Glen Urban , I believe has made an important contribution of the field of marketing research, and has had an influence on the writing of our book and the work we do at SMLXL .
It seems from our IPA talk that the world still needs to catch up. The future has arrived, its just that at the moment its not very well distributed. This raises some interesting questions and dilemmas.
1). Companies that grasp this opportunity today can start to realise the potential for future growth and build customer advocacy into their communication strategies.
2). Currently it’s a harder sell for companies like SMLXL, so do we dilute what we do to sell more of what we do? The answer to that is NO. Because the work we have done speaks for itself.
Also we know of a recent straw poll in a large global business that is deeply dissatisfied with what it, as an organisation, gets from its agencies. Costs too high, deliverables too variable. Whilst at the same time marketers are under pressure like never before to deliver.
Surely, it is time to take a small part of the marketing budget and experiment with some marketing communications innovation. End-to-end to see what results you get?
In his opening paragraph Urban says:
My work has been centred on new product development, with models from assessor to information acceleration. Most recently, I have been working on issues of trust, advice for consumers and the discovery of new product opportunities by “listening in” to the online dialogue between trusted advisor and customer (Urban & Hauser 2004). Because I have done this recent work on the internet, I sensed a sea change in the underlying consumer behaviour. Something has shifted, and it took me a while to discover that customers had gained new power in buying decisions. Since 1950, marketing has been based on a push/pull model in which the manufacturer designs a product to fill a need and then convinces the consumer to buy with aggressive advertising, promotion and distribution tactics.The increase in consumer power changes the equation, and I believe that this shift in the power relationship will define the dividing line between Eras IV and V of marketing
Urban expands his thinking about customer advocacy:
A company might choose to embrace advocacy by becoming a faithful representative of customers interests. Under this approach, a firm provides customers and prospects with open,, honest, and complete information. The firm gives customers advice so that they can find the best products, even if these products are not the company’s products. Far from being foolish the honesty of advocacy reflects the reality that customers will learn the truth anyway. If a company is distorting the truth, customers will detect the falsehoods and act, accordingly
This is one way to build advocacy, but thinking about advocacy vs. stand-alone CRM programmes offers up innovative ways for companies to engage with their newly empowered customers.
But, I believe that the Guinness Visitor Centre in Dublin can also be argued from the standpoint of customer advocacy.
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