In a move that calls attention to the growing client interest in so-called knowledge-based marketing, Padulo Integrated has formed a strategic alliance with data-mining specialty firm Opal Sky.

Under the agreement, Opal Sky’s expertise will be applied not only to Padulo’s direct-marketing division, but, more significantly, to the agency’s general advertising practice.

Specifically, Padulo wants to meet the demands of marketers who are insisting that their agencies apply more sophisticated information-based customer knowledge to the strategic planning and tactical execution functions.

Padulo has already worked with its new partner on the ad agency’s Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce account to micro-target its programs, initiate two-way communication with customers, and measure the results.

Similar techniques, as documented by Mercer Management Consulting, provided the differentiation needed by Capital One, a u.s. financial services company, to increase its market share to 45% from 25% in the last five years.

Padulo Integrated President and CEO Rick Padulo notes that financial institutions can readily find ways to apply data mining in their marketing because of their extensive databases. But he says all marketers can benefit from using information more effectively.

Padulo says whether or not a client engages in direct response activities, deeper customer understanding aids in the development of marketing strategies to build loyalty, retain current customers, acquire new customers, and tailor messages, services, products and pricing to specific segments. This, he says, can add up to a significant competitive advantage in the marketplace.

‘There’s no question that data mining is the direction,’ says Padulo. ‘I don’t believe mass marketing will go away, but the fact is that one-to-one relational marketing is increasingly important.’

Dan Legault, president of Opal Sky, says five years from now the buzzwords will disappear and it will all be called, simply, marketing.

Sidebar: CDMA broadens scope to cover info-based marketing

Based on the belief that information-based marketing will drive the new economy – and that the term has outgrown its narrow definition of being synonymous with direct marketing – the Canadian Direct Marketing Association is expanding its scope to cover the information-based marketing interests of the broader marketing community.

At the cdma’s annual conference last week in Toronto, John Gustavson, president and ceo, said that over the past 18 months, almost every major marketing organization has been putting more dollars into information-based marketing.

‘The challenge for us, therefore, was how to broaden our scope and mandate as various forms of information-based marketing became more fully integrated into the marketing mix, and the lines between direct response marketing and other forms of marketing continued to blur.’

The cdma set up a task force to study this trend. It also enlisted Goldfarb Consultants to find out just what kind of support there would be for an organization that represents the interests of all information-based marketers. It found plenty.

Gustavson says that’s because general advertisers are now finding themselves faced with challenges that direct response marketers have been managing for many years – how to maximize the availability of information-based marketing techniques, while at the same time preventing unreasonable regulatory restrictions on their use.