30 October 2009
Johannesburg — Some claim that 21st century technology means it has never been easier to communicate and market your products and/or services. All it takes is a combination of numbers and/or an e-book full of e-mail addresses, a keypad or keyboard, a handful of flexible fingers and voilà: your message is out there.
Others though, including me, argue it has never been easier to damage your brand and lose customers by angering them with the inappropriateness and thoughtlessness of said communication.
The damage happens at 2am when, deliciously submerged in stage four of the sleep cycle, your brain produces only delta waves and you are in the deepest, most tranquil phase . Suddenly, centimetres from your ear, your cellphone springs to life, shining, shuddering and shrieking. You have a message. It has to be urgent. Why else would anyone need to contact you at such an hour?
Heart pumping furiously and dizzy with fright, you fumble about and, with the phone pressed up against your nose and blurry eyes clearing, you finally decipher, "Test drive a new Hamba Faster XC16 before 15 November and you could win a 10-day holiday in Mauritius".
And the damage happens too when, having held the line for hours and ultimately in vain for that elusive next available operator in the customer "care" centre, you are eventually compelled to report a stolen handset via your cellphone service provider's website.
Three weeks later, having received innumerable daily text messages and e-mails thanking you for using the online service and advertising an endless array of upgrade options and other have-to-have gizmos, you discover that not only has the purloined handset not been blacklisted as you requested, but neither has the SIM card been stopped. In other words, the thief has had unlimited access to your contract while you, lucky thing, have had unlimited access to the organisation's marketing bumph.
The damage happens when, despite the fact that the last time you shopped at Toys4Tykes was 15 years ago -- when your youngest child was still in nappies -- you receive incalculable megabytes, which might amount to gigabytes in your inbox each month broadcasting the tremendous playthings your little one cannot live without.
Indeed, some might say that the advent of things such as cellular telephony and the internet heralded an exciting new variety of marketing avenues. Others will contend that it represents the autobahn of irritation where the final destination is marketing abuse.
But wait -- is there light at the end of the cyber-send tunnel? For consumers and marketers alike?
Is it possible that those immeasurable silos of information that appear to exist somewhere out there might be sorted and integrated so that one genuinely only has to make one call to a call centre to be satisfied? Could it be that when information pings into your inbox or chirps on to your cellphone that it will actually be relevant to who you are, what you do and what you need in life now?
Indeed, there is evidence that this could be the case. IT companies such as SA's Global Vision are, it seems, increasingly developing computer systems that monitor and analyse what consumers are doing -- and not doing -- so that marketers and other communicators can more accurately and effectively align automated marketing campaigns with target markets.
Acknowledging the old adage, "80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers", they are, says Global Vision founder and CEO Jon Jacobson, developing software that tracks consumer behaviour and affinity for brands and product lines.
"The idea is to identify who is buying products and engage with customers in the most appropriate manner possible," he says. "The one-size-fits-all approach is not good enough and can do more damage than good. Our software is designed to track marketing communications across multiple touch points and channels, including internet and cellphone social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter."
The method, known as marketing automation, is an integral component of customer relationship management and involves the use of software to automate marketing processes such as customer segmentation, customer data integration and campaign management. The idea is that marketing automation makes processes that would otherwise have been performed manually much more efficient, and also makes some new processes possible.
Jacobson, who this week addressed the Microsoft Asia Pacific Partner Conference in Bangkok about extending Microsoft Dynamics' customer relationship management marketing capabilities with his company's Adora platform, is a BSc computer science graduate of Rhodes University.
In 1999 he and co-founder and partner, Wayne Powell, established Global Vision in Cape Town .
"Wayne and I met when we both worked for Credit Suisse First Boston, he in London and I in New York," says Jacobson. "He, a chartered accountant, was essentially my internal client and although we spoke on the telephone up to three times a day, we only finally met up in a bar in New York to watch the Springboks in a Tri-Nations game against the All Blacks after four years. It was here that the idea of establishing a South African-based company with global reach was born."
Global Vision began in a house in Gardens, Cape Town. The company's big break came when it was commissioned to develop software for one of the world's largest premium drinks distributors, Diageo. Spearheaded by the brand marketing team in SA, the platform created by Global Vision was later rolled out to all key markets in South America, Asia and Africa. The original software, named Eureka , has subsequently evolved into an easier to use and more sophisticated platform called Adora, which provides analysed market information relating to brand campaigns.
"The platform is designed to help clients forge stronger relationships with and loyalty from their customers. It helps brands identify who is buying their products, and engage with them in a relevant manner and reward them for their loyalty accordingly. Its brilliance is that it tracks marketing communications across multiple touch points and channels," explains Jacobson, whose love of surfing is demonstrated by large murals on the walls of Global Vision's corporate headquarters in Woodstock, Cape Town.
The company's clients include brands such as Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, Foschini , Levi Strauss, Nokia and Protea Hotels.
"We began small but have always had big dreams," he says. "We want to become one of the world's top five enterprise marketing management leaders as defined by calibre of customer and global footprint. We have been able to expand globally through our existing South African-based multinational clients and our product is already used in 35 markets around the world.
"Not only does our software support campaigns in both local and international markets, but the intelligence that it collects makes it an even more valuable resource for clients."
Hasso Plattner, the German "technology guru" and founder of the SAP group, invested in Global Vision three months ago via his Africa fund.
Global Vision recently received a second round of funding -- an investment of more than R23m -- through Hasso Plattner Ventures.
"We see the investment as a major boost to our global expansion and believe it will open new doors for us in Europe and the US.
"We are already expanding into Africa, having recently signed a deal with Nigerian cellphone network Glocom," adds Jacobson.
So perhaps then, Nigerians at least will sleep easy, without automated marketing in the middle of the night.
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