Does Progress in Marketing Depend on Professors' Deaths?

Next week I am to deliver a talk on an historical moral shift taking place in marketing. My audience will be composed mostly of academics. The occasion is a conference at Bentley University, “Conceptualizing Conscious Capitalism,” May 28-29.

Conscious capitalism is a term coined by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohammad Yunus to describe the practice of business enterprises to consciously fulfill social needs.

My talk will describe how marketing is slowly but inexorably being transformed from a huckstering game to a healing art. I discussed this five years ago in this space. 

I am eager to see the response my talk because the moral shift I will talk about nullifies a substantial portion of the books business school students use to learn how to market. Despite lofty expressions on how marketing is about serving customers’ needs, the philosophy of marketing reflects a predator-prey ethos perspective.  Compensation systems based on sales quotas have broadly solidified that perspective.

The emergence of Web 2.0 (see here and here)has made the predator-prey model obsolete. Marketing has become a “conversation” to quote Clue Train co-author Doc Searles. Marketer and customer collaborate to determine and meet the customer’s needs. Marketing is no longer about striving to bend the customer’s will to the marketer’s will.

Traditional marketing – the kind taught in B schools – is a power game based on numbers. New marketing is a game of influence based on an understanding of human behavior. This is posing a challenge to those who teach marketing. Few have a deep footing in behavioral science and few books taught from offer students any better footing.

So minimal is the marketing community’s interest in gaining a deep understanding of human behavior, it is possible in business schools across the nation to earn an MBA in marketing without a single course in behavior. Rather than developing an understanding of behavior, most marketers depend more on views taken through the lens of statistics than through the lens of behavioral science.  

For those in my audience who think that looking at marketing as a healing art is a bit of New Age fluff, I will offer examples of household name companies that have successfully transformed themselves from hucksters to healers. I cited some of these companies in my first post on this topic five years ago.

 As I reflect ahead on my talk I am reminded of Max Planck's famous dictum about how science progresses and wonder how much the same idea applies to marketing. Planck said, "Science progresses with each funeral."

 

Comments

[David Wolfe Superfoods]

this is wonderful observation, thank you. I resonate with this personally as the business I am in is healing raw superfoods, and the whole conscious capitalism phrase is on target. thanks

jason

[Dale]

A lot of companies are still evolving in seeing the customer a part of the process.
A huge paradigm shift, may be necessary to move from pushing to collaboration.
Companies may now be saying, "tell us what you want, well supply" it rather "than , this is good for you".
But the collective majority is still the most influence.

[Tom Asacker]

Keep fighting the good fight David. We're pulling for you.

[Laurie Neumann]

I agree that the new marketing strategy includes getting to know the people as "people" not as just sales. I am all for it.

Marketing should be natural. We have all dreaded going to buy a car and being hounded by the car salesmen. Who enjoys that type of promotion?

I believe marketing should be an extension of who you are. You should choose marketing strategies that are comfortable for you, according to your personality. Then they will be effective strategies.

You need to be concerned about the person's needs when promoting something. Will your product/service really be a good solution for them? If not, don't sell it to them.