambled pretty high when I proposed my study, telling my teachers that I already know what we are going to do and that I want to dive deeper and get more out of it.
After two days of research I am still kind of where i started, not really knowing what i should do the next 3 weeks, even though my proposal sounds pretty cool :)

And I already had a bunch of amazing ideas. I got 2 companies that i can use as case studies for my research paper, that fall into the categorie of small and start up (I-Pam and the Bonnell Project). Both of them are really inspiring and are great companies.
I-Pam, a progressive asset management companie that does social responsible investment and value driven direct placement for "awakened human beings" with the goal of creating true wealth (to me at least, this sounds suuper inspiring)
The Bonnell is a social space for young creative people, with a recording studio, gathering space and a stage. Its goal is to foster community by connecting people (i actually do not really too much about it right now, but it is really inspiring too).

The only thing that is missing, and that is pestering me, is to get a plan. I have no plan of what to do, how i can integrate this in my paper...
hm... we will see.
It's gonna be 2 challenging weeks with a lot of opportunities to grow... i bet :)

Here is my proposal, btw:

Proposal for Independent study in MGT425 Marketing

for Emanuel Schachinger

November 8th - November 25th

Marketing is one of my major areas of interest within business. In the past I worked in a Start-Up Advertising Agency (2008-2009) and a Start-Up Social Media Platform (2005-2007). Furthermore I took University level classes in Strategy and Marketing and completed a 1 year training in “Event Management and Marketing”. Therefore I already have a quite deep level of understanding of Marketing. Even though I appreciate the teachings of this class, I feel that I could learn a lot more in a self directed way.

Research:

Since my background is in Start-Ups and small Companies, and the goal of the business department is to focus on Entrepreneurship i will write a paper about:
“Marketing tools for Start-Ups, Entrepreneurs and small Businesses”
for the paper I will use the theory and tools presented in the class book “Essentials of Marketing Management” and show how they can be applied to small businesses. I will furthermore conduct my own research on this topic and present this in my paper.
Furthermore I will give a presentation about my research for the whole class and create a hand out that summarizes my research.

Project:

create a Marketing Plan for EcoFair 2011
I will use the theory and tools presented in the book “Essentials of Marketing Management” to create a business plan for EcoFair 2011. I will apply these to the very specific situation of EcoFair (Non Profit, organized by volunteers, once a year Event)


We will see how much i really get done in these 2 1/2 weeks.

MUM Marketing

Just started my new class "Marketing Management" and it already started off with two interesting projects.

For the first one we had one afternoon to create a video that is explaining what "Millennials" are. The assignment was to put it on Youtube and get as many Clicks as possible within two weeks. Therefore we chose a short clip format, with a lot of information, that is presented as engaging as possible. We also got some help from Leon, a Communications and Media student.
I have to say, that I am very proud about the outcome of this very short project!

As for now (after 1 day) we have 107 views, while our concurring group has 19 :D yey :)

Also we created a presentation on Porters 5 Forces of Competition
for those who are interested, here is the link

The 5 Forces of Competition (its a really bad presentation though)

The interesting part for me, in both of the projects was, that it took a very strong leader to get the groups going. Since both projects where very short (1-2 hours class time, ready by next morning) there was quite a bit of time-pressure.
It is interesting how you can influence the group by just stepping up as a strong leader. Even though i still feel that this kind of working has a very unclean energy, cause it tends to alienate group members, it is often important to do it.
It was a great learning process for me, once again, you challenged me MUM. Even though, as most of the time, not with the obvious (the stuff we learn is just very low level, but manipulating group dynamics is fascinating)

Love to all,
click and share the Video, after all, I still want to win :)