Over the past several decades, marketing has been evolving toward a new main logic. The evolving logic represents a shift away from the exchange of tangible output (goods) toward the exchange of services, which are defined as the application of specialized competences (knowledge and skills), through deeds, processes, and performances for the benefit of another entity or the entity itself. This piece was a big deal in the world of academic marketing research. It essentially argued that marketing is about services, not products. Tangible products are merely the vehicles by which services (or solutions) are delivered -- and customer knowledge is recognized as the fundamental source of competitive advantage.

Rarely does anyone get flamed anymore on their track to tenure. But let's be honest: It's probably time to start looking beyond the product-service paradigm altogether. Actually, politely points in a new direction in the typically inaccessible language of academe. We start looking at an experience-centric co-creation view of value one that recognizes the criticality of consumer communities and the need for a network of firms. The experience not the product or the service should be at the center of theory and practice. One more entry to put at the center of our dominant logic: transformations.

Beyond product, service and experience marketing comes transformational marketing. The experience economy will eventually be supplanted by the transformation economy. As they see it, eventually the world will become as saturated with experiences, just as it has with goods and services, that businesses will charge not just for experiences but the demonstrated outcomes based on those experiences. Thinking about why does marketing have to change. Marketing is much debated at the moment it seems, as evidence mounts that current interruptive communication techniques are increasingly seen as intrusion.

The good companies have berated the marketing communications industry for failing to offer up viable cost-effective alternatives to deliver growth through marketing communications. A recent survey makes some very interesting observations; Marketing is a significant percentage of the cost of doing business for many companies, so the return on marketing investments is coming under intense scrutiny. Yet, clutter, competition and fragmentation have steadily chipped away at the productivity of marketing. In response, marketers have redoubled their efforts, flooding the marketplace with a deluge of more marketing in the hope that some message somewhere will break through to consumers. This creates a marketing-saturated environment that consumers are resisting with increasing sophistication and skill. As a result, marketing resistance has become another major factor in the continuing declines in marketing productivity. Consumer resistance to marketing is a growing proven phenomenon.

However, as a student of traditional advertising and marketing communications, I believe that we do not consume marketing communications in the same way anymore.