The Mini, Marketing, and New Zealand’s Producers: Marketing as a comprehensive provisioning system is an idea that’s been lost since the 1960s.

What is Marketing? For starters, it is arguably one of the most misunderstood disciplines on the planet. There are many entrepreneurs, business owners, and management executives who have all developed their own ideas around what they think marketing is, and what it isn’t. Could they have missed the mark? Maybe, even marketing academics are struggling to agree on a theory. Currently, there is no universally agreed, accepted, or shared vision for marketing and its future. Shelby Hunt, Professor of Marketing at Texas Tech University, a significant contributor to this discussion states,?“Commentaries on the status of the marketing discipline conclude that it is significantly troubled: Do the troubles identified portend a de-institutionalization of the discipline in marketing’s Era IV (1980 – 2020) and its potential re-institutionalization in Era V (2020-?)?”

The fragmentation, hybridisation, and misunderstanding of marketing has led to a situation where a profession designed to hear the voices of consumers has witnessed the erosion of the ability to hear its own voice. How is this even relevant to New Zealand producers I hear you ask? The answer, incredibly relevant, because the real power of marketing has been diminished. This weakened state erodes the ability of producers (sellers) to effectively reach consumers (buyers). Between Marketing Era I, and Marketing Era IV, four key areas emerged.?

They are now known as, consumer behaviour, quantitative modelling, marketing management & strategy, and macro-marketing. The separation of the marketing discipline into highways and byways of marketing thought has taken its toll. This frustration with fragmentation is paving the way for the re-emergence of an alternative. The ‘Aldersonian’ view of the marketing world. For context, Wroe Alderson was one of the founding fathers of modern marketing. Many view him as one of, if not the greatest, marketing thinker of his 1960s day.??

Alderson viewed marketing as an end-to-end provisioning system and he meant ‘system’ in the truest sense of the word. In his mind, marketers were responsible for developing the systems responsible for taking raw materials in nature, transforming them, and placing the transformed goods into the hands of the ultimate consumer. Sounds a bit mystical doesn’t it? Sadly, during the 1960s marketing took a different road to the one Alderson envisioned. Drucker, Levitt, and others began to forge a different direction, which began with the subtle separation of innovation and marketing into two separate functions. From that point on, marketing has continued to morph and evolve into an idea that is hard to pin down. As a result, the full richness and incredible potential of marketing provisioning systems as seen through the eyes of Alderson has remained largely hidden. That is of course, until now.?

Famous MIT systems dynamics icon, Donella Meadows stated,?“Folks who do systems analysis have a great belief in “leverage points.” These are places within a complex system (a corporation, an economy, a living body, a city, an ecosystem) where a small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything.”?In a world where volatility, disruption, and hyper-competition reign, successfully communicating the benefits of a great idea to the most informed consumers in history is a big ask. Convincing them to ‘buy’ is even more challenging. Trying to reach shape-shifting consumers through fragmented marketing approaches is likely to be expensive, unreliable, and frustrating for all concerned.

In New Zealand, many business enterprises face the juxtaposition of being export-orientated and distant from markets. There are other problems facing Kiwi enterprises too, especially SMEs. The nation’s small population has over time led to and encouraged the formation of oligopolies. Their inherent market power often reduces competition. It also demonstrates a tendency to restrict and stifle innovation. This dynamic is problematic for many New Zealand businesses, particularly export facing, food production enterprises. In many of these companies, the lion’s share of profit is generated beyond the ship’s rail. To grow, scale, and prosper in international ecosystems, business models require global fitness, which is not a by-product of low levels of competition. Fragmented marketing approaches are not adding any significant value to organisations in these situations.?

Of course, getting fit is hard to do if you don’t ‘train’ in a global environment and reaching consumers in international markets requires offerings that are globally competitive. Therefore, logically, future survival is likely to come down to the survival of the fittest, which is nothing new. It is a law of nature that applies to almost any endeavour, natural or otherwise. Survival is likely to require businesses to move up the value chain and shift their current approaches well beyond transacting through intermediaries. This will require innovation, particularly regarding marketing systems.?

In-country representation is a start, but it’s not enough, not even close. Value propositions will need to be honed on the anvil of information and innovation. This is likely to be challenging because most of the supply chains this writer has researched are bleeding value across the channels they operate in, some profusely. Genuine ‘marketing’ embedded in a systems mindset I would argue, is part of the answer. Alderson acknowledged as much back in the 1960s where he tried valiantly to persuade and encourage marketers of the day to champion his concepts. Unfortunately, Alderson died early at age 67 and his edgy thinking lost its champion.

That said, true believers remain. Research into rebooting some of the 1960s marketing thinking for the 21st Century is being undertaken by this writer and others. The focus of this research will be to design and develop a systems approach to marketing.?Many New Zealand producers create significant value, but sadly, many also fail to capture it in the channel. Success reaching consumers in the future will require marketers to embrace fresh mindsets. They will be operating in completely new ecosystems where traditional thinking will be disrupted by new players with new ways of doing things.

To end on a 1960s note, the Mini was designed in 1959 by Alex Issigonis. The high-performance model, the Mini Cooper S in its day won three Monte Carlo rallies, starred in the cult movie, “The Italian Job”, inspired Mary Quant to design the iconic Miniskirt and became one of the coolest symbols of its 1960’s day. Steve McQueen owned one as did Elton John, The Beatles, Bridget Bardot, and unbelievably, Enzo Ferrari. For a diminutive little car developed as a result of the 1956 Suez crisis, it made a very big impact. In so many ways, the success of Mini was due to a winning formula that came down to a connectedness between a marketing problem, innovation, and the subsequent communication of a solution the motor car consumer was not even suspecting. It was a brilliant idea with an equally brilliant marketing system behind it.??In 2021, the legend continues. BMW AG cannot build the new mini cooper fast enough to satisfy customer demand and that is the sort of high-class problem all marketers yearn for.??

Ends.

Writer: Dr James Wilkes