Just completed an article on Podcasting, a topic I brought up a few weeks back. The more you look at the model of podcasting, it seems like the broadcast model will soon have its furniture rearanged. And I don't just mean the electronic media. A good chunk of advertising and direct marketing is still based on the one-to-many technique.
I tend to speak too much perhaps, on variable-data printing as the future of all customized communications. Speak to Steve England, designer, and print guru at R&R Images. In a recent conversation I had with him about how smart database marketing can be, he spoke of how there are companies that can show you more than demographics of the customer base you are trying to reach.
I bring this up because an aticle in Point magazine (a pub of Advertising Age) this week, features Jeff Bezos, the smart marketer who built his business, Amazon.com, on database marketing. Amazon 'knows' so much about it's shoppers, it's almost creepy. But on the other hand, isn't it maddening when you get mail from a company who still addresses you as "current resident, " or when you have to write out your basic personal information at a doctor's office that you have been going to for the past 5 years? They're supposed to 'know' you better than that!
As a Marcom person, it apalls me that companies are still so ignorant about their customers. I got a phone call from JVC over the weekend offering to extend a warranty on a camcorder I bought 2 years ago. Great! They 'remembered' me --but only to sell something to me. Where were they all those 430-something days? Besides, I don't even own the camera anymore. On the other hand, I could walk into Wells Fargo bank, and they know me and my family. I don't get much direct mail from them. I get 'direct' attention, and that --eye contact, a few sentences-- sure beats the broadcast model, anyday!
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