Marketing from Nature-1

Can we learn marketing from beyond books and Industry practices? Can we create our own marketing strategy?

As Marketers, we all try to learn from industry practices and their aftermath and thus deduce theories that make us better marketers. And all these concepts have originated from someone who articulated these experiences into a standard theory, a theory that is constantly evolving with the change in lifestyle.

Can we, as curious learners, try to understand marketing from something that we as an industry never experienced?

This attempt is to understand marketing from nature and try to evolve faster in the paradigm of marketing, maybe 15 years ahead?. Sounds interesting, right?

All this started with my understanding of 360-degree Marketing, which we use in every industry and has been an integral part of our marketing strategies. let’s say, this practice has was taken into the limelight around 2005 (a rough figure), what if I tell you we could have learned the 360-degree approach from a practice that is thousands of years old? not by humans, but from the practice of nature and its habitat?

Yes, The wolf pack has a very specific hunting strategy which it uses to target its prey. when a wolf attacks a prey, it chases the prey in a particular direction so that it runs into the trap(the target location). At every possible point of deviation, another wolf waits for the prey and chases it back to make sure that the prey reaches the trap, and with all deviations covered up, and no other option left, the prey reaches the trap where another wolf awaits, and finally, the pack surrounds the prey and hunts it down.

Does this sound similar? we do the same in 360-degree marketing, targeting the customer at each level and trying to engage him with the brand/product and convert him into a probable lead. The only difference is that we start with many leads and end with few prospects in hand.

This wolf hunting strategy has always been with us for years, but if we could have understood the similarity a few years early, we might have changed the way we look at marketing. I as a marketer believe that there is still a lot that we can learn from nature, and also believe that we can probably change our perception of marketing for the good.

Let’s get into the similarity mapping, why is wolf considered as a company/ product and its attempts to get to a client? why is prey a customer? is that the right way to look at it? does this always keep the company in an attacking position?

The answer is No. it’s all in the way you observe. How I see is looking at all these as nodes, touchpoints, and threads. In this scenario, Prey is a node that defines a customer, and the wolf pack is the 360-degree strategy and it is in attacking way with touchpoints being how wolf treats the prey at each point of deviation to make sure that the prey goes in the right direction(towards the product).

In other scenarios, this same strategy can bring in similarity to how you defend your competitor’s threats while being in the prey’s position and responding at each touchpoint. This way of trying to connect the nodes gives a very good opportunity to think out of the box and to create things that make difference.

When I found this, out of curiosity I tried to relate more with nature and I have even got similarities from the very beginning of life on earth, that can be drawn as lessons in the industry. My attempt is to start mapping the same, and at some point, I want to see a strategy followed by nature becoming the game-changer in the marketing space.

For a lot more interesting observations in “ Marketing from Nature”, stay tuned.