Generating sales, while building brands, in an emerging science-ified Marketing Eco System

Below the surface of current events, buried amid the latest headlines and competitive moves, we are beginning to see the outlines of a new business landscape: a Marketing Eco System in which next level data analytics and real-time consumer insight will improve the ROI of building brands, while generating sales.

Performance pressures are mounting. Old ways of doing business are generating diminishing returns. Companies are having harder time making money, their very survival is challenged. We must learn ways not only to do our jobs differently, but also to do them better. That, in part, requires understanding the broader changes to the operating environment. Next level data analytics is needed to be able to 'float' to a Smart & Sustainable Sweet Spot in the fluid Marketing Eco System.

A. Improve efficiency of BRAND BUILDING with BRAIN ANALYTICS - Successful brands will be the ones that understand offline behavior by a multi mode research approach

Consumer behavior and (buying) decisions are poorly predicted by what people say about it in advance. Not because the person is lying, but simply because people are unaware of what they really think of your product or service. For instance: Neurensics - Europe's first neuro-economic research agency concludes by means of fMRI scans that readers process ads in mags much better than viewers do with TV ads. Consumer behavior is 95 percent driven by unconscious motives and preferences. The part of the brain that controls decision-making, doesn't control language. Just using an interview or a survey (verbal measures) is not reliable enough to stay connected with the consumer. There are several methods to stay connected with the consumer. A multi mode research approach, a combination of methods of verbal (interview/survey) and non-verbal measures (eye-tracking/EEG/fMRI/Web-analytics/store level analytics), will provide the deepest insight.

B. Improve efficiency of GENERATING SALES with WEB ANALYTICS - Successful brands will be the ones that understand online behavior

1. To optimize behavioral (re)targeting and improve the personal relevance (timing, location, tone-of-voice, context, content) of, and engagement with, experiences and 'offerings'
2. To improve second screen experience based on realtime sync with first screen

C. Improve the combination of BRAND BUILDING + GENERATING SALES with GAME ANALYTICS - Successful brands will be the ones that understand how to use game dynamics

1. To optimize the reward schedule2. To improve participation and extend transmedia experiences
A (media)brand at the Smartest Sweet Spot generates a continuous pleasing-variety-within-unity-experience, exponentially improving the ROI of successfully building its own & other brands, while effectively generating sales (causing a collapse of the purchase funnel).

David de Boer, Manager Marketing Intelligence Sales, Sanoma

(source: Deloitte/Spencer Stuart, Ed Shedd & Grant Duncan, "Why agility must follow austerity in the new digital age", june 2010)