RETHINKING MARKETING

Article’s summary
In the article “Rethinking Marketing” the idea of reinventing the way marketing is thought of by
businesses is highlighted. The article by Rust, Moorman and Bhalla discusses the changes in the industry that
are driving marketing to be more customer driven rather than brand driven.

I found it very interesting that the article mentions that many businesses are hiring a CCO or a Chief
Customer Officer. The authors cited that “Companies as diverse as Chrysler, Hershey’s, Oracle, Samsung, Sears,
United Airlines, Sun Microsystems, and Wachovia now have CCO’s.” (Rust, et al, p.4) These CCO’s are expected
to design and execute the company customer relationship strategy and have oversight on all the functions of
the company that have customer interaction. This position isn’t one I had ever heard of before but makes
complete sense to me because companies are needing to be more client-centered, including tracking very
closely the trends in the marketplace, customer buying power, and more. In the end, it indicates in the article
that this CCO is accountable for “increasing the profitability of the firm’s customers, as measured by metrics
such as customer lifetime value (CLV) and customer equity as well as by intermediate indicators, such as word
of mouth (or mouse). (Rust, et al, p.4) This role in the company (the CCO) seems to be one that more
companies should invest in because with the need to collect customer data to drive marketing decision-
making, this person is in the perfect position to make those decisions. This is especially important in the B2B
world where a company sells to a major retailer such as a Walmart or Target.

I agree with the article that more customer relationship management is key to the success of any
innovative marketing department for any business. This requires IT skills because of the technical
requirements to manage a CRM (customer relationship management system) so sometimes it appears that
marketing is sometimes not as involved as they should be. The CRM is used to collect data on gauging
customer needs and behaviors, thus it is key that marketing be directly involved. The data collected by a CRM
is used to implement a customer-cultivation strategy which I found interesting to learn more about in-depth
from this article as well. I believe this type of CRM system when applied by a business is crucial to making
business decisions on product development, product placement, product pricing and much more. An example
of this type of data collection and use of the data is Kohl’s Department store. They have an elaborate system
where they use your demographics you provided, and track your purchases through a rewards card, and send
direct emails to customers recommending items similar, sending coupons to get you to return, and offer
special deals when you haven’t made a purchase in a while. I feel that Kohl’s does an excellent job of utilizing
customer-driven metrics and their data collection to be a profitable retailer.

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