The red ocean has been described as a market analogous to a shark-infested ocean where the predators are fighting for the same prey, she said. The strategy is to ensure efficiency, speed and control in such a defined market.
The blue ocean, on the other hand, is a calm market with little competition for lots of food, thus the strategic focus is on increasing the size of the existing industry where there are no pre-defined standards.
"In today's business world, however, there is no clear red versus blue ocean," Lin said. "A purple ocean is a converged red and blue ocean. Everyone is now facing a purple ocean where data, technology and creativity needs to be embedded into any business to foster marketing effectiveness."
The purple ocean strategy ties in with Lin's interpretation of conceptual eras of the world wide web: In Web 1.0, everyone can access; in Web 2.0, everyone can participate; in Web 3.0, everyone can innovate; in Web 4.0, everything is converged.
That means converging content, commerce, community and connection to build brands for the future. The complexity in this convergence is how the four 'C's interact with one another and influence marketing, Lin said.
"Advertising will become more like Dale Carnegie than David Ogilvy: 'Listening first, selling second' versus 'we sell, or else'", she said. "The former is a different, more interactive mindset dealing with persuasion."
Marketers need to be persuaded in the current global financial instability as they get increasingly more sensitive to cost, Lin pointed out. "Also, a CMO's shorter average tenure of only 26 months means any longer-term innovation will need to be performed in a two-year span."
Innovation, which can be expensive, needs to be quicker in order to enhance brand vitality. "The Tesco Korea case for example has already been adopted in China, so maintaining a lead on innovation will be the long-tail factor of effectiveness," she said.
From the content perspective, another new term coined by Lin is "adver-utili-tainment: advertising (to make creative content) + utility (to make content useful and empower consumers) + entertainment (to enhance the sharability of any content)".
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