• DM News, Wednesday, December 13, 2006 11:15 AM

With consumers feeling the need to be in control of the brands they buy, marketers need to "begin to let go," says Kent Oldham, associate director and GBS consumer view solutions manager at Procter & Gamble. "We don't control all of our touch points, and those touch points, as a result, impact us," he says.

The implication of not learning from every touch point a consumer has with your company or product or service can be costly, according to Oldham, who spoke at the 2006 National Center for Database Marketing Conference in Orlando.

One way P&G learns is by building media mix models that show the effective rate of return from various media choices. The company also studies how consumers interact with its Web sites, and is combining that information with how they respond to e-mail and direct mail. P&G is also participating in Project Apollo, the market-research joint venture between Nielsen and Arbitron, and has consolidated historical and transactional data about its customers.

Read the whole story at DM News »