Re: [projectvrm] Is VRM an Ideologically-inspired Dead-end?

[Joe Andrieu < >]

Fwiw, Graham, that was Sean's response.

--
Joe Andrieu

 
+1(805)705-8651

Sent from my iPad

On Mar 16, 2013, at 12:02 AM, 

 
 wrote:

> Hi Joe
> 
> Thanks for your response.
> 
> I know there are a number of marketing-side people involved in VRM. And I 
> know that VRM has potential to add to the marketing mix rather than to 
> completely replace it.
> 
> I respect your opinion and I would defend to the very end your right to 
> have it. But I do not accept your conclusion.
> 
> From what I understand the VRM Project is an open group where anyone 
> interested in VRM is welcome to gather. I am interested in VRM. I think it 
> has potential to add something that marketing's obsession with itself has 
> lost in the last 50 years. But I also see that the VRM group is as much 
> ideological as it is pragmatic. Ideology usually makes for illiberal and 
> not very pragmatic solutions. So I challenge VRMers in my own way. By 
> asking questions. By picking holes in received wisdom and by creating more 
> of a, yes, a Hegelian Dialectic. You are free to ignore my occasional post. 
> I don't take things personally.
> 
> I take your criticisms on the nose and I reject them. My experience over 
> the last 25 years is that your real friends are often the ones who tell you 
> the things nobody else wants to tell you, not the things you want to hear.
> 
> Best regards from Cologne, Graham
> 
> Gesendet mit der kostenlosen WEB.DE iPad App
> 
> Am 15.03.13 um 20:04 schrieb Sean Bohan
> 
>> Graham:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> There are plenty of people involved in VRM who have worked in Marketing,
>> 
>> specifically from a technology, advertising or CRM perspective.  I have 17
>> 
>> years experience in advertising, specifically digital (client side, agency
>> 
>> side, media buying, tech, strategy, local, national, global), working with
>> 
>> brands like Ford, GM, US Army, Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly, Arthur Andersen,
>> 
>> GTE, AT&T, Sony Electronics, Discover Financial, ToysRUs, etc. A lot of us
>> 
>> are insiders working from the inside because we see something special here.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> We see something that is game changing and additive to customer's choice.
>> 
>> Will it kill advertising? No. Will it kill CRM? No. Is there something in
>> 
>> the model of VRM that a lot of us see as another way of accomplishing
>> 
>> something that starts and is oriented and respects the customer AND the
>> 
>> vendor? Yes.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> This is now the 3rd time I have seen your "I don't like VRM" line, and the
>> 
>> second time today I have bothered to read an email from you on the list
>> 
>> (first was on Twitter a while back). You are more than welcome to hang out,
>> 
>> pay attention, "stick with the VRM discussion through thick and think" and
>> 
>> we would love to have you participate in a constructive discussion, add to
>> 
>> what we are doing and see it evolve (because it is going to happen).
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> But I don't have to prove you wrong. I don't have to prove anything to you
>> 
>> because you have added *nothing*. You want cred and rep and respect? You
>> 
>> want people to listen to another "marketing consultant"? Do something, add
>> 
>> something, bring something. If you want to drop little nitwitticisms like
>> 
>> "don't be the 90%", implying that you are so much smarter/better than the
>> 
>> rest of us, then I have only one other question (after hearing your answer
>> 
>> to Iain's):
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Why are you here?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> There are 2 kinds of people in my world, those who talk shit and those who
>> 
>> get shit done. If you want to sit there on the sidelines and do the former
>> 
>> (while invoking the Hegelian Dialectic - that was cute), while we do the
>> 
>> latter then be my guest. If you are going to be a troll, then I might
>> 
>> remind you, it takes no time to set up a mail filter and send your emails
>> 
>> into the trash folder.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 1:42 PM, Iain Henderson 
>> <
 >wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> Graham, what's the best response rate you have ever had to one of your
>> 
>>> many marketing campaigns; both initial response and conversion rate?
>> 
>> 
>>> Iain
>> 
>> 
>>> Sent from my iPhone
>> 
>> 
>>> On Mar 15, 2013, at 17:16, Graham Hill 
>>> <
 >
>>>  wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>> Hi Doc
>> 
>> 
>>> Thanks for responding to my post so quickly.
>> 
>> 
>>> Apologies to Joe for responding via his post.
>> 
>> 
>>> I think it is worthwhile pushing back at a number of points you made in
>> 
>>> this and other email posts. In the interest of developing a synthesis in a
>> 
>>> proper Hegelian Dialectic (Marketing works being essentially the thesis,
