Study shows that chief marketing officers feel unprepared to manage the effect of social media, mobile devices and the data explosion

A NEW study shows that chief marketing officers feel unprepared to manage the effect of social media, mobile devices and the data explosion all viewed as game changers for companies.

The influx of younger generations with different patterns of consumption and of gaining access to information are changing the face of the marketplace.

The 2011 IBM Global Chief Marketing Officer Study, assessing the responses of 1734 chief marketing officers (CMOs) in 19 industries and 64 countries, found that while 82% said they planned to increase their use of social media over the next five years, only 26% were currently tracking blogs, while 42% tracked third- party reviews and 48% tracked consumer reviews to help shape their marketing strategies.

"Approximately 90% of the real-time information created today is unstructured data. CMOs who harness this new source of insight will be in a position to increase revenue, reinvent their customer relationships and build new brand value," said Carolyn Heller Baird, the director of the study.

Mobile commerce was expected to reach $31bn by 2016, a compound annual growth rate of 39% from 2011 to 2016. The tablet market was expected to reach nearly 70-million units worldwide by the end of this year, growing to 294-million units by 2015.

Nicholas Maweni, marketing communications executive for IBM SA, said "While they identify customer intimacy as a priority, and recognise the impact of real- time data supplementing traditional methods of channel marketing and gathering market feedback, most CMOs still practice 20th century approaches."

Eighty percent or more of CMOs surveyed were still mainly using traditional sources of information such as market research and competitive benchmarking, and 68% relied on sales campaign analysis to make decisions.

Meanwhile, the volume of social media is enormous. Facebook has more than 750-million users. Twitter users send 140-million tweets a day. And YouTube uploads more video content in 60 days than the big three US TV networks created in 60 years.

This article was sourced from www.businessday.co.za

http//www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=156749

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