The findings of two EIU executive surveys indicate that although traditional marketing channels remain important, vendors have shifted more towards interactive communications as part of an increasing emphaisis on personilization. While consumers express indifference to superficial personalization, they are keen on more nuanced customization efforts. This report reveals how marketers in six key industries (banking, travel, media, entertainment and automotive) are reaching out to consumers.

Key findings:

Automotive: The auto industry is focused on expanding and diversifying its customer base through customised promotions. Deep analysis of consumer data (analytics target consumer segments rather than individuals) now tops the list of best marketing strategies cited by auto executives, up from 13% five years ago to 30% today (above the all-industry average of 23%).

Banking: The banking industry is working to regain trust. Customer retention is cited as the top marketing goal by 42% of executives, a significant jump from 23% five years ago (and much higher than the all-industry average of 28%). Banks have moved to personalise outreach to consumers, but they lag behind other industries in presenting consumers with individualised offers and promotions. They also assign unusually high importance to their reputation for consumer service (28% vs. an all-industry average of 16%).

Clothing: The clothing industry faces a volatile, multi-tier market that makes clear trends difficult to discern. But it does stand out for its continuing use of offline channels and its slow adoption of online channels. This is consistent with the fact that clothing buyers are not intensive users of company online channels for any particular part of the purchase decision process, although they are relatively dependent on peer reviews. Three-quarters (75%) of consumers say pricing/promotions are what they want most from company channels, somewhat higher than the all-industry average of 67%.

Entertainment: The entertainment industry emphasises retaining current customers and tailoring messages to geographical and consumer segments. The focus has shifted from personalisation more generally towards individualised offerings, with the latter cited by 46% executives compared with 24% five years ago. This is a little above the all-industry average of 40%. Deep analysis of consumer data to target offers is deemed important by 27% of executives (4 points above the all-industry average), up from 19% five years ago.  

Media: The media industry—under siege from online competition—gives entering new markets as its top objective, cited by 45% of executives, up nine points from five years ago (and compared with an all-industry average of 28%). The industry assigns more importance than the others to developing deeper consumer insights (26% vs. all-industry average of 21%). The media industry also leads in the importance attributed to online channels for building brand awareness (74% vs. all-industry average of 57%), and it places more emphasis on increasing sales, building customer loyalty, differentiating products and cultivating influencers. The media industry is second only to automotive in the proportion of marketing budgets it allocates to e-mail (33% using more than one-quarter of their budget vs. an all-industry average of 28%).

Travel: The travel industry has been seriously challenged by disruptive technologies as more and more travel providers deal directly with customers and as services have become commoditised. Although industry executives report relatively high increases in the use of online channels to drive sales (70% vs. all-industry average of 66%), the use of online channels is about average for every other application. Greater emphasis is now placed on collecting and analysing data for individual customers. The industry leads in the use of data for guiding product research, which is cited as a top marketing strategy by 23% of executives, compared with an all-industry average of 18%. For their part, travel consumers are ambiguous about their channel preferences and report lower online use in their product research compared with consumers in other industries.