From products to customers to the human spirit

Make the world a better place – with marketing – seriously?

In 2010, the marketing legend Philip Kotler, together with Herman Kartajaya and Iwan Sitiawan collaborated on the publication of Marketing 3.0. This thought-provoking book explores the transition of marketing from product-based (1.0) through the current consumer-based focus (2.0) and into an age of collaborative creativity (3.0) .

This new imperative urges companies to consider all the publics they impact upon: those of the employee, the customer and the community. It is an idea long championed by the likes of Richard Branson and has hardly prevented Virgin from making its way in the world in some style.

Before the advent of social media, this communal aspect of business would usually have been the stuff of dusty company memos form the Chairman and the all to rare kind of community project covered by local photojournalists taking a break from taking snapshots at jumble sales.

The growing demand for creative thinkers.

As someone with a creative background that is now involved in strategic re-thinking and re-engineering workflow projects for clients, I was particularly taken by the section describing the work of Richard Florida. In his book The Rise of the Creative Class, he evidenced the idea that creativity (rather than the greed is good’ brutalism that precipitated the current economic crisis) is the true driving force of economic growth . The Rise of the Creative Class according to Richard Florida is encouraging people to seek new ways to “Live the way creative people like artists and scientists always have.”

As someone who is a consultant, lecturer, writer, artist, composer and eCommerce retailer (never mind the more important roles of husband, father and grandfather), I like the notion that changing values, the development of utilitarian technology and flexible work practices are helping to redefine the very meaning of work for more and more people.  Considering how unhappy most people are in their working lives, it is about time we looked for new ways to merge working for a living into lifelong learning and the pursuit of happiness. Regardless of how hard pressed your business margins, I recommend Marketing 3.0 as food for thought on how to cure the ill-gotten gains of short-term thinking in business.