Dismantling barricades

Some four centuries on from his birth, it’s astounding how John Donne’s meditations stand the test of time. His premise that human beings do not thrive when isolated from others is just as relevant in a corporate as in a more spiritual context.

Isn’t it curious then, that organisations split their audiences into two: those inside and outside a company? Both have a stake in a brand, yet are accorded different treatments.

All organisations create a seemingly unbridgeable barrier between themselves and the real world. But the biggest barricade, by far, we as researchers have to contend with (and profit from) is the wall around every company.

Professionals lurk on the inside and keep themselves aloof from the great unwashed. Market researchers, meanwhile, make forays on the client’s behalf (carrying the white flag of truce) and return with tales of what’s really going on out there.

Organisations have flattened within a matter of a decade and a half. Time was when companies had management structures that towered into the clouds. That was until the mobile phone and email decimated the ranks of middle management and the new bosses discovered they could run their organisations without having to be in the office all the time. Today, we would be wise to ask ourselves, how permanent are the borders between those who produce goods and services and those who purchase them?

Ideological war

In the ideological war between those who think businesses should be run for the benefit of shareholders and those who think they should be run for the benefit of stakeholders I would argue that the stakeholders have it. Employees and HR departments, meanwhile, have become much more important since there isn’t enough of either to go round. As for customers — well they’re in short supply, too — and consequently their time and attention is in even greater demand.

The old way of treating consumer markets like battery farms is on the way out. Loyalty programmes have had to change since we discovered customers can be loyal to several brands at once, and can simultaneously be frequent purchasers and very vocal in their criticism of the brands they are supposed to be loyal to.

Arguably CRM ought to be reconstructed along the lines of customers’ perceptions of how loyal the brand is to them and to their interests! Few programmes would survive on these criteria. But this is exactly my point. Loyalty to customers; effective implementation of service standards; genuine authenticity (for example Australian beer which is really brewed in Australia!) all require — as individual elements of the marketing mix — that companies take down the barriers between themselves and their various stakeholder groups and allow information and investment to flow freely in both directions.