The always-smart Beth Comstock, the CMO of General Electric, has published an article today regarding the future of her companies business and business in general. It can be read here.

Beth argues that the future for GE marketing and all marketing and indeed business are being reshaped by the connectivity and intellectual hiving and access to unprecedented intellectual capital and data on markets and consumers of the future.

Certainly this is the case, the very fact that this company, T Comms, can exist is via the almost instantaneous access to our disparate executives and partners and to broader best practice. While we are in agreement with everything said, it is concerning that marketeers continue to embrace the future of Technology and Big Data without, what we believe to be a healthy, skepticism.

Mathematics cannot circumscribe and predict all of human activity. The emotional part of humans is irrational and has not and most likely will never be circumscribed by mathematics,.

We need look no further than our own somewhat recent economic history: I

In the 1920's brokerages let their clients borrow money to buy stocks because of course "Economists have figured the full working dynamics of the capital driven economy" and stocks would never go down.
In the 1980's companies were able to "leverage" purchases of other companies with high percentage bonds, based solely on the belief that capital assets would never be less than component pieces, i.e. worst-case-scenario," if we can't sell the purchased company to another leveraged buyer before the bonds are due, the purchased company can be broken up and sold-off.
And finally most recently, it was believed that the Algorithmists at the world's banks had figured out how to completely minimize risk by spreading it into small packages supported by what of course would be an ever-increasing real estate market.

Every time we think we have "cornered the market" on markets, they show us that our data and math has missed something. We would argue that is because data is by it's nature always backward looking. Yes, having access to intellectual capital is Yes, we can model it and predict what might happen in the future and the more data points one has the better the models become.

But... humans are still unpredictable and emotional beings and don't operate on "models". They wake up one day and decide to go a new way to work, or perhaps not go to work at all, or have just become tired of that color they have always loved. We need be skeptical and know that marketing will always require a qualitative element.

CP, 25 March 2014

will a fully addressable future limit Prospecting segmentation?

There is no doubt that within the next five years that we will be buying media largely programmatically and it will be fully-addressable, i.e. exposing advertising to people who we believe are interested in what we are trying to sell. In the words of David Verklin "Why do I want to advertise cat food to someone who only owns a dog"?

Why indeed? The Dog-only person, let's call him Grant, is never likely to buy cat food. But how do we know Grant might not be thinking about purchasing a cat an then would need to know our cat food brand, let's call it Diddles?

The Addressable-proponents, will probably answer "we will know Grant is going to get a cat because he will look online for cat owner information and Diddles is going to be right there. He searches for cat food -- Diddles. He opens Cat Lover magazine -- Diddles. He goes to watch videos online about cats -- Diddles, with our fully addressable Outdoor when he his stopped at Olympic and Sawtell the digital board will display -- you guessed it -- Diddles".

But what happens if Grant is at his friends house, let's call her Monique, and Monique's cat has just had litter and Grant's wife Hillary immediately falls in love with the cute calico kitten that tends to run around the corner of the box and Hillary just "has" to take it home. So, of course, the kitten now named Felix is put in a box a couple of holes are cut and Grant and Hillary one box heavier than when they left home head back on Olympic and they are going to have to stop at Pet Smart and get....well everything that some needs who has a new kitten.

No online trail, no credit card purchases -- to us Grant and Hillary still aren't cat people even thought they have one sitting in the car with them. So Grant and Hillary never having seen a cat food ad. And ,they look at the cat food aisle and have no idea what to do -- should they buy Diddles? Scratchies? Whiskers? or Happy Cat? should it be Sumptuous Chicken Dinner Tuna Medley, or Fish Jamboree

While we rush toward the holy grail of advertising to those who might want to listen to us it is important to remember that great brands have become great brands because they became part of the culture, in many cases more iconic than religious and political symbols. As we rush toward an addressable future we can't forget top-of-the-funnel dynamics and the fact that even non-cat people can sing the Meow Mix jingle on command.

CP, 24 March 2014