Download A value based approach to business marketing by Jan Mattsson

True Marketing (True-M): A value based approach to business marketing
by
Jan Mattsson
Professor of management
Roskilde university
Department of Communication, Business and Information Technology
POBox 260 Roskilde
Email: [email protected]
Abstract
This experienced-based paper is about a new moral and ethical approach to how
one can practise marketing by considering the value priorities inherent in daily
marketing work. This has been termed True Marketing (True-M). It is suggested
that theoretical models from axiology (the science of values) can reveal the
relative importance of different decisions and courses of action by analysing their
value content. More important values must then be given priority. The True
Marketing Ladder is a model of the nine basic value levels. It is suggested that
marketing managers observe the relative importance of these value levels in
order to apply True Marketing in a moral and ethical sense.
Key words: Research paper, axiology, moral marketing, value
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True Marketing (True-M): A value based approach to business marketing
In search of a new marketing in business
This paper is about a new type of moral marketing, True Marketing (for short
True-M), which, I argue, must replace existing ways of carrying out business, and
marketing alike. This paper will answer two questions: 1. Why do we need a new
and morally based marketing? 2. What is the content of such moral marketing? I
will present three models of True Marketing. I start with why there is now an
urgent need for renewal, or put differently, a renaissance in marketing. The first
section is therefore devoted to outlining some recent corporate scandals and
mismanagement.
Caveat emptor: let the buyer beware. This is perhaps the oldest principle of
commerce. The more a salesman praises a product, the more in-depth you, as a
customer, ought to check it before buying. The assumption is that there are
hidden faults or unequal knowledge about the state of the product. In economic
theory this is called information asymmetry. The salesman knows more and uses
this knowledge to his or her advantage. Even Adam Smith was inclined to see
businessmen as prone to colluding, or of other similar acts to enrich themselves.
Translated into modern times we have the recent corporate scandals in US and
elsewhere as illustrations as to why one should be beware of business practices.
Customers, employees, shareholders, institutions are being cheated because of
greed and wrongful actions by business. We see great business leaders who
dramatically fall from grace. For example, Enron's former boss was once
heralded as a business genius. Now, dead, he is dismissed as a villain. Other
inappropriate marketing behaviors abound. Billions of unwanted messages
known as spam are pouring into e-mail inboxes. Marketing messages of all kinds
mess up important channels of information.
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Executive greed takes new and spectacular forms. Normal perks are not enough.
Top managers are not content with high, or rather super high, salaries to
perform, they must also have extra incentives as stock-options and other
performance-related bonuses. As response to the strong public reactions,
Corporate Social Responsibility, or CSR, has seen the light of day. Not yet a
coherent or practical program, it has nevertheless caught the attention of many
multinationals. It seems to be the case that CSR is used only at customers. Big
companies identify other stakeholders but do not prioritize them.
Also, new federal laws in the US, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley act, has been
introduced to stipulate what should be good behavior in business. It has been
claimed by the Economist (August 28, 2003) that the essential features of
corporate governance such as: weak boards, muted shareholder participation
and sweeping powers for the boss, however, remain intact. Voluntary initiatives
of coming clean from corporate greed and countering the mistrust of the public
are in the making. For instance, in 2002 George Bush attended the opening
ceremony of Business Strengthening America (BSA), an organization whose aim
is to encourage civic engagement and volunteer service in corporate America.
The No Logo website NoLogo.org is an extension and follow-up of Naomi Klein’s
first book. The book, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies (1999) put the
effects of Big Advertising and Brands into question. We were told that brands are
made up of fictitious value of little importance. It was argued that global brands
like Coca-Cola and McDonalds dominate their industry to the detriment of better
alternatives.
These brands project the wrong health claims and mislead the
consumers. The “Supersize-Me” documentary has made a big difference to the
image of fast-foods and McDonalds among the public. Increasingly, non-state,
non-commercial and idealistic initiatives confront the global industries such as:
Big Sugar, Big Oil, Big mining and Big Tobacco. Negative publicity has now
become a global force to take into consideration.
