Peter Kim, he of the impeccable taste to designate your humble narrator a top ten client-side marketing blogger, he of Forrester, has a must-read whitepaper which is now a year old but which is as valid and important now as it was last July. Entitled, “Reinventing the Marketing Organization,” Kim posits the thesis that most marketing organizations, still tied to the old discipline of the Fabled Four P’s (product, placement, price, and promotion), need to get with the program and reorganize away from a product line or channel alignment to what he calls a Customer Centric Marketing Organization (CCMO). 
The quote which I love and serves my agenda as the interactive/social marketing person, is this:
“Shift dollars away from media … and towards the experience infrastructure. Forrester recommends investment in new media engagement platforms, such as rich media, advergaming, and social computing, as well as the marketing backbone technologies such as customer analytics, offer/contact optimization, and marketing resource management. Emerging interactive channels offer opportunities for customers to immerse themselves in brand experience.”
This is a pretty rich document and all the more remarkable in its acknowledgment of some serious issues facing marketing organizations. Net Promoter Scores, the decline of the traditional agency relationship, an emphasis on quantitative analysis over creative gifts(I’m doomed). While not a call for complete revolution, Kim presents a well-reasoned organizational redesign aligned to customer segments. Bad news, you need $300 to get the PDF.
If any of your readers are interested in more info, they can visit the official website – http://www.netpromoter.com. In particular, I’d like to highlight the recent Net Promoter Conference blog for key takeaways from the session speakers: http://netpromoter.typepad.com/npc_london_2007/. Readers can learn about best practices from companies such as HSBC, T-Mobile, LEGO, and many more. Regards, Amy Madsen, Net Promoter Project Manager