"Relevance is God in the marketing world we live in now." That's an interesting quote I can't take credit for. While attending Forrester Research's Marketing Forum last month I had the great pleasure of hearing Casey Jones, Vice President of Global Marketing at Dell, speak. He is leading the initiative at Dell to consolidate their more than 625 different vendor and agency relationships into one agency, to exist entirely under Dell's control.
Jones said when he joined the company he asked how many agencies they had and how much marketing communications were costing the company. The reply was simple: “we don’t know.” In fact, Dell had to conduct a company-wide survey to get answers.
Within that context, vendor consolidation provides some obvious advantages for Dell. Cost efficiency, leverage and accountability to name a few. For Jones, however, those positive outcomes are byproducts of an overarching marketing communications ideal – consumer relevance.
The fractured nature of their vendor landscape became obvious to the consumer. He showed page after page of disparate creative styles that featured myriad calls-to-action. He demonstrated that if Dell had several online marketing campaigns happening simultaneously they would not have consistency in style or message.
Jones’ characterization of Dell’s challenges is in many ways representative of marketing as a whole. Historically, and especially online, companies cobble vendors together in hopes of creating the best possible solution. The hindsight reality is that this approach creates plenty of marketing noise and a bunch of confused, disloyal customers.
And that idea brings us back to the quote: “Relevance is God…” It’s not possible for most companies to bring together all of the vendors that do online, print, radio, etc. But, it is possible to eliminate aspects of a marketing strategy that don’t contribute to relevant communication, and seek out the ones that do.
I’ll end my first entry with a question for us to ponder: Is Dell’s drastic approach the beginning of a trend or a maverick solution?
2 Comments
I’d say it’s neither. It’s an attempt by a top-down, command-and-control bureaucracy to consolidate power. My question is, once they’ve got all of their “messages” in synch will they resonate with individual customers or will they be so “cookie cutter” that the customer will be turned off. Sometimes multiple messages are a reflection of a diverse marketplace, not muddy thinking.
Great post!
It is a slow moving trend among all but a handful of F500 companies and a fast moving trend among the up and comers…the next F500.
625 different vendor and agency relationships screams inefficient and ineffective. Funny, it sounds more like something a Bank would do vs. a techco like Dell.
Through this consolidation they’ll be able to use the full capabilities of marketing automation technology to deliver highly targeted and relevant communications.