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All these examples show that top bosses, famous companies and global brands
my be at the mercy of global negative publicity which may have strong, and
immediate, impact on the market and value of the company. This is called demarketing. It is defined as actions or products by the company, albeit not directly
coming from the marketing department, that damage brands or market position.
So, in short, all employees are active in marketing whether they know, or believe
it, or not. A financial scandal may have direct impact on marketing and sales, and
not only on shareholder value and trust.
This is why the idea of True Marketing transcends company departments and
functions. A scandal may also brew from lack of moral considerations of work
conditions among suppliers far away. The sweat-shop case of NIKE is an
illustrative case. The bad work conditions for children employed by NIKE´s
suppliers in Asia spilled over to damage the brand. The internet was used to
spread the word around the world among the young users. The powerful
metaphor “sweatshop” made the message clear; not only runners, but employees
making the shoes were sweating! A number of “citizens portals” on the web invite
the public to share information about corporate misbehavior and abuse.
More and more, brands stand as symbols for the total quality of a company.
Brands, in the view of customers, become the company. Hence, a de-marketing
exercise can have devastating effects in the long term.
That is why True
Marketing is much more than just sorting out the mistakes in marketing work.
True Marketing is the moral platform on which the company is based. It should
apply to everyone, in everything they do. So, I say, dispense with all types of
marketing fads. There is only need for one kind of marketing: True Marketing.
Turning the Company Triangle on its head and the Loop of Identification: Two
True Marketing models of the company
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Most, if not all, companies have hierarchies. We can see at least three levels,
even in modern peer-based service firms: top mangers or leaders, middle
managers, and those employees having direct contact with customers. We call
these latter employees the front line. Hence, we can imagine the standard
company as an organization with three levels: top, middle and customer-contact:
frontline. Top level leaders make strategy and plans. Middle level managers
follow-up daily work and supervise employees at the frontline. The frontline
delivers the actual service or work. Consequently, the frontline is what customers
see. This is where marketing takes place. What the frontline does, or does not
do, is what makes the difference.
We can construe the power of (and in) the company from the viewpoint of
customers as a triangle (See picture). Most employees are active on low levels of
power, the base of the triangle. Above the low level, a number of managers
supervise operations. At the top, a few leaders decide strategy. Much of what
goes on in the interface (or base) between customers and contact employees is
invisible for managers and top leaders. They are busy planning. To lead, they
must take part in daily interaction with customers. This is where customer
complaints, or new business ideas are heard. This is where work stress leads to
unhappy employees or bad customer service. The base of the triangle is where
the customer interaction takes place. It is the lowest level of status and power.
Middle managers listen to the top leaders and attempt to act so as to fulfill plans
they are given. In ascending order we have the formal power relations: customer,
contact employee, middle manager and top leader. What about real power?
Insert figure 1 here
I suggest we turn this triangle on its head (See figure 1). The real power and
importance comes from the customer. The interface becomes the first priority.
Contact employees are the key; they should be supported to the maximum by
what in services marketing is called “servant leadership”. By this it is understood
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that middle managers should take active part in service delivery, and be a role
model for what is considered excellent service. This is the second priority of the
company. Leaders, finally, support by allocating resources and values. Leaders
are the third priority, and should be supporting middle managers to help them
become exemplars of the company mission. In turning the triangle on its head,
metaphorically we place the real power in the hands of those delivering service.
Leaders can tap into and direct real power only by being immersed in operations
and by motivating employees to make the best use of resources.
True Marketing needs a re-oriented power model of the company in order to
work. The reason for this is as follows. Each power level of a company needs to
IDENTIFY itself with the right, and true counterpart. This identification is a crucial
feature, because without it, there is no directive force, or control, for true action to
take place between counterparts.
We can use a Loop of IDENTIFICATION as an image (See figure 2). Here is how
I see it. First, top leaders must identify themselves with customers and other key
stakeholders. Only then can they truly understand what is right or wrong in a
moral, and for that matter, ethical sense. Giving orders to the organization is
meant to direct action towards common goals.
But these goals must be
consistent with True Marketing, that is societal concerns.
