Last week I was reading an article from MediaPost on Claire Bennett, the CMO of American Express. The net of the article was that she is helping guide American Express redefine marketing to that which is invited by the customer, rather than intrusive to the customer.
While I agree with her positioning on transactional v relationship marketing, and the goal of building relationships, I do not agree with her implied statement that transactional advertising is intrusive.
We may be debating semantics here, as Claire may have not been intended that to be the casual readers (or audience’s) interpretation. But it was mine. And to me the idea that marketing is based on intrusion – whether transactional or not, is inappropriate.
Has not the goal of marketing always been to somehow be ‘invited’ into the consumers’ mind?
Marketing is successful because it transcends that gap and creatively determines ways to be invited into the consumers mind.
1 year ago
2 comments:
Hi Ted, Nice post.. I am in agreement with you, marketing by intrusion is absolutely inappropriate. I was laughing at her comments because if you look at online media, I dont think Amex is doing a good job yet... their brand sucks on the Brand20 Index, American Express manages to get only about 20k views per week whereas top brands like BMW or Disney garner millions of views every week. Now you might think why is that important.. if you see the new ad posted by BMW on YouTube (BMW GINA Light Visionary Model: Premiere) it has already got about 1.5m views in a couple of days.. where as brands like American express suck because they lack the right tools and services to engage this audience. I think a better way to get in front of the consumers is talk to them, target them and reap the benefits... I think just looking at BMW is a great example of how to create success in the online world... may be its time for american express to start using engagement platforms like Scope to make their campaigns more effective.
Jennifer, thank you for the comments and feedback. BMW has done a great job, and were ahead of the curve in using 'new media' tools to invite customers to engage with them. American Express will get into the game, and do it well. It will just take time. I think their products/services do have huge potential to invite people to participate, especially with UGC. The opportunity is theirs for the taking.... they will figure it out.
Post a Comment