The CRM Dialogue

Customer Relationship Management or CRM is not just the application of technology to organize and synchronize business processes such as sales activities, marketing, customer service, and technical support.
It is also a strategy to learn more about consumers’ needs and behaviors in order to develop stronger relationships with them. It does so by managing the company’s relationships with the consumers.
The consumer is right in the center therefore creating dialogue, exchange and interaction. By offering a more personal approach there is customization and personalization, two key concepts in marketing today.


With CRM, departments work as a network with collective intelligence.

CRM helps to identify the most important consumers not only in terms of sales but also in terms of brand acknowledgment, awareness and virality. By finding out about consumers’ purchasing habits, opinions and preferences and profiling individuals and groups companies can offer consumer-specific offers. With enough insight about the consumer it is possible to create offers based on individual needs, offer consistent customer experience and behave as a customer-oriented company.
CRM is an answer to surveys since we have become professionals at answering them and our answers aren’t as thruthful anymore. The creation of new Web tools has further increased the importance and possibilities of CRM use. It should expand experience-based differentiation tactics, create dialogue with social consumers and build flexible business processes that support both customer and employee collaboration. Thanks to this bond, the relationship with the consumer has been enhanced due to CRM.
Check out how social media driven consumer integration works:


While CRM 1.0 focused on customers primarily as numbers, CRM 2.0 focuses on all interactions of this powerful relationship, it creates greater intimacy with the customer, a better understanding of buyers’ preferences and reveals product development ideas.
There are however software adoption issues so the software that’s chosen should be simple and easy to use, and most importantly the time invested should bring advantages otherwise employees will reject it. Budgeting is also important, it should make sense financially by bringing Return On Investment. Privacy and data security should also be considered in order to protect consumers’ data.
By using CRM effectively, it enables a 360° view of the consumer and the future is 360°.

Mobile Commerce

Mobile Commerce or M-commerce is the ability to conduce commerce using a mobile device. It was first used in 1997 in Finland where SMS text messages were sent to Coca Cola vending machines in order to pay for the drinks. From there on, mobile commerce has grown and it is now a hot marketing ticket.



Cell phones have become such an essential part of our daily lives since we have become addicted to our Blackberry or iPhone and having internet and constant access on the go that businesses especially in Asia and Europe have started to use m-commerce as a way to reach and communicate with customers.M-commerce is a good and cheaper option especially in times of financial trouble. It is used on the youth market to test products and the consumer’s reactions before reaching the mass market.

What is available now?

Mobile ticketing where tickets can be sent directly to mobile phones, tickets can be booked or cancelled on the mobile, also check traffic and parking spots at airports, train stations and so on. To distribute vouchers, coupons and loyalty cards; Sale of ringtones, wallpapers and games. Location-based services, Information services, mobile banking, auctions and etc.
In terms of mobile advertising and marketing,M-commerce is growing at a remarkable rate. Brands get higher campaign response rates at lower prices. Some of the issues are speed, internet access, battery life and browsing compatibility. Once these are sorted, M-commerce should keep on growing. However, the main issue will be security. As the cellphone will become not only a gadget where we have Internet, applications, weather, GPS, games and so on, it might become our new credit card, as it will work as a form of payment. Then you can leave the house carrying only your phone. But it will require more data security. And you better hold on to it tighter.
How far will M-commerce go? Only the future will tell.

Always On

Always On
by Christopher Vollmer with Geoffrey Precourt
Mutiny in Media- Chapter 3 Summary

Consumer attention splits

Audiences for traditional media are stagnating and in decline, meanwhile digital media platforms are reaching critical mass and attracting large, loyal audiences of their own. This makes the search of consumers more difficult since they are no longer concentrated in just a few media sectors.
But this involves that many new media platforms get highly interactive, creating the opportunity for two-way exchanges that have the potential for greater targeting, relevance, and engagement. Thanks to this, there’s an online audiences fragmentation that has spawned new competitors to the major portals and media companies.
This competitors are advertising networks, which are driven at least in part by the fact that marketers need both large and targeted audiences. The ad network make it easier for marketers to buy and place their advertising where the consumers are predisposed to want it.

