Postmodern Marketing

Introduction No-one will dispute the fact that the whole humanity is now living in the business world acting on the principles of production, marketing and consumption. People buy food, clothes, elements of style and devices for communication every day; they go out to eat and have fun. Thus, they make business choices every minute of their lives.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Postmodern Marketing specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The businesses therefore need to detect the changes in human consumer patterns and reassess their vision of markets and strategies to remain competitive and successful in the post-modern market (Firat and Shultz, 1997, p. 183). Business has to be unusual and attractive nowadays as the humanity evolves from the ‘tribal’, ‘segmented’ state as it has been recently referred to (Nancarrow Nancarrow, 2007, p. 129-130). The previous views on marketing as an activity the success of which depends on the way the marketers have managed to adapt to a change have long ago been altered and lost their sense (Deacon, n.d., p. 4). The present reality does not work according to the principles of ‘normative’ marketing that has been making the major emphasis on segmentation and positioning for a long time (Firat Shultz, 1997, p. 184). The characteristics of the present-day postmodern marketing correspond to the innovative commodities and opportunities that the contemporary generation of consumers has obtained. Thus, the availability of modern technology enables the consumers to conduct the majority of their daily affairs, shopping included, in the hyper-reality. The consumer segmentation that has been so much addressed in the modern marketing is substituted by fragmentation in the post-modern version thereof (Firat Schultz, 1997, p. 185). Consumption and production have been reversed because of the shift of the emphasis and decentralization o f the object for purchase in its significance in the marketing process. ‘Paradoxical juxtapositions’, life in the chaotic present with the main stress on the outer style and form and not on the quality of the content define the paradigm of postmodern marketing relationships that have to be considered by those marketers willing to fit in them and remain afloat in the evolving cultural and business world (Firat Schultz, 1997, p. 185). The response to postmodern wishes and preferences is felt in all areas of marketing and pertains to the fundamental reconsideration of the role of consumers, goods, markets and marketing strategies in the business process.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Postmodernism represents a weird mix of the past with the turbulent, aggressive advancement in all fields of interest; thus, ultra-modern products with a nostalgic fleur either in t he form, style or content are extremely popular because of their postmodern duality reflecting the human duality and disorder (Brown, 1997, p. 167). Reconsideration of age segmentation as viewed on the example of people in their 50s and the purchasing power they represent, the role of women in business is also a part of the postmodern marketing strategic reconsideration; pensioners are offended by the attributes of inferiority created due to stereotypes, thus being discouraged to involve in modern marketing campaigns (Allen, 2008). Women are now viewed as a completely different segment for marketing than men, and their characteristics in building consumer behavior are approached from a completely new angle (von Hippel et al., 2010). Now it turns out that only with the help of the interpretive consumer research (ISR) and proper understanding of the consumer experience and not simply segmenting and grouping consumers in accordance with positioned products can help move marketing ahead in the conditions of postmodernism (Cova Elliott, 2008, p. 122). Barack Obama has proven that with his brilliant Presidential campaign in 2008. The secret of Obama’s success was in the positioning of himself as a new, attractive brand (McGirt, 2008, p. 1). The US President managed to break stereotypes and interest the public by his originality and unusualness. The usage of digital forms of communication with the electorate also played a major role in corresponding to the innovative marketing conditions – text messages for the youth, e-mails for the older: what could be better in serving the need for being informed at the beginning of the 21st century? (Dannen, 2008, p. 1). Thus, the innovative call for self-reinvention in the postmodern time may be fulfilled, and marketers have to keep track of the change and find ways to incorporate their marketing goals and objectives in the reality of postmodernism (Peters, 2007, p. 1).Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Postmodern Marketing specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Postmodern Practices of Contemporary Companies Nike. The history of Nike’s marketing and advertising campaigns showed their ups and downs throughout the history of the brand’s existence. In the hard times of a recession and low sales, the company leaders developed a new inspirational logo for the company â€Å"Just Do It†. According to the opinion of experts, it incorporated not only the winning position of the company’s administration willing to become the world’s leader in sales, their determination and commitment in work, but the inspirational element that intruded in other spheres of human life than only sportswear. The company realized that the postmodern market requires an intrusion in the fields that go far beyond the area of sports and sportswear. It has to become a part of the human lifestyle, form of being etc. Hence, it start ed a comprehensive inspirational campaign that attributed the company’s