>> 
>>> VRM is a better alternative for end-consumers being the antithesis).
>> 
>> 
>>> First, I would like to put a few of my cards on the table. I am not a big
>> 
>>> fan of VRM. That is not primarily because I am a marketing consultant with
>> 
>>> 20 years experience running marketing operations for major telcos, banks,
>> 
>>> high-tech manufacturers and automotive manufacturers, but rather because I
>> 
>>> think the value proposition for VRM has a massive fundamental flaw. Having
>> 
>>> said that, I am always on the look-out for new ideas that can help my
>> 
>>> clients make their marketing operations more effective. That is reason
>> 
>>> enough to engage with VRM, and collaborative consumption, and co-creation,
>> 
>>> and service-dominant logic, and a whole lot more besides.
>> 
>> 
>>> The naming of VRM is relatively trivial at this point in time as VRM, or
>> 
>>> whatever you call it is clearly not ready for prime time yet. When it is
>> 
>>> ready, main-stream marketers will help you change the name to something
>> 
>>> that is a little more marketable and a whole lot more memetic.
>> 
>> 
>>> VRM has all the hallmarks of an inside-out concept developed by a small
>> 
>>> group (even 1,000 people of which only a few % of them are actively
>> 
>>> involved is still a small group) of marketing outsiders with an axe to
>> 
>>> grind, rather than in response to an obvious need expressed by the
>> 
>>> marketing or end-consumer market. The Henry Ford quote is an irrelevant 
>>> old
>> 
>>> chestnut that just illustrates how far away the inventors behind VRM are
>> 
>>> from the innovations required by potential end-consumers. Your point is
>> 
>>> well taken that many successful start-ups start with a great idea and then
>> 
>>> take it to market. But the ones that usually prosper are the ones whose
>> 
>>> products provide a better way to get an important end-consumer job done.
>> 
>>> The ones that fail, indeed the 90% that fail, are those whose products are
>> 
>>> irrelevant to end-consumers’ lives.
>> 
>> 
>>> The Apple iStores millions of apps are a great case in point. The apps
>> 
>>> that do well are those that help end-consumers do one job really well,
>> 
>>> whether keeping in contact with friends, finding out if their flight is on
>> 
>>> time, or identifying the song playing in the background. App success
>> 
>>> follows a power-law distribution; for every successful app that makes its
>> 
>>> creator money there are thousands that lose their creators money hand over
>> 
>>> fist. The ones that work are the ones that help end-consumers do an
>> 
>>> important job better than the tools they currently have.
>> 
>> 
>>> The examples that you quote of PCs, graphical browsers and smartphones are
>> 
>>> nice but also hardly relevant. And they miss the essential point that
>> 
>>> winning start-ups typically focus on making life easier for end-consumers
>> 
>>> to do things they want to do. VRM does not do this, nor from what I can 
>>> see
>> 
>>> (and I am willing to be corrected) has any substantive work been done to
>> 
>>> look at, e.g. end-user shopping jobs-to-be-done, that would provide a 
>>> clear
>> 
>>> set of requirements as to how to help them. Instead, a group of smart
>> 
>>> developers have taken it up themselves to develop products that the
>> 
>>> end-consumer should like. Don’t be surprised if they don’t!
>> 
>> 
>>> I cannot for the life of me see why any end-consumer would be interested
>> 
>>> in VRM in its current form. Or why any end-consumer would be bothered to
>> 
>>> jump through all the hoops that it requires. Sure, there will always be a
>> 
>>> few early adopters that like to try things out, however, these are often
>> 
>>> not typically influencers. Why would an ordinary Joe, like me, bother to
>> 
>>> send out an RFP for my weekly groceries, or my next pre-paid telephone SIM
>> 
>>> card, or even my life insurance? There are plenty of intermediaries who
>> 
>>> will help me do this and as all marketers know, we are creatures of habit,
>> 
>>> unlikely to move supplier until things turn sour. And how would VRM help 
>>> me
>> 
>>> discover new product categories that I don’t even know exist? Social
>> 
>>> curation through my peers will do that, but VRM? I don’t think so. And why
>> 
>>> should I trust a VRM vendor (VRM Vendor Relationship Management anyone?) 
>>> to
>> 
>>> get me the best deal anyway. All I am doing is swapping one intermediary
>> 
>>> that I know for a new one that untried and untested.
>> 
>> 
>>> I could potentially see why an advanced marketer would be interested in
>> 
>>> VRM. If it helps them develop more profitable relationships with customers
>> 
>>> that build incremental stickiness, loyalty and profitability. But 
>>> marketers
>> 
>>> have a veritable arsenal of tools at their disposal already to help them 
>>> do
>> 
>>> this: from good old promotions, through behaviourally targeted coupons, to
>> 
>>> points-based loyalty programmes. All of these depend on the marketer
