The Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region has higher levels of real GDP growth (3.7% in 2012) than the OECD (2% in 2012)1. With Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the top ten of GDP per capita ranking2, not only is the MENA a rapidly developing region, it is also a major destination for investment and business, notably in the resources sector.
I’m a global citizen that has grown up in a digital world. I’ve seen how my generation is the same in the US, Asia and Europe. I easily stay in touch with my friends in Tokyo, New York, Geneva and London at no cost. We share ideas, opinions and politics all the time and we play games together in real-time. We flip from serious dialogue to fun in a nanosecond. The fact that we are globally dispersed doesn’t matter. We are digitally native. We’re part of the reason that companies and individuals are generating big data.
Organisations collect data to understand customers' behaviour in order to build more effective, engaging campaigns and to improve their services. The more that data is collected, the more we experience how personal data can be used by organisations (for good and bad).
Attention to data isn’t the exclusive domain of organisations. Using data in the personal sphere is now part of our day-to-day (or minute-to-minute) routines.
We are now living in an era of engagement. Companies need to engage consumers prior-purchase, during purchase and post-purchase.
Consumers don’t like companies ‘pushing’ their products and services any more (if they ever did). It’s like that annoying relative or friend we all have that freely gives their view on your personal appearance or situation. We want them to shut up and focus on their own foibles.
Retail marketers are working in an increasingly fast-paced environment. They require complete operational understanding and insight, with the agility to act. AGILEci has produced an anonymised clothing retailer infographic to demonstrate how data visualisation can help marketers improve their understanding of customer behaviour and enhance shopper marketing effectiveness.
AGILEci prides itself on talking about data that makes marketing sense. Marketers have used data for decades, so that we can understand the behaviour and attitudes of our prospects and existing customers. Yet, there is a wealth of academic research and media coverage on the inability of marketers to use data.
I think the big data arena needs to be reviewed from the perspective of a marketer (yes, me).
First off, I need to say that I am obsequiously using the term big data. It now seems to be the all-encompassing terminology to describe using data in your business.
There is a proliferation of failed loyalty programmes across the world. Here are 25 useful tips to guide you towards the loyalty success list.
There has been a lot of discussion in the UK marketing press recently about the role of marketing and the status of marketers.
There’s a stated belief that CEOs and CFOs don’t value marketers and we need to fix this perception. Industry bodies are working on fixing this perception of marketing and marketers to prove that they belong in the boardroom. WTF? This is the end of marketing as a profession if marketers truly believe this.
These top tips will help you separate hype and reality when big data is the topic of discussion.
A recent project with a clothing retailer has prompted us to share how qualitative consumer research and data analytics can be used by national and local retailers to challenge the global retail goliaths.
Originally published on ESCP Europe Creativity Marketing Centre
IT, Finance and Business Intelligence are no longer the only users of large streams of data: Marketing departments are starting to leverage ‘big’ data more and more, often to drive creative outputs.
Harvard Business Review dedicated a recent issue to Big Data and it made me think of various discussions I have had with marketers around the same time. One senior US retail marketer, unsurprisingly, had never heard of Big Data when I mentioned it. Many marketers are uncomfortable working with data and even fewer are comfortable working with statistics.
I have worked with loyalty programmes in payments and retail for more years than any person should need to and whenever somebody asks me for the perfect loyalty solution, I always recommend the purchase of a dog.
For many years, payments companies and retailers have invested in market research to understand the behaviours of their customers and prospects.
There are over 250 billion non-cash payment transactions globally and similar amounts of cash transactions. The number of non-cash payment transactions is growing in double-digit percentages in many countries.