Blue Spoon Paper on Marketing Ecosystems Accepted for Publication; Framing Brand Management for System-Level Competition.

MINNEAPOLIS -- Blue Spoon Consulting Group, LLC, announced today its paper on marketing ecosystems has been accepted for publication by the Journal of Business Strategy. Marketing ecosystems shift the view of 'brand' as the primary unit for business strategy to an aggregated view of strategy and action at the system level. The paper helps close a conceptual gap between thinking systems used by marketers to create novelty and demonstrate value, the 'ground truth' of a saturated information environment, and the currents shaping major directional change in the world.

"The only way marketers will be able to 'win' in the information age will involve, in some sense, abandoning the game as they intuitively understand it," said John Singer, principal, Blue Spoon Consulting. "By moving away from a search for technical solutions or a focus on pieces and parts, marketing ecosystems provide a new orientation to tackle critical issues of marketing and sales performance in a way that brings ideas, players, partners, and customers together."

The paper frames a strategy-making philosophy that can transform marketplace forces to drive top-line growth, achieve competitor lock-out, and gain advantage. It presents a roadmap for marketers to organize coordinated sets of action from internal and external components, and to shape the combined behavior of large and interconnected networks of companies to achieve mutually-reinforcing effects from their output. By connecting even simple components in the right way, and focusing on value sharing and knowledge exchange within the ecosystem, new marketing capabilities are acquired, and complex problems beyond the abilities of individual components are solvable. Drawing a distinction between concept-driven and technology-driven innovation, the paper asserts that problems of marketing performance can not be solved in a technical way, and describes a new variety of creativity that anticipates, rather than trails, the development of information-related capabilities. The paper has value to executives in all industries who seek new ideas and better output from their marketing operations.

This is the second paper from Blue Spoon on ecosystem strategy. In January 2006, the Journal of Consumer Behaviour published the firm's concept of 'adaptive tactical systems' as a unique solution to harvest sales growth from in-line brands(1). Published by Emerald Group Publishing, Ltd., the Journal of Business Strategy is an international peer-reviewed journal that focuses on the practical aspect of innovative business theories and implications for real-life business situations. To receive a copy of either paper, send an e-mail with contact details and delivery preference, to: [e-mail]. White papers on systems marketing and marketing ecosystem design are also available for download directly from the Blue Spoon Consulting website.

Blue Spoon is a marketing architecture consultancy. Pioneering a new framework for competitive strategy based on marketing ecosystems, Blue Spoon helps clients solve systemic business challenges, align marketing and sales dynamics, and shape collaborative innovation at the industry, business unit, and individual product levels. Blue Spoon is a new species of business consulting; we've outdated the old ways of thinking about things to lead the emergence of a new marketing attuned to the information age. Ours is a modern synthesis driven by new ideas in strategy and management. For more information: www.bluespoonconsulting.com.

(1) Singer J. 2005. Systems Marketing: A New Operating Model for Pharmaceutical Marketing. Journal of Consumer Behaviour; (4) 6:480-495 DOI:10.1002/cb26