Next relation in the Loop of IDENTIFICATION is the one between customers and
other stakeholders and employees. Customers should identify with the frontline
employees doing the work for them. What can be expected from the offer? How
can I as a customer be fair and do the right thing? The quality of the interaction
lies in the quality of the offer. Identifying with the conditions of the workplace, and
the quality of the organization (like the sweatshop example), makes it easier for
the customers to become morally aware of what kind of suppliers on the market
they prefer to patronize. Customers can make every choice a morally one. They
should know what they get and want to pay for.
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The third, and the final, relation in the Loop, is between frontline employees and
top leaders. The frontline needs to identify with the top leaders. Why? Because
they are employed to deliver quality work as specified in their contracts, by
convention, or according to the aims of the company. They should report
mistakes and correct them when possible. Understanding True Marketing, they
know that they have a contract with the company as such, and not an individual
top leader. This is where whistle-blowing comes into being, often a courageous
act with many risks involved aimed at improving the company. The person
blowing the whistle does this for a greater good, seldom for personal gain.
So, now we have two basic models of how the company should be allocating
power, and channel identification between the key parties of business, in order to
make True Marketing work. First, I take an internal power perspective visualized
by the Triangle, turned on its head. Second, I propose a reverse Loop of moral
and individual identification to make moral choices easier. Let us move on to the
second question: What is True Marketing?
Insert figure 2 here
First: A short recap of marketing history
We know that marketing has developed over the last 100 years or so from
economics, psychology and sociology. Marketing became a subject in business
schools in the beginning of the twentieth century. Americans invented academic
marketing and they still dominate the area. From being distribution oriented it
evolved after the Second World War in the 50´s into “selling what we make well”.
In the 60´s marketing took up the idea of promotion, market research and the
4Ps. The 70´s and 80´s see the introduction of the so called generic marketing
concept and segmentation and positioning. It becomes the philosophy of
marketers.
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At the end of the 80´s the introduction of relationship marketing (RM) means that
marketers focus on delivering a market-driven superior value to customers. The
customer relationship becomes the focus instead of the transaction. The internet
and ERP systems made inroads into marketing in form of CRM or customer
relationship management. Now we know that the effectiveness of CRM is in
doubt. RM is not a universal philosophy. Even if the aim of marketing is the
create and retain customers we may need to “outsource” some of them because
they are to costly to serve. As other functions in the company can be outsourced
so can customers!
Summing things up, much of marketing carried out the latter half of the 20th
century concerned how to improve segmentation and adjusting the marketing mix
to make marketing more effective by paying lip-service to fads such as: micromarketing, mass-marketing, mass-customization and one-to-one marketing.
Further, poor implementation has been the problem with much marketing in the
80´s and 90´s. Where does this take us?
Therefore it is indeed a paradox that the discipline of marketing has lost its
relevance as a company function to be replaced by other disciplines, such as
grand strategy, when people see a marketing dominated world in which
consumption takes primacy and brands dominate as carriers of life values.
There has been an age old (100 years!) debate about the divide between
academe and practice. The debate has centered around the questions: Is
marketing research of any use to practitioners? How can we make research
findings improve the practice of marketing managers?
The debate of marketing’s mid-life crisis centered around which duties to fulfill to
its multiple stakeholders. Some people think that marketing as a function is dead.
Instead, marketing should become more of a business philosophy. The “gapclosing” activity of marketing, between buyer and seller, is no longer needed with
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increasingly sophisticated IT. Customers, it has been said, no longer want to
make a choice between products (or services) modeled from market segment
analysis; they want exactly what they want! IT driven customer tailored
information can match offers to individual needs and preferences.
Marketing definitions: What can we learn from history?
Clearly, we need a renaissance in marketing thinking. This paper will contribute
to this effort by introducing the idea of True Marketing (True-M). Let us start with
the American Marketing Association’s (AMA) environmental definition of
marketing ethics: “The use of moral codes, values, and standards to determine
whether marketing actions are good or evil, right or wrong. Often standards are
based on professional or association codes of ethics.” I will base the ideas of
what I term True Marketing on axiology, the science of values (Hartman 1967;
Hartman 1973). The book I wrote in 1990: Better Business by the ABC of Values
(Studentlitteratur: Lund) outlined how one can distinguish between positive and
negative values and which types of values are more important than others. So
what I suggest is to define True Marketing as a moral platform for all marketing
actions. Several contributions to marketing on axiology have already been
published (Lemmink and Mattsson 1996; deRuyter et al 1997; Mattsson and
Rendtorft 2006).
