Digital one-to-one marketing allows businesses to do what traditional advertising and communication channels can never do. It allows them to build a dialogue with their customer. A research driven, long term one-to-one strategy however, goes one step beyond – it deepens the dialogue with every new interaction, learning more about the customer, offering more and more relevant messaging, and developing a lasting customer relationship.

What Indian CXOs & Brands Can Learn From @AnandMahindra

I would add that there is an important aspect that is being considered and debated by the marketing fraternity: are the behaviours that we measure really comprehensive enough? Where do we measure the positive feeling towards a brand resulting from a good experience – be it a to a message or a transactional experience? And where do we measure the translation of this goodwill or happiness-glow to sales – because this translation does happen – we can be sure of that.This is the secret sauce and uncontrollable element that creates the unique success story for a marketer. This is really the unknown and uncontrollable aspect that we are all trying to narrow down and keep to a smallest area possible through all our measurements! In short, are we still measuring the most critical aspect or in other words, can we measure the most critical aspect?

The battle for the American Presidency has been a fascinating and historic one. But a few weeks ago, Obama won hands down in another equally improbable contest. He was voted Advertising Age Marketer of the Year, beating global icons such as Apple and Nike.

Obama has been in the news for his extraordinary online fundraising and $188 million TV ad blitz. But what won him acclaim from American CMOs and Agency CEOs, was his path-breaking digital strategy and campaign.