Category: Drew’s Articles

CMO Insights: Marketing Leadership

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Phil_ClementAsk any brand manager of a global company, and they’ll tell you that no two geographic regions are alike. Now, imagine coordinating marketing efforts across not a few, but 120 countries! This is Phil Clement’s reality as the Global CMO of insurance and risk advisor Aon. The company has a presence in nearly half the world’s territories, but has managed to uphold a consistent brand image thanks to a sponsorship of Manchester United, thoughtful content creation and some key employee surveys. After winning the prestigious President’s Circle Award at this year’s CMO Club Awards, Phil graciously agreed to elaborate on these efforts and more. This is part 1 of our extensive (and fabulously instructive) interview.

Drew: Can you provide a quick overview of AON in terms of your role in the insurance industry? 

We’re predominantly in the B2B space. If you’re a hospital and you want to build a new hospital in New York, you would hire us to advise you on maximizing the health and benefit plans of your employees. We help people access what they need to address risk and help their people.

Drew: As a risk advisory, what role does marketing play for Aon?

Generally speaking, people are quite articulate and well-versed in the risk they might face. Our marketing needs to make sure that, when they are concerned about those issues, we come to mind and folks want to engage us in solving their problems.

Drew: Besides Aon’s sponsorship of Manchester United, tell me about some of your other marketing initiatives. 

One of my favorites is our best employer survey. What we do in about 100 countries is identify who are the best employers. It’s a two-part process. The first is to identify what the local economy believes are the best qualities of an employer and then rank the companies against that criteria. The process of doing the survey, doing the ranking, emailing the report and having a media partner distribute it is very affordable. It’s difficult for us to move the needle if we do one good idea in one geography. When you’re sifting through $11 billion in revenue in 120 countries, one percent improvement in one country can get lost. Getting something like the best employers program to work globally has been wonderful for us.

Similarly, rather than producing 100 reports on benchmarking and data, which we may have done in the past, we pick a few that cut through the noise. One would be our risk map, where we publish a map that is color-coded based on equivocal risk. What’s the likelihood of a change in regime? If you’re doing business around the world, this map becomes an important tool, and it also suggests that we’re experts in understanding risk. Those are two of my favorite ideas.

Drew: Both of those would go in the bucket of content marketing. If we zero in on the risk map, have you looked at it from a global SEO point of view? Are you doing other things around risk and trying to own that word?

The nice thing about the word “risk” or “HR” is that we’re already number one in most of those spaces. What I started working on eight years ago was defining our spaces and making sure we had the presence to be number one. Our SEO strategy is consistent; we want to make sure people can find us.

Also, the best employers and the risk map live up to an acronym that I created called CUTT. When it comes to content, we want it to be Compelling, Useful, Timely and Transactional, meaning it captures people’s attention, it’s something that people feel they can use and reference, and it directly correlates to our business. A lot of marketers are good at hitting one of the four. It’s a constant challenge to get teams to think about hitting all four.

Drew: What does it take to hit all four?

Just consistency, and asking yourself, as a team, is this compelling? Is this useful? Is this something that they can put in their box to be read during Christmas vacation and it’s July, or is this something that they need to react to? That last piece requires a deep understanding of what your services are and why you market them, so you can give clients an in-road to want to work with you.

Drew: Do you have a team in place that is focused on content development, and has that team grown?

No. What we have is a responsibility that is injected into all roles. We have an HR model centered on five principles, and those are the same principles we use in our leadership model. Employees are evaluated by these, and they’re part of our brand as well. One of them is the value of business results; whether you’re facing clients or not facing clients, you have to understand what drives their business results.

Drew: If you don’t have employees only focused on content, do you not see Aon as a publisher of content, in a sense? It sounds like you have two big tent poles and content between.

That’s fair. I’m certainly not looking to solve the world’s problems in publishing. If you were a risk manager for a restaurant chain, our newsletters on food contamination and food safety—what’s being done preventively and what’s being filed as problems and claims—might be your most valuable reading. That’s all we aspire to.

As a CMO with 120 countries and 32 industries, how do you stay on top of what might be of interest to the risk manager at the restaurant in Rome?

First and foremost, you realize that you can’t. We just try to educate and share ways to solve problems, ways to look for the information, and try to create as much enjoyment of the challenge as possible. A lot of stuff, like the Manchester United sponsorship, came out of the center. We distribute assets that people can use, but there is always local jazz, where people improvise or do neat, creative things.

That being said, we have metrics, reports and a weekly dashboard that help me understand if something is going right or wrong. The thing that drives performance over a long period of time tends to be somewhere in the middle. We spend a lot of time working together. My favorite thing is to roll up my sleeves and work in geography on a project with a team. I prefer that to studying a report because we learn more from the perspective of what’s going on in other places.

Drew: You’ve been the CMO at Aon for eight years and must have been part of / witnessed some major changes, right?  

We were around $19 a share when I joined, and we’re well over $80 now. We’ve been one of the highest performing stocks in the financials services through some pretty rough times. We sold about a third of the company and bought a new third. We went from number 2 to number 1 in every space. I’ve got a group of colleagues on the executive management team that I really believe in and my CEO brings out the best in everyone.

CMO Insights: Innovative Marketing

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Geoff CottrillConverse is the creative world’s favorite party guest, which may be why it has so many friends—over 37 million on Facebook, to be exact. Just how did the sneaker brand get so popular? Not by being the life of the party, but by practicing good people skills and good social etiquette, says CMO Geoff Cottrill. Rather than stepping on toes and dominating the social conversation, Converse lets its audience guide the dialog, knowing that the brand belongs to those who wear it. Geoff shared these insights and more with me during this year’s CMO Club Awards, where he won honors for innovation in marketing—and after you read our conversation, you’ll understand why.

