10ish years ago, I wrote an article about how brands needed to make their marketing more personalised to the consumer. I framed it in the context of my (amazing) experience at my local wine store, and more specifically with Bob, the manager of the shop.

You see, Bob knew me. He knew what I liked, what I didn’t like, what I’ve tried before. What I’ve bought recently. That I like to cook and entertain. The list went on...

I wouldn’t think of buying my wine anywhere else.

In fact I enjoyed buying from Bob. I loved the experience that much.

The bad news: most of B2B marketing back then was far from Bob. In fact it was decidedly un-Bobular.

If Bob was a marketer instead of the world’s best wine salesman, I’d walk in and instead of saying “Hey John, how’d you get on with that Riesling?” he’d say, “Hello potential customer. This is a wine shop. We have red wine and white wine and sparkling wine. Some of it is from France.’

Fast forward 10 years and is marketing any better or worse? Despite all our investment in technology (data warehouses, Business Intelligence, marketing automation, programmatic ads, CDPs) I'd argue we're no further forward.

Which is why I'm sceptical about AI in the hands of marketing unless we listen to the customer, understand their intent and generate a personalised experience.

Maybe AI will be thing to help us become Bob-like on a massive scale - being that personal, informed brand that doesn’t treat every customer like a new person who just walked in off the street. And treating each one like the valued individual that they are.

I'm hopeful the time is now.

So maybe, we can all finally go forth and become Bob.

#marketing #AI #b2bmarketing

(Big thanks to Doug Kessler for helping me craft the original story.)

John Watton

B2B Marketing. Digital. Social.