However, for enterprises, the marketing concept of "customer-centered" is not easy to realize. So we can see that even a genius like Jobs thinks that "customers don't know what they want" and makes the mistake of ignoring customers, which has brought hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars to Apple.
In fact, in the history of modern business, the concept of marketing has been evolving. The evolution of the whole marketing concept has lasted for more than 100 years, from the initial production orientation, to the later product orientation, to the sales orientation, to the customer orientation and the latest social marketing orientation advocated by us.
Interestingly, since China's reform and opening up has just lasted for more than 30 years, various marketing concepts, including the most backward marketing concepts and the most advanced marketing concepts, exist in China today. For example, the production orientation that was popular in the United States more than 0/00 years ago still exists in China today. At present, there are still a large number of enterprises in China that only do manufacturing, but lack brand marketing and technological innovation. For another example, the most advanced social marketing orientation in the world also exists in China today. In other words, the present situation of enterprises in China is that there are both the most advanced marketing concepts and the most backward marketing concepts in the world. Therefore, there is still a long way to go for China's real economic transformation.
Let's look at the first marketing concept in history-the concept of production. Production orientation thinks that consumers are most concerned about the price of products, so the core of enterprises is to improve production efficiency and reduce costs in order to provide low-priced products. As a marketing concept popular in the United States and other developed countries more than 0/00 years ago, the existence of production orientation has its positive and important significance.
1908, Ford model t stepped off the production line and became a symbol of production orientation. Why does the production orientation represented by Ford Model T have its positive significance in history? In fact, the automobile was not invented by Henry Ford, but by Carl F. Benz. 18861On October 29th, 65438+ Karl Benz, the "father of automobiles", invented the first tricycle without a horse (now kept in Munich Automobile Museum), which became the birth of this revolutionary great product in human history.
1893, Carl Benz successfully developed the "Victor Deya" brand car with advanced performance. However, despite the advanced performance, few people can afford it, because the price is as high as 3875 marks, so it has become a slow-moving product of Mercedes-Benz.
Therefore, although Karl Benz invented the automobile, it was Henry Ford who really let the automobile enter thousands of households. More than 20 years after Karl Benz invented the automobile,190865438+1kloc-0/,the Ford Model T finally drove off the production line of the factory. Compared with previous cars, the production cost of Ford Model T is greatly reduced due to the assembly line. At that time, the price of Ford model t was only $825, while the price of similar models of competitors was $2,000 ~ $3,000. Therefore, Ford Model T means that it can provide cars with the same quality or even better at the price of competitors' similar models 1/3, because the assembly line can ensure the stability of automobile production quality.
Therefore, once the Ford Model T was launched, it immediately created a sales miracle. In the first year, the output of Ford Model T reached 65,438+00,660 vehicles, setting a record for the automobile industry. By 192 1 year, the output of model T has accounted for 56.6% of the world's total output. In the 65,438+09 years since the Ford Model T was put into production, more than 654,380+05 million vehicles were sold in the United States alone, which drove the whole human automobile industry to take off, and this sales record has been maintained for nearly a century.
It can be seen that the production orientation at that time was undoubtedly very advanced. However, today, the production orientation has been very backward and has long been eliminated by the times. Why?
At that time, Henry Ford had a very famous saying about his Ford Model T: "Customers can want any color as long as it is black." In other words, Ford Model T only provides customers with one color, and that is black.
Why doesn't Henry Ford provide all customers with colorful and different cars? Obviously, he also knows that everyone has different preferences for colors. But if only one color is used, the production efficiency will be the highest, the cost will be the lowest and the price will be the lowest. In fact, in the beginning, the price of Ford Model T was $825. With the further improvement of production efficiency and scale effect, the price of Ford Model T was further reduced to $260, which greatly helped ordinary American families enter the automobile age! This is indeed a very remarkable achievement.
But in today's view, the production orientation is still backward for the simple reason. In today's era of extremely rich products, if only one color is provided, it cannot best meet the needs of customers. In fact, in the middle and late 1920s, after creating a sales miracle of 65,438+09, Ford Model T with only one color finally had to stop production and start producing cars with various colors. Because, Henry Ford also realized at that time, when people have a variety of choices, if only one color is provided, then customers will choose other brands of cars with richer color choices.
Nowadays, most products are very rich, and there are various choices for customers to choose from. However, Apple's iPhone is a very famous product. From the birth of the first generation iPhone in 2007 to the launch of iPhone 4 in 20 10, it has always been black. Why? The reason is the same, because at that time, the supply of iPhone 4 was in short supply, customers had to queue up to buy it, and scalpers even appeared in the China market. In this case, in order to ensure production efficiency, Apple only introduced black at that time.
Of course, many customers began to complain that only one color, black, is not good enough, so many people began to put a protective cover on their iPhone smartphones. At that time, mobile phone cases of various colors were once very popular. For the channel retailers of Apple mobile phones, they also find that selling Apple mobile phones is not very profitable, but selling Apple mobile phone cases, mobile phone cases or other accessories is more profitable. It is precisely because customers need to have a variety of color choices that Apple added white in the iPhone 4S era and local gold in the iPhone 5S era. 2065438+In September 2005, Apple added rose gold to the new iPhone 6S, which immediately became the best-selling color.
It can be seen that the production orientation marked by Ford Model T played an important role more than 0/00 years ago. However, today, if a product still only provides one color, regardless of the differentiated needs of customers, only considering production efficiency, cost and price, then it can no longer adapt to today's times.
However, it is a great pity that this backward production orientation still exists in China's manufacturing industry today. We have a large number of such manufacturing enterprises in the Pearl River Delta, Yangtze River Delta, Bohai Rim and other regions. They are good at low-cost manufacturing, but lack brand and technological innovation. According to the smile curve theory, if an enterprise is a manufacturing industry, the added value it creates is the lowest, and the areas with the highest added value are just concentrated at the two ends of the value chain-R&D (innovation) and marketing (marketing). As a manufacturing power in the world, China still has a long way to go to actively transform into a brand power and an innovation power today.