logos to the most unexpected areas. The peculiarities of Nike’s postmodern marketing strategies were noticed by Holt (1999): â€Å"Nike has abandoned the core principle of modern marketing, which advises companies to weave into their advertising only those elements of public culture that are consistent with the distinctive meanings of the brand. Instead, Nike is bent upon attaching the â€Å"swoosh† logo to any person, place, or thing that achieves recognition in the popular cultural world of sports† (Holt, 1999). Another postmodernism element that made the Nike’s marketing strategy stand out of others was the ability to add unusual humor to the advertisements (CFAR, n.d.). They were non-mainstream and did not find the overall recognition and acceptance, even considered sociopathic by some observers, but nevertheless they showed an alternative attitude to the brand from the sid e of its creators and gave the new vision to consumers. What is even more important, despite any innovations the company marketers still managed to sustain the image of coolness of their product so aspired by all consumers (Nancarrow Nancarrow, 2007, p. 142). No matter what epoch comes and which forces determine coolness, it still exists and drives the consumer patterns. More than that, the hedonic pleasure from consumption, an indispensible element of the postmodern culture of consumption, was also successfully preserved: â€Å"Nike became a self-fulfilling image prophecy: if you want to be hip, wear Nike; if you are hip, you are probably wearing Nike. The â€Å"Just Do It† campaign was able to turn sweaty, pain-ridden, time-consuming exercise in Nike sneakers into something sexy and exciting† (CFAR, n.d.).Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Hence, it is possible to assume that Nike successfully pursues the postmodern tendencies in marketing and manages to expand its influence to the areas in which people would have never suggested its presence before. Corresponding to the human need of unusual, humorous and attractive, Nike manages to remain at the top of the postmodern marketing space. Facebook. The response of Facebook to the postmodern requirements of consumers is tremendously precise and comprehensive. It is enough to understand how the initially social network opened for non-students in 2006 evolved to become an over-grasping, universal mechanism for communication, entertainment, brand-new business and fun within a couple of years to realize how well it fulfills the innovative postmodern needs of the 21st century’s consumers (Dunay Krueger, 2009). The reason of Facebook’s success in the modern business arena is that the company opened innovative, unusual opportunities for people spending much time i n the social networks for various reasons. The administration of the company reacted in a timely way to the fact that online consumption patterns change, and their offer to connect to customers, partners and potential clients through social networking turned out a serious success. Facebook nowadays represents a mixture of facilities for advertising, promotion and word-of-mouth campaigns for the online marketers developing their businesses (Dunay Krueger, 2009, p. 9). The individuals communicating at the Facebook and spending much time there may now benefit from using that social network in a number of additional ways – by creating their own business, by being engaged in the free flow of discussion with both clients and providers, thus ensuring extended access to marketing information and connecting the daily social life with consumption (Dunay Krueger, 2009). The Facebook facilities include managing the groups in which individual is, finding the proper groups for business p romotion, organization of public events and dissemination promotional information, creating ad presentations etc. (Holzner, 2008). All this information on the extended opportunities offered by Facebook corresponds to the postmodern requirements of cyber-reality, chaos and disorder; it is possible to only imagine the ways people interact in virtual social networks to realize how chaotic, turbulent and instant the communication is. The Facebook innovative solution showed that even this social environment is appropriate for the creation of beneficial marketing conditions, thus ensuring the tremendous popularity of online marketing solutions. Their major difference from conventional commercial Web sites is that Facebook allows simultaneous communication and marketing, ensures various acquaintance and communication opportunities that may precede business relationships etc. All in all, Facebook is a marketing solution of the new generation requiring living with an instant, including the e lement of personal experience in the consumer behavior and involvement in hyper-reality (Firat Schultz, 1997; Cova Elliott, 2008). Blackberry. The path of marketing strategies pursued by Blackberry can also be called a successful one in terms of meeting the postmodern generation demands. It is enough first to recall the way Blackberry entered the market of communications at the end of the 20th century – the marketers offered their devices to be used for one day for free to feel the benefits of being connected to one’s e-mail on the move (Fisk, 2009). The gadget was fully innovative as at that moment of time no mobile device offered connection to the e-mail. The innovation was a natural response to the growing mobility of business – CEOs started to travel more, with the intensifying globalization and international integration of all business areas. International meetings, conferences and negotiations became an everyday reality rather than an outstanding event. Hence, the majority of business people who got the major portion of their work tied to the e-mail correspondence quickly