P 2.0

Yes, that's new in thing. Call it Web 2.0 or PR 2.0, its 2.0 the phenomenon that is ruling the roast. 2.0 has been a mechanism to know what the customers are doing and their reaction on products/services. Consumer buying patterns have changed; they make much more informed decisions, (right or wrong) about new products/services. So have the marketing tactics changed. I can promote my products to 200 million target facebook users, or give a quick review about a movie to my followers on twitter. I can even answer academic/professional questions on Linkedin and make my presence felt. And if that doesn’t help my cause I use a mass mailing campaign and blast my contacts with the latest.
Marketing has moved from an art that creates value proposition in customer minds to science that is backed with reports on likes/dislikes, search patterns and analytics. It’s interesting that this is definitely causing ripples with marketers that view marketing as an art. Recently Douglas Bowman, the design lead at Google, left to become the creative director at Twitter. It’s true that a team at Google couldn’t decide between two blues, so they’re testing 41 shades between each blue to see which one performs better. http://stopdesign.com/archive/2009/03/20/goodbye-google.html (Douglas Bowman on why he quit).
The brawl between marketers and analysts will widen when people start relying more on reports to make basic decisions. Instincts will be replaced with test reports. This will bring new challenges for the human resources team. Most of the times marketers have struggled to prove the effectiveness of campaigns, but I guess heart-in-heart they know it’s a waste of time to prove the effectiveness in dynamically changing business. A good marketing strategy will always make its presence felt.
Out of the 4 P’s, placement lately has had the most profound effect in marketing communication & strategies. Overdoing placement won’t help till the other 3 P’s don’t fall in place. With the shrinking product life cycles companies have to think innovatively to extend the growth and maturity stages. For services marketing more than the introduction it’s the credibility of service to engage customers and meet their needs. P2.0 can be right tool to turn users to aficionados, measurement of their degree might not be as worthwhile.