Innovations: From what time the most basic principles of marketing exist? How old are they?
Joe Pons: Let me talk about my grandmother because most of the marketing that I know, I know from my grandmother.
My grandmother had a shop. It was a fairy thing like the small shops in the small towns. And in the summers, because my parents did not want me to play the football all the day, what I loved to do, they arranged so that I have to work in the shop with my grandmother. I was 9, 10 and 11 years old, and for three summers I spent a few hours behind the counter. My grandmother put up a wooden box so that I could stand on the box and look more presentable to the ladies who came to the shop.
My grandmother had a system with about 20 cards. Each one of those card had the name of our biggest customers. And the cards had colors, and depending on the color, I knew if I could give credit to the customer or not. In other words, that was CRM – customers relationship management software before computers were invented. In the three summers I worked there, we did not loose one single customer. The customer loyalty was 100%. This is an example how old the marketing principles are. They are so old as people are buying and selling.
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21.06.07