>> 
>>> analysing the hell out of their existing customer data to identify little
>> 
>>> groups that may be in the market for this product or that service. And it
>> 
>>> clearly works. For a piece of frequent flyer programme strategy work that 
>>> I
>> 
>>> have been doing for an airline client I reviewed 20 econometric studies of
>> 
>>> FFPs. A dominant airline at a hub with an FFP adds 12-18% of the average
>> 
>>> fare paid to the ticket price through creating member lock-in and 6-14% of
>> 
>>> the average fare paid to the price through reduced price sensitivity. With
>> 
>>> results like these already available through tried and tested tools, why
>> 
>>> would any FFP marketer be bothered to take a punt on VRM?
>> 
>> 
>>> VRM is an interesting idea. And the consumerist in side of me really wants
>> 
>>> it to work. But currently it is just that; an idea. It’s biggest flaw is
>> 
>>> that it doesn’t obviously help end-consumers to do anything that they 
>>> would
>> 
>>> remotely be expected to want to do. Now or in the future. Hoping that the
>> 
>>> first few VRM apps will steer them away from marketing with its
>> 
>>> behaviourally targeted messages, attractive promotions and addictive
>> 
>>> loyalty schemes is pure fantasy. Sadly, hope is not a viable business 
>>> model.
>> 
>> 
>>> I will stick with the VRM discussion through thick and thin. And if it
>> 
>>> ever becomes even remotely viable, I will be the first to start to talk
>> 
>>> about it to my corporate clients. But we are clearly not there yet.
>> 
>>> Somehow, I doubt if we ever will. Show me I am wrong!
>> 
>> 
>>> Best regards from Cologne, Graham****
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> Am 15.03.2013 um 16:46 schrieb Joe Andrieu:
>> 
>> 
>>> Agreed. PIDM has just as many shortcomings, if not more, than VRM. It even
>> 
>>> costs 33% more in letterrs!
>> 
>> 
>>> Both names are so non-user friendly as to be practically useless in
>> 
>>> describing the value proposition to regular folks.
>> 
>> 
>>> VRM worked because it created traction and I sometimes use it to direct my
>> 
>>> discussions. If people know VRM, I can follow one path. Most do not, so I
>> 
>>> focus on benefits and use cases.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> PIDM suffers the same "management" conundrum. Nobody wants to have to
>> 
>>> manage anything. We just want to be able to. To me, PIDM ends up more
>> 
>>> limiting than clarifying. Identity is simply how we correlate parties
>> 
>>> between transactions. It's about how identifiers and identifying
>> 
>>> characteristics can be used to build a consistent mental/data model across
>> 
>>> contexts. It has nothing to do with the working data set that matters to
>> 
>>> what anyone is doing at any given time. My word documents or spreadsheets
>> 
>>> on my computer aren't my identity, but they are my data.
>> 
>> 
>>> The most important words in this email, for example, have nothing to do
>> 
>>> with identity. But they are the important information context for anyone
>> 
>>> who might want to contribute in a meaningful way. Yes, it might matter 
>>> that
>> 
>>> Doc said this or Nathan said that, or the Graham framed the initial post,
>> 
>>> but the words used by each shape the meaning of their names at least as
>> 
>>> much---and probably more than---their names shape the meaning of the 
>>> words.
>> 
>> 
>>> In the US discourse on identity, this has led to a specific separation
>> 
>>> between Identity Providers and Attribute Providers. Identity providers 
>>> help
>> 
>>> you correlate people from session to session. Attributes give you more
>> 
>>> details about particular parties. Despite initially bundling attributes
>> 
>>> with identity, those behind FICAM, OIX, IDESG, and NSTIC have all
>> 
>>> acknowledged that identity and attributes are much more powerful and more
>> 
>>> gracefully handled when separated.
>> 
>> 
>>> That said, identity should just work. And we should have sovereign control
>> 
>>> over any information shared and used on our behalf.
>> 
>> 
>>> But I have no idea what term will gel in the public discourse for
>> 
>>> describing the magic we're creating here. So, try another. Sooner or later
>> 
>>> something will stick.
>> 
>> 
>>> -j
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Fri, Mar 15, 2013, at 08:25 AM, Nathan Schor wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>> +1 Doc.  To paraphrase some admiral “Damn the term. Full speed ahead”
>> 
>> 
>>> Nathan Schor
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> 
>> ------------------------------------------------
>> 
>> Sean W. Bohan
>> 
>> ------------------------------------------------
>> 
>> Mobile: 646-234-5693
>> 
>> Email: 
>> 
 
>> 
>> Email: 
>> 
 
>> 
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>> 
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>> 
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>> 
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>> 
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