Recently, I came across two books on Marketing that really show vividly on the scopes and speed of changes that is taking place in the field of Marketing:
• Marketing 4.0
• Social Ecommerce
While Philip Kotler talks about taking traditional marketing to digital marketing in Marketing 4.0 emphasizing the importance of the so-called ZMOT (Zero Moment of Truth), a phase of pre-purchase when the customers curiously search for and process more information regarding the goods or services…..showing the effect of “searching on line or being searchable” and “talking to friends and families or shareable”. This, of course, is the essence of digital marketing, making created “contents” searchable and shareable.
On the other hand, Y.F Fang (in Chinese) brings a totally new perspective to marketing in Sociai Ecommerce. He describes the practice of turning “consumption” itself into “production or business / enterprise”, consequently gives special or strategic meaning to the word “prosumer”(producer-consumer), thus giving rise to “Social Ecommerce” coupled with the extensive use of on-line techniques / technologies.
I would even go to the extent of proposing that the ultimate of marketing is “Social Ecommerce”, making the customers the active partner of the business enterprise, actively involved in product / service innovation, sharing profit etc., thus integrating consumption and production holistically, a true “managed Commons” which is the most desirable form of social / economic / environmental practice, trending to replace the “corrupted” capitalistic system. The various Open Platform Cooperatives / Cooperativism in the digital era is the new direction businesses ae heading in the near future.
The project Hypercube @ SOHOland is a good example of such a social business in the real estate development sector, helping overcome the disparity of wealth in property ownership, particularly amongst the Millennial generation.