Prime time on aisle three

The point of purchase is extremely valuable advertising territory. Marketers increasingly view the store environment as a place to reinforce advertising messages communicated through other media. They are provided with the opportunity to deliver messages without the diffusion of attention that is inevitable with television, print and online media consumed at home.
The result is a boom in shopper marketing, it ranks only behind the internet as the fastest growing platform for marketers.

We can slip marketing spending into ‘above-the-line’ and ‘below-the-line’. Above-the-line spending refers to the costs associated with advertising in conventional measured media, such as newspapers, magazines, radio and television. Below-the-line spending refers to all other media and promotion activity, including consumer and trade promotions, word-of-mouth marketing, direct marketing, PR, sponsorship, company Web sites, event marketing and shopper aisle marketing.

In-store media could well invigorate the retail shopping environment. This medium competes for only a small fraction of marketers’ available spending, and it has no permanent year-to-year place in most of their budgets. Advertisers spend only about $330 million annually on in-store media, a very modest figure compared to the $75 billion spent on broadcast and cable advertising.

It is a safe bet that marketer spending on in-store media will grow!

Advertising Spending Shifts

During the early 21st century marketing, the marketing mix caught up with consumer behavior resulting in traditional media losing share to digital media. Many leading marketers, such as Johnson & Johnson, ESPN, Time Warner and Vogue have responded to the always-on demand by directing more capital and attention to digital media and below-the-line media, such as shopper marketing, public relations, direct marketing and event marketing.
This shift can also be seen in media company revenues, where advertising revenues at digital companies such as, Google and Microsoft grew considerably. While newspapers, magazines and radio declined. Only television increased due to digital tv. This is partly due to advertisers’ growing displeasure with traditional media, especially television, which has elevated advertising prices and lower efficiency to reach consumers, as well as a change in consumers’ habits who now spend more time in new media platforms such as cable, websites, Ipods, Playstations and mobile phones.
Media companies now need to develop publicity that is more local, interactive, me-orientated with the consumer at the center of their programing, marketing, audience research and advertising sales efforts. Traditional media companies that have adapted to the always-on mentality are working to increase the value of the existing media platforms combined with new digital channels and below- the-line activities like online video, social networking sites,blogs,chat rooms,video games, mobile devices, e-commerce and so on.
The companies who have the capability of reinvention in order to adapt to the always-on mandate and offer multiplatform channels that are available anywhere, at anytime will succeed.

MTV Brands the Virtual World

At first glance it seems as though most powerful media today have been established outside this media, look at google, youtube, myspace. Yet then there is MTVN, which is developing its cable brands into “virtual digital environments.” Through this they create platforms, which engage people and advertisers to connect with them. According to them Laguna Beach Virtually draws users to their site 1.4 times per week. MTVN has amassed 5.5 million registered users across Nicktropolis and its MTV-based virtual worlds in addition to this they have 3 to 4 million active users on Neopets. Why is this interesting for advertisers? According to MTVN 99 percent of the consumers who enter their sites are exposed to branding and of these 85 percent interact with branded content.

Scripps Gets Direct with Consumers

E.W Scripps company once founded on pribt has learned to adapt emerging media platforms in profitable ways. It owns broadcast and television networks, newspapers and interactive media. They are very well aware of their audiences interests and behaviours, which they achieve through digital means such as online contests and online market places. The largest of these initiatives is the “HGTV Dream Home Giveaway.” In the year 2006, the contest made 6 million consumers register and 39 million individuals enter. As well as attracting sponsors and advertisers including GMC, Lending Tree, and Lumber Liquidators.
By using direct marketing venues, as the “Dream Home Giveaway” they drive consumers to Scripps-branded registration Web sites, where these are pulled into a feedback loop where they provide information about themselves and their personal interests. Through this the company has information about their target, which allows them insight into their behavior, which helps them understand their costumer base.

