Quantum Marketing

“Marketing today is at the brink of unprecedented disruption”, explains, Raja Rajamannar, author of the new book, Quantum Marketing. “An explosion of game-changing new technologies, data and cultural shifts will render traditional marketing frameworks and strategies ineffective, and turn the function upside down.”

Rajamannar’s book is all about the mastering the new marketing mindset for tomorrow’s consumers. He takes you beyond product marketing, emotional marketing, digital marketing and mobile and social marketing, into what he terms quantum marketing.

You’ll learn how to:

Replace advertising with better ways to efficiently engage consumers at scale.
Hyper-personalize marketing with AI.
Go virtual and immersive with everything from VR-AR product demos to gamification.
Reach all five human senses, with Multi-Sensory Marketing and Sonic Branding.
Invest in partnerships to capitalize on new opportunities beyond their immediate reach.
Quantify impact with data, but never at the expense of creativity.
Reposition and protect your brand when crises hit.

Quantum Marketing is a fascinating, thought-provoking read, guaranteed to get your creative juices flowing.

Today, Rajamannar answered these questions:

Raja Rajamannar

Why does marketing today face an existential crisis?

Marketers have typically come from the qualitative side of the house – creative, intuitive and gut-feel led. However, the marketing world has evolved since the early days to now be significantly data-driven and technology enabled. But most classical marketers have not kept pace with these developments, losing the plot overall. As a result, nearly 75% of CEOs have stated a lack of confidence in their marketing teams, questioning their knowledge of the business and ability to drive growth.

Major companies (from J&J to Hershey) have even eliminated CMO roles. And some brands that once relied on a marketing department to manage their 4 P’s (Product, Price, Place, and Promotion) now only entrust them with promotion, fragmenting the rest to other divisions. With an onslaught of new technologies like AI, AR, IoT, VR, 5G in the imminent future (which I call the Fifth Paradigm), expect the biggest marketing disruption ever.

What is Quantum Marketing and how does it address the situation?

Quantum Marketing is a complete reinvention and reimagination of marketing that upends all the classical theories and practices of the discipline. It is a purpose-driven approach that taps into the new and emerging technologies, leverages the incredible power of data even while respecting consumer privacy to the utmost, and draws on some of the most significant insights coming from sciences like behavioral economics and neuromarketing. It will measurably help build brands, drive business growth and establish competitive advantage. Further, it will reestablish marketing’s relevance, gravitas and impact.

You say that marketers have got consumer loyalty all wrong. Please explain.

Studies have shown that a vast percentage of people are not loyal in their personal lives, where there are explicit and implicit commitments. And an average consumer is a member of 15 loyalty programs -- many in competing categories. With consumers facing endless choices, why would they be loyal to brands? The concept of customer loyalty needs to evolve.

Quantum Marketing approaches this from a totally different perspective. We move away from striving to win and keep customers, to a new era of winning each transaction and interaction. As hundreds of billions of dollars are spent on loyalty programs each year, marketers need to evolve traditional long-term loyalty platforms into real “affinity platforms” and create contextual preference management systems to influence consumers in favor of their brand when they’re about to make a choice. Every single time.

What kinds of pivots can help reposition and protect brands in 2021?

A couple pivots include building a true purpose into brands and identifying appropriate cause marketing initiatives. Be authentic, truthful and visible (consumers don’t want brands to be invisible or go dark). Consumers expect brands to be purpose-driven and stand for beliefs, so marketers must do something about it. If you don’t have purpose, create one. Actions must demonstrate purpose. And because life won’t come back to “normal” even after COVID-19, digitize and virtualize everything. So, focus on the future with digitized learning and development efforts, virtual sponsorships/events, and other plans to drive your brand forward.

What can any marketer start doing tomorrow to apply Quantum Marketing?

