Tewks Blog

One of the most complicated issues surrounding the movement to a customer centric paradigm is the reconciliation of brand versus relationship. Ideas and opinions sit solidly in one camp or the other with very little overlap. This is too bad, because each has valuable lessons to learn from the other.

Although it may not always sound it, at the core I am very much a technologist. When I got my start into researching and authoring in the CRM space it was initially based upon my understanding of the interactions of a series (e.g., marketing automation, personalization, email execution, etc.) of related technology products built to serve marketing organizations.

As I became exposed to more and more products I began to craft a vision for an integrated platform, now known as the Customer Information Factory (CIF), which could be used to drive a customer centric marketing organization (CCMO). The overriding precept being, that through this platform and approach we could help companies take ownership of, and really drive profitable relationships with their customers. In many respects, we were teaching them how to fish.

Fast forward ten years, and now as I work for a digital agency, I am now being forced to adapt my thinking. And as my wife will tell you, that is no easy task.

Building a CIF is not for the faint of heart. There are a lot of moving parts. There are many points of integration and translation. And it requires a fairly rich and deep number of interactions. In sum, if it’s not built and executed by an expert with intimate knowledge of your business there is significant risk for failure. (While not the topic of this post, let me also say in the past couple of years the ubiquitous movement to everything digital has significantly reduced these hurdles).

Enter the digital advertisers to fill this need. If you really get into a product like Atlas, or the like from Double Click, what you’ll find essentially is a rentable CIF. They’ve built all the pipes; they are funneling in data from numerous sources, and have you removed the risk of having built it yourself. Most importantly, they can also provide you with the o so important segmentations, behavioral insights, and campaign performance.

So… why do I still have such an aversion (I’m moving, slowly) to them? Because I don’t think the tools are being leveraged to their full benefit. As opposed to a well executed, integrated component of a CCMO these 3^rd party platforms are being chiefly treated as a broadcast surrogate for the same old unidirectional messages. Companies aren’t using the tool to have a more informed conversation with their customers, but rather just to pump out the same messages via different channels.

Whose fault is this? Maybe nobody’s (how’s that for a non answer – next question!) Maybe it’s just an issue of time before the economics decide the matter. Across the board, I don’t think anyone would argue the reach, frequency, and CPM of traditional broadcast tactics whether print, TV, or online is trending hugely negative.

To complete the cliché, the days of buying fish are nearing an end. This is not, however, to say the relevance of external solutions is, but rather their service and usage needs to be adapted to fit into the strategy of a larger CCMO.