The general definition of marketing by the AMA is: “Marketing is an
organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and
delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways
that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.” The function and processes
are supposed to deliver value and in return benefit the company and its
stakeholders. This current definition carries an instrumental view of marketing, as
did the earlier definitions of marketing, where the exchange between parties
(narrow) was replaced by the transaction (more extensive).
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As marketing came into being by the offering and wanting of something, all
organizations and also individuals can be seen to engage in marketing. This was,
at the time, talked about as “the broadening of the marketing concept”.
Marketing was seen from the perspective of the supplier (seller) as an entity in
control. However, early on, industrial marketing research saw industrial
relationships as interactions, in which companies could not act independently.
Relationship marketing, therefore could not be a managerial technique, as too
many restrictions and complexity of the interaction processes made control
impossible.
I claim that much of the other different forms of marketing so far has been
instrumental, and biased in favour of the company. I will replace the instrumental
and company oriented focus of marketing. Instead, I aim at the individual
employee carrying out the marketing actions. Hence, True Marketing is a moral
platform guiding all marketing activities. True Marketing is not instrumental in a
narrow way. It can be applied to all kinds of human interaction in business.
Therefore, my definition of True Marketing reads as follows: True Marketing is
being true to person(s), work and moral codes in all marketing activities of the
individual.
Let me start with the key word: true. What does it mean? True has several
meanings according to Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (1990: p.
1267). First, it translates in to being steadfast and loyal. Also, as being honest
and just as a person. These meanings refers to the character of the individual.
Second, true can mean “that something is in accordance with the actual state of
affairs” (Webster p. 1267).
Obviously this means that there should be an
accuracy between what is said (or written) and the physical fact or reality. Also, a
true problem can have the connotation of being the essential part of the problem.
Third, finally, true can mean typical, legitimate or rightful as in the phrase “our
true king”. This translates into societal codes of right and wrong.
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Hence, these three levels of meanings for the word True conform to the definition
above as being true to 1. Person 2. Work and 3. Moral codes. This is the
essence of the word true, or truthful. Let me explain further about the three
levels and how they relate to each other by being different in importance and
dimension.
The levels of marketing
Person level. Being true to yourself is a first must. It means that you, as an
individual, must feel the action taken, or deliberated, is the right one for you. You
ask yourself the question: is this action what my self should be doing? Does it
feel right? Or, will I regret it afterwards? When deciding to take an action every
person is of course restricted to what (s)he knows at the time and the ability at
hand. Hence, we should take a relativistic view of True Marketing in the sense
that persons are different and come from different cultures and traditions. We
cannot expect everyone to act in accordance with moral thinking in the western
countries.
However, what is most important is to consider the intent of the person
interacting with another person. The intent should be honest and transparent.
Tell the truth as you know it! One need not reveal everything. This may damage
the company. One should however, not only communicate the positive aspects
with using the product or service, but also the negative effects that may happen.
This does not mean that one should make the negative ones a major point, only
that some of them needs to be understood for the best of all. Subtracting the
negative value from the positive value of an offer the customer retains the
surplus. If negative value is clear to the customer, then the surplus positive value
is the true benefit derived from marketing. Hence True Marketing has taken
place.
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Another condition also has to be met in order for someone to have been true to
his or her person, being true to another person. Does it feel right for me as a
marketer to market the thing to that person? Can that individual really benefit
from my offer as a person? Would I as that customer, and knowing what I do
now, be ready to buy? Guaranteeing the value of an offer is a strong selling
point. Any marketer who warrants the value in an offer by promising a pay-back if
the customer regrets the transaction becomes credible.
So, in short, the Person level is about feeling good about yourself and other
persons. Only persons can have what we call feelings. That is why the Person
level also is an emotional level. This emotional dimension has long been
neglected in marketing. Now it is time to introduce it as a pillar of a new kind of
moral marketing; True Marketing. Let us look at the next level of True Marketing.
