Ten schools of marketing: from the essence

Mintzberg is known as the "deviant in Management", in its strategic course: the strategic Management School, he did not give a clear definition of strategy, but the strategic theory to 10 schools, and to comment on. The simple explanation of strategy from one perspective, he argues, is like elephant: The man who touches his nose says the elephant is a snake, the man who touched the ear said that the elephant is a fan, the person who touches the knee says the elephant is a tree, the person who touches the tail says elephant is a rope, the person that touches elephant body says elephant is a wall ...

We may as well use this method to think and deconstruct marketing with a longer history than strategic management. 1904, the University of Pennsylvania, the first open "product Marketing" course; in 1910, the University of Wisconsin in the United States opened the course of marketing methods; 1912, Harvard scholar Hagerty (J. E. Hagerty published the first "marketing". Since then, the concept of marketing continues to introduce new ideas: from the initial production concept, to product concept, sales concept, marketing concept, customer concept, and then to the the 1970s social marketing concept, great marketing concept, 2010 Philip Kotler also proposed "Marketing 3.0 version-people-oriented marketing", is overwhelmed. So what is the nature of marketing?

Many people think this is already the topic of the verdict, not worthy of discussion, of course, some people say that marketing is 4P, or 4C, it is typical blinders not see Taishan. Initially in the United States, marketing meant that a combination of several market factors affected the supply of markets, including promotions, marketing, and organised sales activities. 1967, Philip Professor Kotler publishes Marketing Management (Marketing Management), which defines marketing as a social and regulatory process by which individuals or organizations exchange products or services to meet demand and desires through the production and manufacture of and exchanges with others or other organizations. Since then, marketing has been defined as a means of demand management.

In fact, to look at the problem from a multiple perspective, we can jump out of the problem itself and see the complexity of the problem and the wonderful perspective. The most indispensable in the field of marketing is the construction of new concept new theory, but the product of "construction" is not only useless to people's work, but makes people lost. Marketing theory needs to be fundamentally deconstruction. Deconstruction leader Figure Jacques · Derrida (J. Jacques Derrida) That "a problem can not be a one-time, the ultimate solution, but only a step-by-step, time, space, divided into different angles to solve." "To the reconstruction of marketing and in-depth understanding, we must first from various aspects to look at marketing, try to outline a temporary picture of it, and then to the full picture of each side of the critical analysis and absorption."

Now, let us deconstruct the marketing nature, blindfolded, step by step to touch marketing the elephant.

1 Circulation said

In the 1922, the American scholar Flede Clark (Fred E. Clark) defined marketing as "an effort to promote the transfer of ownership and distribution of goods" in the marketing principles. In the 1960, The American Marketing Association (AMA) defined marketing as "all business activities that lead to the flow of goods and services from producers to consumers or users". For the production sector, specialization and division of labour create different supply capacities, and for consumers, they have different requirements for the form, task, location, and effectiveness of meeting the needs. The separation of the consumer and the supplier in space and time constitutes the obstacle of the realization of the enterprise's product and service value. The marketing is to eliminate this kind of sale obstacle, it is an important tool and means of industrial society to get through the three major fields of production-circulation-consumption, which embodies its circulation essence.

E. Jerome · McCarthy (E. Jerome McCarthy) pointed out that this obstacle was mainly due to the two "inconsistencies" and five "differences" between the production sector and consumers. Two "inconsistent" refers to: ① number of inconsistencies, producers like a large number of production and consumption, consumers prefer a small amount of purchase and consumption; ② of different kinds, producers specialize in producing fewer kinds of goods and services, and consumers need more kinds. Five "differences" means: ① differences in space, producers tend to set up factories in the most economical places, while consumers are located in many dispersed locations; ② time differences in the production of goods and services, consumers may not want to spend, and the goods from producers to consumers that time; ③ information differences, The producer does not know who and where and at what price the commodity needs, the consumer does not know when and where at what price to obtain what item; ④ value differences, producers measure the value of goods and services at cost and competitive prices, consumers measure value by economic utility and capacity to pay; ⑤ ownership differences, Producers have ownership of goods and services they do not want to consume, and consumers want products and services that they do not own.

