Why “Purple Cheese Fondue“?

Well, this riff is about Seth Godin’s new book, “Meatball Sundae” - and I read a few others with titles like “Chocolate Spaghetti, and Tribal Pizza, so in keeping with the theme…

On his blog, Seth Godin asked a very thought-provoking question:

“If you were alive in 1947 and knew what you know now about the last sixty years of mass marketing, what would you have done? What would you have built? Was it just about making better TV commercials?”

What would I change?

I would change the way I built my client/customer database.

And I would make the NAME of my client/customer the central piece of data, the one around which everything else hinged.

Not the product line.

Not the marketing method used to make sales.

Not the region, or language, or ad medium, or profitability.

The PERSON.

So that, when I analyze my data, I won’t be searching to see if Widget B shipped more units, or Campaign Y brought in more sales, or Infomercial J had a higher response rate.

Instead, I’ll be searching to see what Ann Smith from Ontario bought last summer, or what John Doe from Arkansas needs to be offered next week, based on his past record with my business.

Just like I do in my medical practice.

Journals compile data from a vast patient demographic. I study them to stay abreast of trends, understand latest breakthroughs, and be informed of potential pitfalls.

But when little Arun walks into my consulting room, I don’t directly transpose the data from a book to his treatment.

No. I recall (by reviewing his record) that Arun had an allergic reaction to a drug (so I can’t use it again), had a problem after his surgery (which limits choices for the next phase of his treatment) and comes from a unique social and family background (to which follow up care needs to be customized).

And while all this is done within the broader framework of current ‘best practices’ (as learned from experience and research and study), this process is also personalized to Arun… and then to Carla, and Kumar, and Shanti, and Vinod, and on and on.

Until, after some years, my brand - “Dr.Mani, the BEST pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon” - is built around the results I get.

And the cycle is completed, when I compile data I collect from my unique, personal experiences, and present them as a collated research paper that’s published in a journal, adding to the volume of collective wisdom suitable for a broader based demographic.

So, to return to 1947 marketing, yes, I’d have made a better TV commercial to tap into the mass marketing effectiveness that was then possible.

But then, knowing that in 60 years we would enter the era of ‘nicheification’, I would build my client database differently.

Each client would get a unique entry. In that entry would be stored all relevant data - what interests them, what they bought and why, how they heard about us, what their preferred communication channels were, when they bought and when they returned, what else they bought and why… and the database would grow and grow and grow - all the while hinged on the UNIQUE CLIENT RECORD as the crux.

So, as the database grew bigger, I could use it to perform mass media marketing just as effectively as anyone did in those days… but with one significant advantage over others - that when the era of mass marketing lost efficiency, I still had enough PERSONAL information to get niched, individual, narrowly focussed - and still have impact with my target audience.