NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- David Meerman Scott, co-author of "Marketing Lessons From The Grateful Dead", explains how corporate America can learn from the jam band's long term success.
http://www.thestreet.com/video/index.html?bcpid=1348279749&bclid=1137812485&bctid=424628283001#594216618001
this excerpt from Philip Kotler's new book Marketing 3.0 is a great perspective on the challenges and opportunities facing marketers in the post 2008-09 recession...interesting thoughts below!
A Matter of Trust
The 2008-2009 recession increased consumers' distrust of corporations, but increased their trust in each other. This helps explain the drop in advertising's credibility and the rise of social media. One study says people "trust strangers in their social networks more than they trust experts." Such distrust sets up a new reality for companies, which can fight back using Marketing 3.0 to achieve "communitization" and "co-creation" - that is, exchanging ideas with suppliers, customers and employees to generate products that have value for everyone involved. Communitization means linking consumers in an online community of shared meaning. "Brand integrity" strengthens these communal bonds. To prove your brand's integrity, present your product's emotional and spiritual considerations as well as its features. Highlight its authenticity, quality, reliability and adherence to its stated claims. Starbucks, Timberland and Apple established emotional connections with their customers by addressing them as real people with human concerns and by using strong "brand identity, brand integrity and brand image" to build trust. "In the horizontal world of consumers, brand is useless if it only articulates…positioning."
"Transformational Solutions"
As markets mature, growth slows and products become commoditized. To revive such products, companies must improve customers' experiences. Then, to shed the commodities label, firms should undertake invigorating initiatives that help society. To 3.0 marketers, this means seeking new solutions to social ills. For example, Disney Consumer Products collaborates with Imagination Farms and Kroger to fight childhood obesity. Corporations also support social concerns, especially education, with philanthropy and cause marketing, a good way to pinpoint a particular charitable effort. American Express used cause marketing to raise funds to repair the Statue of Liberty. Quaker Oats held food drives to combat hunger while promoting oatmeal. Though 95% of executives agree that business must contribute to society, they should select public issues to tackle based on their constituencies and on the philanthropic area's "business impact," "social impact" and "relevance" to their firms' values. A McKinsey study found that consumers expect companies to strive for transformative social solutions by creating jobs, innovating, and offering products or services that solve problems. Some companies exist primarily to effectuate social transformation. These "Social Business Enterprises" (SBEs) work to achieve a social purpose, while also making a profit. Muhammad Yunus won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for instituting microfinance lending through his SBE, Grameen Bank, first in Bangladesh and then elsewhere. SBEs attack poverty by fostering local entrepreneurship and making products "accessible to the poor." Other ways to fight poverty include marketing disruptive innovations like $5 phones and $100 computers to poor people, thus providing access to information and opportunity.
Green Goodness
Saving, sustaining and healing Earth's environment is a social goal with vast commercial ramifications. Shoe manufacturer Timberland, one of the U.S.'s greenest firms, relies on recycled and nonchemical materials. The label in its shoes lists their materials, states how and where they were made, and explains their environmental impact. DuPont, once one of the U.S.'s worst polluters, now embraces the U.S. Climate Action Partnership. The company produces energy-saving building materials and earns one-sixth of its revenues from sustainable products. Walmart, the world's largest retailer, changed its behavior to address customers' objections. In 2005, it redesigned its practices to reduce pollution and improve waste management. It has "built green supercenters" while saving money and meeting consumer demands for "green products."