Marketing Strategy and Competitive Positioning pdf ebook

Privacy: It is clear that privacy and the rights of the individual provide one of the hot-
test issues in the twenty-first century. The state has given itself unprecedented rights to 
observe and track citizens and monitor their behaviour, all the way from intense coverage 
of public areas by cameras through to checking phone calls and emails and exploiting 
health and bank data. Similarly, there are a growing number of business models that rely 
on using personal and individual data for commercial advantage. For example, Facebook 
and Google are advertising-supported businesses that use members’ social interactions 
and search behaviour to sell behaviour-directed advertising – that is how they make 
money. For others it is a lucrative by-product: retailers track consumers through their 
mobile phones; gaming machines and smart TVs observe and monitor users in their 
homes; the NHS sells patient data; and so on (Piercy, 2017). Some consumers simply do 
not care. Others are really quite miffed, and definitely interested in products and services 
that make it difficult or impossible for others to invade their privacy. We are already see-
ing the launch of encryption software to prevent email monitoring; secure mobile phones 
that cannot be monitored; walled-garden social networks to avoid Facebook; people 
refusing to supply their personal data when they do not have to, or submitting false data; 
and growing pressure to assert the right to anonymity. There is even a resurgence in sales 
of manual typewriters in some areas where privacy is paramount – try hacking a type-
writer! In fact, privacy will become one of the biggest products in the twenty-first century, 
as people become prepared to pay to avoid being observed, monitored and targeted.
Governments and powerful lobby groups cannot resist tinkering with markets in their 
desire to change other peoples’ behaviour. Often, they get it wrong. Decades of persuad-
ing people not to eat butter because it is ‘bad’ for them turns out to have been based on 
bad science and possibly even harmful to people’s health, as well as severely damaging to 
the dairy industry. Nonetheless, even after tinkering and intervention, markets adjust and 
identify dissatisfied customers who will be responsive to new offers. Markets always adjust 
in the end. As mature markets become more fragmented or granular, the perverse customer 
is becoming an interesting target in a growing number of situations. Observing the diverse 
ways in which perverse customers get their own way, and smart companies make more 
money as a result, is an interesting exercise for any manager. Learning to deal with a defiant, 
awkward, yet sophisticated customer, who does not plan to be cooperative and docile any 
time soon, is a major challenge for suppliers of all kinds, but that is where opportunities 
reside. The search for value innovation opportunities may lead in surprising directions.
12.1.9 Big ideas
The heart of radical innovation is the search for ‘big ideas’, rather than settling for 
‘small ideas’. To stay relevant and to succeed, companies need bold, innovative strategies. 
But this relies on the ability to create and resource big ideas, and to overcome inertia, 

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