個案總覽

It's no secret that managing a brand in today's chaotic marketplace is a daunting task. Consumers are bombarded with messages from broadcast and narrow-cast television, radio, on-line computer networks, the Internet, faxes, telemarketing, and niche magazines. But by harnessing new and emerging technologies, companies can start real-time dialogues with their customers and provide interactive services with valuable side effects. Netherlands-based Philips NV, for example, used a research team to brainstorm with children and adults to develop a new product; in the end, its enthusiastic young product developers became potential loyal customers. Marketing managers must take responsibility for systems that link companies with customers, suppliers, and distributors. They must give consumers access and learn to think of feedback as part of product development. They need to provide customers with support and information. Finally, they need to become personally competent in information technology and to expand the role of marketing within the organization.

Today technology is creating greater customer choice, and choice is altering the marketplace. Six principles define the new marketing: marketing is a way of doing business that pervades the entire company; companies must dispel their limiting market-share mentality; programmable technology promises to open up almost limitless choice for customers; a feedback loop is making advertising's one-way communication obsolete; the line between services and products is eroding; and the marriage of marketing and technology is inevitable.

Technology has combined with a fragmented culture to create an array of products, services, and markets. It is a world of variety and options, niches and small batches, increased competition and changing company structure. Because niche markets cannot be identified easily in their infancy, managers must keep one foot in the technology to know its potential and one foot in the market to see the opportunity. The product isn't just the item itself--the product is an experience the customer learns to trust--which is why everything from perfume to software samples come inside magazines. Old, established giants and small start-ups need each other--the future is in relationships that create new products tailored to customers' demands.