Recent news from unrelated business verticals has drawn my attention due to their similarity : Nike leaving Amazon, and European Media Groups suing Google.
Brands are the hostage to 3 big companies
Brands almost complete dependence on the web's biggest players for their distribution and marketing significantly weakens them as they sign away their control of data. This trend is accelerating as mobile uses grow and force them to comply to their standards (AMP, snippets, schema.org, etc.).
Hopefully, the emergence of alternative players to the Big 3 powerhouses (Facebook, Google, Amazon) should reduce marketing costs to a more reasonable level. But, above all, it should allow brands to entrust their analytical data tracking to other more transparent suppliers.
News outlets are feeding social media for free
The current standoff between the media and platforms like Google and Facebook (European directive on copyright and neighboring rights) exposes the level of loss of control from content creators to the benefit of distributors.
The same scenario will inevitably occur with brands. By allowing Amazon or Google Shopping to handle finding customers, brands will not only give up control of their customers' profile but, as well, the control of their distribution networks. In the end, they will have to pay to access the information they once owned.
It's not too late to emancipate !
If only one thing were to legitimize your exclusive presence at the cash register, it should be the control of your audience, your readers, your fans, the profile of your customers. This is a control that brands and media are about to lose.
The best way for them to control their marketing performance is to produce their own analytics and manage their data. All their data, from product catalogs to news thumbnails, as they are valuable to so many actors.
Related articles :
5 reasons why brands should monitor their images
How image monitoring will increase your web analytics capabilities
