Reintroduce The Consumer Into The Mix

MediaPost Publications, November 17, 2009 — We have more data on consumers today than ever, but do we really know more about how to market to them than we did 25 years ago? It's not our fault; it just used to be simpler back when the average consumer was easily defined, shopped in fewer places, and print, TV, radio and in-store were the only real options available for communicating with them.

HP's Dhore Discusses CRM for 60 Million Customers†

Brandweek, October 7, 2008 — When it comes to Customer Relationship Management, Hewlett-Packard has its hands full. The company gets 600 million calls a year from its customers and ships about 500 million products. The task is complicated by new forms of customer interactions, such as blogs and social networking applications. At the helm of all this data management is Prasanna Dhore, HP's vp of customer intelligence. Dhore joined HP last year from Dreyfus, where he focused on reducing churn. At HP, Dhore has more tools at his disposal, but also a lot more data. Last week he discussed HP's CRM program with Brandweek's editor Todd Wasserman. This article highlights excerpts from that conversation.

Staring You in the Face†

The path to new products might start with the customer data you've already collected. You just don't realize it.

Wall Street Journal, September 22, 2008 — In the quest for innovation, companies continuously collect and analyze ever-increasing amounts of customer data. But what if a company has already collected the most valuable information and doesn't realize it?

Sometimes the answer to the innovation challenge lies not in collecting new customer data but rather in finding creative ways to share and repurpose customer information that's already in-house.

Ad Houses Will Need to Be More Nimble†

Clients Are Demanding More and Better Use Of Consumer Data, Web

Wall Street Journal, January 2, 2008 — The Web's emergence is forcing ad executives to succumb to marketers' demands that agencies reinvent how ads are created, and forgo their TV-centric approach. Clients are even calling for changes in the way ad firms are structured. But until now, few advertisers have spent more than 5% to 10% of their marketing budgets online. With the growth of online video and social networking, ad experts expect that percentage to jump significantly this year.