Marketing is at the verge of a major disruption, driven by an imminent technological revolution. Marketers need to reimagine their entire marketing practice for tomorrow. Marketers should begin to rapidly train themselves and their teams on new technologies and data analytics. They need to look at every facet of the Quantum Marketing playbook while recrafting their strategies.

Thank you to the book's publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.

Comments

More Leadership Quotes From John C. Maxwell

The real gems in John C. Maxwell's book, Everyone Communicates Few Connect , book are the abundant leadership and communication quotes, such as these: To add value to others, one must first value others. People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude. All good communicators get to the point before their listeners start asking, "What's the point?" The first time you say something, it's heard. The second time, it's recognized, and the third time it's learned. In the end, people are persuaded not by what we say, but by what they understand. People pay attention when something that is said connects with something they greatly desire. Maxwell also says that: Management is about persuading people to do things they do not want to do, while leadership is about inspiring people to do things they never thought they could . The book covers five principles and five practices to help readers so they can connect one-on-one, in a group, or...

Questions You'll Likely Be Asked At Your Next Job Interview

Many Human Resource (HR) managers have moved away from questions like "What's your weakness?" and prefer behavior-based questions , which ask you to: describe how you handled specific situations at your former jobs If you are about to interview for your next leadership position, be prepared for questions like these (from an article in Reader's Digest ): Tell me about a time when your integrity was challenged . What was the situation, and what did you do? Tell me about a time you had to work with someone you did not personally like . If you could come to work with only three tools to get your job done, what would they be ? What personal and professional development have you been engaged in outside the workplace over the past year? Describe your Outlook calendar on a typical day

Seven Ways To Be A Collaborative Leader

Edward M. Marshall 's book, Transforming The Way We Work -- The Power Of The Collaborative Workplace , remains relevant today, more than a decade after Marshall wrote it. Particularly useful is the book's section that teaches readers how to be a collaborative leader. Marshall says that there are seven different, important roles and responsibilities of collaborative leaders when leading teams , and those leaders should select the appropriate style to meet the team's needs. The seven roles are : The leader as sponsor -- You provide strategic direction, boundaries and coaching for the team. You also monitor progress and ensure integrity in the team's operating processes. The leader as facilitator -- You ensure that meetings, team dynamics, and interpersonal relationships function effectively. You also ensure internal coordination of activities among team members. The leader as coach -- You provide support and guidance and you serve as a sounding board. The lea...

High-Performing Teams Are Made Of This

According to Ron Ricci and Carl Wiese, authors of the book, The Collaboration Imperative , high-performing teams have the following characteristics: People have solid and deep trust in each other and in the team's purpose--they feel free to express feelings and ideas. Everybody is working toward the same goals. Team members are clear on how to work together and how to accomplish tasks. Everyone understands both team and individual performance goals and knows what is expected. Team members actively diffuse tension and friction in a relaxed and informal atmosphere. The team engages in extensive discussion, and everyone gets a chance to contribute--even the introverts. Disagreement is viewed as a good thing and conflicts are managed. Criticism is constructive and is oriented toward problem solving and removing obstacles. The team makes decisions when there is natural agreement--in the cases where agreement is elusive, a decision is made by the team lead or executiv...

Decide

Many years ago, I worked with a person who could not make decisions. Neither big nor small decisions. That indecisiveness paralyzed our business in many ways. Unfortunately, the book, Decide: Work Smarter, Reduce Your Stress, and Lead by Example , had not been published. Had it, I would have shared it with my co-worker. Decide , published this past February, teaches readers how to make better decisions based on the real results they want to experience. The author, Steve McClatchy, explains how to use the two forms of human motivation -- Gain, or Prevent Pain , to make more effective decisions. For example, he demonstrates how inserting a Gain task in the middle of a Prevent Pain day can give you the energy you need to move forward and make the Prevent Pain tasks take less time through motivation. Deeper into the book, you'll be reminded about not only the problems with procrastination, but also about the benefits of procrastination, and, if you are ...

