Acxiom's John Meyer divulges trade secret at Conway Rotary Club

"How, exactly, does Acxiom know that I like blue cars?" asked Rotarian Roger Lewis at Thursday's meeting of the Conway Rotary Club.

With a sly grin and a wink, Acxiom's CEO and president John Meyer replied, "Sorry, that's a trade secret."

But then Meyer relented and said that bit of information is one of 750 billion discrete bits of information collected by Acxiom, ready to be used for marketing by any number of Acxiom's 5,700 clients around the globe.

The vehicle identification number on Roger's last car is one of those bits, Meyer explained, and it shows the color of his car is blue, and that gives Acxiom a clue that Roger probably has an affinity for blue cars.

Translate that "trade secret" to the many ways Acxiom collects information from 375 million consumers for 12,000 marketing campaigns and 150,000 background checks a month and the handling of 17 percent of the mail in the U.S., and get an inkling of "What does Acxiom do?"

That question, Meyer said, is not easy to explain, even to those who remember the company when it was founded by Charles Morgan in 1969 as CCX, a part of the Ward Bus Company.

Acxiom's original method of marketing was direct mail, Meyer said, but has now expanded to Global Interactive Marketing Services in 60 countries, including, among other forward-reaching methods, e-mail, product placement in TV and movies and text messaging.

Yet to catch on in the U.S., marketing by text message is popular in China, where mail service is poor. It's just one of many ways the company is geared to adapt technology that is working in other countries, Meyer said.

A graduate of the University of Missouri and Penn State, Meyer came to Acxiom from Lucent a year ago. He's been commuting from Dallas to Little Rock since, and will be moving to Little Rock after his daughter's graduation in a week.

He said Conway should be proud of two of its home-grown successes: Acxiom and American Idol contestant Kris Allen. Allen's wife, Katie, is an associate with Acxiom.

"We've been trying to get Katie to wear an Acxiom cap when the cameras are on her, but to no avail," Meyer said.

Is that an assignment for the Product Placement Division?

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Becky Harris is a former City Editor of the Log Cabin Democrat and a member of Conway Rotary Club.)