Elsevier

Business Horizons

Volume 55, Issue 3, May–June 2012, Pages 261-271
Business Horizons

Marketing meets Web 2.0, social media, and creative consumers: Implications for international marketing strategy

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2012.01.007Get rights and content

Abstract

The 21st century has brought both opportunities and challenges in our global, boundaryless world. Importantly, managers face a dynamic and interconnected international environment. As such, 21st century managers need to consider the many opportunities and threats that Web 2.0, social media, and creative consumers present and the resulting respective shifts in loci of activity, power, and value. To help managers understand this new dispensation, we propose five axioms: (1) social media are always a function of the technology, culture, and government of a particular country or context; (2) local events rarely remain local; (3) global events are likely to be (re)interpreted locally; (4) creative consumers’ actions and creations are also dependent on technology, culture, and government; and (5) technology is historically dependent. At the heart of these axioms is the managerial recommendation to continually stay up to date on technology, customers, and social media. To implement this managerial recommendation, marketers must truly engage customers, embrace technology, limit the power of bureaucracy, train and invest in their employees, and inform senior management about the opportunities of social media.

Section snippets

Our constantly changing world

Remember the heady days of Web 1.0? In one technological tsunami, consumers worldwide were able to interact with firms and each other on the multimedia platform that became known as the World Wide Web. The great majority of early company websites were little more than what came to be termed ‘brochureware,’ as organizations rushed to have an Internet presence by converting their corporate brochures to simple websites. Yet, this online presentation evolved rapidly to online coordination and

Web 2.0, social media, and creative consumers

The terms Web 2.0, social media, and creative consumers are often used imprecisely and interchangeably—largely because they are closely related and are, indeed, interdependent. However, they are conceptually discrete, and marketing managers need to understand the nuances of each to better serve the worldwide marketplace. One way of thinking about the differences between Web 2.0, social media, and creative consumers is illustrated in Figure 1, which uses two delineating dimensions of focus.

As

Power and value in the new dispensation

The new global marketing environment is littered with success and disaster stories for many well-known brands. However, all tend to have one thing in common: the shift in power away from the firm toward individuals and communities. A recent example is the case of Dave Carroll and ‘United Breaks Guitars.’ After a United Airlines flight to Chicago, Carroll found that baggage handlers had broken his guitar. After spending a year trying to have his claim for damages honored and finally refused,

A guide for the perplexed: Five axioms for using social media and creative consumers in international marketing strategy

To help international marketing strategists make effective use of social media and constructively engage creative consumers, we propose five axioms marketers should keep in mind. These axioms relate to how social media and creative consumers arise, how the information that is distributed over social media has both local and general components, and how the technological infrastructure that enables social media is historically contingent. The axioms, summarized in Figure 2, include the following:

  • 1.

Technology, creativity, and power

The theme of this special issue is strategic marketing in a changing world, and in this article, we have taken the term ‘world’ in two senses. First, we use it in the sense of the world of marketing and second in the sense of marketing in the world (i.e., international marketing). Thus, we explore some of the primary drivers of change in the world of marketing and how these impact international marketing strategy. Moreover, we show that rather than marketing being reactive to a changing world,

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