When an image becomes legible, part of community's and individual's visual literacy, it can communicate complex values in a radically abbreviated fashion, condensing essence of a brand's message into an articulate, instantly comprehended image. Those white-toothed-smiling, perfectly-tanned, under-twenty-type boys and girls, for example, are recognisably part of (among others') Coca-Cola's iconography. They communicate energetic sociability, peer acceptance and inclusive activity: group-driven values that appeal to desire for acceptance that motivate a major part of market and that locate brand within consumerism's "cool" hierarchy. Then there's that most masculine of icons, Marlboro man, an image that pithily stands for freedom and virile self-determination. The roll call of such classic marketing icons, established decades ago, is a long one.

But a new generation of icons has appeared on commercial scene. And their chief characteristic is that they appeal to increasingly younger audiences.

This new thrust started with New Kids on Block (NKOTB). You might slightly recall them. The world's first "boy band" appeared suddenly, succeeded rapidly, then disappeared with equal speed. Its audience was not a general one of male and female consumers over eighteen. Its audience was clearly female and composed predominantly of much younger people: twelve years plus. Another boy band, Take That, followed quickly on heels of NKOTB's success, but with two differences. Take That attracted an even younger audience and it enjoyed a longer life. You've got picture. They're all coming to mind now, I bet. Boyzone, Westlife, 98dg, Westwood, Backstreet Boys and many more followed. And they all attracted younger and younger audiences. Really young girls were swept up in brand-driven fan rush, parents succumbing to trend and taking kids as young as five to their first concerts.

How do crooks get away with this? I submit that it's becoming harder for them to do -- except with each other! Somehow giant corporations don't get that other giant corporations are scamming them out of huge amounts of cash for dubious deliverables.

CRM (customer relationship management) software costs upwards of $325,000 with additional integration costs of up to $100,000 and according to a recent Interactive Week Magazine article,

http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2777006,00.html

that expensive software is so effective that it triggered a direct mail promotion from American Express to a heterosexual man, but that promotion was targeted at gay men, lesbians and domestic partners. His wife was as confused as he at obvious blunder! That interesting vignette comes from same article.

Let's see now, I'm going to pay about a half million dollars so that my company can offend and confuse my customers. Not a bad investment! What this means to consumer is that they may receive appropriate advertising and promotional material if software can draw logical conclusions based on past purchases, inquiries and page visits. A laudable goal if it worked perfectly but it clearly does not!

What it means in reality is that users of datamining software can send innapropriate promotions to people that may be confused, may be offended and certainly annoyed by their material even when it was requested, as it was in this case. You've taken a potential sale and turned it into a blunder. What does that do for lifetime customer value? How about return on investment figures with that?

I have a hosted application that can provide you incorrect and mixed-up customer data mining which cost only $60,000 yearly to host for you! I'd sure like to see ROI (Return on investment) generated by that chunk of change! I also have a bridge for sale.

Is it any wonder that corporations are going bust? They're falling for scams that rip them off on a huge scale perpetrated by con artists offering data mining, knowledge management, CRM solutions.

I'd like to offer up a scenario that might illustrate awful data mining results. I also like to suggest that this is probably illustrative of why this expensive software might work but is inherently flawed in conclusions it draws.