Web 2.0 Is Transforming Relationships Between Customers and Companies*
I’ll risk using a hype-laden term like “Web 2.0” in the title: I think most of us have been around long enough to understand that hype doesn’t mean that nothing is there, although it can distract us from seeing things that we should be watching.
I have been in the thick of the “adoption curves” of Java, e-business transformation and SOA/Web services (detail). They have been instrumental in creating a new information infrastructure and business process capabilities. “Web 2.0” will prove to be the most transformational so far because it is changing relationships. It changes individuals’ relationships with each other, and it will change how companies and the customers relate to each other. It will demand “Marketing 2.0.”
Tectonic Shift
As I argued in The 3.x Economies, we are transitioning away from the Industrial Economy and entering the Knowledge Economy. In the Industrial Economy, companies created value by manufacturing products efficiently based on their core competencies, and they marketed products to customers. They also created and marketed services on a large scale. “Marketing” grew as a profession during the 20th century when […]
Word of Mouth Marketing is an exceptionally useful, insightful and surprising book. Andy Sernovitz has done a masterful job at creating a brief, lucid and tactical guide to realigning your company’s relationships with your customers, quickly and inexpensively. It is very straightforward, honest and full of practical techniques. Moreover, it is very human because it addresses customers as human beings, not demographics. I suspect that this aspect of the book might peeve those marketers that are invested in the difficulty and complexity of their craft. Think about it: when customers were (relatively) mute and invisible, marketers were the intermediary between the enterprise and the customer; in the absence of the customer’s voice, they created models and theories to simulate it. WOM, powered by Web 2.0, means that customers can talk in their own words, and companies can listen. The customer’s back!
The Executives’ Club of Chicago assembled a visionary panel to give Midwest business leaders their advice for media communications in the (“new” ,^) digital age. Rishad Tobaccowala, CEO, Denuo Group and Chief Innovation Officer, Publicis; Dr. Jim Taylor, Vice Chairman, The Harrison Group and Emily L. Barr, President & General Manager, ABC 7 Chicago were panelists, and Susan D. Whiting, Chairman, Nielsen Media Research moderated the breakfast, which took place 30 January 2007 at Chicago’s Mid-America Club.