Work level. The work level consists of everyday work and physical reality in time
and place. It is what you see around you in your home, office or work place and
outdoors. All practical marketing work you do, making sales to customers,
planning or carrying out promotional activities, designing products, writing copy
for advertising, writing up market plans and so on belong here. The old saying: “if
something is worth doing, it is worth doing well” is our leading star. Much of
marketing thought has been spent on this level to develop instruments for
marketers. Marketers wanted answers to the following questions. How can we
make marketing work more effective? How are we to organise the marketing
department? Where are we going to put our ads? How are we going to reach our
customers? How can we group them into segments in order to become more
focussed?
Traditional marketing put great emphasis on making products different from other
competing products. Features were important. The more, the better! A key point
in market research was to find out which features really counted for customers
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when they made choices between brands. Anticipating future customer needs
and delivering them today was the winning formula.
Marketing today faces many great challenges such as, internationalization and
globalisation of business and markets, growing customer expertise and power,
lack of market growth in many industries, and time-based competition. Innovation
nowadays has to be speedy and continuous, driven by teams working across
departments and functional specializations. There is no time to follow the
sequential logic, market research, product design, product development, market
plan, marketing planning and market launch and marketing audit. Everything in
this sequence has to be done more or less simultaneously. Therefore the
marketing function has become almost extinct in many companies. Now much
marketing work takes place across functions and levels of the company and in
collaborative ventures or projects between organisations.
Hence, marketing work has taken a new integrative shape.
It has become
collective and collaborative. It has become intertwined with other activities, such
as innovation or operations. Information flows within and across company
borders in collaborative networks. Therefore it is time to make marketing more of
a business philosophy than a functional discipline. As such, it is a close relative
to the fetish of top management, Grand Strategy, the core domain of company
leadership (Mattsson et al 2006). Making marketing more moral would also make
it a contender to the priority of top management attention.
Code level. What are societal codes? They are the agreed on rules of behavior.
Rules are spoken or written messages using codes such as language or
mathematics. These codes belong to a rational level of human life. Being rational
is in Greek to have reason, or being logical (from Greek logos=reason).
Together, these codes set up a system of principles of how to behave. As such
they become moral restrictions because they relate to how an individual should
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behave to other individuals, or to mental constructions like the family, company,
state, government, and other organized groups of people.
Thus codes are, in most cases, moral in that they relate to groups of people.
Ethical codes, to the contrary, concern the individual only. Therefore, in this
paper we will be using the code level to refer to human reason and how moral
principles are followed by men. We have many different kinds of moral codes.
Cultural traditions can be very strong and serve as forceful codes of conduct.
Criminal and civil law set the boundaries for what is allowed in a civil society.
Professional codes, such as the Hippocrates oath in medicine, define the
essence of a profession. Religious codes are handed down through the
centuries. Interpreting them from what the Gods in heaven have given men,
scholars have given birth to the discipline of interpreting text, hermeneutics.
The nature of a code, we must remember, is that you can either do right or
wrong. Often there is no in-between. It is a bi-polar world we see. Think about the
expression: “to tell a lie, but to tell THE truth”. There is only one truth, but many
possible lies. Either a defendant is guilty or not. Therefore, as strange as it may
seem, this third level is of least importance. The consequences of breaking a rule
or disobeying a code may not be so bad. But it can, of course depending on the
situation. Let us now flesh out the main principles of True Marketing by using
the image of a Ladder. Each one of the three levels will be combined with one
another. This results in nine combinations. Each combination will be a step on
the True Marketing Ladder, the third model in this paper.
The nine steps of the True Marketing Ladder
Remember that the first level is about your own person and other persons. We
now combine the Person level with itself and with the Work and Code levels into:
Person-to-Person, Person-to-Work and Person-to-Code. These combinations are
the three first steps of the True Marketing Ladder.
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Let us start with the Person to Person sub-level: Step one. As a marketer you
should feel good about your self and others. You are the vantage point of
evaluation. You are the person feeling for your identity. These are the questions
you should ask yourself. Are you feeling good about yourself now? Do you feel
that you are in the right place to become a great person? Are you happy with the
friendships you have created at work? If you feel happy and answer yes to these
questions, you are experiencing a most important feature of True Marketing. It
creates meaning for your self and other persons involved.
