MARKETING POLICY
WE CAN AVOID NEARLY ALL THE COSTS OF MARKETING
Summary and Aims of our policy.
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Just because we have always spent huge sums of money on marketing the products we all buy, it does not mean we have to continue doing so, there are other ways.
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Our marketing policy is radical, and requires a fundamental paradigm change in the way we market all the products and services we produce. The reason we propose these changes is because they create a more efficient economy, that is easier for businesses to thieve in, and less stressful to work in, as our policy removes the role of competitive marketing from the list of things businesses have to do. If society is willing to make these changes, they will bring very significant benefits for everyone.
The basic changes we propose are as follows:
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To create a single, almost zero cost, marketing platform, that fairly distributes all customer searches and enquiries for any product or service to relevant suppliers, thus eliminating most of the expense of marketing that nearly all companies have, and therefore reducing the cost of their products/services to the client.
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To redirect the liberated marketing labour resource, into industries that create things of greater value for humans.
Please note we do not wish to criticise the marketing profession, we understand there are many dedicated and sincere professionals within it, who carryout essential roles given the current way our economies operate. However there are other ways of running an economy which bring greater value to society. A detailed explanation of value and waste in our economy is given in our Value Adding Work Policy; we wish to be clear that when we say value and waste, these terms are not meant as moral or critical terms. Value simply means something we directly want in our lives, and waste simply means 'not value adding' as explained in this policy.
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Current unresolved issues.
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The costs of marketing can be avoided, but we do not do this in our current economic and business culture.
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Marketing a product does not improve the product, or the service it is delivered with, and it brings no benefit to the customer, but yet it adds considerable cost to the product. Furthermore it distracts businesses away from improving the product or service they sell to their clients, and can instead encourages them to focus on improving sales materials such as brochures and adverts. Marketing is therefore a waste of resources, and something that can and should be avoided. It is possible to deliver all products to all clients with almost no marketing, there are many businesses who operate largely in this way, usually by word of mouth, or when they produce a commodity that is sold in an open market, and I note that my own manufacturing business operated in this way. However outside of these types of businesses, the extent of marketing is huge. It includes all activity that businesses carryout to try and encourage customers to buy their product, activities such as all forms of advertising, email marketing, sponsorship, special deals, sales, club cards, PR, publicity events and stunts, trade shows, national and social media, cold calling, telesales, etc.
Many top brands sell products with very large marketing budgets, meaning that a considerable portion of the cost of the product is nothing other than marketing, rather than the costs of producing and distributing the product. For example in 2023 Coca-Cola's total revenue was about $46 billion, and it's marketing budget was about $5 billion, or about 11% of it's revenue. That means that whenever anyone buys the drink, 11% of the cost is marketing cost, so when you buy a 2 litre bottle of coke for £2-50, 27p is for marketing. You get similar figures for Nike, and some brands will have even higher marketing costs, and others lower, but in most cases marketing costs are present and significant. I have not been able to find the total marketing costs of all products sold in Britain, but nearly all of this cost can be avoided, and the money saved, spent on things of value to us like public services, and increased standard of living.
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We are not taught about value and waste in the economy.
Value adding work and waste is something that is not understood or taught in our world economy, yet it's full implications and opportunities run into $trillions globally. We have a simple policy to achieve the education, understanding, and ultimately a change to full implementation of value adding work throughout our economy, saving everyone time, stress, and large amounts of money.
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Marketing is not always honest.​
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There are other issues with the marketing profession, the first being that is it is somewhat manipulative, there is very little if any marketing in the world, that gives a truly objective representation of the product being sold, marketing will always point out the strengths or claimed strengths of a product, but rarely it's weaknesses. In this sense it does not present a fair and balanced representation of the product, so that the client knows exactly what they are getting.
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Marketing encourages consumerism and dysfunctional 'retail therapy'.
Again we do not wish to criticise the marketing industry, but there is an inevitable subconscious bias which seeks to persuade or coerce clients into buying their product, sometimes through psychology and possibly by playing on the prospective customer's fear and insecurities. The makeup and fashion industries can inadvertently do this, when people are encouraged to buy products in order to make them feel better about themselves. Another example is the marketing of a new car, by sending messages to the target clients that a purchase will increase the owner's status and advertise their wealth and success in life. This type of marketing, and product buying, does not address the underlying issues of why people are feeling insecure, and seek consumerism and/or status to try and alleviate the feeling. This then propagates many deep problems that run throughout society, such as poor money management and the difficulties this causes. To address these issues, everyone needs a deeper understanding of their psychology and how to resolve it, something we will extensively teach throughout all education.