Henry · Ford's T-car is a typical case of butt-mass production and consumption. In the early 20th century, the United States, cars are expensive luxury goods, ordinary people can not afford to spend, the low purchasing power of consumers to limit the expansion of enterprises. Therefore, the core problem that the enterprise should deal with is how to lift the barrier between production and consumption. After a visit to the slaughter line in Chicago, Ford began a pilot-flow in the automotive industry, sparking a worldwide industrial revolution with a history of progressive mass production. The T-car, which was launched on October 1, 1908 and priced at $850, soon fascinated millions of Americans, and in the first year of production, T-Cars reached 10,660, a record for the auto industry. With the continuous improvement of design and production, the selling price finally fell to 260 dollars. By the year 1921, T-car production has accounted for 56.6% of the world's total automobile production, the world's first ordinary people can afford cars. The T-car became history by the summer of 1927 and sold 1500多万辆. Ford's "big production" approach unleashed consumer spending, creating an effective cycle of "low prices-lots of consumers-economies of scale-higher yields, lower prices-more consumers". This business thinking is based on stimulating consumption, in the automotive industry at the time of the historical background to open up the key to sales obstacles.

The key point of circulation is to improve the system efficiency of docking from production to consumption. According to the circulation, the key of enterprise marketing strategy is how to make the product or service run through the field of production, circulation and consumption efficiently. Enterprise advertising promotion, terminal interception and promotion, are to make the docking process more efficient, while slowing or even prevent opponents docking. Circulation said to remind enterprises can not only stay in the customer perspective or enterprise perspective to consider the issue unilaterally, but to get through to the pursuit of the value chain level of the total win.

Many enterprises think that the goods shop to the supermarket and other terminal retail outlets, you can reach sales; however, this only through the production field and circulation, and no effective docking with consumers, more than 10 years ago, Changhong in the color TV war in the collapse of this. Strategically speaking, circulation mode and circulation speed are the key of marketing. The circulation mode is decided by the marketing combination, and the circulation speed is decided by the marketing efficiency management. Management marketing efficiency, should pay attention to six core efficiency: value information transmission efficiency, transaction process efficiency, product/service delivery efficiency, after-sales service efficiency, customer loyalty management efficiency and sales performance efficiency. (See Wang Sai, joleen "How to make your Marketing management lean")

2 demand Management said

I had to face Philip Kotler ask "which Word can define marketing accurately", he gave the word is demand management, namely demand management. Kotler This definition of marketing: "Identify the needs and desires that are not yet met, measure and determine the size of the needs, select and determine the target market to which the enterprise can best serve it, and decide on appropriate products, services and plans to serve the target market." ”

Demand management said that in today's marketing industry dominant position. Its customer orientation fundamentally captures the source of corporate profits; On the other hand, demand management is also the most perfect and systematic theory in many marketing schools, and this system also causes its acceptability. Although different scholars have different views, the strategy system of demand management is basically from environmental analysis start (including politics, economy, culture, technology to industry analysis, competitor analysis) to consumer analysis, then according to STP strategy (i.e. market segmentation, target market choice to market positioning), After finding niche markets and positioning appropriately, design a mix of marketing tactics. This tactical combination was by E. Jerome · In his basic marketing (basic Marketing), McCarthy summed up 4P (Product, price, place, promotion). After that, Kotler is evolving on a 4P basis, proposing 6P (adding political power and public Relations on 4P basis) and 10P (adding probe, Partition, Priority on a 6P basis, Position) policy. But whether it's 4P, 6P or 10P, it's essentially a study of how to effectively manage customer needs.

Demand management says it is widely used in marketing practice, but it is not all without defect.

First of all, the real world demand is ambiguous, market research is lack of effectiveness, it is difficult to find the real motives of consumers. IBM has invited a consultancy to investigate the market demand for electronic computers, answering less than 10, and its new president has produced a large number of electronic computers in the field of business computing and has achieved half a century of brilliance. Before the product comes to market, consumers will not be able to report whether they need the product or not, but there are potential needs: increasing work efficiency, speeding up information processing and so on. The potential demand is that the customer needs have not been satisfied, it is the market opportunity, marketing management is to find and meet it. However, how can the elusive potential demand be understood and implemented by market research and organizational decisions for the enterprise's product department and marketing department? Demand management school defines demand as: Demand = desire + purchasing power. Purchasing power is measurable, but desire is difficult to define clearly. Market opportunities exist forever in human beings ' endless desires, but how can human desires be managed?

