The top UK retail brands are reported to be boosting their investment in customer marketing, which includes in-store and field marketing -- and it's about time, writes the ISP's Marc Lawn. This year Sainsbury's is putting its biggest spend to date behind field marketing, including sampling and in-store demonstrations. Similarly GlaxoSmithKline GSK, owner of Ribena and Panadol is putting customer marketing at the core of its 2008 communications strategy. And Vodafone is also reported to be following suit.  Analysts have speculated that other retailers will also begin to invest more in customer marketing

 as a result of the economic slowdown at the expense of TV, radio and outdoor.

This investment is long overdue, given that frontline staff, to a great extent, embody the brand to consumers.

I was recently in a supermarket and heard a customer complain about a tin of beans that had split. The employee on the customer service desk sighed and exclaimed that it was the third this week.

From the retailers' perspective only three broken tins isn't a big deal but to a consumer this insight potentially represents a problem with the brand.

Greater investment on customer marketing can help negate these problems and drive revenue.

Famously in the US, a shopping channel changed the phrase "call now, our service team are standing by to take your call", to "if you can't get through at first please keep trying".

This subtle change of language and tone made a huge difference. Calls to the channel increased by 70%. This incident just goes to show that the effects of what is said can vary wildly from the intended outcome.

In Yellow Stone National Park a ranger put up a sign saying "please don't steal the wood" in an attempt to reduce the amount of valuable logs being remove by visitors.

However, the move backfired because greater amounts of wood were removed than ever before by visitors who had interpreted from the notice that the wood was worth stealing.

The woodland example goes to show how a few misplaced comments in any environment can have a negative impact.

Customer marketing puts marketers back in the driving seat and has the power to drive significant return on investment from overall marketing efforts.

(Source: Media)