Is marketing facing a mid-life crisis?

The signs that doubts are affecting a once-cocky profession are everywhere. Creative types bemoan the lack of "break-through" advertising that characterized the 1960s. Senior executives look at the $265 billion that was spent on marketing in the U.S. in 2001, and wonder if they got sufficient return for their investment. Online advertising was supposed to be marketing's salvation, but the returns have been abysmal. Everyone complains about spam, and national legislation, generated by consumer anger, seeks to curb telemarketing.

In his new book, noted brand futurist Nick Wreden argues that marketing is definitely in a mid-life crisis. FusionBranding: How To Forge Your Brand For The Future looks at why marketing and branding appear to have lost their way, and suggest how they can redefine their roles for continued relevance.

According to Wreden, the post-war world can be divided into three eras. The "Mass Economy," which extended from about 1950-1995, was the golden age of branding. The power of the mass media allowed companies to control information flow and "position" offerings. The increasing power of such mass retailers as Wal-Mart as well as information-sharing through the Internet ushered in the "Customer Economy" around 1995. The next era, projected to begin around 2005, is the "Demand Economy." The Demand Economy will be characterized by three forces – reach, immediacy and personalization. Reach requires that companies be able to reach – and be accessible to – customers around the clock. Immediacy takes responsiveness to the next level. And personalization is required for both communications and offerings.

Why are many brands are failing today and executives growing cynical about their marketing investments? The reason, says Wreden, is because companies are still using mass-economy tactics like "positioning" even though the customer economy has changed branding imperatives. Wreden compares it to "playing golf today with clubs from the 1970s." This results in marketing that both wastes resources and fails to achieve desired results.

Instead of dated market-economy tactics, Wreden suggests "Ten Core FusionBranding Principles" for branding in the customer and demand economies. These include "brands are created by organizations and supply chains, not marketing departments" and "products offer promises. Brands honor commitments." Due to Wreden's extensive knowledge of technology, marketing and merchandising, the book explores how to enable and execute each of these principles.

These core principles are based on the book's three key themes: customer equity, operational excellence and accountability. Customer equity reflects the value of existing customers, operational excellence is everything required to do business on customer terms, and accountability is needed to avoid wasting resources and ensure responsiveness.

FusionBranding takes on a lot of topics often ignored in branding books, which tend to focus on the creative aspects of advertising, or on trendy but hard-to-implement topics like "one-to-one marketing." These books look at business-to-consumer branding, even though the bulk of business conducted worldwide is business-to-business. Businesses that sell to other businesses also need to establish a brand, but don't have the budgets used to promote yet another toothpaste or other consumer item. For such businesses, FusionBranding covers the role of supply chains in branding as well as the technologies and processes required for responsive customer service and fulfillment.

Another important topic that's often ignored is pricing. Often, pricing is talked about in terms of a branding advantage – "brands enable higher pricing." But how much higher? What about brands based on value? Is it better to set a high price, with promotions that offer substantial discounts, or a lower price from the beginning. One insightful chapter on pricing discusses how to link pricing to branding while maximizing profitability.

FusionBranding also contains a lot of specific tips for those in the business. PR agencies must start to incorporate competitive intelligence and accommodate a new world where the Internet allows everyone to be a journalist. Advertising agencies must expand capabilities to help partners market more effectively.

One of the most interesting parts is the final three chapters. These discuss the three main branding challenges of the emerging Demand Economy – dynamic pricing, privacy and change management. It's debatable whether these issues will assume the importance Wreden says they will, but they definitely need to be kept in mind for long-range strategic planning.

If marketing has a mid-life crisis, it's because branding strategies have been running of the fumes of tired cliches about "awareness" and "positioning." The ideas, perspectives and strategies in FusionBranding can recharge any branding effort for today's – and more important, tomorrow's – markets.

FusionBranding: How To Forge Your Brand For The Future is published by Accountability Press, 3340 Peachtree Road, Suite 1800, Atlanta, Georgia 30326 USA. FusionBranding retails for $29.95, and the ISBN number is 0-917442-0-3. FusionBranding can be ordered directly at 888-554-3320. It is also available online at www.fusionbrand.com or at Amazon.com. Corporate and quantity discounts available.