Secondly, demand management is apt to fall into the mechanization of theoretical framework. This mechanization leads to marketing practices, marketing decisions always from strategy to tactics. In reality, if you follow this procedure, first investigate, and then subdivide, many opportunities will pass. In fact, the market is more adaptable from tactical to strategic reverse marketing, that is, the marketing people to the first line of the idea of the integration of the market to rise into a strategy.

Third, demand management said that only the competitor as a marketing environment variable to consider, easy to lead to a static thinking. The decision of an enterprise is the process of playing games with the competitor continuously, therefore, the competition analysis can not only as an environment variable, and only to make a programmatic consideration, but in the development of marketing strategies to pay attention to this interaction: I developed this marketing move opponents will take? How should I develop marketing actions? Of course, there is also a possibility not to consider opponents, that is, the impact of competitors on their own too small to be overlooked. In this sense, the results of business operations not only depend on whether they can meet the needs of consumers, but also to a greater extent determined by the behavior of competitors. Obviously, "no one" marketing concept is difficult to adapt to the real market competition.

In addition, demand management says too much attention to the marketing activities before the transaction, ignoring the marketing activities after the transaction. However, it is undeniable that the demand management theory in today's marketing to contribute the largest, most widely used, the most practical.

3 competition says

"The essence of marketing is not to serve customers, but to calculate, surround and beat competitors." "Jack · Trout (Jack Trout) is the most typical representative of competition.

Trout and his collaborators, Reese, raised a sharp question in "Business War": "traditional marketing says companies must meet consumer demand, but can U.S. auto companies compete with GM, Ford and Chrysler by meeting demand?" "In the end is the source of marketing and the essence of demand or competition?" Depending on the "competition" and even "war" as the marketing essence of the School of thought: to meet customer demand in the market depth is not the key to win, enterprises do not have a market, because the market is occupied and blocked by competitors, the market is not without demand, but competitors let demand happen to him. Customer demand like the meat in the forest, enterprises such as a group of wolves, the key to victory is faster than the other wolves run. Competition said that the reason to consider competition in customer focus before, is because the market forever "no best, only better", the enterprise is difficult to seek customer demand "optimal solution."

Customer satisfaction is a subjective concept, marketing managers to customer satisfaction management is actually an expected management: consumers to buy products after the degree of satisfaction depends on the extent of the purchase before the expected, and what is the reason for this? What is the reference? The value a competitor can provide is an important benchmark. Compared to 20 ago, the price of notebook computers in China has been greatly reduced, performance and configuration has been escalating, but the degree of consumer satisfaction is declining, why? Competition enables notebook manufacturers to continuously catch up and surpass each other, changing the customer's judgment on value. Therefore, too much attention to customer demand than directly in the marketing campaign to set themselves a clear standard: to defeat competitors-this is the essence of competition said.

Jack · Trout that marketing is a war. He put many concepts in the theory and practice of military warfare, especially Clausewitz (K. Von Clausewitz) introduced to marketing, its book "Business War" (Marketing Warfare, also translated as "marketing warfare") in detail on offensive, circuitous flanking war (flank warfare), defensive and guerrilla warfare and other methods. Out of the specific tactics, we see that the competition has its own mishap.

First of all, to combat the core of the marketing of competitors is extremely easy to lead to the confluence of competition, into the market "Red Sea" region, limited the enterprise to the emerging market areas of development.

Second, marketing activities are different from war, and there is confrontation and cooperation. War to eliminate opponents or make opponents surrender as the standard of victory, while marketing competition is only the means to capture market profits, cooperation with competitors may also gain market profits. For example, a competitor's product can be a symbol for measuring the relative value of an enterprise's products, and without competitors, it is difficult for customers to understand the value created by the company; Moreover, for many industries, it takes a lot of publicity to open up the market, while competitors can share it, and more and more competitors form

Third, the competition is also faced with a sharp and embarrassing question: whether to win the competition, won the market? When Kodak defeated all the film companies on Earth, it found that consumers have chosen digital cameras, no longer need film.

4 difference says

The essence of difference is to distinguish effectively from competitors, which is an extension of the idea of competition. Competition said that the main emphasis on defeating rivals to make room for the survival of the enterprise, and in the end by what means to obtain this space, the competition is only to stay at the specific tactical level, and the difference as the core of the marketing theory to try to explain the guiding ideology level.