appreciated the indisputable advantages that Blackberry offered to them – doing business on the move. The name of the company producing Blackberries is also eloquent – Research in Motion. It presupposes the mobility of the modern business generation that cannot stay in offices all day long and spends working days in motion worldwide (Fisk, 2009). Since 2007 Blackberry initiated major repositioning of the appliance, erasing the prestige, age and income margins that are so unpopular for the postmodern way of thinking in marketing. Now the gadget is available not only for business officials of high positions, but for the young people worldwide as well. Initially created as a business appliance vital for staying in touch with business partners, now Blackberry is also a wonderful digital friend used for fun, traveling and communication for any individual wishing to stay in touch not only on the phone but with the help of the Internet (Blackberry, 2010). Modern Blackberries include such applications as GPS for travelers to find their way, traditional e-mail packages to stay in touch by mail, telephone communications opportunities (now blending an e-mail device and a conventional mobile phone), multiple Java and entertainment possibilities etc. (Blackberry, 2010). All these features make Blackberry a universal device for traveling, communication, fun and business. As the postmodern practice of marketing suggests, applications that were previously meant for a certain segment of target customers are now attractive for any consumer from any segment, according to his or her immediate needs. Blackberry may be used for a number of purposes everywhere – in the office, in a bus or at the beach, thus intruding in all spheres of human lives that have been neglected by marketers before. This makes Blackberry so pleasant for usage and desi rable for obtaining, which may be certified by the growing numbers of Blackberry possession by young people and individuals not connected with business. Developing a marketing strategy in the postmodern reality poses a great challenge before the traditional, ‘normative’ marketers who are used to taking into consideration traditional marketing forces. The motto of marketing has recently been segmentation of the population, targeting the focus groups by specific kinds of advertising etc. However, now there are no tribes that will follow the lead and will pursue the concept of the cool by means of brand commitment. As it has been found out by modern marketing researchers, consumers are not loyal to one brand as they like to live in the chaos of multiple opportunities. It is very hard to address the turbulent, changing needs of every focus group, hence an innovative approach is required to retain the product’s sales on an adequate, if not rising level. The marketer o f a new generation has to understand the context in which people exist in the contemporary reality. First, the postmodern period is characterized by the look back to the past – one can explain a plenty of well-marketed ‘retro’ advertisements that play on the people’s nostalgia. Secondly, the technological advancement is intruding in every sphere of human life: even education, healthcare, religion and other areas are now effectively marketed; the postmodern way of marketing presupposes accompanying the individual in every aspect of his or her life, making a product an addiction (like Blackberry). Hence, some methods of making the product attractive, cool and stylish and indispensible at the same time are the key to product success in the post-modernity. Finally, making the product integrated in the social context of the individual (like Facebook) is also the way to promote a product; people socialize, buy and sell and the same moment of time right now, thus becoming the global consumption community. References Allen, A 2008, ‘How to†¦market to the over-50s’, The Marketer (Blueprint), March 2008, pp. 33-38. Blackberry Official Site 2010. Web. Brown, S 1997, ‘Marketing science in a postmodern world: introduction to the special issue’, European Journal of Marketing, vol. 31, no’s 3/4, pp. 167-182. Center for Applied Research (CFAR) n.d., ‘Mini-Case Study: Nike’s â€Å"Just Do It† Advertising Campaign’. Web. Cova, B, Elliott, R 2008, ‘Everything you always wanted to know about interpretive consumer research but were afraid to ask’, Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, vol. 11, no. 2, pp.121-129. Dannen, C 2008. ‘How Obama Won It With the Web’, Fast Company. Web. Deacon, JH n.d., ‘The Foundations of Marketing Thought’, in JH Deacon, The Renaissance Marketing Man, Elgar – Cheltenham. Paper in Progress. Dunay, P, Krueger, R 2009, Facebook Marketing for Dummies, San Francisco: John Wiley Sons. Firat, AF, Schultz, CJ 1997, ‘From segmentation to fragmentation: Markets and marketing strategy in the postmodern era’, European Journal of Marketing, vol. 31, no’s 3/4, pp. 183-207. Fisk, P 2009, Marketing Genius, San Francisco: John Wiley and Sons. Holt, DB 1999, ‘Postmodern Markets’, Boston Review: a Political and Literary Forum. Web. Holzner, S 2008, Facebook marketing: leverage social media to grow your business, Indianapolis: Que. McGirt, E 2008, ‘The Brand Called Obama’, Fast Company. Web. Nancarrow, C, Nancarrow, P 2007, ‘Hunting for Cool Tribes’, In B Cova, RV Kozinets A Shankar (eds), Hunting for Cool Tribes in Consumer Tribes, Elsevier, Oxford, pp. 129-143. Peters, T 2008, ‘Brand You Survival Kit’, Fast Company. Web. Von Hippel, C, Issa, M, Ma, R, Stokes , A 2010, ‘Stereotype Threat: Antecedents and Consequen ces for Working Women’, European Journal of Social Psychology, n/a. doi: 10.1002/ejsp.749. This essay on Postmodern Marketing was written and submitted by user Mariah Coffey to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.