Research

IBM recently came out with a research report titled “Beyond Advertising: Choosing a Strategic Path to the Digital Customer ,” By Saul Berman, Bill Battino and Karen Feldman. The report covers familiar ground for marketers, but should still be an interesting read, because it is chock full of survey data and puts numbers to many trends currently taking shape.

These reports are also interesting in that they provide insight into what IBM is thinking in terms of its role in the industry. Naturally, IBM is quite excited about the explosion of analytics in advertising. IBM seems to have great plans to help advertisers move to that brave new world “beyond advertising” with new data management, analytics, and targeting tools. While impartial and objective in tone, these research reports represent a key component of IBMs marketing strategy. Most marketers don't think much of academic papers, but they are well worth the investment when you are selling complex and expensive services to a select and highly educated group.

The report seeks to show that “the senario of the future is consumer centricity,” i.e. highly targeted and relevant advertising delivered in the format most appealing to the consumer. The key factors preventing the industry from achieving consumer centricity according to the report are the following:

• New format uncertainty - Particularly in the new economic environment, there are questions about the growth of new formats like advanced TV and mobile
• Fragmentation - Large number of suppliers in new advertising formats, and there is no agreement on format specifications.
• Siloed operating models - There is limited cross-platform integration of campaign support tools, processes or organizations to enable the selling, tracking or delivery of integrated, “know-me messaging.”
• Data glut - Enormous amounts of information exist, but are difficult to access given the lack of consistency in data structures, metrics or analytics.

These are certainly major problems. No matter how much we wish it were otherwise, the big ad agencies are just not that tech savvy. Traditional industry titans are being blindsided by technology and innovative business models. However, just when we were starting to feel really bad for Madison Avenue, the report suggests “Four capabilities to enable consumer-centric marketing”: