2014 Marketing Hall of Fame — A Turning Point In Marketing

On Wednesday night, 5/28, we will be inducting 3 people in the 2014 Marketing Hall of Fame.

This marks a major turning point in marketing. The Age of Narrative Marketing is now ready for prime time.

It was 10 years ago that Ad Age mocked the very idea of narrative as a strategic framework, metaphors as the keys to compelling communications  and storytelling as the single most effective way to integrate digital and traditional media. The catalyst? A major talk by the CMO of McDonald’s revealing the secret for the company’s revitalization and leap in relevance, market share and stock prices — a new model for marketing, Brand Journalism, spearheaded by Larry Light.  Among the detractors were Al & Laura Ries were among the loudest detractors, “The notion that McDonald’s should abandon the positioning philosophy and instead adopt a brand journalism approach is lunacy.

• Around the same time the ARF (advertising research foundation) was conducting a major industry study on the power of story being more effective than the traditional rational “proof point” or “reason-why”.
• Gerald Zaltman was publishing widely on his research into the universal power of metaphor.
• And 10 years ago I introduced the Narrative Branding model of marketing.
• Douglas Holt of Harvard was demonstrating a model of “iconic” brands in which cultural storytelling was more important than the standard “positioning” or “USP” models.

Lunacy, heresy, whatever you want to call it, the reality is that narrative models of marketing are far more effective than traditional positioning. How far has marketing gone in the direction of narrative marketing?  When Liquid & Linked was revealed at Cannes it was received with awards.  More importantly, it is helping the company to achieve it’s aggressive marketing goals. And that is what is most important.

So join us on Wednesday as we are celebrating the brilliance of Beth Comstock of GE, Joe Tripodi of The Coca-Cola Company and Philip Kotler of Kellogg School of Marketing.  Each one of them has broken with the old traditional model of marketing.

• The Coca-Cola Company’s model of Liquid & Linked is a prime example.
• Beth Comstock has elevated the role of marketing within GE to create new markets.
• And Philip Kotler is always at the forefront of where marketing is going, and particularly how marketing can promote positive social changes.

Another sign of the new age is that several years ago JWT, our host for Wednesday night, embraced Brand Journalism, created videos around their version of the approach, held panels at SxSW and did much to promote the new model.  The Commodore would be proud!

So come on Wednesday. Celebrate the Age of Narrative Marketing! Celebrate brilliance in marketing!  Marketinghalloffame.org

 

Philip Kotler on the Marketing Hall of Fame

Did you know that chairman of the nominating committee for one of the first Marketing Hall of Fame inductions was Philip Kotler?  Yes, back in 1995, when he wrote,

The two most important assets of any company, brand value and people value, are unfortunately not on the books.

While brands have slowly made there way onto the financial reports, marketers are still not on the books as valued and valuable resources. While there are awards for campaigns or for short-term successes, e.g. “Marketing of the Year”, there is no recognition for the people who have made tremendous contributions to marketing overall, and over a number of years.

We are changing that.

This year the Marketing Hall of Fame is inducting 3 individuals who have shown their innovation, leadership, inspiration and success over time, and often across multiple disciplines. This year we are celebrating brilliance in marketing, by focusing on the people behind the brands.

Marketing Hall of Fame to the people who make outstanding contributions to the field of marketing and are inspiring and educating the next generation of marketers.

Today I was in touch with Philip Kotler about his past role in the Marketing Hall of Fame. Phil Kotler wrote to me,

I am glad to hear that you are reviving the Marketing Hall of Fame and centering it on awarding people.

And he is already putting in nominations. I invite you to do the same.

Now is the time. This link takes you to the place: marketinghalloffame.org

 

 

Welcome to the Decade of Narrative Marketing

Marketing is undergoing a transformation.

Marketing is being re-invented.

The so-called “22 immutable laws of marketing” have mutated.  They’ve been broken.  Now they are being repealed.

Bold moves by companies such as Samsung, Apple, Google, Hyundai, Adidas, JetBlue and McDonald’s — to name some of the most visible ones — are re-writing the marketing playbook.

The innovation is coming from the corporate side and from bold thinkers .  To name just a few — Douglas Holt, Marc Gobé, Gerald Zaltman, Larry Light, Joan Kiddon, Joseph Plummer, Jae Hang Park.  There are many others.   We can all learn from the example of Philip Kotler, the father of modern marketing, who is continually seeking a better framework for marketing as the world evolves (Marketing 3.0 is his newest explanation of this third wave in reinventing marketing).

The future of marketing is built on a better understanding of how the human mind works.  The future of marketing is based on new learning into the sheer power of metaphors and story telling to shape the very way we understand the world.  It is based on the breakthroughs being made by neurologists who are able to study our brains in ways unimaginable 15 years ago.  fMRI and other technology are opening new windows into our brain, giving us a better view of what happens inside.   This is not a tale from a Avatar or some other 3-D science fiction film.  It is well-known from the work of Steven Pinker, Oliver Sacks and others.