2004, Harvard Business School Michael F. Professor Porter (Michael Porter) came to China with an interesting story about "winning the difference". Indians living on the Julian Peninsula in northeastern Canada are said to live by hunting. They face a problem every day: choose which direction to look for prey. They look for answers to this question in a way that is laughable to civilized people: roast a piece of deer on a fire until the bone cracks, and then ask the tribe's experts to decipher the information contained in the rift-the direction of the rift is the way they seek prey on that day. It is amazing how often the Indians can find prey in this decision-making method known as "Witchcraft", and the custom has been kept in the tribe.

Professor Porter believes that the Indian way of making decisions involves a lot of "scientific" elements, the core of these "scientific elements" is differentiation: it is precisely because the other tribes on the peninsula have been carefully planned, scientific analysis, resulting in the convergence of competition, scientific research where the prey was hunted, this by "witchcraft" Tribes have "differentiated survival".

Guiding the marketing strategy with the idea of difference is very direct and effective. Pepsi and Coca-Cola compete for centuries, the key to Pepsi's position is the difference between the emotional elements and Coca-Cola (Pepsi puts forward "a new generation of choices"); Similarly, in carbonated beverages, the seven-happy through the category of differences in the market highlighted ("Seven-Hi, not cola"). If the enterprise can not form the difference, the product will become the commodity, without forming the difference, it means that the marketing strategy of the enterprise development is ineffective.

According to the differences, we can better understand the brand: Why should Intel make the element brand (B2B2C branding), the promotion of "Intel inside"; Why did the tyre-selling French company make a cartoon of its own? Seth · Gaoting (Seth Godin) thought it was not satisfying to call "differentiation", creating a new word-"Purple ox (Purple cow)". Just as the purple Bull stands out among a group of ordinary Holstein cows, he believes that true marketing should be an art that makes one's eyes bright and directs people's attention to our products and services.

How can marketing be differentiated? Generally speaking, the interests of the difference, emotional differences, values and other differences in three dimensions can guide the enterprise marketing ideas.

5 Monopoly said

Monopoly is said to be the evolution of competition in another dimension. Unlike other social institutions, profitability is the basic goal of an enterprise, even if social enterprises need to be based on profits. The aim of enterprises to gain competitive advantage is to make better profits. So, under what circumstances can the enterprise obtain the best profit space?

Microeconomics divides the market into four types: full competitive market, monopolistic competition market, oligopoly market and monopolistic market. In a fully competitive market, every enterprise lacks the right to market pricing, the enterprise competition is intense, the profit tends to 0; In the monopolistic competition market, many enterprises, and these enterprises produce and sell the same products, the decision of an enterprise has little influence on other enterprises, it is not easy to be perceived, can not consider other people's confrontation action In the oligopoly market, several large enterprises in the market control the production and sales of the whole industry, the profit is determined by the game between the oligarchs; in the monopoly market, the industry market is controlled by a big enterprise, the enterprise grasps the supply right and the pricing power, can obtain the biggest profit. It is clear that companies in a fully competitive market are the least profitable, while those in monopolistic markets are the most profitable. Being able to gain a monopoly is a dream for every business because you have the best profit space here.

Enterprise Development Competition strategy is to form a unique competitive advantage, the core purpose of competitive advantage is to obtain better profit space, and the creation of monopoly is to achieve this goal is an effective means. The vast majority of enterprises because of competitive pressure, government control and so on, is not monopoly, and if the market for effective subdivision and separation, may be able to get an artificial monopoly effect. Then, the enterprise's marketing strategy is to try to achieve or close to this monopolistic effect! Based on this, we can observe the significance of many strategies in marketing activities. Why subdivide? is to cut out the market that you can monopolize and get the highest premium. Why should we be positioned? is to monopolize the intellectual resources of consumers.

What should the marketing strategy based on Monopoly say? First of all, we must learn the position of the card, occupy the advantageous industrial location, consciously reduce the competitive strength of the same industry, and improve the market entry barriers, such as controlling key channels, building brand assets, etc., to improve the bargaining power of the enterprise to customers, such as controlling the value chain, Improve customer switching costs: All marketing activities should point to the ultimate goal of Monopoly, which is the core of marketing monopoly theory.