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Large companies can use marketing to continually sell poor quality products, and/or monopolise the market.
Yet another issues is that large companies with large marketing budgets, can use these budgets to achieve sales of poor quality products, they can also dominate and monopolise the market. Indeed if they have enough money, they can market aggressively, while undercutting prices sometimes at breakeven or below, and succeed in manipulating the entire market, in order to push smaller companies out of business, (who might even have a better product and service).
None of these issues mentioned are in the interests of the customer, and the marketing profession does not always serve them in a fully functional way. ​A summary then of the main issues we wish to resolve are as follows:
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The waste of marketing in terms of time, money, resources and stress.
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Companies focusing on the marketing their product rather than improving their product.
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Biased description and marketing of products.
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Manipulative marketing playing on clients weaknesses.
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Larger companies maintaining sales of poorer quality products, through large marketing budgets.
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Larger companies dominating, monopolising, and manipulating the market.
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Larger companies bullying smaller companies out of the market.
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Overconsumption and buying of products that clients: do not ultimately need, or are not of a functional benefit, to them.
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The general encouraging of excessive consumerism throughout all of society, and the ideas that more is always better.
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Our Ultimate Policy - How it resolves the issues and achieves the aims.
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We wish to repeat that we understand many dedicated people in the marketing industry, work to bring valuable leads to businesses so that they can sell their products, however a deep understanding of business and the economy reveals opportunities for fundamental change and improvement. We do not wish to cause offence to those people, but rather our goal to improve the economy for everyone's benefit and wellbeing. ​ ​Our policy is radical, and requires fundamental change in how we understand and carryout the marketing and sale of products. As such, we would only seek to enact this policy after a period of steady change has been achieved, and society being ready and willing.
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Our policy is as follows:
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Education in all relevant areas of human psychology, such as how to connect with your heart and be fulfilled, how our insecurities leave us open to manipulation, consumerism, and spending addiction, etc.
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Education throughout all of schooling, and adulthood, to understand the principles of value adding work and waste, so that everyone understands how to implement its operation in all areas of our economy.
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Gradual phasing out of paid marketing.
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The creation of a single online marketing platform, which is almost entirely free for all businesses and customers.
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The redeployment of the marketing workforce, into jobs that create value for the people of Britain, see our Restructuring Labour Policy.
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The regulation of many products, and their description, see our Manufacturing Policy.
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Explanation:​
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Our goal is to reduce as much of the marketing activity as is possible, as it adds cost to products but does not add value to them. To do this we would regulate the internet; anyone who seeks to buy any product or service, will go on line and search through a single (and the only) internet search engine. They will type in the name of the product, or their search terms in the normal way, and the engine will simply presents the companies/people with the best matches, by a simple and fair algorithm. This algorithm will be published so that everyone is aware of it, and it will select the companies by their relevance to the search terms, their location, their size, and other relevant factors. The algorithm will carefully and fairly distribute the online enquires to all relevant people or companies.
From the perspective of businesses, they will receive a constant stream of enquires, at almost no cost, maybe a tens or a few hundreds of pounds per year. Companies will receive a percentage of all enquires that is largely related to the size of their turnover, smaller companies would receive a smaller percentage so that they would not be flooded by more enquiries than they could reasonably deal with. All companies would be almost entirely free from the cost, difficulty, and stress of marketing. New companies or sole traders entering the economy, will on starting their business, receive a steady stream of enquiries. In order to help these start-up businesses and encourage a healthy economy, the algorithm would ensure that they receive a guaranteed amount of enquiries that ensures their business is viable, from day one, and into their first 1 to 2 years of trading. This takes away from the owners, much of the huge stress, risk, and difficulty of starting a new business, and supports them to enter a competitive market place easily and immediately.
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One of the core principles of our policy is that the best and only form of marketing companies should be focused on, is making sure their product is as good as it possibly can be, and delivering it to the customer with the best possible service they can. This marketing strategy is clearly the best strategy of all, as it ultimately adds no extra costs to the product, or reduces its costs, and maximises the chances of the customer being delighted with the product, the service, and the company in general. The customer then does the marketing for the company for free, when they tell their family, friends, and colleagues how great the company was. It is through this strategy that start-ups and small companies can grow into larger companies, and as larger companies they would receive a greater proportion of the internet searches. The algorithm will be carefully balanced so as to always ensure anyone can enter and compete in the market place, but bigger successful companies cannot dominate or monopolise the market.