The future of marketing is based on the simple principle of co-creation.  That means the consumer is central to the process. It recognizes the essential role consumers have in co-creating meaning and value.

The future of marketing includes that essential 4th dimension — time.   It will no longer look at the world in a 2 x 2 grid.  It is flexible, dynamic.   New marketing will replace old marketing the way that steel replaced iron; the way that LCD flat screen TVs replaced vacuum tube TVs

The future of marketing embraces technology as a strategy, not just an execution.  The new new thing –QR codes, social media, hyperlocal marketing — the technologies of the moment will continuously change.  Marketing will break down the internal silos that agencies & corporations erect around the digital world of online and mobile to separate them from the analog world of TV and Radio.  The future of marketing looks at the ways a story jumps from one medium to another, the way a book becomes a movie becomes a Broadway musical becomes a video game becomes a theme park attraction becomes an app, becomes an iPad iBook, becomes….

The past of marketing is static (position), focused on the competitor (different) and not the consumer, reductive, minimalist, simplistic to the point of trying to summarize everything into a single word.

The future of marketing is narrative.  It will:

A) Tap the power of metaphor and story telling

B) Co-create

C) Be alive, living in time

E) Embrace new technology to tell stories in new ways

1/1/11 is the start of the Decade of Narrative Marketing.  The future is an open book.  Go ahead, write the next chapter.

Kotler & Kartajaya on Marketing 3.0

I’ll make a broad generalization.  There are two types of academics: Paradigm Shifters and Eternal Seekers.

The Paradigm Shifters are people who create a ground breaking theory and then spend the rest of their career teaching and promoting that theory — regardless of how the world changes around them.  Think of Braque, one of the originators of cubism in painting.

Eternal Seekers are the people who create a ground breaking theory and then develop an even stronger ground breaking theory.  They remain open, curious and continuously looking for a better theory as they get new data and see weaknesses in their original theory. Think of Picasso, who worked side by side with Braque and then moved into different “periods” and continued to reinvent his vision of art.

I’d put Philip Kotler into that second category, Eternal Seeker.  His is not satisfied to rest with his original models of marketing.  He has continued to innovate, rethink and evolve his theories and our understanding of how marketing actually works.

The role of Corporate Social Responsibility has been very much on Phil’s mind for several years.  (Full disclosure — I had the good fortune to work with him on a client project about the rise of socially-engaged consumers.)  It has very much influenced his thinking and rethinking of marketing.

His newest reinvention of marketing is “Marketing 3.0”, co-developed with Hermawan Kartajaya.   In the fall of 2009 Phil presented the model of Marketing 3.0 at a Kellogg school conference.  Below is the key slide summarizing Marketing 3.0 from that conference.  I’ve lifted a  this from the blog of Guy Kawasaki http://holykaw.alltop.com/phil-kotler-explains-marketing-30-in-one-slid So full credit for this photo goes to Guy Kawasaki.

Slide on Marketing 3.0 photo by G Kawasaki

The new book Marketing 3.0 is being published  in the US this spring.  But you don’t have to wait that long to better understand the fundamental principles of Marketing 3.0. Kotler and Kartajaya.  They’ve recently published a whitepaper on the topic which you can download here: marketing_3.0 Values-Driven Marketing

Are we in the Rollercoaster Age?

There’s the Age of Aquarius

The Great Depression

The Disco 70s

So what do we call this age?  I nominate “The Rollercoaster Age”.

Why?  This is the age of balloons and busts, bubbles and crashes.  What goes up drops down in free fall.  When we seem headed into the wall of $4/gallon of gas, it twists down below $2.  The senate race in Minnesota is still undecided 8 months after the election.  

Greenspan calls it the Age of Turbulence.  He also coined the phrase Irrational Exuberance.  Philip Kotler and John Caslione call it Chaotics.

To me, the sheer unpredictability from one day to the next, from one moment until the next, is more like a roller coaster than anything else.  That seems like an appropriate metaphor to brand this time in history.  It is gravity defying, with 360 degree loops, sheer drops and sudden reversals.

So welcome to the Rollercoaster Age.

Fun fact: the world’s fastest rollercoaster is at Six Flags Great Adventure in NJ.  Ironic that Six Flags should declare bankruptcy during the Rollercoaster Age.

What is a Chaotics?

One of the wonderful things about Philip Kotler is that he never gets stuck in the past.  His openness to new ideas and new ways of thinking about marketing are remarkable.  Most of us learn one way in our 20s and stick to it for the rest of our lives.  Not Phil.  His curiosity about the world is undiminished.

Evidence of this is in his new book — co-written with John Caslione.  I love the title of this book.  “Chaotics”

 

Cover of Kotler/Caslione's new book

The book is being published in the next couple of weeks.  Very timely, given the current flat-tire economy.  It’s a book that everyone senior manager should read through.  

It doesn’t have the answers to all of the problems companies are facing.  Instead it gives a thoughtful framework for getting to the answers that are right for your company.