Next we take the Person to Work sub-level: Step two. This is the same as feeling
that you do the right thing, you personify your work. You can express your
abilities into marketing work in such a way that you become an role model in a
certain sense. Your personality is reflected in everything you do. I could
exemplify with artistic creations or fantastic innovations. The artist, or advertising
copy writer, or inventor is shaping work in an individual way. Creating becomes
an obsession, and a way to express the innermost talents and identity. Great
creative ideas are translated into physical form. This greatness comes from
immersing yourself into creative and positive endeavours.
Finally, we look at the Person to Code sub-level or Step three. This is quite
different from the one just discussed above. Now we talk about your individual
feeling about the codes you need to pay attention to in your marketing work. Are
you feeling good about them? Do you have a clear conscience? Do you feel that
you are a good and decent professional? Are you abiding with all or some of the
conventions or rules of your marketing work? These are the questions you
should think about. Naturally, some codes or rules of the game may be old or
even outmoded. New convention come into being. There is no fixed set of rules.
They may be absolute, or rather flexible. They come into being by collective
agreement between peers on what constitutes good or bad, suitable or
unsuitable behaviour.
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Again, remember that the second level is Work. As above, we combine the Work
with itself, Person and Code levels into steps four, five and six. Step four; Work
to Person means that your effort in marketing should make a great difference to
other persons. Marketing should have a strong impact on the individual as a
person. How does this come about? An good example could be creative and
enlightening travel that makes the customer a better person. In earlier times a
pilgrimage was such an undertaking. Men made long and hard journeys to
salvage their souls. Nowadays, even young people can sacrifice their sleep to
line of overnight to get the first tickets to an Harry Potter film. Other examples are
meaningful, but demanding education at top universities or schools and cosmetic
surgery to restore a badly damaged face, and thus the personality, from a car
accident. We see that good work is put into operation on the person as a self, or
a symbol of the self, such as the face. It is not by accident that services directed
at peoples bodies such as health-care, hairdressing, fitness centres and other
beauty salons are held in high esteem by regular clients.
Step five: Work to Work is a sub-level of tangibility. It is about doing good deeds
in marketing. Practically the offer from the marketer should work. The product, as
a useful thing, should give the results expected. “Use Pear’s Soap and you will
Spear Soap” is an old English advertising headline which is a case in point. As a
thing, the soap will last long. It will clean. Ease of use is a counterpart. AVIS ads
say: We try harder. We work harder to give you the best service. Services and
products should be easy to use, and hence practical.
Also, products in use, should have the expected effect. We are overwhelmed by
magic pills that are supposed to make us happier, healthier and slimmer. Many
of these miracles cures are of course a joke. In daily conversations we often talk
about quality when we want to discuss the content or effect of a product. Some
products have more quality than others. They contain more of what we expect
those products to contain. Let me take one example from the food area.
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Sausage labelled “slimming sausage” in Sweden may contain water as the
largest ingredient (slimming all right!). On the cover of the package all ingredients
are mentioned in order of their relative size. Many consumers do not read these
fine-prints. They know about calories and look at the front cover on which
slimming is mentioned. The sausage contains few calories, hence good food for
slimming! But, people, nevertheless, expect a sausage to contain more meat
than water. They also take it for granted that healthy meat is included. This
slimming sausage may contain other substitutes for meat, such as white flower
from wheat, and injected salt to make it heavier, which may cause negative
health effects. For instance, too much salt intake is not good for the blood
pressure, and white flower is not conducive to a low GI diet. Consumers buying
this sausage are mislead about the positive health effects of consuming the food
stuff. The sausage contains cheap and empty food components. When
consumers become aware of this misinformation, their trust for the food producer
(and also perhaps for other producers) vanishes. Short term profits should not
determine such important issues as building a the long term quality brand for
foodstuffs. The marketer wants consumers to believe that the lack of meat and
other healthy ingredients is really good quality. This is not True Marketing.