6 value Design says

The AMA unveiled the new definition of marketing in August 2004, updating the official marketing definition of the 1985 revision. The new definition is: "Marketing is not only an organizational function, but also a series of processes to create, disseminate and deliver customer value and manage customer relationships for the benefit of the organization itself and its stakeholders." "The new definition emphasizes the value of the customer and believes that the enterprise should use a variety of marketing strategies based on this."

What does customer value mean? We can have two dimensions: the first is the difference between the total value of the customer's acquisition and the total cost of the customer, that is, the value of the customer's delivery; the second refers to the value compared with the competitor, the value that the enterprise can provide to the customer. Value Design said that the essence of marketing is through products and services, to provide consumers with higher than the value of competitors. Based on this, McKinsey proposed the concept of marketing as a "value delivery system": The value transfer system consists of the choice of value, the provision of value and the transfer of value of the three major plates.

Based on the value design, the marketing manager should integrate the customer and the competitor two elements to consider, carries on the value provision, the value design even is the value innovation, namely, the marketing must not only connect the consumer demand, but also effectively and the competitor form the difference, seeks the balance point between the two, the value effectively passes to the customer. A one-minute clinic (Minute clinic) is a good example of value design, with each patient in the clinic only 15 minutes. This chain of medical institutions, only the treatment of several types of common diseases, has become a programmatic operation, can quickly see a doctor, and the clinic opened in residential chain stores, covers an area of only 10 square meters, the charge than other hospitals half the lower. At present, a minute clinic in 9 years in 49 cities in the United States opened 569 clinics, one-minute clinic through the patient's needs of choice, and competitors to form a significant difference, to achieve a unique customer value.

"Blue Ocean Strategy" author W. Money · Kim (W.chan Kim) and Renee · Mobogne (Renee Mauborgne) named the "Value innovation strategy" when the Harvard Business Review first presented the concept of "blue ocean strategy." In 2005, I attended a keynote conversation at Fontainebleau, W. Money · Kim pointed out that the "blue Sea" "Red Sea" concept is only for the sake of acceptance, the essence of it is "based on competitive customer value innovation." Value Design said the demand-oriented marketing and competition-oriented effective combination and coordination, making marketing more strategic color, the marketing thinking from the sales side that "breathtaking leap" through to the overall enterprise activities, especially as a strategic front.

7 Relationship Management said

Since the 1970s, the Lavia and Nordic marketing schools have proposed marketing based on building and managing relationships, trying to replace traditional marketing concepts. They believe that marketing should be based on profitability, through the establishment, maintenance and promotion of long-term relationships with customers to meet the objectives of the parties involved in the transaction. Specifically, the purpose of marketing is to form a long-term, interdependent relationship with customers, and to create an interactive community with customers, to develop continuous interaction between customers and enterprises and products in order to improve loyalty and consolidate the market and promote continuous product sales.

Relationship marketing is a kind of progress in concept. First of all, traditional marketing focuses on the study of commodity marketing, but not enough for organizational marketing research. Second, traditional marketing focuses on the activities before the transaction (most typically STP strategy), without paying attention to how the business maintains the market after the transaction, maintains customer loyalty, measures customer ROI (return on investment, ROI), and so on, and in the real world, Most CMO are doing customer management work after trading.

The relationship says two of the main applications in the strategy are customer database marketing and customer loyalty management. Relationship stresses the role of service, but service is only means, the core is how to establish a continuous trading with customers the basis of how enterprises through marketing and customers can embed, mutual restraint, form a shared platform.

Many people think that relationship marketing is only suitable for the organization of the market, such as construction machinery, steel, communications equipment and other productive consumption, in fact, the relationship between the organization market can be managed through the product service, Apple is an example. In the the 1980s, Apple advocated to highlight the advantages of the product itself, from hardware to software design, all arranged, niche positioning, closed system so that Apple lost in the 80 to IBM and Microsoft. After Mr. Jobs's return in 1997, Ipod,iphone and the ipad opened New Horizons, with the exception of superior product quality, Apple's biggest difference is open systems, through the itunes, app Store and other channels platform, so that users can constantly update the service. At this time, Apple provides more than a mobile phone, a PC, and more is a service terminal, customers become Apple4us community members, have a common interest, a sense of community identity. From extreme brand orientation to relationship management, Apple has finally come out of its own path to success.

