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.