Marketing-Mix Metamorphosis and New Trusted Business Practices
This chapter discusses the impact on the marketing-mix due to the confluence of the internet of things and the internet of value which seems to be made possible by the blockchain technology. This “perfect storm” induces a vortex of reliability and business trust between people (“peer-to-peer”) and machines (“bot-to-bot”), without the traditional need of third parties to ensure confidence in a negotiation. This implies innovative business practices and self-executing contracts that will take place in a more decentralized and trustworthy environment, speeding up the metamorphosis of the four marketing-mix elements in such a way that marketers will have to deal with a “product” that is always in a “beta-version”; a dynamic “price” that initially has to be free; an atomized “promotion” of reliable messages found by costumers (not the opposite); and a new virtual secure “place,” which is made possible due to augmented reality and blockchain.