| Originated in the late 19th century, after more than a century of development, marketing continues to mature and improve in terms of theory and practice. Recalling the history of the last century, the development of marketing were influenced by a number of factors, including function independence, subject property, development of market research and advertising, as well as the transformation of radio and communication technologies. In the presence of many influencing factors, enterprises, practitioners and scholars contributed to the initial development of marketing. At that stage, basic marketing theories have been built, which made marketing became an independent subject and corporate functions. The development of marketing is inseparable from the economic environment. And its changes were closely related to economic development, such as "product orientation" stage into "customer orientation" stage. Upon the completion of basic theory construction, scholars and practitioners began to study multiple different aspects of marketing, such as planning and strategies. From 1960s,4Ps,4Cs, IMC, Positioning and other highly functional theories have been proposed. From 1980s to the end of 20 century, Service marketing, Relationship marketing, Digital marketing basically represented the main trend of marketing development and practice.Change never stops. After entering the 21st century, especially with the rapid development of Internet, marketing began a new stage. On one hand, based on new Internet technologies, marketing realized great innovations in marketing tools, communication strategies and many other aspects. On the other hand, the Internet created a whole new communication environment and reconstructed communication relationships, which provided opportunities for the development of new morphology, such as Social media marketing.In history, marketing changed as times change and practiced more, so can better adapt to new business needs and economic environment. With the revolution of mass media and communication environment, different new morphologies of marketing were created to suit new marketing needs. These new morphologies were not fully reverse or deny the former theories, but inheritance and improvement of the former. And also, profit-making was no longer the only issue that marketing concerns. Data-based rationality and humanistic care become more and more important. Sometimes these two principles even take the lead role in planning and communication strategies.In today’s Internet age, these changes remain the same, even more pronounced. The Internet has a huge impact on communication environment, which resulted in transformation of marketing theories and practice. Meanwhile, in the Internet age, with big data and a variety of techniques, tools, different morphologies of marketing are faced with same target consumer, means of communication, and even the ultimate purpose. Fusion trend of marketing morphology began to appear. In the last century, different morphologies were independent of each other. Even they were under one same goal. This kind of independence existed in planning, implementation and so on. In the Internet environment, however, due to the fusion trend, different morphologies are cooperated to each other. One kind of morphology may be contained in other morphologies. They are planned at the same time, which ensures uniformity in target groups and strategies, more conducive to improving coverage and communication effects.Fusion trend of marketing morphology presents a big challenge for enterprises, practitioners and even consumer. However, it is also opportunities. After teasing the history of marketing and analyzing the Internet communication environment, this paper presents my own point of view about the feature of fusion trend and advices of how to react. Through this study, hope could find a solution for practitioners to better adapt to the Internet communication environment and marketing transformation. |
