THE SOURCE OF ALL EVIL

Customer Data: The Source of All Evil



Customer Data: The Source of All Evil

Introduction

Marketing is the way companies strategically develop, price, promote, and distribute their products to increase customer interest and attain organisational goals. Marketing communications refer to the messages and related media used to communicate with a market. The idea of integrating marketing and communications dates back to initial marketing literature, but the term 'Integrated Marketing Communications' (IMC) only became popular in the 1980s. Even so, it was not until 1991 that a task force of academics and professionals began looking into issues such as appropriate terminology and definitions (Cornelissen, 2003, 217-34).

Seasaw approach

Today most of the companies enables SeeSaw affiliates to create a virtual presence on social networks for each of their venues. For example, a particular bar or coffee shop on Main Street can also exist on Facebook, where people in the venue or fans of the venue appear online. LocaModa also provides a suite of interactive applications like contests and games that networks can incorporate into their programming to attract people to participate, thus making the screens more engaging and rewarding for the consumer. (Lee, 2007:222-36)

As consumers in a venue respond via text messaging to the interactive call-to-action in a digital signage ad, those responses are posted on the venue's social network pages and feeds. If the consumer chooses, those interactions can also be automatically posted on their Facebook page or Twitter feed, thereby multiplying the reach of that original impression.

The interaction can be customized per network. For example, on a digital screen in a bar, an advertiser can provide videos or sponsored content that guests can add to their social network profile page by sending a text message with a specific keyword and location name to a shortcode. Bar patrons can also create a "Shout Out" and have it appear as a comment on the Facebook page for the bar, as a Twitter message directing friends to meet them there, or on digital screens in other locations. SeeSaw provides agencies with a one-stop shop to buy digital out-of-home media across 22,000 venues nationally and to buy mobile marketing campaigns across those venues. (McGrath, 2005b: 55-66)A further complication is the organization' s struggle against desires for certainty. Having been immersed in stress and change for some time, the organization's members feel very uncertain even before they acknowledge that the organization's former environment has been stagnating. Facing up to reality adds further uncertainty. Exploring unknown, possibly hostile, alternative environments, while simultaneously trying out new roles, new methods, and new structural arrangements inside the organization, adds even more uncertainty.

Members with low tolerances for ambiguity are likely to leave voluntarily, but the remaining members and new arrivals exhibit generalized propensities for reducing uncertainty. They conduct surveys, install computerized information systems, make sophisticated statistical analyses, assemble simulation models, and consult outsiders who seem knowledgeable about potential environments. (Winter, 2009: 191-215)

 Insofar as such methods bring in valid information and alleviate fright, they facilitate ...