Marketing Unchained: Orchestrating the Demand Side in The B2B2C EcosystemJuly 20, 2015Kevin Cherry, Strategic Marketing President, Luminose Company

In the past, we looked at the demand chain in a very linear fashion. In the B2B world, we marketed according to the physical flow of goods from raw material commodities to manufacturing to wholesalers and retailers. Commodity producers marketed to manufacturers. Manufacturers marketed to wholesalers or retailers. And the wholesalers and retailers marketed to consumers. Of course there were exceptions, like the Intel Inside marketing approach but for the most part we stayed within the confines of marketing to the next stage in the supply chain.

Figure 1

The digital age has heralded an entirely new possibility for the marketing paradigm. The digitization of purchases and social interaction makes possible insights about new opportunities and occasions across all the companies involved in serving the demand side – and removes transactional friction. Rather than thinking of a linear, physical flow – marketers are now considering the customer at the center of a broad ecosystem of companies involved in satisfying demand.

Figure 2

When you lift the linear constraints, there are a myriad of opportunities to consider. Let’s reflect on a few examples. The key to all of these examples is the way that data

within the ecosystem are leveraged for new occasions, discovery of new customer segments, larger transactions, increased purchase frequency, or reduced product innovation risk. This data may exist in many places: in customer data, loyalty programs, social and professional association networks, point of sale, and syndicated data (Neilson, IRI, McCormick and Dodge, Hoovers, etc.). It may be in structured or unstructured forms or may be highly variable (weather conditions, traffic patterns).

Identifying New Occasions

From social media you know that I belong to a tennis team this season. In fact, a large portion of your target segment belongs to this tennis league. From shopper marketing data you discover that a large percentage of those league members purchase deli plates (on-line or in store) every few weeks. The grocery chain partners with the tennis league to develop branded napkins, plates, cups and containers, and/or perhaps the team captain personalizes the tableware with the team name. The same grocery chain also partners with a soft drink company and a lunchmeat company to include their brands exclusively in the beverage and sandwich kits. Also from shopper marketing data you determine that I order a deli plate every 4th Saturday morning. The grocer sends an invite to my loyalty email account address with the offer – proposing the corresponding calendar schedule. I modify from the on-line menu, adjust the schedule as necessary, select mobile reminders, and enroll with a credit card. One hour before a scheduled Saturday, it is raining in the area. The grocery app sends a text inquiring if I still want to place the order. The beverage provider partners with netknacks™ to offer team branded accessories on their rewards site (or maybe grocer decides to expand beyond their fuel rewards program).

Figure 3

Enriching the Customer Experience and Growing Transaction Size

I’m an electrical contractor and you are an electrical manufacturer working with a distributor. I have just logged onto the catalog and based on your data mining, you customize my view based on the type of work I do, size of my business, location, and

most recent and year ago purchases, you customize my view. You also have a section indicating most frequently purchased items from businesses similar to mine. As I order 3 safety switches, you pop up an offer of 6 switches for the price of 5. From social data, you know that I enjoy NASCAR and live in Charlotte. You offer eligibility in a manufacturers sweepstakes for the Coca-Cola 600 in Charlotte in May – if I order at least 5 products that qualify. Because temperatures are forecast to be 15 degrees above average this summer week, you pop up a severe weather package to include 10 AC disconnects.

Figure 4

Based on my purchase history and weather forecasts, you also recommend suggested restocks. Because I indicated I will pick up in store, a traffic app checks potential drive time and best route to the branch from my planned or current location. Based on the brands and items I’ve purchased, you notify me of relevant upcoming webinars or local vendor demonstrations.

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Discovering and Targeting New Segments

You are a pharmaceutical company, and I am a truck driver. With data from commercial licensing agencies, pharmacies and unstructured data, you identify an opportunity to assist drivers with better managing their blood pressure for commercial licensing requirements.

Figure 6

You push information to raise awareness for healthy blood pressure through pharmacy catalogs, internists, key opinion leaders, and a Healthy Blood Pressure micro-site. You also offer a healthy blood pressure tracking app on mobile phones/smart watches, which can be shared between patients and physicians.

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Increasing share through a differentiated experience MRI example

As a manufacturer of magnetic resonance imaging machines, your data analysis reveals that a large segment of MRI patients are children who find the experience terrifying. Additionally, many patients have a choice of where they can have their

MRI scans performed. Medical facilities are interested in better experiences for their patients to improve revenues and return on investments in equipment. You partner with a lighting and design firm to offer a branded, customizable MRI room experience (say with the child’s favorite colors, cartoon or sports images). Patients can search for medical facilities offering this branded experience, select preconfigured appearance packages or upload favorite images, and perform a 360 degree preview of the room online with the child.

Figure 8

Such a customized experience can allow your healthcare client to capture a larger share of the market and generate improved returns on their equipment investment. Furthermore, data about the impact of this service can help to convince branches of this provider in other geographies to acquire your brand; and customer satisfaction data can be funneled to future product development efforts.

Generating demand through a differentiated experience Renewable energy example

As a manufacturer of wind and solar power equipment, your analysis reveals that a large segment of the population is becoming increasingly sensitive about their carbon foot print, your utility customers are interested in improving their return on investment in renewable energy and are offering green energy options to consumers, and the internet of things will allow greater connectivity than ever before.

You develop a branded renewable tracker application than can be packaged with wind turbines that lets travellers view information about nearby sources of green power. The turbines post relevant information about their status and output levels that can be viewed by the public with the application. Consumers can also calculate their carbon footprint and run rate based on information from their vehicles Wi-Fi and their home utility history and compare to those in their neighborhood or social

or peer groups. If their utility offers a green energy option, they are given the option of selecting the upgrade through the app.

Figure 9

This differentiated experience, allows you to create greater demand for the renewable energy category and subsequently greater demand for your wind and solar power equipment. Data from the application could also be leveraged to identify other utility customers that should be offering additional green power options to their customers to further grow the renewable category.

Conclusion

In this article, we discussed the replacement of the traditional linear view of the demand chain with a customer centric view of the demand side “eco-system”. We then discussed several examples of leveraging insights to identify and then orchestrate new opportunities on the demand side. Leveraging these insights in new and creative ways can create additional value amongst the participants in the demand ecosystem. In many cases, these insights allow you to make very small changes or minimal innovation investments that can have big business impact. The key is to identify and exploit these opportunities before your competitors do!

Kevin Cherry is President of Strategic Marketing at Luminose Company. He has held leadership roles at General Electric, Coca-Cola, Zyman Marketing Group, and Deloitte Consulting.