by Prakash Patel (@prakashpatel_1) So, WT# is omni-channel marketing? Some sort of marketing religion?
In brief:
- Traditional customer journey moments of truth (MOT) have eroded away and been replaced with Zero MOT (ZMOT)
- Omni-channel is more than channels, integration, and consistent brand experiences, even if these elements are fundamental in marketing
- Consumers won’t be silo-ed by brands’ strategic ecosystems
- We forget about consumer experiences (not brand experience) in the larger context of how consumers shop today
- Consumer journeys may start in one place and finish in another — update your strat accordingly
A trip down memory lane
Before I explain, let’s take a trip down memory lane…
In the early 2000s, while working at rmg:connect (part of JWT), our marketing efforts focused on understanding customers across three channels, namely ATL, BTL, and the relatively new channel, digital. Our core focus was around “offline”, “online” and, importantly, “CRM” (management of customers). That’s pretty much what our name stood for. “Relationship Marketing Group”. Apt, we thought.
When it came to ATL, however, the brand custodians were JWT (back then, no one dared cross the line). This led to a major choice. You were either ATL or BTL but, being the youthful optimists that we were, this didn’t prevent us talking about TTL and integration as a bunch of young optimistic strategists and analysts.
Our biggest challenge
However, our biggest challenge was strategising and executing customer experiences across all channels or, as it later became known, integrated marketing.
I’d like to think that we did a pretty good job for clients such as Mercedes Benz Europe, where we were one of the first agencies to have created an end-to-end integrated (yes, it has been around a while) CRM programme for both the OEM and dealers, guiding customers between channels based upon consumer preference, value, relevancy, and data-driven magic (as there was nothing like data insights to help us segment our base intelligently to maximise marketing budgets and return).
At the same time, we’d also like to think we coined the phrase “Consistent Brand Experience,” and delivered consistent integrated solutions to maximise customer experience and sales opportunities, regardless of the channel.
Getting to the point
What’s my point, you may be asking? Marketing today is a different kettle of fish, the likes of which couldn’t have been imagined by the most experienced of adland executives, what with the explosive growth of digital consumption and the seemingly daily proliferation of social media channels and platforms that has now reached the point of mass appeal).
Nowadays marketers are faced with more challenges and choices than ever before when considering how to reach their consumers and how to allocate their budgets. It’s no longer ATL or BTL, but TV, radio, billboard, or TV integrated with a digital element…
The new (and old) rule is still about integrated 1:1 marketing, which forces us to know and understand today’s holistic “customer experience”, and not just focus upon one or more channels.
Constantly back and forth
Today’s consumers are constantly back and forth, changing between channels and devices in an attempt to get the best deal. The best example is when consumers compare prices by scanning a barcode in-store and buy the product online with a discount code.
This type of experience is called the zero moment of truth (ZMOT), where the traditional customer journey moments of truth (MOTs) have eroded away and been replaced with the new model, which you can see here.
This is the omni-consumer. They can be everywhere, anywhere, using anything they have access to, and are no longer bound to a linear purchase funnel. Their cycle looks more like a bowl of spaghetti bolognese or a flight path.
According to CEO AG Lafley in the P&G 2013 Annual Report about MOT and ZMOT,
“We have to win at the first moment of truth, when the consumer chooses our product at the store shelf, and the second moment of truth, when the consumer uses the product at home and decides whether to buy it again. We also have to win at the ‘zero moment of truth’, when the consumer discovers information about our brands and products before they shop.”
Definitions
This brings me to omni-channel marketing, which is defined as a multi-channel approach to sales which seeks to provide the customer with a ‘seamless’ shopping experience, wherever they may be starting, whether it’s catalogue, shopping online, desktop, mobile device, tablet, telephone, or in your actual store. It’s also described as the evolution of multi-channel retailing, with a concentrated seamless approach on the consumer experience through all available shopping channels, ie online, offline, or in-store, etc.
Both definitions talk to the same thing: multi-channel. Why, then, do we need a new buzzword?
This is where the confusion comes in. If you research the words we’ve been talking about, you’ll find that “omni” is from the Latin, omnis, meaning “all”; “cross-channel” is from the Latin, crux, meaning to go “across”; and, finally, “multi-channel” is from the Latin, multus, meaning “multiple”.
Simply an evolution?
Is omni-channel therefore simply an evolution of the terms integrated, cross and multi?
To my mind, omni-channel is more than channels, integration, and consistent brand experiences, even if these elements are fundamental in marketing. It’s about understanding all experiences from our consumers’ perspective across all available channels.
Therefore, brands who want to think omni-channel need to think holistically.
It’s not just about thinking of customers but about their entire experience, taking into account that consumers don’t stay in one eco-system but can jump and switch around. Their eco-system is defined by where they are, what they’re trying to achieve, what they need, and what they have access to. They won’t be ‘siloed’ by brands’ strategic ecosystems. Not even those of Apple.
Understand the now consumer
My perspective is that we should bring in the sum total of our learnings from decades ago until now, from just one or two channels to understanding our now consumers who are at the forefront of making changes and demand on marketers. These customers are now more informed, have wider access, more choices, greater variety of device and platform, and are able to go back and forth among many MOTs and ZMOTs.
I find that we forget about consumer experiences (not brand experience) in the larger context of how consumers shop today. It’s important to not only see channels, operational systems, transactional systems or media, or integrated channels at best. It’s imperative that we think OMNI from our consumers’ perspective and build our strategy that supports the new omni-consumer experience.
In doing so, we must take into account what they’re using, where their point of purchase or engagement is, what they’re doing, and the fact that their journey may start in one place and finish in another.
And that’s my 2c.
Prakash Patel (@prakashpatel_1) is chief strategy officer at Fogg Experiential Design, a digital and experiential agency based in Johannesburg and Cape Town that believes in the power of creative ideas and the technical magic that brings them to life.
He has over 25 years of experience in advertising, digital and data planning, a passion for integrated marketing strategies, and believes that the holy grail of marketing has always been — and always will be — data. Prakash contributes the monthly “#3D” (Data-Driven & Digital) column to MarkLives.com, exploring how data-driven and digital marketing can add value to marketing communication.
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