A belated happy 2012 to our readers!

What better way to ring in the new year than with another review of advice for 2012, this time courtesy of AdAge’s legendary ad critic Bob Garfield and co-author Doug Levy.

“Stop living in the past,” wrote Bob and Doug in the opening lines of their New Year’s Day piece, “Ignore the Human Element of Marketing at Your Own Peril,” for what they call the “Consumer Era” is ending.

“Welcome to the Relationship Era.”

“Say goodbye to positioning, preemption and unique selling proposition. This is about turning everything you understood about marketing upside down so that you can land right side up. This is about tapping into the Human Element.”

“The Human Element,” they continued, “is greater than positioning, unique selling propositions and segmentations.” In this new era, companies that focus on the relationships they have with customers and various other stakeholders rather than on hitting the numbers will prosper.

To be honest, we’re not entirely clear why they believe positioning, unique selling propositions, and segmentations are incongruous with cultivating a full, engaging, and mutually beneficial relationship with customers—or anyone else for that matter.

While making their case, Bob and Doug offered the results of some research Doug did among consumers plotted on a two-dimensional map. On the “Y” axis, they charted “trust” and along the “x” axis”, “transactions.”

In the upper right quadrant, we see brands with high trust and high transactions—names like Apple, Toyota, USAA, Amazon, Southwest Airlines, Costco, and Target. In the lower left quadrant, we find brands with low trust and low transactions, and names like Sears, KFC, Motorola, and American Airlines.

A case could be made that Bob and Doug’s map reflects that strong brand equity—an overall assessment of the “good will” associated with a brand—is really what’s in the upper right quadrant. Previous brand equity work has consistently shown that some brands have more equity than market share and others have more share than equity, as we see in the map in the article.

A key finding from some of our work with the concept of brand equity is that “brand distinctiveness” (read, superiority) and “perceived quality” are often, albeit not always, the strongest determinants of overall brand equity. To convince consumers that its brand is uniquely better than a competitor, a firm MUST consistently demonstrate it offers something meaningfully different and effectively communicate that point of difference through words and deeds.

One could also pretty easily argue that the brands that score high on the “trust” dimension have a strong positioning, at the heart of which is solving their target customer’s problems with an exceptional product and service.

The brands that score low on their “trust” dimension, on the other hand, such as AT&T, American Airlines, KFC, and Sears, have NO discernible positioning. They haven’t done an exceptional job of delivering anything particularly distinctive or meaningful. Who knows what they stand for?

Rather than say “good bye” to positioning as Bob and Doug suggest, saying “hello” would seem to make a whole lot more sense.

We noticed in his response to a reader’s comments, Doug further expounded that, “Bob and I see marketing shifting from the Consumer Era (where marketing is about getting to know the consumer so you can reach them optimally, a process that lacks authenticity) to the Relationship Era (where marketing starts with self-assessment, so the marketer knows their true self and communicates with authenticity).”

Certainly, there’s no reason not to do a self-assessment to determine your brand’s strengths and weaknesses. Most marketers do this routinely. If nothing else, it’ll help you determine the potential feasibility of delivering on a particular positioning.

At the same time, what’s so inauthentic about asking a target customer about what problem they’d love your brand to solve and how best to communicate the solution to them?

If you want your brand to have some substance and stand for something meaningful, you need to find out what would be helpful and motivating to your target, no?

Our takeaway from Bob and Doug’s article: yes, it’s true that most companies can ill-afford to consistently abuse the relationships they have with their customers and other stakeholders. To make decisions based purely on grabbing market share or revenues at the expense of brand equity does little to foster longer-term profitability and growth.

We dare say most marketers know that.

You’ve still got to build that brand equity in the first place, though. And you can’t do that without a strong positioning and its correlates preemption and a unique selling proposition.

Debate about the size, shape, direction, and even the very existence of a purchase funnel has raged on for a few years now as marketers work hard to figure out how best to get their target customers to think about, talk about, buy, and maybe even love, their brands.

One recent description we liked, for example, came from Jim Lecinski, managing director of U.S. sales and service at Google, who maintains, “the funnel is now more like a neuron, with branches that let shoppers move forward and backward through the process until they’re ready to make a decision.”

Regardless of where they net out on the funnel issue, however, most agree identifying which among the exploding number of opportunities for marketers to influence the purchase decision will produce the highest return on investment has become a both a critical and often frustratingly complex process.

“The reality is marketers have to pull more levers today than they ever had to before. All of us are consuming media in so many different ways—some people are only online, some only watch TV,” Dina Howell, CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi’s in-store marketing arm, told the Wall Street Journal this past April.

“The bulk [are] somewhere in the middle, and that’s what’s making it harder to determine what is the correct formula.”

We sat down with Copernicus’ CEO Peter Krieg to get his thoughts and big picture perspectives on how brands can best market themselves to shoppers as they move through the ever-expanding path to purchase.

Here’s what Peter, our resident retail industry expert and a pioneer of shopping occasion segmentation research, had to say:

Marketing Frayers: Can marketers count on customers following a general direction down the path to purchase anymore?

