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RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Personalization has highest priority

for marketing decision makers

OC & C Strategic Consultants investigated the issues while from the perspective of CMOs fast response
that are high on the agenda of marketing decision mak- times and high flexibility are now core competencies in
ers. Personalizing the customer experience has been marketing – especially since long-term marketing plans
mentioned most, but overall the analysis entitled are becoming obsolete in today’s dynamic marketing
‘What's on the CMO agenda?’ identified five superordi- industry.
nate challenges:
3. Management of Big Data
1. Personalization of customer experience
The buzzword Big Data is both boon and bane for
More than three quarters of the surveyed CMOs review CMOs. The management of large data confronts nearly
individualized marketing approaches as an important half of them with problems, as they collect more data
trend. However, the issue implies a deep understanding than ever with multi-channel activities, which compli-
of consumer behavior in each channel, the clever inter- cates the targeted analysis. Information about the buy-
pretation and smooth operation of available data, as ing behavior of customers is often only available in un-
well as intensive coordination with other areas of the structured form and therefore difficult to interpret and of
company, such as sales and IT. Due to the complexity limited use as a basis for strategic marketing concepts.
of the task, CMOs define personalized customer ap- However, the interpretation of complex data sets is
proach currently their biggest challenge. nevertheless in greater demand than ever, putting the
issue of data protection in the focus: Today’s marketing
2. Measurement of profitability departments need data experts that enable targeted
advertising campaigns, while protecting the privacy of
Due to increasing profitability pressure, marketing de- consumers.
partments are among the most transparent corporate
divisions, and this trend will continue, according to 4. Social media strategies
CMOs. In addition to financial indicators on cost-
effectiveness and profitability, the focus is on key fig- Of course, the marketing decision-makers see in social
ures for specific TV and print campaigns, customer seg- media an important channel however, activities on so-
ments, or marketing channels. The credo of the market- cial networks do not always follow a sophisticated strat-
ing bosses is measuring the success of the activities, egy with clearly defined objectives, states OC & C.

10 Asian eMarketing May 2015 - Personalization in Marketing
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