What is marketing?  What the heck does it mean?  It seems like its definition has gotten far more complex over the last few centuries.  What started out as a simple business relationship has developed into a much more complex diagram of thoughts, actions, feelings, ploys, gimmicks, and false promises.  Where’s the authenticity?  The bad news is that we got a long way to go.  The good news is that we’re closer than we’ve been in a long time.

A guy by the name of Igmar de Lange brings things down to the most simple vision of marketing.  He breaks it into three eras:

• The era of craftsmanship:  Marketing was natural.  Take the local baker and his customers.  The baker had a personal relationship and a daily dialogue with his consumers.  It wasn’t about the product, it was about the experience.  There was a shared context between product and consumer.

• The era of industrialization:  Marketing became uncomfortable.  The bakery turned into a factory.  The relationship with consumers was gone.  There was simply a product to be sold.  The factory had to get creative to draw consumers; they had to try and stand out to maintain marketshare.

• The era of marketing:  This era isn’t about evolving, it’s about going back to the basics.  We’re trying to get back those personal relationships we lost long ago.  We’re trying to have those one-on-one dialogues that we haven’t had in ages.  We’re trying to create experiences rather than just push product.  We want a shared context with consumers.

Moving into this new era of marketing (or going back to beginning in a sense) de Lang has composed the idea of brand utility, or in his words, “what a brand can do for you,” a useful promotion if you will.  It’s offering free shipping, giving consumers recipes to go with your products, or providing a trial of some sort to allow users to test your product.  It’s a way that brands can connect to consumers in a new way.  It’s a key tactic begging to be utilized during this era of marketing.

What’s a perfect example of de Lange’s concept of brand utility?  One of my personal favorite brands: Dominos pizza.  For anyone who’s ordered a pizza online in the last six months, you’ll have noticed the online pizza tracker.  It tells you who is cooking your pizza, when it’s in the oven, who’s delivering it, and when it will arrive.  It’s advertising yes, but it also benefits the consumer and creates an experience that makes the relationship unique.  

The ultimate concept behind brand utility is “what can we do for you.”  It’s not about using advertising that begs the consumer for a sale.  It’s about creating advertising that makes the consumer’s life easier, better, healthier, more accessible, more fun, or more meaningful.  If your “advertising” does that, the sales will come.  

Still hazy on the different eras of marketing and the idea of brand utility?  I can’t point you in a better direction than the presentation below.  It outlines major brands using the concept of utility to provide useful, everyday applications to benefit consumers.  Adidas sponsoring showers on popular running trails, Charmin sponsoring bathrooms in the middle of Times Square, Kraft dishing out 7,000 recipes for a grand total of .99 cents, and Apple hosting free classes 7 days a week at every retail location. This is what the future holds, this is what consumers react to, and this is what will define this new era of marketing.  It’s time to turn buyers into subscribers.  It starts with an insight, it’s driven by an idea, and its carried out through action.  

How have your favorite brands benefited you?  Let me know in the replies.