Instead, an honest slimming sausage would be developed around high quality
ingredients from perhaps vegetables such as peas or beans which would be,
from a slimming point of view, even better than meat. The may point would be to
combine healthy ingredients with nutritious input with slimming properties!
Perhaps the even the concept of a sausage would be unsuitable. We may need
to develop an entirely new food product. This product should be advertised as
what it is, with the aim of building long term trust around the idea (and brand) of
slimming the right and healthy way. In this way, we have applied the principles of
True Marketing in designing a good product on the level of Work to Work.
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Step six: Work to Code is a level of control of marketing actions. This can be
summarized as “doing things right”. Remember what we discussed above,
namely that “Doing the right things” is more important. It belongs to the Person to
Work sub-level, you feel that you do the right things. “Doing things right” means
that you follow rules and conventions in your work to make sure the quality gets
right. All international systems of certification or classifications of products or
services such as ISO and EQUIS, and so on, are built up around this sub-level.
Companies should outline and make sure that they have procedures in place
(here termed codes) to warrant how the work is carried out, and thus certifying
content and quality.
Other examples of True Marketing on the Work to Code level are the following.
Your marketing work should follow the standards set up by the profession.
Marketing plans should be executed effectively, and be in accordance with
budget, or other constraints, such as moral guidelines for example the one put
forward in this paper: True Marketing. A bottom-liner is the question if you are
behaving morally true to your customers and other stakeholders.
Finally, we must deal with the third level of Code. Combining it with itself, the
Person and Work levels we get the final three steps of the True Marketing
Ladder; steps seven, eight and nine. Step seven is the Code to Person. In
essence, this can be translated to: treat people with fairness. This is as much
about individual remuneration and salary, as classifying employees into different
groups, into managers or staff, or seniors or juniors, or insiders or outsiders.
These procedures of classification must be reasonable and just. They are the
moral backbones of the company. Rules or guidelines must be seen as fair by
everyone.
This was termed Internal Marketing a few decades ago. Advertising was not only
directed to customers and external
publics, but also, and perhaps more
importantly, to the employees of the company. The idea was that there should
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be consistency between the messages sent to customers and employees in
order to make the messages believable and enforceable.
The Code to Person level creates professions in that a person is certified for a
certain job. The requirements of the job are the criteria from which profession is
constructed. We have many professions in modern society and we have in
services marketing an area called professional services like doctors, lawyers,
civil engineers, consultants, psychologists, teachers and so on. To belong to one
of these professions you need en exam or degree and also practical experience
to ascertain that you are following the standards of the job. More and more
service jobs follow this trend to become professions in their own right. Is
marketing a profession, or is it becoming one? Several functions in marketing
have become highly specialized and knowledge-intensive such as marketing and
sales of pharmaceuticals and the production of new forms of advertising. Hence,
it is more than probable that marketing will follow the trend of professions.
Step eight is the combination of Code and Work. We compare work with a rule or
standard (here called code) and see if, and to what degree, they match. The
more of mismatch in a negative sense, the worse we behave, or reverse the
more of a positive mismatch the better we behave. This was the idea behind
Taylor's scientific management.
It has now modern counterparts such as
benchmarking, business process re-engineering, Just-in-Time (JIT) and scenario
planning all examples of the Code to Work combination.
An overriding issue for marketing is to deliver the right thing on time. Hence a
summation of this level would be: do what you promised on time. The idea is that
promises made should be kept. Pacts, or agreements should be kept, this is the
maxim of business. As the prime function of marketing is to make promises about
offers to consumers, True Marketing on this level is to over-deliver in terms of
promises made. This can make customers more than satisfied. Hence, modern
marketing thinkers talk about delighting customers instead of satisfying them.
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Delight, has a much stronger meaning than satisfaction. Delight is to give great
pleasure or having extreme satisfaction. These expressions signal more of
feeling than thinking. However, we then move up the ladder of True Marketing to
the Person to Work level: Step two.
