The Battle for the Future of MR has Begun: Empowered Consumers Versus “Darth Data”

 

By Kevin Lonnie

As a cottage industry, we often have trouble seeing the forest through the trees.  Traditionally, MR is meant to solely support the marketing function, but I think that describes only a portion of what we typically refer to as market research.

POP QUIZ:  What is the difference between market research and marketing research?  HINT:  They are mutually exclusive

ANSWER: Marketing research is concerned specifically about marketing processes, while market research is concerned specifically with markets

If you didn’t know the difference, it backs up my belief that MR is a confusing and outdated moniker.

Which brings me to my point, we look at our shiny new MR tools without paying proper attention to what aspects of the marketplace they are meant to enrich.  To answer that question, let’s zoom above the trees and take a look at the battle just starting to take shape in the forest below.

Forces are coalescing to support either the demand side or supply side of the new marketplace.  And the outcome of that battle will determine the role of MR for this new millennium.

Interestingly enough, there’s a good chance that MR will once again fracture, but this time it won’t be along “touchy/feely” qual versus “stat driven” quant.   This time MR will fracture along what side of the marketplace (e.g. the customer centric demand side versus the manufacturer driven supply side) it seeks to service.

When we look at New MR, we see tools that are perfectly suited to support both sides of the marketplace.

To empower the customer driven demand side, we have new collaborative tools, ones that allow consumers to co-create.  To some degree, this represents the next generation of MROCs as they evolve from passive listening stations to truly interactive and empowering customer ideation centers.   As MROCs add Crowdsourcing and predictive market modules to their platforms, they are perfectly suited to support the demand model.

Proving ourselves to be equal opportunity, New MR is also well suited to help drive the manufacturer centric supply side of the marketplace.  In particular, Big Data integration and text analytics may become the primary information tools in capturing & retaining customers.

But do customers really want to be captured and retained?

My thinking on this impending conflict has been influenced and inspired by Doc Searls, author of “The Intention Economy: When Customers Take Charge.”  Now Doc Searls is clearly an advocate for the empowered consumer in a new demand focused economy.   In fact, he runs “Project VRM” at Harvard University.

What the heck is VRM you might ask?  VRM is a relatively new idea.  It stands for “Vendor Relationship Management.”  Essentially, it flips the CRM concept on its axis and places the power position with the customer.

Wikipedia: VRM relieves CRM of the perceived need to “target,” “capture,” “acquire,” “lock in,” “direct,” “own,” “manage,” and otherwise take the lead of relationships with customers. With VRM operating on the customer’s side, customers are also involved as participants, rather than as followers.

VRM is based on the theorem that we are on the cusp of a new marketplace paradigm, and for the first time, it will be the demand side and not the supplier side that controls the shots.

Mr. Searls argues that the only way we as consumers will be fully empowered is by making us both independent of controlling organizations while at the same time being better able to engage with them.

Below are some of the basic tenets of VRM:

• Works to support the individual demand side (Power to the People!)
• Customers as individual, empowered human beings
• Personal liberation, free to decide
• Personal tool kit of trusted service firms
  • Changes you make once will automatically flow to all trusted members of your personal service teamo
  • No more silos

In contrast, Mr. Searls is not a fan of the traditional supplier model.  He feels its day has passed.  For the 1st first time, the fundamental tenet of mass efficiency (think of Henry Ford’s assembly plant for the Model T), is out of synch with a new customized client driven marketplace.

And if you asked Doc Searls to name the Darth Vader of the supply marketplace model, he would likely cite Big Data – (“Darth Data”).  In his view, Big Data allows corporations to secretly gather personal behavioral data and usage habits.  Those loyalty cards we carry around are a good example of using stealth powered technology.

Basic principles of a supplier driven marketplace include:

• Everything must be scalable
• Customers only get to choose their captors (e.g. wireless carrier)
• Customers as targets, populations, segments
• Customers are to be observed
• Customers are to be acquired
• We know what customers want better than they ever will

If Professor Searls is right and we are on the cusp of customers taking control of the marketplace (after all, they’re the ones with the money to spend), then clearly MR tools based on empowering customers through co-creation and collaboration will carry the day.    That is not going to happen overnight and we could see a gradual migration away from passive listening tools (e.g. Big Data) to customer empowerment tools.   At the end of the day, the companies that will flourish will be the ones in tune with customer needs.

As for myself, I think the fundamental questions become:

• Do we wish to empower or capture our customers?
• What are the terms of the new marketplace relationship?
  • Is it based on mutual empowerment or are we to view customers as acquired goods?
    • If we choose the latter, it surely doesn’t promote a common or sustainable purpose.

It is the smart choice for organizations to choose an empowered relationship with their customers for the simple economic reason that it represents the best sustainable option.

This POV is aptly defined by Doc Searls himself:

“Every one of us is naturally wild, free and untranslatable. This is why no computer, no algorithm, no electronic carpenter equipped with “big data,” can sweep us within the orbit of its compass. Their human operators will keep trying, of course. And we’ll keep confounding them — until we prove more valuable free than captive.”