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Driving the R in CRM

MM: In my conversations with folks in Europe who really seem to be ahead of us, in terms of really understanding the “R” in CRM, really understand that first of all, you need to have a lifecycle model for what it means to be in a relationship with a brand. But also, do we have an explicit data collection model for collecting what I call “brand interaction data,” very early on in the awareness and consideration process?

Something else that I’ve seen in this area that’s really been a startling breakout success for some of the digital agencies is the use of viral videos that are part of a guerilla-marketing program. Viral videos explicitly designed for presentation and consumption at YouTube, FaceBook and some of these other video-sharing sites.

Then, tracking who actually downloads or posts or syndicates in those videos of their Blogs and writes about it. Then making an outreach to the people that posted favorable things about these humorous product placements. Almost like a paid feeding of viral videos.

BK: I’m sure it won’t surprise you to know that Coca-Cola spends a lot of time and energy monitoring that very thing. Feeding that very engine. You didn’t mention it, but I’m sure you’re aware of Second Life. Burger King in particular spends a great deal of time and money on Second Life, which doesn’t immediately correlate back to store sales, but certainly does speak to that lifetime brand.

How do we find our customers in their place of preference and continually reinforce the brand? There are certainly some forward-thinking companies that don’t necessarily interact and sell stuff on the web, but they’re certainly using those mediums to solidify that brand loyalty.

Game Theory and Coke Promotions

MM: I’m glad you mentioned Coca-Cola. They were one of the early adopters of this smart promotional platform from a company that’s since gone out of business. It’s part of ePrize, now.

It was an interactive, smart promotions platform. It had mathematics underneath it that came from two PhDs in mathematics and game theory. Preference options would be similar to when you get an e-mail from Amex or Delta Airlines and they say invite you to make a bid on these four packages.

They invite you to make a bid, combining n-number of airline frequent-flyer points, membership points as well as hard dollars. They will choose five people over all the contest participants who got those packages.

BK: Cool.

MM: The net result is they end up collecting a lot of data from you. After you do several of these preference options they know, for example, that you’re single and that you have a proclivity for fun in the sun.

There are probably three or four more meaningful things they’ve learned from you as a function of your preference options or preference bids. It goes to the underlying game theory of how you elicit truthful information from anonymous actors.

So, game theory is just the mathematics or science of incentives to induce a particular behavior.

Coca-Cola was one of the very first adopters of this very sophisticated gaming platform. The challenge of course of that otherwise elegant concept is that it takes real rocket science. It takes somebody who’s got a PhD in quantitative methods and game theory to really understand how to construct and design these interactive promotions such that it produces the desired result.

BK: Agreed.

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