1. Introduction

Most brands and their companies we now rely on in our life are not born to be successful. Many died before people have ever heard about them while only a few survived. These survivors subvert our view of world. For instance, Uber gives city commuters a comfortable and green choice to go; digital reader like Kindle makes reading more accessible; Facebook and Twitter redefine social behavior, etc. To make profits and to be the pioneer of the world, both SMEs and large companies are studying entrepreneurial marketing, which makes it more valuable to be discovered and discussed.

This essay will discuss the definition of entrepreneurial marketing (“EM”) and interactive relationship of small and medium enterprises (“SMEs”) with it. The main idea of this essay is that entrepreneurial marketing may origin from the marketing strategy of successfully SMEs and it also tutors other SMEs. Definitions and literature findings will be covered. Then, a case of Mobike China, currently a small size company, will be followed. Mobike China is currently a popular company that change life style of thousands Chinese and its business pattern can be learned and reproduced. By analyzing the marketing strategies and comparing them with traditional methods, this essay will discuss the key reason why Mobike being so popular and give reasonable recommendations of its future development. A conclusion will be given in the end.

2. SMEs and Entrepreneurial Marketing

2.1 The definition of Entrepreneurial Marketing

Entrepreneurial marketing (“EM”) does not has a restrict definition. The research of EM is to merge two distinctly different management issues into one area due to their common interest (Hills, 1987). EM was firstly introduced as strategy of small companies with limited resources and is frequently used to describe the marketing strategy of high-technology firms now. Hills at el. (2008) contribute a comprehensive table of important EM development from 1982 to 2004. They also find that the definition of marketing given by AMA (American Marketing Association) implies that EM is concluded in the concept of general marketing by imposing words like "creating value for customer". Collinson and Shaw (2001) point out that EM is not limited in SMEs scope though most researches were conducted in SMEs. They summarized that the early age researches on the relationship between marketing and entrepreneurship and concluded that the later involved more creativity and personal ability of the entrepreneur including personal resources, networking skills and education background. Michael et al. (2002) regard EM as a synthesized combination of key elements of marketing and entrepreneurship. They clearly define EM as a proactive and creative action of a company using a valuable opportunity to make profits from customers in need. They also conclude seven core dimensions of EM including as “proactive orientation; opportunity driven; customer-intensity; risk management; innovation-focused; resource leveraging and value creation”, which are widely used in other researches. Morrish (2011) points out EM is a strategy that small companies with limited resources using creativity and innovation to win over large companies to stand firmly in the competitive market. Hence that the entrepreneur is equally important as market, i.e. customer needs. That is, it's important to keep balance between customer centric (as required by traditional marketing) and entrepreneur centric. On the contrary, Stockes (2000) emphasizes more on marketing than entrepreneurs. He believes entrepreneurship in EM works out is because it follows marketing principles. The reason that SMEs choose EM is because they are just not able to carry out traditional marketing. Based on the above opinions, this essay defines EM as a marketing strategy adopted mainly by but not limited to SMEs, to open market and maintains operation by discovering and using opportunities, in a highly competitive market. This essay will emphasize discussing EM of SMEs.

2.2 Advantages and Disadvantage of SMEs Adopting EM

Jones and Rowley (2011) point out that marketing research of small business is neglect until EM was introduced. To understand the advantages of SMEs using EM strategies, the definitions and characters of SMEs should be analyzed. The EU defines SMEs as a kind of company with maximum 250 employees plus turnover less than EUR 50 million or annual balance sheet less than EUR 43 million. OECD gives a range of maximum employee from 200 to 500. Beck and Demirguc-Kunt (2006) pointed out that when compared to larger companies small companies have more growth limitations and difficulties to gain external financial sources. In a word, all human, asset and capital resources SMEs have are not enough to support them to do traditional marketing like than large companies. They have to control their marketing costs by using least resource to achieve biggest effect and thus EM is developed. Because EM is developed based on the characteristics of SMEs and reflects different marketing need, EM breaks the limitations of SMEs, or makes SMEs perform better with limitation. That also explains why EM is different from traditional marketing.

However, EM also has its drawbacks. Miles and Dorroch (2004) pointed out that whether a company can successfully adopt EM depends on its competitive advantage of innovation and leading industry position. Mort et al. (2012) emphasized the ability of innovation and opportunity seizing of the company. Collinson and Shaw (2001) indicate that the company culture of SMEs should support EM and this should not be changed even if the SMEs grow to large companies. They also suggest that the EM entrepreneur decision should be “intuitional, informal and fast” while traditional entrepreneur decision should be “planned and safe”. Therefore, companies and entrepreneurs that do not meet these certain requirements cannot adopt EM. Also, the theory foundation of EM is based on a market that "each firm in an industry is a unique entity in time and space" (Hunt and Morgan, 1996) while the reality is more competitive than that. The empirical results of SMEs using EM are not sufficient.

3. Case Study: Mobike China

3.1 Background of Mobike China

The O2O (online to offline) App Mobike is called Uber on bikes because it creates a cheap and efficient way to go to work for city commuters with bikes. People just need to download an App on their mobile phone, search available bikes around them and pay online after using the bike. Although Mobike charges as much as public transports, it goes extremely popular among young people instantaneously.

3.2 EM strategy Used by Mobike

3.2.1 Value Innovation in Blue Ocean Market

Mobike chose to enter a Blue Ocean market with no fierce competition from incumbent companies but huge growth potential (Kim and Mauborgene, 2004). The core concept of Mobike is not about bikes but a life style of commuting. The idea of developing Mobike is to solve the last mile problem of public transportations in big cities with huge populations like Shanghai.  Although public bikes provided by the government exist for a long time, they are cumbersome and inconvenient. Mobike innovatively combined concepts of “eco, fashion and convenient” into a fresh value-added product. According to the theory of value creation (Kim and Mauborgene, 2004; Matthyssens et al., 2006), they are not competing in a market but shaping a market, or creating a market since government products do not aim to compete with them. Because the market is new and almost empty, the Mobike phenomenon itself is the best advertise. Kim and Mauborgne (2004 & 2005) point out that the Blue Ocean strategy also helps companies be different with low cost. All Mobike did is to manufacture some equipped bikes and develop an App. These are enough to distinguish Mobike from other internet companies and public bikes. However, the Blue Ocean will eventually turn Red when more followers enter the market and Mobike should be alert for that.