|
|
|
This article was published in September 1999
Philip Kotler: "Kotler on Marketing: How to Create, Win and Dominate Markets". (April, ’99)
Sergio Zyman: "The End of Marketing as we know it". (May, ’99)
TRIVIA
|
The storm is raging, your boat is capsizing. Should you bail out on the high seas, which would you grab --a life-jacket or a compass? Two marketing books promise to help us chart our course.
Two books making waves in the marketing world come from seemingly opposite camps (one, a theorist, one a practitioner) and appear to cancel out each other. In tone and substance, Philip Kotler and Sergio Zyman represent the Yin and Yan of marketing. Yet, because of who their authors are, both works are hard to ignore. If you’re prone to dismiss the older generals, in favor of younger techno-savvy warriors, try dismissing Philip Kotler. He has been in Marketing since the time Bill Gates was in diapers, but does that make him outdated? What could he have to say in a business climate that’s obsessed with applying technology to every stage of the management and marketing process? On the other hand, if you gave up on Sergio Zyman (the man behind the ‘New Coke’ fiasco in 1985) you might miss the end-of-the-millennium’s most abrasive observations on advertising and marketing. If you have an early version of Kotler ("Principles of Marketing") already installed, this book ("Kotler on Marketing: How to Create, Win and Dominate Markets") is the long-awaited upgrade. As prolific as he was, Kotler (who is published in 18 languages in 58 countries), never put down a condensed version of his principles. At just 257 pages its well organized chapters crystallize those eternal principles (segmentation, positioning and pricing strategy) and updates the status of the 4 Ps in today’s information-rich universe. ‘Marketing objects’, as we know them, are much more than products and services, says Kotler. In this ‘marketplace of ideas’ we are urged to stop obsessing about demand, and think instead about ‘exchange’. FedEx exchanges overnight delivery for a different price than, say the Post Office. Evian can sell bottled water at 0.25 cents an ounce, but also a cartridge of the same ‘idea’ as a moisturizer for sixty times more. Kotler shows us how, by understanding the marketing ‘context’, the value proposition can be defined. Because these propositions change rapidly, marketers must prepare to meet these disruptions. Information management is key, he tells us, and shows us why mining the marketplace can include anything from studying lifestyles (via ‘PRIZM clusters’) to trend analysis (a la’ Faith Popcorn, the Nostradamus of trend spotting ), to the Web. Closing appropriately with a breathtaking chapter on E-commerce ("Adapting to the New Age of Electronic Marketing"), this is a handbook that ought to appeal to managers anxious about the equivalent of an Amazon.com or a Priceline.com stalking their territory. MYTH SLAYER: From the other camp, Zyman, though much ballyhooed over launching ‘New Coke’ (to his credit, he also masterminded Diet Coke and was behind the "Always Coca-Cola" campaigns), is the irreverent Marketing person who doesn’t subscribe to the ‘exchange of ideas’ school of marketing. As the recent ex-chief marketing officer at Coca-Cola, he comes across as the self-proclaimed myth-slayer: breaking the ‘black-box’ of marketing magic that for years has been focused on feel-good advertising; that marketing is not an art, but a science. Marketing is not about shooting commercials in Bali, but about selling; not about PowerPoint presentations and award-winning commercials, but about real consumption. Now who can quarrel with that? Ad Agency people, of course! He takes to task the Madison Avenue types who perpetrate the notion that image is everything. When he comes perilously close to overturning the sacred precepts of marketing (he dismisses the famous Ps in the Marketing Mix as not processes but tools) he prefaces it by asking us to challenge our old assumptions. He ought to know. He made a career out of challenging ad agencies to validate their creative work. He even took the contrarian view and pulled the Mean Joe Green TV commercial for Coca-Cola –one that got rave reviews from Coke executives and bottlers-- because it didn’t swing the needle when it came to sales. For the same reason Zyman trashes ‘feel-good’ campaigns for Nissan and Levi's for not keeping their eye on the ball. And then he seems to take great pleasure in taking on Ad agencies whom he casts as self-important, overrated and fixated on the wrong things. Madison Avenue has been cautious to acknowledge that "The End of Marketing" is indeed a high octane, inspiring, challenging idea. Jay Chiat, the most radical ad man in the US (of TBWA/Chiat/Day Advertising) calls it profane and entertaining with some lessons to be learned. The CEO of Ogilvy & Mather calls it passionate and entertaining. And McCann-Erickson (at least on the book jacket) is understandably not even well, entertained. The big question then is whether Zyman will have a following. After all, many ad agencies are now staffed by marketing heavyweights too. They are making sure that they aren’t going to be the horse-whip manufacturers in the dying chariot industry. The Worldwide Account Director of TBWA/Chiat/Day, for instance, argues that the traditional 5Ps of Marketing, relevant in the world once dominated by stability, is obsolete. The new 5Ps that he proposes (Paradox, Perspective, Paradigm, Persuasion and Passion), are more appropriate where chaos, a slow down in the economy and global competitiveness are the new realities. While most big name agencies have re-engineered their service roster, they still do not appear ready to get out of the brand building business. JWT, for instance is for creating ‘brand dialogue’: nurturing, building and sustaining brands. But that does not make it a fuzzy tool, dodging accountability. On the contrary, it employs empirical tools like BrandZ™, a sophisticated brand equity measurement technique employed by its parent, WPP. The study tracks 70,000 people around the world, grilling them about some 3,500 brands in 50 categories. Phew!So what is Zyman venting so much about? He rightly observes that creativity is something that marketing people throw around when they want to avoid facing up to hard realities. His ‘personal jihad’ as he calls it, is to get ad agencies to believe that marketing (and it’s subset, advertising) is about selling strategies, measuring results, and working on it as a science, not an art. A big misstep, says Zyman was for ad agencies to extend themselves into ‘full-service’ houses –with advertising relegated to just one of the portfolio of services. Advertising agencies, he says, are not owners of the marketing strategy, and it is no secret that while at Coca-Cola he plucked it out of their hands. Small wonder Zyman is regarded as some sort of a pariah on Madison Avenue. He may be proved wrong, and despite his axe to grind, it does not invalidate his acerbic view of the marketing process. To the extent that it forces the (Ad) industry to do a total rethink, this book could be the touchstone of all the organizational and philosophical changes taking place in advertising. Marketers don’t hire ad agencies to come up with cute, show-stopping ads. They now hire ‘strategic partners’ who can understand their business, and deliver results –often with solutions other than advertising. But if Zyman’s abrasive book feels like a bludgeon destroying advertising as we know it (it was the ‘Always Coca-Cola’ campaign that ruptured the one-sight, one-sound, one-sell one-agency handling of the Coke account), such revisionist theory must be tempered with Kotler’s notion that marketing is still an exchange of resources. The facilitator of this exchange –yesterday it was through television, today it is the Internet, tomorrow it may be a different model altogether—will wield the true power of marketing. It’s easy to think of both books as mutually exclusive. They’re not. Kotler’s thesis is a life-jacket thrown at marketers plunging into the raging waters of the next millennium. Zyman’s is the oar. Either would help. Both would be really handy.
|
