The other day I wrote my CV for the first time in my life. A head-hunter had approached me to see if I would be interested in a very prestigious board position they had been instructed on. I said I would and that’s why I had to write it.

I’d forgotten about some of things I’ve done. There are seven publications under my name, one of which was from 2014 and was titled “How businesses can deliver better good than governments” and addressed the ways businesses in the future would need not just to conduct themselves differently but also develop new ways to express themselves and communicate their activities.

In his celebrated book Marketing 3.0, Philip Kotler takes the reader on a journey as to how businesses have evolved over time. Marketing 1.0 revolved around selling an existing product, summed up best by Henry Ford’s description of his Model T: “Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants,” he said, “as long as it is black”. Marketing 2.0 stems from today’s information age and the digitalisation of our communications strategies to tailor the way consumers now rapidly scour markets and actively participate in the production of goods and services which we then purchase. We are now “Prosumers”.

Marketing 3.0, he argues, builds on the customer-driven approach and widens its appeal to incorporate values − and by values he means addressing means of tackling society’s problems. To quote: “Marketing 3.0 lifts the concept of marketing into the arena of human aspirations, values and spirit. Marketing 3.0 believes that consumers are complete human beings whose other needs and hopes should never be neglected. Therefore, Marketing 3.0 complements emotional marketing with human spirit marketing.”

So, what does that mean and what are we to take from it? It means the market, namely consumers, are ahead of us in terms of wanting to see businesses not just produce goods and services that we desire or will want to desire, but that their moral codes are in tune with those who make them rich.  

Marketing 4.0 − which is coming ever closer − will be when the consumer shops elsewhere when they find their existing producer cannot live up to their expectations. From Henry Ford telling us what we can have, the consumer is increasingly telling us what they want to earn our custom.

The smart marketing of the future needs to involve less shouting and more listening.