03 Week

Marketing is moving from customer segments to individuals. Seth Godin in his talk discusses the death of the TV industrial concept which informed us for the last 30 years. In a world where the customer has too many choices and very little time, all segment driven advertisements seems to be very similar and hence are ignored. Thus he argues that the advertisements have to be remarkable. In the past the marketer would target the majority of customers with their ads and that would bring them the sales. In this age of marketing, Seth argues that marketers should target the front tail of the  bell curve. He argues that markets should target the innovators and the first adoptors as these are the people who care and will spread the message through the rest of the customer base. These are the people who are passionate about their product domain. This concept was also referenced in the book "The Tipping Point," where Malcolm Gladwell discussed different types of people personalities who help spread a product message and make the product viral. Malcolm labelled these people as "Mavens". They were defined as experts in the product domain and sought out by other product users for their knowledge of the product.

The CEO of IBM Ginni Rometty informs that changes in technology and the ability to collect big data and make sense of it allows marketer to target individual vs. segments. She argues that the challenge is now in understanding data vs. gathering data. She see increased cooperation between CMO and CIO in the coming months where CMO will collaborate with the CIOs to discuss how to mine big data to gain a specific edge in marketing to a company's customer base.

Gill Frisbie and Frank Acito discuss "The long tail." The concept of the "The long tail" states that in a company that offers a vast selection of a product it will be able to sell up to 98% of that selection as it will have products that will cater to a customer's individualized tastes. The concept of The long Tail is similar to what Seth Godin discusses in his lecture, where he is advocating targeting customers on the fringes who are passionate about a product to spread the word about the product. The long tail theory states that there will always be "Mavins" or first adopters who are so passionate about their products that after they try what the masses have recommended they will continue to try and comment on products that are less well know within their domain. Gill and Frank both discuss some of the negatives of this theory in their lectures. A key point they make is that for retailers targeting the end customers it may make sense to hold a vast variety of items but for manufacturers, it make not make sense to produce items that are in demand by such a small specialized section of the population. Sure there will be some items that in a selection that will be hidden gems but there is a reason why most items in a selection have little demand. The reason is that they may not be as good as the more popular items.

The HBR article on social media discusses the creation of online communities which are very easy to form, to discuss specific interests. These communities allow for information dispersion within the community at an unprecedented speed. Marketer have to consider these communities to spread the product message to be successful in the current environment. Communities now form around interests and enthusiasts. The exact people Seth Godin suggests that marketers should target, as they are willing to listen and are more passionate about the products. It is key for today's companies to formulate a strategy to interact with these online communities for both the promotion of its brand and products but also to mitigate negative consequences and foster a positive brand image.

The paradigm shift in marketing channels and who and how a company should market has changed significantly over the last few years (I dare say months!). Technology has enabled this unprecedented velocity of change. Companies that hope to compete and win need to embrace the virtual social environment that are created by online communities. They have to be able to comprehend the vast amount of customer data to advise their marketing strategy to be streamlined to individuals instead of segments and finally they have to focus their marketing on customers who will listen; customers who are passionate about their interests and are willing to try new products. Companies who can keep up with the change in this marketing landscape will realize that marketing has become economically cheaper in this new age, but more complicated as the customer have the ability to express their opinions to punish companies that fumble in its marketing, product and customer service. On the other hand those same customers will exercise that voice to reward companies that listen and respond to their needs.