Customer World

How driving customer relationships will change over the next few years

At the Gartner CRM 2010 Summit, there were some interesting trends that were discussed. Here is what I thought were some pretty compelling points for marketers and companies to take note of :

• Relationships will no longer be company-controlled, but more company-guided – "Customers tell us which direction to take, we’re just going to guide it... more and more you’re going to give the customer the impression that they’re on their own, doing it themselves..."
• Rather than focusing entirely on employee empowerment we’ll be empowering the customer – "They’re going to write their reviews they may even select the price that they are willing to pay – Procter and Gamble is a great example. You don’t like the toothpaste at this price point, what price point would you like it at? Perhaps you don’t like the size..."
• Metrics are changing – Rather than how many times you answered the phone, how many orders you took, what were your gross margins, it will move to what was the experience.
• Corporate data and information will be more accessible - "We’re going to have to give customers more and more access to what used to be the ‘private’ information. No you’re not going to give out price sheets or privacy information, but more and more of your corporate data is going to be transparent to the customer. They are going to know why you ran a test or waited six months to tell the general public."
• The mode of ‘we tell you’ communications is changing to participation – "If you find your firm does not foster, encourage and manage participation with customers you’ll probably be out of business."
• Customer insight is going to drive a lot of what we do.

The new meaning of Network TV

What's Network TV as we know it?

Network TV may be a channel or a station that produces TV content and distributes the same to millions of households. They could be  doing it either thro' cable or satellite or terrestrial but it is a   ' single producer and distributor' model.

The new Network TV

Steve Rosenbaum has this to say about the evolution of the new Network TV era.

This requires you to think about the word 'network' in a whole new way.

Today, content is often driven by the passion, enthusiasm and deep knowledge of the members of a given interest group-- like surfers or hamster enthusiasts. The economics are topsy turvy as well. So surfers with high-quality DV cameras and access to a broadband connection are turning their passions into video-based content, with DC Smitty organizing and aggregating this collective knowledge into a network for both viewing and distribution. The economics of these new 'curated' networks revolve around sharing, not owning either content or audience. So DC Smitty owns the inventory on his pages, and video sources own the ad inventory in their video feeds. Sites like Revver share revenue with both content creators and site owners, and its expected that other video sites will over revenue shares as well. But the power is shifting from content pipe to contextual.

So the future of TV is no longer about content creation, though there will be plenty of that. It is instead about content discovery-- finding media nuggets that are site-specific and user-friendly. Video discovery is at the heart of TV 2.0

Read more

120 million personal TVs in India

Imagine a day when 120 million Indians( and expected to reach 400 million in 2010) can have their own personal TVs on their mobile. The day does not seem to be far off.

Modeo has launched a beta of their version of mobile TV in the US. Services like Modeo can be soon expected to be launched in India.

Modeo is a digital television broadcast live to the one device you're never without—your mobile phone. Modeo is transparently high-tech, making mobile TV as familiar as the coffee table clicker. Modeo's content is provided by most distinguished entertainment brands in the business, airing today's hits and TV classics. One can watch top-rated sitcoms, dramas, news and sports. Also one can tune-in to music and talk radio. You could also download video podcasts, bite-sized episodes of your favorite shows and exclusive made-for-mobile content.

No wonder, London School of Economics has written that the future of TV is personal.

MobileTV has the potential to unleash a new revolution in the country. The telecom revolution has created a new wave of growth in India and if TV goes mobile, it can just mutiply the benefits of telecom revolution.

New marketing opportunities will surface:

• 5-sec TV Spots
• Interactive programming - Voting, Personalized programs, Channesl etc.
• User generated content
• May be one can start trading entertainment time with air time!
• M-wallets
• Product purchase requests from mobile etc.

It can also create new development opportunities like:

• e-learning can just become easy to implement
• The rural-urban information divide can be bridged very quickly

I can't wait to see TV go personal!