Relationship management broadens the function of marketing, also deepened the role of marketing in customer impact, from the perspective of relationship management, demand management can only build a temporary tactical advantage, and relationship management intent to build a long-term, strategic, alternate "enterprise-consumer" ecology, is indeed a leap in epistemology.

8 Customer Asset Management said

Why should marketing strengthen the role of the brand? Why focus on customer satisfaction? Why build community relationships that are embedded with customers? Einstein said that the perfection of means and the confusion of goals are the characteristics of our time. The enterprise constructs the brand, does the customer satisfaction, establishes the customer contact only means, the final goal or the profit. Whether the marketing work can bring profit and value to the company must be considered, and the client's asset is a target. Relationship stresses the importance of establishing relationships with customers, while customer asset Management stresses the ultimate goal.

Customer assets are not equivalent to customer value. Customer value refers to the value of customer delivered value, relative to competitor enterprises, emphasizing what enterprises can bring to customers through products or services, while customer assets emphasize what the enterprise can get from customers, which refers to the sum of all customers ' lifetime value discounted. For enterprises, the value of customers is not only the current profits to the enterprise, but also the customer will be able to contribute to the net present value of profits. The proposal of the client's assets more essentially explains why the enterprise marketing should satisfy the customer's demand, obtain the customer satisfaction and maintain the customer relationship.

Based on customer asset Management, it's easy to understand why many internet companies are targeting the build-up of customer base from the start of marketing, and why Google's biggest challenger in Internet business is Facebook. Tencent as an example: Before the introduction of QQ show, Tencent has been for how to profit and troubled, and then Tencent involved in the Portal network operations, Internet games, ringtones, micro-Bo and other dozens of business, Tencent's profits have hit new highs. Tencent business involved in the wide range of Internet products, business success, so many internet companies miserable, and even commented: Tencent's business development method is "to take other people's way, so that others have no way to go." Tencent has more than $40 billion trillion in market capitalisation, thanks to 300 million people using QQ numbers to expand its business boundaries and profit margins.

The change of profit logic makes the center of Marketing focus on the management of customer's assets. In marketing, enterprises should not only learn to calculate the dominant value that customers can contribute at present, but also learn to compute the hidden value and growth value behind the customers, and to gain the competitive advantage of enterprise facing the future by exploring and managing the client's assets. Customer asset Management said that marketing to the strategic level to explain the competitiveness of enterprises, is the marketing relationship in the higher level of evolution.

9 Transaction costs

Generally speaking, the way to meet the demand can be divided into three kinds: production or manufacture, theft or strong access, with the price of goods and other Exchange products or services. Professor Stanton (William J.stanton) believes that a third approach can be called a transaction, and that there is a transaction in which marketing is present, and that the purpose of marketing is to facilitate the transaction. If the buyers and sellers can understand clearly before and after the exchange of the subject matter they bought and sold, the transaction process is very efficient, is there a need for marketing? It is obvious that there is no meaning in marketing without friction; in the real world, the goal of marketing is to eliminate and reduce the cost of exchange, which is the transaction cost.

The concept of transaction costs by economist Ronald · Coase (Ronald H. Coase) proposed that the marketing significance of the transaction costs constitute a lot of controversy, at present, mainly by the customer's information collection costs, trust costs and conversion costs of three dimensions. Information collection cost body now, when consumers buy products, they spend time and energy searching for information about the product. Terminal interception, advertising communication and differentiation strategy are all aimed at reducing the cost of information collection in the marketing strategy. Trust cost body now, when consumers deal with companies and buy products, they are afraid to take risks. Conversion cost refers to the one-time cost that a consumer generates from the provider of a product or service to another provider. This cost is not only economic, but also time, energy and emotional. Enterprises to guard the market to learn to establish their own customer conversion costs, the construction of their own moat.

After understanding the nature of marketing from these dimensions, we begin to understand: customer loyalty management is to reduce the customer's information collection costs and trust costs, reduce the cost of enterprise publicity; the essence of customer loyalty is to improve customer switching costs; The first rule of brand positioning is to create new categories, Also is to let the customer mind clearly and quickly identify product characteristics, reduce the cost of information collection ...

