Professors Debbie MacInnis and Allen Weiss of USC join today's episode to discuss two areas in which companies are struggling: customer insights and brand positioning.
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Debbie and Allen are also practice leads at the MarketingProfs DNA program, our consulting services arm.
As we start to emerge from being cocooned behind the pandemic wall for most of the last 18 months, brands are faced with a world that looks very different than it did at the beginning of 2020.
From telemedicine to Zoom meetings to who knows what is going on with the movie industry, two elements have never been more critical: customer insights and brand positioning.
With such a radical change in spending habits in such a short time period, customer insights, and those who can effectively deliver information around those insights, are in high demand. It's vital to know what your customers feel, think, and say about your brand.
But capturing that information is no easy feat. As Debbie tells us, organizations often fall prey to two problems:
- They don't ask the right questions or don't use metrics that provide helpful information during the data collection process.
- They don't have the bandwidth or the training to really derive deep insights from the information that's out there in the industry and academic literature.
With new customer habits, many companies are finding it necessary to shift their positioning to align with these changing customer needs. But new market positioning requires relearning what you've learned, tackling potentially new competitors, and ensuring your brand isn't in a more vulnerable position. It's not easy!
Plus, many organizations view positioning just as messaging. The trick, though, is that although anyone can do messaging... it won't work unless it's built on a strong positioning foundation or underpinning.
With the MarketingProfs DNA program, our team can either show you how to do it (if you have the time but not the resources) or do it for you (if you have the resources but not the time). As Allen tells us, "A good analogy is helping people learn how to fish. But, sometimes, companies want salmon on their plate right now. They need something right now. But that doesn't mean that learning how to fish is not a very good thing to do!"
Learn more about the MarketingProfs DNA program and take a look the Customer Insights services if you have a question you need answered, or the Positioning program if you're struggling to understand what makes your company and its products or services unique in the market.
Listen to the entire show now from the link above, or download the mp3 and listen at your convenience. Of course, you can also subscribe to the Marketing Smarts podcast in iTunes or via RSS and never miss an episode.
This episode brought to you by Dun & Bradstreet Account Based Marketing:
Dun & Bradstreet, a leading global provider of business decisioning data and analytics, enables companies around the world to improve their business performance. Dun & Bradstreet's Data Cloud fuels solutions and delivers insights that empower customers to accelerate revenue, lower cost, mitigate risk, and transform their businesses.
"Marketing Smarts" theme music composed by Juanito Pascual of Signature Tones.
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Published on June 24, 2021
Allen Weiss, CEO and founder of 
Debbie MacInnis, the Charles L. and Ramona I. Hilliard Professor of Business Administration and a professor of marketing at USC's Marshall School of Business. She is the author of 
