by You Need More Than Data to Understand Your Customers
It’s about building deeper relationships, not simply gathering more information.
December 13, 2023
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Today we have more data than ever before, yet marketers still struggle to understand their customers. That’s because today’s marketers have mistaken information for intimacy. The author, who ran strategy for Wieden+Kennedy, describes an ethnographic research campaign his team conducted on behalf of McDonald’s. They produced a cultural bible of sorts that chronicled a series of beliefs, artifacts, behavioral rituals, and language that constitute the McDonald’s fandom. He offers three questions marketers can ask to start to establish more intimacy with their own customers.
Every marketer wants to better understand their consumers — their preferences, pain points, and perspectives — to establish a better product-consumer fit. Today, there’s more data available than ever before, yet marketers still struggle with this practice. How can that be? More data should lead to better understanding; yet contemporary marketers find themselves extracting comparatively marginal insight about who these people truly are.
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Marcus Collins is an award-winning marketer and cultural translator. He is the former head of strategy at Wieden+Kennedy, New York, a marketing professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, and the author of the best-selling book, For The Culture: The Power Behind What We Buy, What We Do, and Who We Want To Be. Marcus is an inductee into the American Advertising Federation’s Advertising Hall of Achievement and a recipient of the Thinkers50 Radar Distinguished Achievement Award.
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New!
HBR Learning
Marketing Essentials Course
Accelerate your career with Harvard ManageMentor®. HBR Learning’s online leadership training helps you hone your skills with courses like Marketing Essentials. Earn badges to share on LinkedIn and your resume. Access more than 40 courses trusted by Fortune 500 companies.
Learn how to communicate with your customers—strategically.