In the era of mobile interconnection, there are the flooded amount of data generated every single day. These data are becoming an asset to the online-based companies for those who aggregate data in the right ways and using appropriate analytics. (Nicolaus Henke, 2016) The modern companies already have a high awareness about the data collection. For example, Jack Ma, the executive chairman of Alibaba Group, stated that there are three procedural steps in the digitalization strategy which are platform, data, finance. If the essentialness of data collection captured most of the attention and the volume of the data is such enormous, the real precision marketing won’t be far in the future. Many friends of mine said that there are several obstacles we need to overcome to achieve precision marketing. Firstly, the volume of data is so enormous. The development of such system requires time and investment which can’t guarantee the accuracy of personalized recommendation. Secondly is the technological barrier which is the maturity level of AI technology. However, in my perspective and a lot of others believe that the precision marketing should be achievable. It is only a matter of time.
Precision marketing come with the step of big data. They described a beautiful blueprint for the companies to understand the true characteristics of their consumer in respect of their platform preferences or even their daily schedule. By knowing the customer’s preference and need by heart, the company may able to precisely deliver advertising to the targeting consumer with an ultimate goal of “A Bullet, An Enemy”. The idea and blueprint are fabulous, not only precision marketing but anything related to big data excites people a lot. The future is certainly worth to expect, but despite the existing expectation, there will be many uncertainties related to the precision marketing. Real precision marketing reduces the unnecessary exposure to the market which is a process of diminishing the brand power and monopoly power of brands. In such there will be a huge impact on the current status of high-level brands and nobody knows the future trend.
In the traditional perspective, what is the main purpose of advertising? In my opinion, the advertising should be a stepped with the surface level of benefit, a middle level of expanding market and a deeper level of developing brand power. This is also a brand building process through traditional advertising. But if we compare this idea with the big data and precision marketing description, it looks like a comparison between the homemade product and the lean production. There are likely be two extreme paths. One is to diminish the idea of the brand because the precision marketing is a process of information symmetric in a way. The other one is the monopoly, because the major corporation may have unimaginable resources to facilitate and invest in the technology and system which eliminate the opportunity for SMEs. The opportunity of decrease brand power through big data and precision marketing becomes a fairy tale which will never come true.
These are two very extreme cases in my personal view. But which path the market will choose is still uncertain. There are many predictions on big data and precision marketing out there, this blog is merely a personal opinion rather than solid academicals research. I’m open to any different perspective and thank you for your time reading this.
Bibliography
Nicolaus Henke, J. B. (2016, 12). The age of analytics: Competing in a data-driven world. Retrieved from McKinsey Global Institute: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-analytics/our-insights/the-age-of-analytics-competing-in-a-data-driven-world
