Following the American Psychological Association’s Guidelines
Introduction
Producing goods and services and supplying them to the people is the aim of all the companies. In the early times, the economists assumed that any product or service has a buyer; therefore, there was no need to spend effort to sell the products or the services. However, in the modern times, there are a large number of companies producing substitutable products and services. The consumers need to make a decision of choosing some products and services to use. From the companies’ point of view, the companies need to answer an essential question: “Why should a customer prefer their products or services?”
In the early times, there were not many options; thus, producing something was the most important stuff. If a product created a certain level of satisfaction, then the customers would buy it. Thus, selling a product was not a big problem. The main issue was how to sell it to the mass. The sellers realized that when the product could satisfy the customers at a certain level, it was easy to market it to the people. In these times, the marketing activities were product-centered. Relatively better products and services at large amounts would increase the market share.
In time, the number of companies producing the substitutable products increased. Subsequently, the customers faced an important opportunity: choosing a product or a service among the similar ones. Thus, the companies needed a more developed marketing activity because each consumer had different characteristics and needs, and to satisfy these consumers, the companies had to develop their products accordingly. In this era, the marketing activities were consumer-centered.
In the modern era, the world population increased logarithmically, and we have a large number of companies producing similar products and services. In another word, the atomicity assumption in the science of economics became real. In the previous era of consumer-centered marketing, all marketing options were tried, and people got used to these marketing tactics. Also, the technological developments have provided enormous information resources for the people. Consequently, all the people who have an access to the internet technology can easily collect information on the products and the services they are willing to purchase. As a result of these developments, the companies need to develop more complex marketing structures. The basic tactics used in the previous era do not attract any consumer. In this era, the features of the products are more important.
Marketing 1.0 (product-centric) and Marketing 2.0 (consumer-centric) levels in the marketing are followed by Marketing 3.0 (Value-centric). In this essay, I will argue why the companies need to give more importance to the values.
How the Values Become More Important In Our Modern Time
The rapidly increasing world population forced the humanity to develop some principles to live together. The technological developments have provided varying services and products for the humankind. Besides relatively better live conditions through using the varying products and services, the people have the opportunity to reach relatively better education services and more information resources easily. Nowadays, the humankind has started realizing new things further than satisfying their needs. From the companies’ point of view, the change in the consumers’ preferences has led them to take a new position in the marketing field. Considering that there is a high population in the world, trying to develop services for every individual becomes impossible. Instead, caring the values that the people care might be more efficient for the marketers.
What do the people realize with relatively better education backgrounds? There is a new movement in the world against consuming the values. What are those values? The values that many people claim to be willing to protect are the ones that the humankind has had in the past. For instance, close relations between people depending on mutual honesty, clean environment and respect for the environment, ecological values necessary for the natures' survival, and many similar ones gain more importance in our modern time. We have sacrificed many of these values to develop a more comfortable world for the humankind. For instance, a high-level use of energy is assumed to be an indicator for a developed country, and all the countries are racing to consume more energy. The World Bank uses the energy use per person as a development indicator for the countries. To use a high level of energy, we need to produce more and more energy every day. Producing energy requires more use of natural resources such coal and petroleum, and build nuclear centrals to produce electricity. Nowadays, many of the people are confused between using a high level of energy and polluted environment. We observe that the consumers prefer using relatively less energy consuming home appliances, and the producers underline the respect to the environment through producing machines using less energy and not polluting the environment.
These values become important because the nature can provide us limited resources, and the people finally realized this reality. Subsequently, for sustainable survival conditions, the humankind needs to use the resources responsibly. The increasing pressure on the environment is reflected the people, and the people would like to see that the nature can provide the survival conditions for them and their offspring.
Respecting Values: Global Ones or Local Ones?
Nowadays, the globalization is a reality that every single person faces. Many people assume that the globalization is something good for humanity. The globalization starts with the global human rights definitions in the early times. Some people support the idea of global human rights for every individual in 1800s. After the technology has enabled us to communicate with many people from the whole world, the people have started learning about each other easily. These interactions caused the development of some global values. However, the globalization has damaged some local values. Each local culture has some specific believes and values. It is truly hard for a person with a certain local cultural background to understand the other cultures. Considering that the Western culture is the dominant culture in the world, the people with a Western cultural background have had a difficulty to understand the other cultures. Instead of accepting other people with their cultural backgrounds, the western culture centric globalization has transformed the people into the ones with the global values. However, nowadays, a new movement among the people insists on protecting the local cultures and values.
Understanding the local and the global values is truly difficult. We are all against the violence, polluting the nature, violence against the women and the children, unequally sharing the natural resources, inequality in income and access to the public services. Those are the global values; however, we have a little clue on what the local values are. Some products produced by using the old-fashion technology, traditional dancing and music, traditional clothing, and some other similar ones might be considered as local culture and values. However, there are some believes that contradicts with the global values. For instance, some Muslim men marry more than one woman, and according to these Muslim men, it is to protect the women. However, the global values tell us one woman should be married to one man, and that protects the rights of man and woman. At the same time, in the developed countries where the global values stem from, many people prefer not to marry, and the cases of cheating have increased drastically. Consequently, many people are confused about the local and the global values.
There is a complex world of the global and the local values; however, there is also unity in the chaos. In a way, many of the people can reach on a consensus on the values, and many of the people would like to see that everybody respects these values. In another word, there exists a balance in the values, and the people give more importance to these values. Whoever would like to do a business in this world has to respect these values. Otherwise, many of the people will refuse to use the products of the companies not respecting their values.
Marketing in a World with a Complex Structured Set of Values
Marketing has to respect the values. It is not because the companies' social responsibility; it is because the people might not prefer the products of the company not respecting the values. In this case, the company that targets some certain customers needs to determine the values that the company has to respect and develop its products and services accordingly.
Determining the values to respect requires a well-developed planning depending on the serious research. Any mistake in determining the values to respect might end up with the destruction for the company. Depending on the geographical area of the targeted customers, the company needs to determine the dominant values in the region. Surveys and some other researches on the values of the targeted customers are very valuable for the companies.
The company’s main aim is not to respect the local or the global values. Essentially, the company’s aim is still same as it was in the past: to sell its products and services to the people. Thus, the company’s respect is a fake respect. Even a company does not respect the consumers' values in the reality; it has to convince the consumers that it does respect. For instance, the beverage companies use a high amount of water inefficiently; however, we observe that every beverage company supports the environmental programs financially. The strange thing is that many people are aware that this company does not respect their values; however, in a way, many consumers forgive the respectful behavior of the company.
Consequently, every person in the world believes in the respect to some local and global values; however, there exist many contradictions. Depending on this situation, the company has to develop a marketing strategy giving the appropriate messages to its customers. However, there is no certain methodology to convince the customers that the company respects their values because the targeted customers have a complexity in their treatments to the values. Even though, there is a complexity, we know that some values are very powerful. For instance, all the companies claim to be respectful to the natural environment, and any company is considered as irrespectful to the environment might have difficulty to sell its products and services.
References
Mittal, Banwari, and Julie Baker. "The Services Marketing System and Customer Psychology." Psychology and Marketing 15.8 (1998): 727-33. Print.
Mooij, Marieke K. De. Global Marketing and Advertising: Understanding Cultural Paradoxes. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1998. Print.
Taylor, Annie. Global Trade and Global Social Issues. London: Routledge, 1999. Print.
Taylor, Charles R. "Emerging Issues in Marketing." Psychology and Marketing 19.4 (1983): 441-47. Print.
