Out of the Box

The New Age of Marketing Intelligence

By Menachem Lubinsky on February 09 2007

Intelligence? Isn’t that information that nations gather about other nations? Could it be that it is even more prevalent in business than it is in the international community? Industrial espionage has become an extremely common occurrence in corporate America as companies go to great lengths to gather information on competitors or other businesses in their industry. The more they know about their competitors the more of an edge they can gain in the marketplace.

Good intelligence for any business is important in setting the tone for its marketing strategy. But while intelligence gathering used to be by businesses about other businesses, the new age of intelligence is to get a handle on what people are thinking about their product or related line. Several companies are hiring students to mix with the population and to schmooze with customers about their products and then report their findings to the company. Some companies believe that this type of intelligence is more genuine than conventional research and potentially gives them a better handle on what their customers are thinking.

What companies really want to find out is the strength of their product and the degree of brand loyalty. While it is true that businessmen say that “sales numbers do not lie,” they are often not a measure of long-term viability. The job of the schmoozers is to learn about the “shelf life” of the products they represent amongst other things.

A whole new industry of on-line intelligence firms has sprung up overnight. These firms typically gather data and information from various blogs and chat rooms about products they represent. Ford recently hired one such firm to gather intelligence on consumer views of their Ford, Lincoln and Mercury brands in the U.S. and the Ford brand in Europe. The results of that intelligence may eventually influence Ford’s future design of its products, its product-launch strategy, its PR strategy and its ad messages.

Companies like Ford want to know what people are saying about their products. It helps them with planning their future lines and certainly influences their marketing. Many businesses who seem to be riding on a carpet of success ultimately learn the hard way that they may have missed being on top of consumer sentiments. They make assumptions that customers are happy with their product and service and by the time they do recognize that sentiments may have changed, it is too late.

Why would consumers suddenly change their attitude about a product after being loyal to that product for a period of time? For one, competitors may be delivering a better product or a product that consumers seem to like better. When given a choice, they simply gravitate to the competing brand. In addition, times and tastes change, so that what a generation of customers liked a decade ago may no longer be true today.

Ford, for example, said that it is looking to "identify issues that weren’t as apparent to us" that could serve as an early warning system. They may combine this information with complaints they receive on their consumer hot line, e-mails, and regular mail. They might also throw in feedback from their dealerships, and add their own customer satisfaction surveys. The combined data will offer them an incredible amount of intelligence about their products.

We have frequently discussed the importance of customer feedback, suggesting that it is good business to find some mechanism to obtain feedback from customers. There are surveys, on-site questionnaires and even designated personnel to gather the opinions of customers. But this exercise, as important as it is, is different from the intelligence gathering function discussed here. This is information gathered when the consumer is not aware of the direct relationship to the business doing the surveying. The customer whose blog is being analyzed has no clue that Ford is prying into their attitude about Ford cars. Random surveys that do not specifically appear to be from a specific company might be closer to the intelligence gathering function.

A large private bus company in a Midwestern city had decided that it must raises prices to realize a better bottom line. It wanted to make sure that its customers were sufficiently satisfied with their service so as to avoid a “revolt.” It planted some of its people who posed as commuters on its bus routes to schmooze with customers and learned that customers would accept the fare hike.

Interpreting the intelligence is the all-important icing on the cake. Some marketers say that companies have a tendency to pick out those results that they would like to see. Imagine if Ford concluded that customers liked the styling of their cars but neglected to pay attention to the customers who did not like the ride. The intelligence-gathering firms generally make sure that their reports are as comprehensive as possible but more importantly flag those issues that need to be addressed.

Intelligence obviously means being up on what others in a particularly trade or industry are doing. One of my clients several years ago seemed to be the last to know that a competing business was about to open. He should have been the first!

Menachem Lubinsky (mlubinsky@lubicom.com) is President & CEO of LUBICOM Marketing Consulting (www.lubicom.com, 718.854.4450) a firm that specializes in strategic business and not-for-profit planning and implementation. LUBICOM is also well known for its role in developing such major events as Kosherfest, Jewish Expo and Jewish Marketplace.

Out of the Box is a collection of strategic marketing articles that Lubicom has published on various topics, trends and ideas in the marketing world. The articles have been published in the Hamodia weekly newspaper circulated on three continents to a readership of well over 100,000.

The name, "Out of the Box" is a term used frequently in business nowadays to describe creative thinking that is not the norm. It is meant to help a business pull away from the pack or separate oneself from the competition. It is to some extent fraught with risk, simply because it is not the run of the mill thinking, but it is at the same time the key to reaching the next opportunity.