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Point of Need — PON

Shared from YouTubeThe prime com­po­nent at the heart of The “Pedia Credibility Algo­rithm” (PCA) is the “good deed at the point of need” or help­ing con­sumers (the good deed) at pre­cisely the point when they want and need the help, the point of need (PON). The under­ly­ing power and authen­tic­ity of a “good deed at the point of need” as a mar­ket­ing strat­egy can­not be overemphasized.

Pro­vid­ing con­sumers with truth­ful infor­ma­tion in today’s infor­ma­tion-over­loaded soci­ety is the most rel­e­vant assis­tance a com­pany can pro­vide, and there is noth­ing more pow­er­ful than pro­vid­ing that help at exactly the moment the con­sumer needs it — the con­sumer’s “point of need” (PON).

Samsung's Mobile Charging Stations“Point of need” is every­where — gro­cery stores, gas sta­tions, movie the­aters, restau­rants — all of these are places con­sumers go when they need some­thing. Con­sumers would never tol­er­ate these places ran­domly inter­rupt­ing them to see if con­sumers might want to buy something!

Mar­keters need this kind of authen­tic, fun­da­men­tal, and pow­er­ful con­nec­tion to con­sumers in today’s hyper-com­pet­i­tive, infor­ma­tion over­loaded mar­ket­place instead of more inter­rup­tion-based ads. And while Proc­ter & Gam­ble’s Tide laun­dry deter­gent Loads of HopeUnilever’s Vase­line Heal­ing Project, Sam­sung’s Mobile Charg­ing Sta­tions, and insur­ance com­pany “cat­a­stro­phe response vehicles/teams” are just a few exam­ples, it is clear that engag­ing the con­sumer must be a pri­mary goal of mar­ket­ing, and noth­ing cre­ates this “engage­ment” more effec­tively and authen­ti­cally than a “good deed at the point of need.”

By cre­at­ing the most truth­ful, high-value con­sumer infor­ma­tion resource where a con­sumer can eas­ily find “every­thing you want to know about every­thing you want to buy™,” mar­keters are pro­vid­ing con­sumers with exactly the infor­ma­tion they want at exactly the moment they want it, instead of using sur­veil­lance and manip­u­la­tion to track and inter­rupt con­sumers with ads they don’t want. Help­ing con­sumers by pro­vid­ing “high-value” infor­ma­tion they can believe and trust cre­ates more pow­er­ful moti­va­tion for con­sumers to buy than any inter­rup­tion ad or com­mer­cial. Deliv­er­ing engage­ment at the point of need max­i­mizes mar­keters’ credibility, which makes all of a mar­keter’s efforts work better.

PON pro­vides an authen­tic oppor­tu­nity to engage with cus­tomers and pro­vide them with truth, trans­parency, pri­vacy, and ser­vice, sim­ply not pos­si­ble in any “point-of-inter­rup­tion” (POI) situation.