One-to-one/relationship marketing: A reality?

One-to-one or relationship marketing appears to be the increasing trend in the more developed economies, replacing the traditional mass marketing era. According to David Arnold (2004) the fact that a well-traveled consumer can find the same hamburger or brand of shampoo in many different countries does not constitute market globalization --it merely points to increased international distribution of those brands... However, the benefits of globalization for an organization can be significant in two areas: First, size matters. Larger companies with operations on a global scale can gain an advantage in production economies of scale, buying power in everything from raw materials through advertising campaigns, and the ability to attract the brightest and most ambitious managerial talent (Arnold, 2004, ch. 1). For instance, a customer-loyalty-manager will ensure reliability and validate the accuracy of the benefits of relationship marketing compared to mass marketing. Will assist obtaining sufficient data points to support conclusions, and plot the data. Then help identify average-based metrics that can hide variation in processes, and understand common and special cause variation in order to react accordingly. Is the one-to-one relationship marketing level consistent as company grows in numbers? The writer does not believe so. What is your assessment? Is a consistent level of customer service one-to-one possible when a company has grown large in numbers? Does the one-to-one marketing methodology generate better results than adjusting the service to local market individual needs? curious...

Ref.: Arnold, D. (2004) The mirage of global markets. Financial times prentice hall, NJ