Redefining Brand Loyalty in a Connected World

by Hermawan Kartajaya

Hermawan Kartajaya, President, World Marketing Association and Co-founder, Asia Marketing Federation led his session under the title of Rethinking Marketing. In 2003, he was named by the United Kingdom’s Chartered Institute of Marketing on the list of “50 Gurus Who Have Shaped the Future of Marketing”. He shed light on the topic of WOW Marketing.

The future of power shifts will face a lot of changes in technology, political and legal environment, economy, market, and social culture. The age of Participation and Collaboration Marketing will change from vertical to horizontal. The Age of Globalization Paradox and Culture Marketing will shift from Exclusive to Inclusive and The Age of Creative Society and Spiritual Marketing will shift from Individual to Social in New Wave Marketing. According to Mr. Kartajaya, the 3 key important aspects of New Wave Marketing are i) Young People, ii) Women and iii) Netizens. Bangladesh has all the potential resources from these 3 key aspects.

New Wave Marketing is the evolution of marketing that adapt to universal connectivity (Social Network, Blogs, Rating systems etc) of the customers and add another C with the conventional 4 Cs of Marketing; which is 5Cs in New Wave Marketing. It has made the conventional PDB – Positioning, Differentiation and Branding – obsolete and PDB has been replaced by TRIPLE-C. Positioning has become “Clarification of Persona”, Differentiation has become “Codification of DNA” and Brand has become “Character with Charisma”. Another form of Triple-C is CONNECTED, CATALYST, CIVILIZED.

People are more connected and more competitive today. Individual is becoming social, and people are now social customers. Today’s customers are not stupid and cannot be influenced by one way communication. Social Media have made it difficult to communicate effectively with customers, yet social Media have invented new tools and ways to understand customer in a more friendly way. It is a must for brands to understand its changing competitors and the CHANGE itself. Content are becoming more important than Context as because anyone from anywhere have the access to reviews by previous users.

Related : The Spread of Online Culture

Today’s customers trust their community more than the communication from the brands. Customers buy things only after getting confirmation from the community they belong to. Positioning is clarified to the customers when their community justifies. So, the Brands should adapt strategies to become friends with customers, not consider them as target people, neither consider them as KING! Friendship and caring is necessary to observe the actual customer behavior as people are shy to tell about their weakness. Caring leads to close observation and when a brand gets to know its customers well, half the battle is won.

In New Wave Marketing, costing depends on co-creation; pricing depends on strength and weakness of co-creation. Going to the community or creating communities (Harley Owners Group) result in conversation and conversation is more powerful than communication. Marketing 3.0 says that Brands consider customers as friends and care for them, not just provide service to them.

Wow marketing also says that never push your customer repurchasing. New degree of loyalty is not the numbers of repurchasing customers a brand has, but the numbers of advocates – that does matter. Advocates are those who suggest a particular brand to his/her community. When customers say WOW! They become volunteers for that brand. But when customers say OK or Aha, they will not advocate for the brand.

Related: If you do not control social media, you are finished!

This might not seem to match the western concepts of marketing, but Mr. Kartajaya says “Asia is a developing region, so marketing will be quite different here from that of the Developed West.”

Here points to be noted that, we cannot WOW! Customers without new ideas and every creative idea must be execution-able. Creativity= (Idea * Execution). New Wave Marketing cannot replace Marketing 1.0; today’s so marketer’s additional responsibility in New Wave Marketing era is to make customers go WOW.