The future of marketing
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Alan Mitchell reads t
he future of marketing, responding to a report by fellow Marketing Society columnist Martin Hayward commissioned by the Royal Mail.
There’s an excellent analysis piece on the future of marketing from the Mail Media Centre, written by Martin Hayward, former director of strategy and futures at dunnhumby.
Martin’s key point is that many long-standing obstacles to achieving communication efficiency and effectiveness are dissolving, basically thanks to the “digitisation of everyday life”.
That doesn’t mean the end of branding and brand building, but it does mean that how brands reach and talk to consumers is changing – towards “continuous and unobtrusive direct contact with customers”.
For me, the most important point in the article is “the end of proxies”. As Martin points out, proxy measures are necessary only where there are no hard data. Over the years, proxies have been getting more accurate but, by definition, they’re still far from perfect.
Common proxies include geodemographic data, psychographic segmentation, and more recently transaction and behavioural data. We need all of them – when they are fit for purpose.
But the new, transforming ingredient is the fact that consumers now have voice as well as choice: they can talk to brands and companies. So, the report suggests, the future basis of segmentation may turn out to be not where you live or what you do, but “what you choose to release”.
I call this VPI (Volunteered Personal Information) and I’ve been on about it for some time.
That doesn’t mean all of marketing’s problems are easily solved. Handling the speed, granularity, volumes and pace of change of customer information is becoming a major headache. “Most of our systems and analyses are not yet fast enough to keep up with the emerging fast feedback loop,” notes the report.
Earning permissions for ongoing contact will be a critical challenge. “Easy access to consumers will tempt many towards over-messaging. This will potentially undo the benefits – relevance and efficiency – that new, better-targeted marketing communications can bring [...] The new constraints of marketing will therefore move from budget and reach to permission, relevance and engagement.”
I recommend you read it.
Why not take this opportunity to read more customer champion blog posts.
Posted: February 2nd, 2011 | Author: stuart.treasure | Filed under: Customer Champions, Uncategorized | Tags: alan mitchell, digitisation, Mail Media Centre, martin hayward, royal mail, the future of marketing, the marketing society, Volunteered Personal Information | 1 Comment »
Why do we almost always insist starting with the message?
The startpoint must be – I would have thought – the value proposition; not the brand, but consideration of the utility (how useful it is) that the value proposition delivers to the consumer in a specific context; context not content being king today.
Get this right, combine it with what Seth Godin terms ‘an insane customer experience’ and your consumer will come to you either directly or indirectly. They will give you their personal information without being asked. They will promote you without (or with very little) incentive. They will queue at the point of sale (witness any Apple store queue) to buy.
Whilst Apple and Amazon are held up regularly as examplars and the world of ‘less glamorous’ products and services complain bitterly that these are unfair comparisons I suggest – your honour – that what is lacking (in the less glamorous department) is a lack of imagination and a willingness to break the pattern of traditional, fear based thinking (I won’t get my bonus if we stop doing ‘X’). Inside out thinking is producing a self fulfilling prophecy.
The thinking that got us to here is not the thinking that will get us out of here (to usurp an Einstein quote). Research shows (in fact Marketing Society quoted it last year) that after 26 continuous quarters of promotional investment all that was left was brand stationarity for 100s of brands across 5 continents. The brands that achieved organic growth – the very thing that they are desparately seeking right now – by making meaningful changes to the brand value proposition. The problem is not confined to the marketing department – that would be unfair and anyone can bash marketing.
As with war, we never seem to learn. I wonder if the marketing community will choose to learn the lessons it needs to learn to have the internal battles it needs to have in order to thrive again. Right now, from all I see and hear, I doubt it but I live in hope.