NBC Universal and News Corp.’s Hulu

The television audience may be shrinking in size, but the growth of online video shows that tv’s content still extracts a force on consumers. Due to todays market NBC Universal and Fox to created Hulu.com, this is a advertising-supported online video platform which features television shows, short clips, and films that launched in beta in November 2007. The two companies see an opportunity in today’s market to create a video offering platform that will attract both consumers’ time and brand marketers.
Hulu will not rely on simply guiding its consumers to its own sites but will engage in distribution agreements with MSN, Yahoo, MySpace, AOL to ensure that their content reaches as many people as possible.
As it is both a destination and an “ad network,” Hulu hopes to merge the high- engagement aspect of video, with Online’s tracking and targeting capabilities.
Smart media companies are shifting their focus from analyzing their viewers to knowing them. The result is following, when NBC Universal describe the average viewer of the Bravo channel, they know her interests: she is an early adopter of fashion and consumer electronics and that she is affluent, engaged, and influential.
Companies and their advertising sales teams must find new opportunities to engage marketers and agencies with insights that prove why their offerings show better results.

Yahoo! has recognized the need to connect with marketers on a more strategic level. In 2003, Yahoo! Partnered up with Nielsen and developed an online campaign with the goal of demonstrating the impact if online campaigns on sales growth. They did other partnerships to demonstrate this as well and the message was clear. Consumer Direct online advertising has become a key driver of offline purchases.
Yahoo! Learned that it had to offer marketers a greater variety of online inventory than they had. Even Yahoo! needed to stretch its advertising reach further than what they owned. To achieve this Ya-hoo! entered into advertising partnerships with companies such as eBay, Comcast, WebMD, Ziff Davis, Forbes, and Bebo.
Also Yahoo! has been a leader in creating integrated advertising. One example of this is Kellogg’s. Special K. Kellogg’s needed to create a digital experience for women interested in weight loss, through which it could promote the health and lifestyle benefits of its Special K products. In addition to this Kellogg’s also wanted this experience to be linked to offline media (such as TV and print) and to its packaging. Yahoo! Went ahead and developed this. So when entering onto SpecialK.com, consumers had the opportunity to interact with tools that enabled them to customize their own Special K Challenge and connect with a community of weight managers and other women interested in weight loss.

A REFRAIN OF CONSTANT CHANGE

By the year 2010, media and advertising will be even more engaging, personalized, and interactive than they are today.This does not mean everything will be new: television will still be a popular medium; people will continue reading magazines and listening to the radio. But media and advertising tools we cannot imagine will have a huge impact on our future.
In the future it will be necessary to acquire skills to developie new relation- ships. It will be a must to learn to use digital opportunities to create deeper, higher-impact experiences for both the adver- tisers and consumers. Also developing tools to perform relationship marketing and experiential marketing to lead to the kinds of targeted consumer dialogue and lead generation that marketers crave.
How to prosper in the always-on era is becoming clearer to media companies. The future will bring higher connection between consumers and spreading over more and more media platforms. More data and analytics will be used to inform their decision making as well as that of partners and clients.

By Laura, Philipa and Olivia

Threadless & Web 2.0

What is Threadless?

Threadless is not a regular online store. It’s an online community based t-shirt company created by Jake Nickell and Jacob DeHart in Chicago in 2000. At Threadless, members can submit t-shirt designs online which are then put to vote by the public, by both members and visitors. The best rated designs are then printed and sold through the online store. The creators receive a prize of $2,000 in cash plus a $500 store credit. The designer and the company retain all rights to the design. Right now there is a contest in collaboration with my favorite flip-flops, Brazilian brand Havaianas. If you would like to vote for your favorite flip-flops and t-shirt designs, check it here

By now we should have become familiar with Web 2.0. Just to refresh, it could be described as a web platform that allows users who share common interest and needs to interact.

So, how does Threadless use some of the Web 2.0 principles?

Threadless aims to be authentic and transparent as a company. There is an open-door policy at their Chicago headquarters. It gives consumers pride in buying from them, since they are honest about the profits the chosen artists receive. It also allows the artists to become famous by featuring profiles and interviews from winning artists.
It offers a customized approach. Threadless unites members with common interests despite their geographical differences enabling them to create a community. It does so by providing a forum, creating dialogue and interaction between the active members and the company.
Threadless is interested in what the consumer has to say and aims to learn from them. A proof of this is that by watching this MSNBC’s report you will see the company’s Art Director used to be a Threadless fan. Check out more by viewing this video: