Marketing – Is It's Job To "Serve" Or To "Create"?

The idea of “customer orientation” comes up almost all the time during my meetings with clients. It is generally define as an organization culture in which all executives and employees are committed to the continuous creation of customer value of delivering on their needs. Being the organization's culture, a customer orientation is necessarily cross-functional and thus radically different from a marketing (single-function) orientation. Many organizations are very familiar with this concept but acting on it is a different story.

The whole idea of ‘marketing’ has always been closely associated with discovering what customer wants and needs and then delivering in them in the most economic fashion. The “how” (meaning the product, service or experience itself) is secondary and considered outside the domain of marketing. They are under the domain of product development or distribution or operations etc. Under this definition, marketing’s function is to serve customer. This is true today and will always be so.

But is that enough? That point of view is changing and is somewhat outdated. The new view is marketing is about “creating” customers and markets through innovation-the creation of innovative new product or service concepts. That is a very different approach. When I was taking with the Apple marketing folks a few months back we (Jeff Faulkner and I) were asking them the question about what they were trying to do, “Is it the thing or the thing about the thing?” For Apple, it is always about the “thing”. Innovative products and services have the potential to engage customers’ heart, minds and imagination. Apple is no question the master of product innovation.

Innovator has its set of challenges. From 1993-1998, part of Apple's strategy was create a market for portable handheld pen computers. Unfortunately, they spent most of that time working on a problem that didn't really exist for consumers (that market was ultimately stolen by PalmPilot). Apple's team focused to tackle the biggest challenge in pen computing: high-level handwriting recognition. Newton would be the first hand held computer people could write on directly just like they use pen and paper. From anyone's scrawl, the computer would extract the standard ASCII characters computers need to work with. This posed a massive challenge in pattern recognition (with computer power available at that time). Since every user's handwriting is different, the Newton would need to learn the particular way its user wrote each letter and number. This was a big task. If it got all the letters in, say, the word "works" right, Newton would compare that string of letters to words in its 10,000 word native memory. If the word "works" was stored there, Newton would find a match and "know" the word. When the Newton Message Pad was launched in 1993, it was disappointing. I was one of first customer and I still have one on my desk today.

Then came Jeff Hawkins (Pailm Pilots) with his Grafitti language, he redesigned the alphabet, turning centuries-old letters and numbers into single-stroke symbols that mostly kept the look of the original characters. Suddenly the computer had only one master rule to follow. The rest is history.

12 years later, Apple stikres back. This time with the the advantage of multi-touch screens that allow users to "glean much more information about a user's actions" than from conventional keyboards. This new utility of offering a multi-touch capable display which can process multiple figures and gestures to provide additional information. iPhone's multi-touch screen will be part of a platform for a series of new devices that will come to the market in the next 24 months.

The conclusion is that “customer orientation” is not enough, innovation is necessary to deliver better value for customer. Innovation requires not only imagining market, but also managing three types of risk associated with it:

1/ Technology risk (Will it work?)

2/ Customer risk (Will they buy and can they use it?)

3/ Organization risk (Are we tackling the right problems or do we know what jobs we're trying to help users to do?)

There is more to this, the shift means moving from short-term thinking to long-term thinking, or from marketing tactics to business strategies. So here is the interesting one. How many marketing executives are ready to take on these new tasks?

- From VP Marketing Communications to VP Customer Engagement

- From Marketing Campaigns to Product/Service Innovation

- From Awareness (Mass Media) to Advocacy (Social Media)

We need to move from “Customer Orientation” to “Innovation Orientation”. The rationale for an innovation orientation partly because of social technology and social networks now has the power to create markets and customers. A client (she is a very sophisticated CMO of a large organization) asked me last week over a Mexican dinner why my company’s focus is on digital innovation and not just innovation in a broader sense. That was a good question. My answer to her was that emerging technologies have far reaching effects on both consumer behavior and marketing economics. Many of today's innovation are powered by emerging technologies and social networks. Expect more to come.

Comments

[Vijay Rayapati]

Hi,
Nice article with good insights into adding value to customer needs.

[Bart]

"I believe we should move from “Customer Orientation” to “Innovation Orientation”."

I agree on a lot of things you're saying in this post, but not this one. Maybe it's just semantics though.

I believe we're better of broadening the definition of customer orientation and bring in time (past, present, future) and context (how, where). I'm afraid that a lot of companies working with an innovation orientation start with a too narrow vision and focusing too much on the 'what' and 'how' and not so much on the 'why'. This is a setup for failure, even if the innovation is digital (I've seen a lot of large action-sports companies setup 'their own' video-platform, which answers the question of 'what', but it shows they don't truly understand their customers).

I'd rather see a thorough understanding of their customer first and a solid discussion about the companies goals (create a new market, touch new customers, etc) before going 'totally innovation'. To get this level of understanding, all involved (not just marketeers) should be able to think cross-contextual.

Deep understanding of the past and present situation has always been the foundation for success. If people focus too much on innovation, they tend to forget that.

[Bart]

So in short: it's a marketeers job to understand!

[Sarah Bell]

I think "to understand" is only a small part of marketing in the larger scheme of things.Not that it is not important, but there is plenty more. The job of "custoemr insight" or "research" work would be soley to "understand", but marketers job go beyond that. And that includes outthink the competition and manage channel issues etc.

[J Hunter]

This is great insights. Please wrtie more on this subject. As marketers I fully appreciate the need to innovate but also the lack of ability from discipline perspective.

[Bart]

"I think "to understand" is only a small part of marketing in the larger scheme of things."

I guess that's how you look at truly understanding your customer..

"And that includes outthink the competition and manage channel issues etc."

