Week 3: Microsegmentation and Social Media

Articles/Material Covered:
-"The Death of Segmentation"
-Seth Gordin: Ted Talk on: How to Get Your Ideas Spread 
-"The Seven Segment Systems of Online Marketing"
-"The Razorfish Social Influence Marketing Report"

18 June 
I could not agree more with Ginni Rometty in her view that understanding and controlling big data will ultimately become a competitive advantage.  She clearly articulates that big data will make segmentation obsolete, forcing companies to understand customers as individuals rather than subsections.  Looking at the current digital marketing landscape, the paradigm shift seems to already be in motion.  Companies are in the infancy of sorting big data into usable marketing information.  For example, when you buy a product online, the next week or even day, the banner ads display products that were similar to your previous purchase.  Furthermore, I want to say it was Target that started tracking every purchase a person bought using some sort of loyalty card and then would email coupons for the customers most frequently bought products.  The question is, how in-depth will companies go to capture the competitive advantage of big data? Again, we have already seen the first steps with "intrusive marketing" but what will it look like in 1 year, 5 years, 20 years?    

22 June
When completing the Twitter assignment, I was struck with a very thoughtful insight (thoughtful to me atleast) that would be better documented in the journal than the paper.  I chose Dos Equis as my company to follow for 5 days which was entertaining as well as thought provoking.  They continued with the "Most Interesting Man in the World" marketing theme throughout the observed time period.  However, the timing of these tweets and the different types of tweets utilized was fascinating.  I realized that Twitter has allowed companies to change their target audience in terms of advertising in mere seconds.  By adjusting when and what a company tweets, they can reach out to a selected audience instantaneously.  Furthermore, Twitter has lengthened the marketing segmentation hierarchy by introducing microsegmentation based on the day of the week and even the time of the day.  For example, Dos Equis posts a short "drinking encouragement" tweet at 4:40 on Wednesday, which is not considered a "drinking night".  This time is right after work and targets those individuals who are on the fence of whether or not to go have a drink with friends.  Overall, Twitter is not just a social media convenience but a powerful marketing tool that increases product awareness and advertising through microsegmented markets that can be instantaneously adjusted based on multiple variables.