The final ninth step of the Ladder is the combination of Code to Code levels. This
means that we compare one code with another. Remember that codes could also
be understood as rules or fixed schemes. They come about by rational
reasoning. It is a bi-polar way to see the world; either as right or wrong. When
we use this step of the Ladder we tend to think about the following: Are prices
correct? Are the conditions of the contract according to law or rules? Have we
made allowances for all costs? Is our paper-keeping in order? Hence, what is
termed “creative accounting” is the non-compliance of traditional accounting.
Many recent financial scandals have centred around this ninth step of the
Ladder. A few examples. Chicago Sun-Times overstated its circulation. Soon
afterwards, two of the Tribune Company's papers confessed to having done the
same thing. The world's biggest car-parts firm, Delphi, also cooked its papers.
These, and many other examples show that increasingly stiff competition on the
market, and pressure from financial stakeholders, make it tempting to manipulate
accounts to improve a bad economic situation. True Marketing means that all
numbers must be correct as far as we know. In some volatile markets in may be
very difficult to estimate or foresee economic developments. Fine. Nevertheless,
the formula for how companies calculate their profits, assets, debts and value
must be clearly communicated to stakeholders. This is especially important when
these formulae are changed. Key words are openness and transparency in all
accounts. Bad numbers may be explained but doctored numbers may not!
A key issue in marketing is the setting of correct prices. What is the correct
price? There are many ways to calculate product costs. There are also many
ways to estimate what customers are willing to pay, or their value. There is also
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the price differences between customer groups, or segments. For example, take
the price of an airline ticket. The passenger next to you may have paid much
more, or less, than you for exactly the same trip. How do you fell about that?
What many companies fail to do is to explain to customers how they set the
prices and what the benefits are for everyone. In essence, it is the real-time
market situation for that flight that makes the price change from time to time. If
this is explained adequately, customers will understand and take advantage of
this to the benefit of all parties. Again, it is the openness and clear
communication of the reasons behind the setting of prices that will resolve the
issue. True Marketing on the ninth step of the Ladder is about being reasonable
and correct to everyone.
Summing up the key point of True Marketing
I have now explained the content of the nine Steps of the True Marketing Ladder.
Each step is as important as that of its number. Step one is the most important,
and step nine the least important from the True Marketing point of view. Contrary
to a normal physical ladder we start from the top and step down in descending
order. To say it in another way, for many people money, or profit, may be the
most important thing in life. True Marketing, however, puts Persons first, Work
second, and Codes, such as money, last. A company practicing True Marketing
will in the long term make money, deliver good products or services and have
happy employees! True Marketing relates to Strategy and HRM as a universal
grid of the priorities of the human realm of existence. One may as well use the
corresponding labels for these scholarly fields, hence True Strategy and True
HRM.
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Figure 1
Turning the Triangle upside down
Top leader
Middle mgr
Contact person
Customer
Contact person
Middle mgr
Top leader
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Figure 2: Loop of Identification
Top leader
Customers
Stakeholders
Employees/Contact persons
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References
deRuyter, K., Wetzels, M., Lemmink, J., Mattsson, J. (1997) The Dynamics of the
Service Delivery Process: A Value-based Approach, International Journal of
Research in Marketing, vol. 14, no. 3, July, pp. 231-243.
Hartman, R., S. (1967) The Structure of Value: Foundations of a Scientific
Axiology, Southern Illinois Press: Carbondale Illinois.
Hartman, R., S. (1973) The Hartman Value Profile (HVP): Manual of
Interpretation, Research Concepts: Muskegon, Michigan.
Klein, N. (2000) No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, Knopf Canada:
Toronto
Lemmink, J. Mattsson, J., (1996) Warmth during Non-Productive Retail
Encounters: The Hidden Side of Productivity, International Journal of Research in
Marketing, vol. 15, no. 5, pp. 505-517.
Mattsson,
J.
(1990)
Better
Business
by
the
ABC
of
Values.
Lund:
Studentlitteratur
Mattsson, J. Rendtorft, J (2006) E-marketing ethics: A Theory of Value Priorities,
International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising, vol. 3 , no. 1 pp. 3547.
Mattsson, J. Ramaseshan, R. and Carson, D. (2006) Let Marketers Reclaim
Corporate Strategy, Journal of Strategic Marketing, vol 14, no. 2 (June) pp. 165173.
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