This is the win win scenario that our policy aims to achieve. All businesses win because they have better products, better service, easier sales, lower costs of marketing, more profit, and happier staff who enjoy their increased wages and the improved integrity of the company. The customer wins for similar reasons, they obtain a better product, delivered with a better service, and the product will be cheaper! It is important to remember that all products worldwide can be sold with almost no marketing. All of this is in stark contrast to the current system, which does not have this focus; it therefore diverts attention away from the quality of the product and service, and instead focuses resources into marketing poorer quality products that cost more.
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Our system means that they only marketing policy available to businesses is satisfying their clients with a great product and service, at a great price, so that the client then does the marketing for the company by word of mouth. Our policy therefore ensures that only companies with good products and service grow, and companies with poor products and service shrink. This marketing strategy is further reinforced and encouraged through a single transparent review database of every company, see our Public Database Policy.
There is no possibility of larger companies unfairly manipulating the market, the only way a company can increase their sales, is with the truth; with a better product and better service. In addition to the nearly free online marketing of all products and services of every company, there would be some forms of marketing that would be allowed, in order to help customers find what they want and become aware of new and better products. This would be things such as opt in direct email marketing, marketing in shops of the products stocked, trade fairs, and signs on business buildings advertising the services the business offers. However there would be no paid advertising and marketing, so for examples businesses, media, magazines, papers, and venues would not be allowed to receive money in order to advertise other peoples products that they do not sell directly themselves.
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The cost to business for marketing in the online platform will be very small in comparison to their turnover, and much less than they currently spend on marketing. The simple maths shows that if you distribute the costs of running the platform across every business in the UK and ultimately the world, the figure for each business becomes very small.
Our education policy will educate all people in every aspect of business, the economy, value adding work, and waste, and how the online environment works. The single online search engine will not only deal with business, it will deal with all aspects of life, as it is the only search engine. It will ensure that any private individual or company wishing to sell (or achieve) anything will always be able to market their product with almost zero costs, and it will always be placed in front of the most relevant buyers, as every buyer is on the platform. Similarly it will ensure that every buyer always sees the best possible matches to their search, as every seller is on the platform. Therefore the best matches between buyer and seller will always be made, so that the chances of the buyer selling their product is maximised, and the chances of the seller finding exactly what they want, from the best and nearest supplier is also maximised. So if for example you are seeking to offer an entertainment event in your local hall, you can immediately post it, knowing with 100% certainty that anyone who searches for your type of entertainment in your area, will definitely and immediately find you on an internet search. Indeed it is a simple consequence of a single free online search engine and marketing system that anyone, searching for anything, in any area, will always be directed to the best solutions immediately, rather than to companies with the largest marketing budgets. You could search for a new romantic partner, a piano teacher, a gardener, a hair brush, an educational course, a new house, a mobile phone, or any product, in every case you will know you are immediately searching all possibilities world wide, and the most suitable ones will be shown to you.
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Our marketing policy along with the others mentioned below would resolve all the issues mentioned above, and meet all our aims.​ Ultimately our policy is to have a single regulated world search engine, with a single marketing platform, for all human business and activity. In this way our goal of creating a safe, efficient, fair, and low cost marketing environment for everyone would be achieved world wide. See our Media & Online Policy to understand the other aspects of this in more detail.
Wellbeing and cost benefits of this policy.
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The UK advertising industry is worth around £40billion each year, nearly all of this cost could be saved, along with much other associated cost of the supporting industries to marketing. These savings can be directed towards better standard of living, better public services, and building a clean energy infrastructure. Business owners and marketing managers, will enjoy lower levels of stress, knowing they are guaranteed a steady and fair supply of enquiries, as long as they maintain the high quality of their product and service. Employees will be happier at work as they will have a better working environment, less stress, and more pay. Customers will find the best possible supplier for whatever they want immediately, have less stress as they will get better service and better quality products, and they will have more wealth as nearly all products they buy will be cheaper. It is a win win win scenario as every business, employee, and customer in Britain is better off.
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Supporting policies.
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Witten by Marcus white 3-5-2024 © updated 22-11-2024.
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