Kellogg on Marketing, 3rd Edition

CHAPTER 5Customer Centricity as a Business Strategy

Tom O'Toole

From the roots of modern business until well into the twentieth century, companies grew largely through product strategies—by offering better products. Then, in the mid‐twentieth century, and particularly after World War II, mass media and mass marketing gave rise to the era of brand strategy. People didn't just buy products, they bought brands that were positioned, as companies built awareness, created identities, and targeted mass market segments. For decades, the study and practice of marketing was largely about brand strategy.

That all began to change toward the end of the twentieth century. Fragmenting markets, data use, and digital media required and enabled increasingly targeted marketing, focusing on more tightly defined sets of customers that were identifiable and reachable through addressable media. This shift progressed steadily in the first decades of the twenty‐first century, accelerated and enabled greatly by mobile devices, data analytics, and social media.

Today, the practice of marketing is well into a new era. Markets are very heterogeneous and becoming more so. Customer data systems enable identifying and knowing customers at the individual level. Predictive analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning inform proactive marketing that is highly individualized. Thanks to digital media, customers can be addressed individually—and at scale. As a result, customer strategy today is more ...