But doesn't that have to do with understanding? If you truly understand the deepest consumer needs, there's no need in worrying about competitors, because it's not a matter who does the better job, it's a matter of doing your job perfectly. Thinking about the competition only dilutes from this customer-centric vision: You shouldn't do anything because your competitor does it (or doesn't do it), as this is only a short-term gain, but doesn't actually do anything for your customers in the long run. It's the place where commodities are born...

And I heard a brilliant remark about 'solving' channel conflicts: "I'd rather cannibalize myself than have someone else do it." To me, it's clear this also has to do with understanding and serving the needs of your customer. Mind you: a channel conflict is something your company is concerned about, it's - at no point - in the minds of consumers. Web2.0 shows that more than ever...

[Flavio Azevedo]

Allow me a risky simplification.

We are satisfied when companies/people "serve us".

We fall in love when companies/people "create for us".

"To serve" is not equal "to surprise".

I like beer, for instance.

There are a few good beer brands here in Brazil. For years, beer companies have "served me" a decent beer.

But what would really make me fall in love with a specific brand?

A beer that is not only good, but is also the coldest every single time. That makes a lot of difference in Rio and in Brazil, mostly.

We tend to say that "the best beer is the coldest one".

But up to now, not a single Brazilian brand, be it massive or niche, has truly addressed this desire.

Is it impossible?

If you only think about "serving", it just might be.

But if you "create" a bit, the impossible might happen.

We are always talking about "providing a total experience", right? What is that about?

If we take a harder look at Google´s plans for a mobile phone, "create" comes to mind.
Doesn´t it?

[Mario Vellandi]

Yes, more marketing needs to move from communications into pre-development activities such as situational analyses (internal and task environmental), customer research, and host of other activities that can comprise the phases: ideation, scoping, and developing the business case & plan.

[bart]

I like the pov, but isn't creation the serving of future needs? And doesn't that have to do with understanding human needs on a deeper level than just the 'serve brasilians a beer'-level? When i'm looking at web2.0 development, it's not so much true 'technical' creation, but more a connection of the existing dots (which also is creation in a sense of course), which comes from the understanding of behavior of the new generation.

''But up to now, not a single Brazilian brand, be it massive or niche, has truly addressed this desire.''

don't you guys have brasilian Heineken extra-colds? ;)

[Rory MacDonald]

There is no lack of innovation out there (not amongst developers and designers) I think that all too often, it is just that marketers are not up to the job of creating innovative products and creating a market for them. Far too much technology (and I use that word in its broadest sense) is held back by marketing (and I use that word in its most narrow sense) based on theories of product differentiating 1950's FMCGs.

I don’t think Apple is a technology innovator at all. But I think it is the absolute master of marketing innovative technology within the right product. It takes innovative technology and creates products that delight its customers. GUI’s, MP3 players, flat screens, touch screens even magnets (in the power cables), Apple are the prime example that innovation is not about first move advantage, it is about delivering the technology in the right product. And that, as Bart says, is about understanding your customer.

I firmly agree with Bart that "customer orientation" still rules. You can innovate but this must be based on an understanding of the customer. Lose sight of the customer and you are dead. Technology innovation is easy without the customer, product innovation is impossible (and I really hope Apple don’t lose sight of that again).

I think your ability to innovate successfully (and more radically) grows the more deeply you understand your customer. "Customer Orientation" and "Innovation Orientation" have a positive not negative correlation.

The marketing (not marcoms) tools that we have emerging through the web, provide us with the ability to gain a far more detailed knowledge of the customer as a real human (not a compound individual created from random samples and pseudo-science to represent the market) from this basis you can really innovate.

[Rory MacDonald]

When it comes to beer we British are the masters of innovation.

To create customer delight you need warm beer (-;

[Mathew Hill]

No one will disgree the Brits are the master of innovation whenit comes to things such as beer. Rory is also dead on in terms of his cirticism of lack of innovation among marketers. Many are not trained to do that despite there may be a common perception that marketing people are innovative. Rory was righ on both points.

[André Galhardo]

Rory, you're absolutely right.

Talking about Brits, innovation and customer delight:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y70aJn7fb9Q

(Sorry Bart, I can't remember that basic html code)

[André Galhardo]

:)

[Flavio Azevedo]

Beer and football are probably too passionate themes for us to use as examples here... but let´s try.

I am sure warm beer is great for Britain and Germany. I´ve had great warm beer there...and it was snowing (in Berlin) outside.

But try to sell a warm beer in Ipanema Beach and I will give you the Nobel prize for innovation.

8)

I agree 100% with Rory also that "customer-orientation" and "innovation-orientation" should be our targets.

However, we were discussing here a little semantics. The difference between "to serve" and "to create".

"To serve", for me, is good. But clearly it focuses the past. I will serve someone with something that I know they like, because he/she had it yesterday.

"To create" focuses the future. And still, the consumer.

For example, going back in time again.

Did Sony serve us the walkman?

Did Apple serve us the Ipod?

My point is, if we are fighting for brands to focus the future and not the past, we should differ "serve" and "create", like the title suggests in this post. Consumer included.

[André Galhardo]

Nice POV, Flavio.

Let me add something:

Coldest, warmest, whitest, cleanest, fastest, biggest, smallest, quietest etc are words that are being used by brands since the XIX century.

But now they tend to be associated more and more with commodities, don't you think?

It's physics: the coldest water still can't be served below 0ºC.

The Eskimos may have 21 words for the color white but I don't care if my white towell is whiter than my neighbor's.

How many marketing executives are ready to shift from adjectives to substantives?

Let's focus on new concepts, letting consumers adjectivate.