Peter: The general direction remains the same, yes. Something—an event, a situation, a mealtime, seeing friends with a product, reading an article, business expansion, you name it—inspires a decision-maker to explore the different products and services available. He or she considers the options, makes a purchase, feels satisfied, and–it’s hoped–shares experiences with and ultimately influences others.

What’s changed is the sheer number of potential sources of information that might sway the decision-maker toward one brand or another and one channel or distributor or another. Obviously it’s easier and faster than ever for the decision-maker to access the multitudes of information, compare prices, and purchase locations. It’s also easier and faster for decision-makers to share opinions, reviews, and news with other decision-makers.

What’s also amazing to many of us veteran marketers is whether someone is shopping for a car, computer, insurance policies, industrial products, diapers, or even a toothpaste, they’re investing some amount of time in exploring options…sometimes while they’re already in the process of shopping at a store.

There’s a growing sense that ALL marketers now have to consider, not just what our client P&G calls the first and second moments of truth—seeing the product on the shelf and using/experiencing the product or service after purchase—but all the “store back” and “store forward” moments where any other competitor in the category or industry has the potential to move shoppers toward one brand or another, and one purchase channel or another.

Marketing Frayers: How have you seen companies change the way they approach moving customers through the path to purchase towards their brands?

Peter: Pre- the digital and mobile media revolutions, we worked with clients to understand the effect different types of shopping occasions had on their brands. We’d help them assess the profitability of each shopping occasion and often connected people segments to shopper segments.

We could tell a client, for example, your most profitable segment of people spend 50% of their budget for the category on a “weekend ritual” shopping trip, 25% on a “seasonal” shop, 20% on a “spur of the moment” purchase, and 5% on an “emergency” to give, among other things, some macro-level guidance on positioning for their product or services and innovation efforts.

We could also help them profile each retail location by shopper type to direct in-store merchandising, promotions, displays, etc., toward the needs and preferences of the predominant shopper segments.

These days, however, clients have moved shopper marketing way beyond the four walls of a bricks-and-mortar store…and the digital equivalent of four walls of an e-commerce website. I completely agree with what Dina Howell [CEO of Saatchi &Saatchi X] said–that shopper marketing “isn’t just about cardboard displays anymore—you need to accommodate the way shoppers behave now, and that means online and in stores.”

As a result, we now chart a shopper’s complete path to purchase to identify where and why the client is (or isn’t) on this journey … and where and how an increase in a client’s presence will have the greatest effect on sales, loyalty, and advocacy.

For instance, where and how to they begin their search for a product or service in the category? What information are they looking for? If they’re going to the company’s website, where do they go? What are their digital, social, and mobile media habits? How likely are they to advocate for the brand?

Marketing Frayers: At the start of the year, Booz & Co said manufacturer spending on shopper marketing has just about doubled-over the past five years. It currently totals $35 billion with anticipated annual growth of 15%. What would you say are the key opportunities for marketers to make the most from their shopper marketing investments?

Peter: I’m by no means the first to observe that there’s a great deal of convergence going on as more and more shopper marketing campaigns cut across different media and go beyond the online or offline purchase channel. Integration of shopper marketing with overall branding efforts is something we’re reading, hearing about, promoting, and seeing in action on a much more regular basis than ever before.

With that in mind, the biggest opportunity marketers in general have is to get everyone working against the same target group—the customers they’ve identified as the ones with the highest economic and marketing value to the brand.

For shopper marketers specifically, understanding the “mix” of shopping occasions of the key target group, along with what motivates them to purchase the brand; preferences for online and offline channels or retailers; customer experience preferences and needs; interest in new products and services; and the function and possible influence of traditional, digital, and mobile media along the path to purchase, goes a long way towards improving overall effectiveness and efficiency.

Successful shopper marketing—whether through a bricks-and-mortar or e-commerce channel—still comes down to understanding which customers on which shopping occasions hold the most potential profit opportunity and the ability to translate this information into positive interactions and experiences with the brand at key moments in the purchase process.

There’s a huge opportunity for marketers to arm their sales force and/or key account managers with profiles of the shopper mix at the retailer, e-tailer, and even individual store-level. Connect shopper types with merchandising, promotion, in-store display, experiences, etc., and you’ll go a long way towards cinching the purchase of your brand at a particular location.

Likewise on the ecommerce side, there’s a huge opportunity to arm website developers and managers with guidance to enhance experiences and maximize sales through that channel. We worked with Under Armour, for instance, to profile the different types of shoppers on its website to improve sales via that channel.

Marketing Frayers: What do you think are the big trends in shopper marketing?

Peter: I mentioned integration, though I think that’s a longer-term aspiration.

On the tactical level, product marketers increasingly use both traditional in-store tactics, as well as digital tactics on retailer websites. And mobile just keeps getting bigger. I saw Juniper Research’s forecast that spending on mobile retail campaigns in 2012 will hit $15 billion globally—a 50%increase over 2011!

One of the biggest trends I see is getting some strategy behind shopper marketing efforts.

