Walmart's Approach to the Participation Age

If you think of retail over the last 100 years it is convenient to think generally of eras.  Richard Tedlow from Harvard Business School lists in 1996 the three phases of Consumer Product Marketing and mentions but does not define a pending 4th phase as the internet dawned.  Walmart thinks about it similarly but with different description of the various phases or eras.

The 1950's might be approximately the start of the Age of the Brand.  Major nationally manufactured brands were able to push their products all over the country with a sophisticated logistics network and they pushed down their message through the new media platform television.

Later the retailers became much more adept as they introduced private label brands that shifted the power away from the brands and in favor of the retailer.  This started the Age of the Retailer.

Then the internet came.

The Information Age is transforming all of life as we know it.  Within retail, the consumer is now the holder of power and the determinant of the brand.  This might be called the Age of the Customer, or the Participation Age, where the participant actively works in the creation of a brand.

My pending white paper is titled:


Impact of Phase IV Product Marketing


The Story of Mass Marketing in America Continues

Walmart has a similar approach in mind as is detailed in this interview:

http://www.pymnts.com/in-depth/2015/how-walmart-is-reinventing-the-age-of-the-customer/#.VYHGHvlVhBc

Here is a snippet from that piece:

...according to Walmart’s VP of eCommerce Nikhil Raj, our imaginations may be misled. As it turns out, Walmart is onboard and ready to get reinventing.

“When we think about reinventing something, we really have to go back to what it was before and how it is changing now,” Raj told MPD CEO Karen Webster in a recent conversation.

“Early on it was ‘the age of the brands,’” Raj remarked. “Twenty-five or 30 years ago retailers, in general, relied heavily on our brand partners and followed their guidance. It was the age of the retailer.”

And, according to Raj, this “the age of the retailer,” is an age that is now drawing to a close.

“In the last five years, we have really seen the beginning of the age of the consumer, and that is how retail is re-inventing itself. The breadth and depth of the choices consumers have today to help them shop is truly amazing. It is also putting the power square in the hands of the consumers and we as retailers have to be focused on that to be successful for the next 50 years,” Raj noted.

Happy Reading,

J.W. Gant