The new horizons of marketing: From 1.0 to 4.0

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Marketing has a thing for assigning a numerical surname to almost everything it touches, creating a before and after in every product and trend, leading to obsolescence and rediscovery of the product or service in question: we watch El Hormiguero 3.0, play with the Play Station 4, update to Android 5.0, dream of the iPhone 6.0, install Windows 10? and so on with countless products that retain the strength of their original name but become old and renewed by the mere fact of assigning them a numerical surname.

In the case of marketing itself, it all started with Marketing 1.0 , in the midst of industrial development, when demand was greater than supply. The challenge was to sell, sell and sell, the focus was on the product all mobile company name list and its management was tactical. Many continue to develop strategies based on the industrial paradigm where the focus of the actions was on the product. Then came Marketing 2.0 , which put the customer at the center (instead of the product) and in which strategy began to gain weight over tactics. That is, thinking about the customer and dedicating resources to designing a good plan to reach them, rather than focusing on just executing and executing. It was a strategic stage in which the customer began to be king. The move from 1.0 to 2.0 was the most important qualitative leap that has happened to marketing and in which most companies and SMEs worldwide are still working. However, many still do not believe in the customer and strategy and continue in 1.0.

In Marketing 2.0, the concepts of positioning and differentiation from the competition are valued, with functional and also emotional value propositions, based on relationships rather than transactions and with the objective of not only selling, but also satisfying and retaining the customer.

But in 2010, Philip Kotler, one of the most important marketing theorists, highlighted a new era for marketing, that of 3.0. For Kotler, Marketing 3.0 arises as a need to respond to several factors: new technologies, problems generated by globalization and people's interest in expressing their creativity, values ​​and spirituality. In other words, marketing focused on values. It is not about Corporate Social Responsibility or social marketing, but about ceasing to see people as clients or consumers and seeing them as integral human beings, with soul, feelings and intelligence.

It is about being aware and taking into account that people are looking for meaning in their lives and have values ​​that they increasingly demand from companies. To understand this at a basic level, let's think about a mother; what really worries her is not whether the banana is from the Canary Islands or not, what matters to her is that her son eats bananas. And that is the type of question we should ask ourselves: What motivates people? Why do they get moving? What do they feel and think? What do they see and hear? What do others say to them? How do they measure success and what aspirations do they have? And companies that ask themselves these types of questions and give creative answers, using gamification ( simulating games), storytelling (telling stories) to connect with them ( engagement ) and of course, technology and social networks, are beginning to relate better with their customers.

And so we come to Marketing 4.0 , which in addition to highlighting this marketing with values ​​and for people, is based on the capacity for prediction through the management of "Big Data ", which is the management of real-time information about everything that is happening in our company and in the market right now, using not only our own sources but also social networks, opinions and customer preferences.

But above all, in this new era, it is important to be clear that strategies are 360º, that it is no longer a question of choosing between offline or online, but that today's customer is omnichannel , and that online and offline are mixed in a context that changes very quickly. It is not a time for the biggest, but for those who best know how to interpret and anticipate. Play the game and choose which era you want to be in.