Everyone knows there’s still a chance to influence a sale at the point-of-purchase. It’s the who, when, and how companies have to solve for now in order to create some competitive advantage along the path to purchase, generate the most incremental sales and profits at the point-of-purchase, and foster loyalty and advocacy beyond it.

Another trend along the lines of strategy development I see more of is product marketers investing more time gathering insights about the shopper mix at different points of distribution. Marketers use this knowledge to improve line reviews with key retailers, to become more fact-based in joint ventures and partnerships, and to figure out which products could be sold in new channels of distribution.

Marketing Frayers: If you had the ear of every CMO in the world for five minutes right now, what would you tell them about best practices for marketing to shoppers along the path to purchase?

Peter: Some marketers call them “touch points”, Google calls them “zero moments of truth,” P&G has their terminology. Regardless of whether there’s ever agreement on what to call all the different opportunities marketers have to influence the ultimate purchase decision, it’s clear that in every category and industry marketers are trying to stay one step ahead of each other when it comes to sustainably persuading decision-makers to choose their brand.

There’s a reason why many marketers have a great sense of urgency for getting a sound strategy in place to guide shopper marketing decisions. As companies increase their budgets for shopper marketing, the pressure will build to demonstrate incremental profits on investment.

The marketers that will be in the best position to do that—and do it consistently—are the ones that pinpoint the customers and shopping occasions that have the highest potential profit value in offline and online distribution channels.

They’re the ones who also get a comprehensive understanding of the critical points along their their target customer’s and shopper’s path to purchase. If your brand isn’t tapping an opportunity to influence a decision-maker at a critical point, figure out why and what kind of fix will generate the biggest return.

To learn more about our shopper insights research and consulting services, visit copernicusmarketing.com/services/shopper-insights.

Of all the gift items on your favorite marketer’s holiday list, there’s at least one thing not running in short-supply: year-end advice about key areas of focus for 2012.

Even better—most of it is free.

We’re always interested to read about what different organizations and gurus advise for the year ahead and thought we’d offer up a running list of our key take-aways and reactions to the suggestions they offer.

First up, Forrester Research’s urgence on AdAge.com for CMOs to start “conducting the marketing machine like a finely-tuned orchestra.”

Based on data collected from a little over 50 self-described marketing leaders, Forrester identified four areas on which CMOs need to focus if they want to become expert maestros. Yet we thought one of them really got to the heart of the matter—“establishing a unified view of the customer.”

Certainly we’ve heard marketers talk about “increasing integration” and “improving effectiveness and efficiency” more and more as over-arching objectives for their 2012 plans and programs. With that in mind, Forrester’s advice to get everyone in the marketing organization—and beyond—on the same page as far as who to target and how to reach them makes some really good sense.

In fact, we might go so far as to say if you establish a unified view of the target customer, you could accomplish all the other things on Forrester’s list of must-dos: “stressing customer-centricity;” “synchronizing resources to customer needs;” “differentiating the brand experience.”

The challenges of creating this unified view are not as insurmountable as it might seem if marketers can:

1. Get senior management executives as well as managers from different functional areas—product management, brand management, media, public relations, sales, research and development, operations, and more—into a room and figure out what they need to know about target customers and how they intend to use that information BEFORE collecting new or sifting through existing customer insights.

2. Use that information to guide the development of a market segmentation that describes each group in terms that different functional areas can use to guide decision-making.

3. Select a segmentation that’s easily applied across functional areas and clearly indicates the group or groups that have the highest economic value to the business as a whole.

We’ve encountered many companies over the years that had multiple market segmentations running simultaneously. One financial services firm, for example, asked us for help trying to figure out which one of the 11 different segmentation schemes it had would be the “best” in terms of giving it clear guidance across a spectrum of decision-areas and sales and marketing issues.

In and of themselves, all the different schemes had some good points.

Senior management at the company, for instance, had used a demographic-based segmentation. It could easily find demographic groups in databases, not to mention the marketing and sales organization readily comprehended the demographic-based distinctions between the groups.

Yet even senior management had to admit the demographic groups didn’t differ on the company’s internal measure of economic value—they all looked about the same. Prioritizing marketing investments and R&D efforts when all groups were equally valuable proved an exercise in frustration.

Demographics also didn’t help when it came to giving the firm’s ad agency messaging direction either. As a result, the agency came up with groups based on attitudes instead, and used them to develop a campaign.

Unfortunately, attitudes proved no better than demographics at predicting responsiveness to new product offerings—i.e., not particularly well. The sales team couldn’t really use attitudes to qualify a prospect and tailor a product and service offering that appealed to their specific needs either.

The roots of a disjointed view of the customer often begin innocently enough. In this particular case and in many others, the managers of the different functional areas all want to better understand and market/sell to customers. Especially these days when every budget is tight, who wouldn’t?

Understandably, each department has different information and applicability needs. Unless it’s developed with all end-users in mind, a segmentation will not offer something everyone can use easily and productively to make the most sound, effective, and efficient decisions. The key to “establishing a unified view of the customer,” is, therefore, addressing this kind of situation head on.