Marketing Above the Noise

Foreword

As the founder and CEO of the Chief Customer Officer (CCO) Council, I often find myself at the center of the discussion about the value of marketing in terms of attracting, acquiring, and retaining the most profitable customers.

Today’s customer world is a noisy place, full of distractions that organizations have themselves created. The rapacious clamoring for attention, the barrage of new media channels, the audacious claims and celebrity endorsements…are all meant to say, “Pay attention to me!” Faced with a dizzying array of conflicting input and lack of meaningful differentiation, increasingly cynical customers are disconnecting and turning to more relevant customer communities, or ignoring the communications altogether—which causes ...