Customer Advocacy: A New Era in Marketing?

Abstract

have been active as a marketing researcher since 1964, ormuch of what Wilkie and Moore (2003) call Eras III andIV of scholarly research. The field of management sci-ence in marketing has grown in both scope and impact dur-ing this time. My work has been centered on new productdevelopment, with models from assessor to informationacceleration. Most recently, I have been working on issuesof trust, advice for consumers, and the discovery of newproduct opportunities by “listening in” to the online dia-logue between a trusted advisor and a customer (Urban andHauser 2004). Because I have done this recent work on theInternet, I sensed a sea change in the underlying consumerbehavior. Something had shifted, and it took me a while todiscover that customers had gained new power in buyingdecisions. Since 1950, marketing has been based on a push/pull model in which the manufacturer designs a product tofill a need and then convinces the consumer to buy withaggressive advertising, promotion, and distribution tactics.The increase in customer power changes the equation, and Ibelieve that this shift in the power relationship will definethe dividing line between Eras IV and V of marketing. I callthis new era “customer advocacy” because it is based on thefirm representing the customers’ interest by providing themcomplete and unbiased information, advice on which prod-uct is best for them (including fair comparisons with com-petitors), joint design of products, and a partnership thatbreeds long-term loyalty. In other words, advocate for yourcustomers and they will advocate for you!In this article, I do not concentrate on my previous worknor on prior changes in the field (others in this special sec-tion have done a good job of this), but rather I emphasize thefuture. I examine the customer power shift and its implica-tions for a new paradigm of marketing, outline the newstrategic choices for companies, indicate some implicationsfor scholarly research and societal marketing, and close withsome personal forecasts on the emerging customer advocacyera of marketing.