The game of Chinese mobile and China Unicom in marketing strategy embodies the cost of conversion can not be neglected. Unicom has used CDMA attacks mobile communications market, but was defeated, for the simple reason that most mobile users do not want to change the mobile phone number, because the mobile phone number is related to network, conversion costs too high. After that, Unicom began working with Apple to launch a strategy to give the iphone a prepaid phone, which, due to the attractiveness of the iphone, overcame the original switching costs and gained some of the mobile high-end customers. At this time, how to move to keep the position? In places frequented by high-end customers-such as Starbucks, airports, golf clubs and so on-to set up wireless networks where mobile users can log on for free, mobile applications can increase the switching costs of mobile numbers again.

10 Asymmetric information

Asymmetric information is in fact the same as transaction costs, they are all from the new institutional economics to get inspiration to understand the essence of marketing. Information asymmetry means that in business activities, the parties to the transaction have not exactly the same information about the goods or services that will be traded. 1970, 31-Year-old George W. Bush Akerlof (George Arthur Akerlof) published a paper on the Lemon Market: quality uncertainty and market mechanism, which pioneered the theory of adverse selection, which had been rejected by three authoritative economics journals, which had since been considered "superficial" Published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the results were hugely echoed and won the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics.

In this paper, Akerlof put forward the lemon market model, that is, the extreme situation of asymmetric information will result in "liepin expulsion of good products", he used the second-hand market as a case for in-depth analysis. In the second-hand car market, the seller has more information than the buyer, so both grasp the information is asymmetric, buyers will certainly not believe that sellers, even if the seller said the hype. The only way to buy is to drive down prices to reduce the risk of asymmetric information, while buyers ' low prices make sellers unwilling to provide high quality products, thus flooding the market with low-quality goods, leaving the market with high quality goods and eventually shrinking the second-hand market.

Ill-made expel good goods. What does this have to do with marketing? What is the function of marketing? In the long run, market economy has the function of good and bad, but this kind of ill-made expel good goods is very common in reality. The market will adopt the "principle of average cost pricing", so that the quality of expensive products have been miserably defeated. What should we do in the face of this situation?

In the asymmetric information market, marketers should learn to launch market signals, through the transmission of market signals, tell the buyer my product or service is not the same. Enterprises with competitive advantages should publish more effective information, so that consumers and enterprises tend to information symmetry, to learn to let the value of products, services visualization, can touch. For example, for business-to-business market, most of the procurement involves large amounts, complex decision-making procedures, how to effectively prove their value to the purchaser is very important, enterprises should take the "marketing Roi" measurement method, to compare and confirm each link to customer value gain, the purpose is to make information symmetry. Of course, the enterprises that hold Ill-made are interested in manufacturing information asymmetry, muddy the market, fish in troubled waters.

From the information asymmetry to see, positioning, Brand is in the launch of market signals, reduce the difficulty of consumer information processing, consumers will not go to see your factory, using precision instruments to measure the quality of your products every time, will go to see the brand. Therefore, the more asymmetrical the information, the more important the brand, the more asymmetrical the information, the higher the premium the brand occupies. Information economics opens up another window for understanding the nature of marketing.

Marketing Triangle

We have sketched out 10 dimensions of discussion about the nature of marketing, and now I want to synthesize these dimensions to form a comprehensive picture of the nature of marketing, as a person tries to restore a complete elephant contour after he touches the eye, nose, and tail of an elephant. Asymmetric information, the transaction cost is the foundation of the marketing existence, has given the marketing existence the significance; the customer demand is the market existence foundation, the demand management requires the enterprise to run through to the product innovation and the development, the sale, the promotion and so on the entire marketing chain, prevents the enterprise and the market relations the break; circulation says Circulation and consumption in the field of penetration; competition is a reminder that enterprises can not only focus on customer demand, otherwise they will lose the market because of competition; difference theory and monopoly theory are two clues from competitive theory, discuss why market competition is effective, study the essential purpose of market competition strategy, the intersection of demand management theory and competition theory, Has formed the value design to say; the relationship management concerns the marketing work after the transaction completes, focus on the establishment of continuous trading with customers on the basis of mutual embedding, mutual restraint, form a shared platform; Customer asset Management says the customer relationship to the strategic level, to find out how the marketing strategy to upgrade the clue and basis-what is sustainable marketing. Based on this, we can form the following comprehensive picture of the nature of marketing.

