Marketing now and in the future

Hello everyone. I am Hayashi, the representative of Monosus.
This series, which began in February of this year, is now in its 11th instalment.
Before we know it, next month will mark a year since the series began.

This is the last Open Marketing event of the year.
In addition to summarizing the flow of this series so far,
I would like to explain why I am telling you about the idea of Open Marketing, including current trends.

The background of the concept of marketing

First of all, I would like to share with you that the last 100 years have been a period in which the concepts of "selling" and "buying" have changed more rapidly than ever before in human history.

The concept of "selling" and "buying" has a very long history.
Even in ancient Mesopotamia, there are records of silver being processed and used as weighted silver coins.
It has a history of over 4,000 years.
If we go back even further, to the time of barter, records of it are difficult to find.

On the other hand, as mentioned in the 7th issue , the concept of marketing first appeared in
In the early 1900s in America.

It was created in the process of efficiently selling mass-produced products produced through industrialization across a vast national territory.
Companies that mass-produce (or sell) uniform, homogeneous products,
It is a concept that has developed through the process of sorting out the relationships between consumers who select and mass-consume these things.

The background behind the creation of the term marketing
I believe that these changes in the way business transactions work have had a major impact.
Before the concept of marketing was invented,
It was a world of small-scale production and small-scale consumption .

What you collect, produce, and process,
Sell it to someone nearby.
I buy food that has been harvested, produced, or processed by someone in my neighborhood.

Although there were rare instances of valuable crafts that traveled along trade routes such as the Silk Road, most production and consumption activities were carried out within close proximity of each other.

The mass production system that became popular in the United States in the early 1900s
This, along with reduced manufacturing costs, has led to lower prices.
Competitively priced products are shipped from factories to far-flung locations,
It will be bought by a stranger in an unfamiliar city.
A shift occurred towards an era of mass production and mass consumption .

Another concept that emerged from this is the consumer.

The concept of the consumer was formed around the 1930s, as the world was moving towards mass production and mass consumption, and the faces of both sellers and buyers were gradually becoming invisible.

Marketing is
Mass-produced products are presented to anonymous consumers.
In other words, it has developed as a means to get consumers to prioritize consumption over competitors.

For thousands, even tens of thousands of years, sellers and buyers, producers and purchasers,
It has only been about 100 years since the assumption that people would be able to see each other's faces was adopted.
The whole thing has changed.

Marketing has always exploited information asymmetries

There is also another feature that has arisen from modern marketing.
This is the growing information asymmetry.
In other words, the disparity in the amount of information held by buyers and sellers has widened.

Of course, information asymmetry existed before the modern era.
In face-to-face production and consumption activities,
This is on an entirely different level from the era of mass production and mass consumption.

The increasing sophistication and complexity of manufacturing processes has also exacerbated information asymmetry.
The birth of chemical seasonings, the evolution of food processing technology, synthetic colorings, flavorings,
The development of synthetic detergents, plastics due to the development of petrochemistry, etc.
There are many things that cannot be understood without specialized knowledge.

The people named consumers are those who want low prices,
I jumped at these new products because they also had good performance.

On the other hand, some problems arise.

Due to overly exaggerated advertising slogans,
You may be forced to buy something that is not of the quality you expected.
Without realizing it, we use things that are harmful to our bodies.
There may be health hazards, etc.

So companies are looking for new ways to get consumers to trust their products and their messages.
This process gave birth to the concept of branding.

Through branding, companies can
You will gradually develop a formal, official personality.

The Internet has brought about a return of the buyer

Then the Internet came along.

Now you can access any information anywhere in the world,
Initially, and still today, companies began to use the Internet to communicate information to consumers.

But then something unexpected happens.

Companies continue to use the Internet to distribute content to enhance their branding,
We replaced mail order sales via direct mail and flyers with e-commerce sites.

The cost of reaching consumers with information has fallen, giving rise to new media for businesses.

But then social media came along.
This new movement, which was born just over 10 years ago, has spread all over the world.
In the blink of an eye, the amount of information disseminated by consumers exceeded the amount of information disseminated by companies.

The information that companies send out is evaluated by consumers all over the world,
And it was shared.

The official persona that companies had carefully constructed over decades was suddenly stripped away.
The hidden truth has come to light.

In response to the information asymmetry created by the era of mass consumption and mass production,
The frustration that had been building up among consumers for over 100 years
It was like a floodgate had broken and the news flooded the internet.

Regardless of the quality or veracity of the information sent by consumers,
It will become a big wave and fill the gap of information asymmetry.
It has changed the very balance of power between companies and consumers.

Future Marketing

Companies that have been stripped of the public persona they have acquired over decades
What should we do from now on?

Even if we were to increase the amount of information now, the information asymmetry with consumers has already been filled.
Even if you try to create more creative content to further strengthen your branding,
The true nature of a company is now exposed.
Convenient information compiled by companies can be quickly evaluated, verified, and shared through the power of the Internet.

In such a world,
What will be required of companies in the future?
Isn't it about being honest?

Rather than expressing yourself through words or elaborate creative work,
"What are you thinking?" "What are you doing?"
I believe that we have no choice but to embody our true identity through these two simple things.

"What they are thinking" and "what they are doing" are what people observe when judging the personality of others.

Modern technological innovation has brought about cost reductions through mass production and the establishment of marketing methods, which have led to a shift in the relationship between buyers and sellers to faceless transactions. However, with the advent of the Internet, the distance has been bridged, and we are perhaps returning to face-to-face transactions, albeit in a pseudo-like form.

In the end, what people wanted was face-to-face transactions, something that has been ingrained in them for thousands, even tens of thousands of years.

The result is that
A global brand that can withstand evaluation and verification from all over the world connected by the Internet.
I believe this is a polarization towards local businesses that develop by forming communities where people can actually see each other's faces, or in a similar range.

Open Marketing is about how companies can communicate their identity in this day and age.
I would like to make this an activity where we can think together.

Here, I would like to reiterate what I told you at the beginning of this series:
I would like to reiterate the ideas that Open Marketing holds dear.

Instead of pushing our "goodness" onto others as we have done in the past,
By "opening up" to honestly communicate our company's vision, way of thinking, and actions, we allow people to slowly understand.

Don't collect customers, gather them.
It's not a sale, it's an exchange of value.
Not to hold back, but to connect.

I'll leave it here for now.
Thank you for reading to the end.

May your new year be filled with happiness.