Norm Johnston, chief digital and strategy officer at Mindshare, has authored a new book: Adaptive Marketing: Leveraging Real-Time Data to Become a more Competitive and Successful Company. Published by Palgrave MacMillan, the book provides insight into the world’s most successful adaptive companies and their strategies, using real-life examples.

Examples include:

Kimberly-Clark’s Kleenex marketing team optimizes media investment and location by using Google flu-related search data to identify areas where demand for tissues will most likely increase. By using one simple real-time data source to adapt its advertising, Kleenex sales went up by over 40 percent year-on-year.

Netflix uses viewing data to assess what directors, actors and programs its subscribers like and then commissions new programs like House of Cards to add new subscribers.

Travel service company Orbitz identifies a user’s smartphone operating system to adapt hotel recommendations in real-time. Orbitz knows from its historical data that Apple users tend to spend $20 to $30 more than Android users on hotel room bookings.

Johnston says in a press statement: “In an age of disruptive start-ups and diminishing competitive barriers, it’s more important than ever before to understand your customers and to act on that insight faster than the competition. As Adaptive Marketing illustrates, rapidly applying even just a single source of real-time data can lead to happier customers and better ROI.”

The book features a foreword by GroupM’s chief digital officer, Rob Norman, and contributions from leading marketers and academics including Jeff Cole from the Center for the Digital Future; Brian Wong, founder and CEO of Kiip and Keith Weed, chief marketing and communications officer at Unilever.

Copies are available to order now from Amazon and Palgrave MacMillan.