Coming to Concurrence

Marketing is in crisis mode, for the model for marketing, as it stands today, is obsolete. Customers have developed a resistance to marketing that is only going to grow. The crisis spawned by consumer resistance presents an opportunity for those companies willing to accept a new marketing model and to create a competitive advantage for their brands through better marketing practices. According to J. Walker Smith, Ann Clurman, and Craig Wood of Yankelovich Partners and authors of Coming to Concurrence, Precision, Relevance, Power and Reciprocity are the center piece of the new model for marketing. This model is the heart of Concurrence Marketing. Concurrence refers to synchrony or agreement, as well as to collaboration and cooperation. Precision and Relevance mean that a company's targeting and messaging are in agreement with consumers. Power and Reciprocity entail cooperating and collaborating with consumers, when it comes to product design and the execution of marketing. Concurrence builds customer relations, which are needed in order to reverse the current decline in marketing productivity. Several factors contribute to this decline. They include (1) a fragmented audience, (2) dilution of customer loyalty, (3) less dependency upon advertising for information, (4) consumers more knowledgeable about marketing, and (5) increased marketing clutter. Concurrence Marketing provides tools and principles for meeting the challenges of today's marketplace. The authors believe specification must replace saturation and the expectation of clutter must be replaced by an expectation of pertinence. Brands will have to stir people's passions in order to motivate customer's to buy them. Attitudes need to be central to a marketing campaign, and the attitudes need to be tied to individuals. This is where Addressable Attitudes come in. Pioneered by Yankelovich, Addressable Attitudes can be tied to specific names and addresses. They are included in marketing execution databases, ranging from those used for media buying to third party lists to internal transaction files. By using Addressable Attitudes, marketers will be precise and relevant and reduce clutter in the marketplace. Addressable Attitudes are the core of Concurrent Marketing. This new model allows marketer to create precise, relevant marketing campaigns that won't contribute to contribute to clutter and over saturation.