Forrester Research published a research paper titled ‘Adaptive Brand Marketing – Rethinking Your Approach To Brands In The Digital Age’ in October 2009. Much of the subsequent comments and discussions about this paper concentrate on the proposed four new Ps of Adaptive Brand Marketing that will shift the brand marketer’s focus from the original four Ps to deal with new realities:
- Permission – better understanding of whether and how someone wants to engage so that marketers engage and communicate according to buyer and customer preferences.
- Proximity – moving away from the “one-size-fits-all” approach to more closely connect with local markets and specific consumer / buyer / customer groups.
- Perception – in using the social Web for marketing the marketer should respect the distinction between a person’s social and commercial personas and not try to make or use social connections for commercial purposes.
- Participation – there is no central command and control for communities on the social Web. Marketers should facilitate and participate with communities of consumers / customers for developing trust, loyalty and advocacy.
However, there are much more interesting and important concepts and proposals in this paper than the four new Ps that have received most of the attention.
Much of the traditional marketing approaches are based on a command-and-control and/or hub-and-spoke approach where marketing exercises complete control over all things related to marketing. However, in today’s interconnected world of social media, globalization and 24/7 always-on communications, control has shifted to consumers and customers who are more informed and more engaged to find the best deals on their terms.
Some of the principles of Adaptive Brand Marketing in this report that should be of particular interest to most marketers are:
- Channels – rather than deciding on channel strategy from the inside-out in traditional approaches, channel design (part of the Place P in the original 4 Ps) is determined from the outside-in by first understanding the needs and behaviors of prospective customers.
- Intelligence – in traditional approaches most marketing intelligence comes from formal research sources. Today, the intelligence from other sources such as social media, online communities, websites, eCommerce activities, customer interactions, etc. are more current, dynamic and possibly more important.
- Spending and Planning – traditionally these decisions are annual events with possible quarterly adjustments. No more – marketing spending and planning decisions should be a daily event based on the availability of dynamic, real-time data in unprecedented volume and detail.
- Brand and Segment – traditional approaches relied primarily on taking a brand to the masses. New media and marketing capabilities now enable taking a brand in specific contexts to multiple different segments with common shared attributes for each segment.
There is much more to this report that marketers should consider about how they operate in the current and evolving environment and adapting their marketing approach to their customer and market environments.
Have you reviewed the Forrester ‘Adaptive Brand Marketing’ report and implemented any of the recommendations? Your comments are always welcome.
Copyright © 2010 The Marketing Mélange and Ingistics LLC. http://marketing.infocat.com
Posts
I am fortunate to have worked in a number of roles in marketing and other areas of businesses. I have done, run and led marketing. I have worked in other functions that are impacted by marketing.
I'm a keen observer on how marketing is positioned and perceived within companies and what is expected in return for the marketing budget. The Internet, Web and technology innovations continue to change and
expand marketing approaches and possibilities. Hopefully this blog will in some small way contribute to making marketing more effective for all areas.