How to manage the comprehensive picture of marketing? Understanding the nature of marketing is not just about intellectual pleasure, but about finding the key to successful marketing strategies. Is management science or art? Mintzberg The key words: management is neither science nor art, management should be the combination of science, art and crafts. The addition of the word craftsmanship is exquisite, it depicts the management work of the manager needs of the sense of proportion, handle the weight of the feeling, exquisite texture and so on. Science, art, craft-this is Mintzberg's management triangle. Inspired by Mintzberg, I took out the most critical elements of marketing, and put forward my marketing triangle-logic, imagination and human nature.

Logic refers to the thinking clue that the marketing strategy initiates, which is the basis of our market cognition, judgment and decision, and is the summary and refinement of the law. The important concepts and theories of marketing, such as market segmentation, positioning, conversion cost management, contact point management and so on, should be included in the field of marketing logic. It is not enough to have beautiful logic, and logic should be connected with experience. In the market competition, we see: Changes in the apparel industry, not clothing companies, such as customers and other electric operators, change the communications industry, not the United States Telecom, is skpye; change the Chinese hotel industry, not people familiar with the old hotel, but Ctrip. Only rely on logic to make decisions, inevitably become an armchair marketing industry kuo.

Einstein once said: "Imagination is more important than knowledge!" The second key word in marketing triangle is imagination (imagination). Why does marketing need imagination? First, logical orientation tends to fall into convergent thinking and into the Red Sea. Second, logic is an abstraction of the law, and the restoration requires a scenario. Herbert · Simon (Herbert Alexander Simon) once pointed out that because laws are drawn from and synthesized from specific scenes, they need to be combined with specific, immediate management scenarios. Now the boundaries of various industries are disappearing, cross-industry, cross-border imagination is particularly important for marketers. Third, marketing work has a lot of space to implement the imagination, so that enterprises in the competition "like a purple cow out of", such as Cross-border thinking, such as replacement thinking-to put the inspiration of opponents, tear down the wall of thought and so on.

Human nature is the third key word in marketing triangle. When it comes to human nature, it is a topic of infinite depth and wide extension. x theory, y theory, Freud (Sigmund Freud) "I, ego and Super Self", "bounded rationality, emotion and subjectivity" have all tried to answer this question, and I think that human nature is the combination of animal spirit and angelic mind. I asked Philip. Kotler so-called "Marketing 3.0" is what the essence, he said is "humanistic Care (Human-care)", this is the human nature marketing "hit good cause", marketing 3.0 is to use values to stimulate the good side of customers, causing resonance. Another aspect of human nature, lust, greed, herding benefits, etc., can also become the starting point of marketing, as physicist Niels The opposite of truth is another truth, Bohr said. At present, at the level of human nature to do the marketing of enterprises very few, and successful marketing of human nature of the enterprise has been a great success, such as jobs in each new product before the market to do a foot marketing offensive, do enough "hunger marketing", forming a consumer's herding effect. The real estate industry Dark Horse is also a human marketing master, for luxury goods and the rich have an extremely deep insight, the residential property sold unimaginable sky-high prices. The Star River Market department popular such a word: the rich lack of money, lack of the so-called noble and cool.

In the marketing strategy, can grasp the logic of the person is generals, can coordinate the logic and imagination of the person is a master, and can control logic, imagination and humanity is the master of the characters. Marketing needs people to realize, perhaps we can understand: the logic of marketing corresponds to the consumer's brain (Mind), the imagination corresponds to the consumer's mind (Herat), while human nature is concerned about the human soul (walk)! What is a first-rate IQ? Perhaps, as the American "lost Generation", the writer Fitzgerald, said, "the ability to continue thinking with two conflicting thoughts in mind". Marketing need logic, need to break through the imagination of logic, more need to transcend logic, imagination of human nature insight.

Finally, marketing, after all, is a branch of management and social science, and its seminars have been viewed, dug and pondered from more perspectives as times change, and our deconstruction and synthesis will not end. Perhaps we may never find the essence of marketing, just as people have been exploring the nature of the world since the ancient Greek era, but the constant elephant of exploration and integration, beyond this exploration, will bring us closer to reality.

Source: The author of the management: Wang Sai