• The Wall, Wednesday, May 12, 2010 11:04 AM

Dell global CMO Paul-Henri Ferrand tells Belinda Parmar that he listens to a customer call every day. It's an unfortunate anomaly, she feels.

"Most marketing directors I meet speak of their customers as an abstract quantity, or perhaps an undiscovered exotic species," Parmar writes. "This probably explains why most heads of marketing are have a disproportionate reckoning of the importance of their brand in their customer's life."

Paul-Henri is not only "French and charismatic," Parmar says, he's also very convincing about the "new Dell," which will put customers at the heart of the business and aims to be more of a product advisor than a "vending machine." The interview is captured on video; it's only a minute or so.

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