“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”

Last week Yahoo announced a new ad tracking service by partnering with Aegis PLC’s research unit MMA. The new service is based on econometric analysis that uses statistics to create a mathematical model of marketing situations. Microsoft’s approach is to utilize the demographic information provided by MSN. Google’s new analytic service has also caused a stir amongst analytic vendors such as Webtrends and Clicktracks. I’ve been reading a lot of the material coming from these announcements and the thrust of many is advert effectiveness, which some of these developments go some way towards answering. But are they simple?

There is nothing like working with clients directly to understand what the concerns are as of “right now”. And right now most of them are concerned about which of the adverts brought the customers they actually have. They are concerned with why, really, did you chose our product over the competition. They want to know which color you liked most and was the shape of the product important? Thinking about your next purchase should we make a red one or a blue one? Should it be this shape or that shape? Good things to know. Changing these aspects of a product -be it software, cosmetics, training shoes or a Digital camera- have a major impact down the line. Engineering don’t want guessing, they want precision. What better way to get precision than to ask the Customer? And better yet why not always provide the facility for the customer to provide feedback 24/7? And integrate it with the business processes? Focus groups and manual methods of marketing are increasingly expensive and take a long time to execute -sometimes longer to analyze-. That’s what is concerning our customers, right now.

Case in point. In the last few months, one of our major cosmetic customers were launching a new fragrance. Before they decided on a new bottle shape they employed a new type of focus group: Customers using SensorPro! The results were outstanding. 80% of respondents chose one shape and color over the other. So the product arrived on the market (for Christmas) with the knowledge that most people liked the look of it already and were able to avail of a sample too.

In the same campaign the initial “focus” group were a demographically targeted, segmented group of some 10,000 users of our customers products. Using the “Tell a Friend” feature of the email campaign, some 850,000 new subscribers opted-in. Wow! A lot of people ask “how do I increase my opt-in subscriber list in a responsible way?” Ask the Customer, I say.

So, Yes, Getting the answers sometimes requires the maths and the modeling but as this case proves, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”-Leonardo da Vinci-