• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, January 31, 2012

Consumer empowerment poses several marketing challenges for brands and agencies, not the least of which is simply keeping up. Also, some brands pay lip service to transparency when it comes to serving customers -- but they don’t follow through. 

Those were two of the insights delivered by a MediaCom-sponsored Webcast Tuesday featuring Dell’s Tiffany Bissey, head of global digital and emerging media for the computer giant; Matthew Mee, director of strategy for MediaCom’s Europe, Africa and Middle East region and marketing consultant Martin Lindstrom.

“The difference now,” from just a few years ago, said Mee, is that consumer expectations [of satisfactory brand service] are constantly edging ahead. They’re setting the pace--Twitter is a good example -- and we’re trying to keep up.”

They better make sure they do, Lindstrom said of brands. Brands that don’t fulfill promises or otherwise let down consumers in the digital age will receive a massive and immediate push back, he said. Lindstrom even predicted the emergence of a “WikiLeaks for brands,” which could be devastating for companies that “don’t keep their houses in order.” 

Transparency in an age where there is so much data coursing through the digital grid -- and which has prompted huge privacy concerns -- is essential, said Lindstrom. There is a lot of confusion about exactly what data companies have and “where does all this data go,” he said.

Mee called out Facebook for being less than user-friendly on the privacy front. “For the consumer, it can be very complicated to rinse that site of all their data,” he said. “It shouldn’t be so.”

Lindstrom proposed that marketers be totally transparent up to the point of sharing all data they have collected about consumers with them. “Give them a password, and let them see it all,” he said. Then the consumer can decide what information it wants a marketer to retain. “It’s the black box that’s the problem,” he said.

Bissey added that marketers have a great opportunity in the digital age to create trust with consumers.

“The customer journey has changed,” she said. It’s no longer adequate to spray the environment with ads and wait for the sales to come pouring in. In between, social media has altered the buying funnel by enabling access to quick reviews and ratings and ample dialogue between consumers to inform purchase decisions.

Dell, having learned a hard lesson or two in the past (media maven Jeff Jarvis successfully took the company on for poor service a few years back) now posts live reviews, good and bad on its site.

“Consumers need to know and be informed,” said Bissey. Companies “need to get on the wagon or be left behind," agreeing that transparency is vital. “When they are being tracked, consumers need to know it.”

Agencies are going through a “sea change” as well, said Mee. “They’re much more focused on facilitating an outcome, brand discovery and learning,” he said. Or even getting the consumer to “say something nice,” after the completion of a purchase.