It is not by accident that people refer to the internet as a disruptive technology. Especially in marketing.

In the 20th century marketing model, fundamental assumptions about one-to-many broadcast media and a "campaign view of the world" reigned supreme. And the economics of the media and advertising industry conformed accordingly.

However, what if we turned some of the assumptions upside down:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3qltEtl7H8&hl=en&fs=1&]

As an old CRM hack it is always interesting to see how the "CRM Industry" (primarily the unholy alliance of technology vendors and analysts) is adjusting to the brave new world of social networking and increasingly empowered customers.

We seem to read a lot of Forrester. I guess they have a focus on the sort of direct marketing / social media mash-up our customers are struggling to implement.

Ever wondered how to best design and launch a better insurance company?

IAG decided to ask their customers what they wanted. And use their feedback to develop a new online insurance company from the ground up.

We posted on the launch of their on-line community some time ago; myinsuranceideas.

Today the company was launched, welcome The Buzz please. Take a look.

West Australian Harley Owners Group

I have just finished reading a great article by Fournier and Lee - the first of these authors was 'Vice President, Enthusiast Services' at Harley Davidson. Her advocates routinely tattoo the brand on their bodies!

It would be easy to say that customer engagement is core business for just about any business. Easy, but not particularly instructive.

The truth is that the degree of customer engagement required or desirable is going to vary by category and from business to business. Do I really want a deep and ongoing relationship with my gas utility? (Answer: only when things go wrong!)

There are some categories, however, such as membership based organisations - eg. sporting, professional and industry associations where customer or member engagement are clearly and unequivocally core business.

The term "Voice of the Customer" (VoC) is a very useful term for initiatives designed to improve customer experience but it is also a term that has been bandied about in a very loose manner. So it is good to see from Bruce Temkin (Forrester) some definition of terms and analysis of how the concept can be translated into practical action!

Article #1

Warns about new forms of consumer skepticism and organisation and argues that this 'discontent' is something 'businesses cannot afford to overlook because it has already assumed the proportions of a real threat to producers and distributors of advertised brands.' The article suggests that listening to consumers is one way to solve the problem. Such efforts cannot be faked; 'if it is lacking in a sincere desire to do something for the consumer, that worthy will be quick to see through the disguise.'

Business Week, 1939

Article #2

I have been doing some more traditional 1to1 database marketing recently and it has reminded me that the more things change the more they... don't.

Aligning the culture of an organisation is the task that really makes it difficult to transition from product-centric to customer-centric thinking.

Both of the clients are using best of breed analytics and campaign automation platforms, so the technical challenges are not insignificant, but these dragons are being vanquished. Much harder to get the whole organisation aligned in their understanding of;