Six-pillar Roadmap For How To Move From Merely Surviving To Truly Mattering

In the new book, The Mattering Effect: Creating A Life Of Meaning And Worth , podcaster and author John R. Miles reframes today’s most common struggles and empowers individuals and institutions alike to break bad habits and reclaim a sense of worth and belonging. “Organizations have spent the last decade chasing 'engagement' and 'psychological safety,' yet global productivity is stalling and 60% of employees report they do not feel valued in the places where they spend their days,” shares Miles. He calls this “The Great Erasure”—a condition where high-achievers become highly visible to the organization while becoming invisible to themselves. In addition, Miles argues that many of today’s most common struggles—burnout, anxiety, loneliness, and disengagement—are not personal failures or mindset problems. They are the result of unmattering: the gradual erosion of felt significance within modern systems that reward performance while overlooking presence. Fortu...

5 Compelling Benefits Of Having An Ethical Culture

In Andrew Leigh's book, Ethical Leadership , he provides these compelling and important benefits of having an ethical culture in your business/organization: Customers prefer dealing with companies who put ethics at the center of their culture. Most employees would prefer to earn less working for an ethical company than being paid more and working for an unethical company. More than one in three people at work say they've left a job because they've disagreed with the company's ethical standards ( Trevino, L and Nelson, K - 2011 ) If you adopt an early warning system against misconduct it reduces the risk of you facing expensive litigation. An ethical culture helps you make your company a strong affirming place to work in. "The foundations of an ethical culture include values, attitudes, meaning, behaviors, purpose, and management practices," explains Leigh.

Make It Easy For Your Employees To Volunteer

Start planning now for this year's National Volunteer Week, April 15-21 . That's the week when nonprofit organizations throughout the U.S. will celebrate and honor their volunteers. If you are not already volunteering, what a great time to start. Make a commitment to yourself to start volunteering before that week starts! And, if you are a workplace leader who supports a volunteer program at your business, you already know that by encouraging employees to give back to your community you are: building teamwork motivating employees attracting new hires In fact, job seekers much prefer companies that have a strong volunteer program. And, a growing number of businesses are rewarding employees who volunteer by giving them extra vacation time and other incentives. Fortunately, throughout the U.S. there are hundreds of volunteer opportunities where employees can contribute individually, or where leaders can organize teams of employees to volunteer together on a routin...

Coherence: The Secret Science Of Brilliant Leadership

Coherence: The Secret Science of Brilliant Leadership is the new book by author Dr. Alan Watkins . Trained as a medical doctor, Watkins is now an honorary senior lecturer in neuroscience and psychological medicine at Imperial College, London and an affiliate professor of leadership at the European School of Management, London. According to Watkins, coherence is the biological state achieved when elite performers experience maximum efficiency and super effectiveness, where body and mind are one . Coherence provides one of the most unique approaches to showing leaders how to be younger, smarter, healthier and happier -- which gives them the power to make decisions under pressure and achieve sustainable success. Prepare to spend quality time reading Coherence . It's not light reading. Kind of feels like a medical text book in parts. But, it's worth your commitment to it. I particularly found useful Watkin's discussion on culture , where he w...

Good Coach Versus Bad Coach

Former Verizon Wireless CEO, Denny F. Strigl offers these tips for how to be a good coach to an employee. He explains that good coaches help performers by : Keeping them focused. Giving them objective, helpful feedback. Acting as a sounding board for new approaches. Identifying blind spots that may be holding the performer back. Reinforcing key values, principles, and behaviors that improve performance. Recognizing positive behavior and performance. Providing encouragement after setbacks and failures Setting "stretch" goals. Acting as an accountability partner. Strigl believes that some managers fail in their coaching roles because they : View coaching as babysitting. See coaching as only correcting performance. Don't spend enough time with their employees. Are reluctant to criticize. Have social relationships with their employees. Have a "sink-or-swim" philosophy. Believe coaching is not helpful or meaningful. "Coaching may...

Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

Search This Blog