Drew: Have you been able to link your innovative marketing activities to the kinds of business metrics favored by CEOs?

We are fortunate to have a massive and loyal following who is willing to post content on our behalf. To know that we have millions of friends on Facebook and hundreds of thousands of photos tagged #Converse on Instagram is humbling. But for us real success is defined by our ability to build meaningful relationships that are true to our core values, spark creativity and inspire advocacy.

Drew: The Converse page currently has more than 37 million likes – one of the top 10 most popular pages on Facebook. How did you build such an active following on social media?  

As a global brand that speaks to personal style and expression, social media presents itself as a natural forum for us to communicate with our consumers. It’s absolutely a focused part of our overall communication efforts but at the same time we understand that we are not leading that communication, nor do we want to. We are a welcomed party guest. We keep it simple.  Be interesting, think creatively, think globally, believe in what we are saying, and take a step back to listen and watch.

Social media is a tremendous vehicle to learn about your consumers, what they like (or don’t like about you), what they are interested in hearing from us, what they’re doing in their lives, and what they are saying to each other. This brand belongs to the people who wear it.

Drew: We love your campaign to support up and coming musicians by giving them free recording time and promoting them via social media. How did you decide to get involved in the music industry?  

One of our goals as a brand is to give back and help inspire a new generation of musicians.  We talked to a lot of musicians and it became apparent that studio time was costly and unaffordable for many emerging artists who had turned to home studios and their bedrooms to record.  By opening Converse Rubber Tracks, it’s a way for us to say thank you to musicians all over who have helped us become the brand we are and to provide a place for new artists to have access to resources they may not be able to afford. It is Converse’s way to invest in the future of music.

Drew: Marketing seems to be getting increasingly complex in terms of ways to spend and ways to monitor. Has it gotten more complex for you and if so, how are you dealing with that complexity?

We don’t see it as being complex because our philosophy hasn’t changed. We strongly believe in building goodwill in communities and creating long-lasting brand ambassadors for the brand. It’s not just about selling sneakers.

Drew: A CMO has a lot of choices in terms of where they invest their time.  What have been your top priorities in the last 12 months?

In the next few seasons, Converse sees a huge potential of opportunities within avenues such as our wholesale accounts and securing key leadership positions with these important retailers through exclusive partnerships and product offerings. Another category with tremendous opportunity is young men and to truly get after the young male consumer from a head-to-toe perspective, encompassing footwear to apparel to accessories. The plan to reach them will be through the re-launch of the CONS segment, targeted specifically to their street culture, sport-inspired lifestyle.

Drew: Have there been any big surprises in terms of what’s worked really well and what hasn’t?

Our consumers are always surprising us! But we see these surprises in a truly positive way because we can always do better and are constantly seeking improvements.

Drew: What’s your perspective on content marketing?   

Our philosophy on content marketing is built on driving meaningful relationships that are true to our core values, spark creativity and inspire advocacy. Whether it’s about showcasing a musician that has just recorded at Converse Rubber Tracks in Brooklyn, a showcase we put on at SXSW, a street art exhibit in Beijing or a Three Artists One Song collaboration – we focus on developing stories that are compelling for our consumers. 

Drew: Converse has been in business since 1908. How do you balance respecting the tradition of the Converse brand with innovative marketing?

Converse has a long history in music. It has been worn on stage by legendary punk bands in the 1970s and adopted by kings of hip-hop, new wave, rockabilly, grunge and others throughout the decades. Musicians and creative people are our core audience, and we need to do everything possible to foster this community. We want to be useful to the community and never take advantage of it or overstep our place. We want to bring cultures together and celebrate music. In other words, we want to be in it, without getting in the way.

Drew: How do you evaluate/measure the success of your marketing?  

We believe that success is not measured in the traditional sense (i.e. ROI).  The number of deep relationships we can foster with the creative community—not media impressions, and content views, measures success for the brand.

Drew: Do you agree with that notion that marketing is everything and everything is marketing?  How do you as a marketer impact the entire customer experience? 

Marketing is not everything and everything [is not marketing] to Converse. It’s has always been the brand’s intention that our products and consumers drive the marketing, not the marketing driving our product. Our approach to the consumer experience is to invest and grow our connections to consumers. As a brand, Converse is on a mission to own “sneakers” and this will be communicated across all our messaging. We want the word “sneakers” to become synonymous with unleashing the creative spirit.

 

“Pi-Shaped” Marketing

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Why is it that whenever I talk to a Brit I immediately think of one or another scene from Monty Python? Blame it on a misspent youth, I guess.  So you can imagine where my mind first drifted to when Ashley Friedlein, CEO of Econsultancy, started talking to me about pi-shaped marketers:

Okay, now that I’ve taken you to instructions on pie silliness,  let’s get back to Friedlein who offers seriously heady counsel on why marketers need to get both sides of their brain’s working (thus the pi-shape) if they hope to succeed in today’s data-rich environment.   (For those of you unfamiliar with Econsultancy, founded in 1999, its a research and training group specializing in all things digital.  I am a big fan of their research and highly recommend subscribing to their blog.)

Drew:  You’ve talked about the rise of the ‘pi-shaped marketer’ in today’s modern marketing environment. First of all, how do you define the term, and what kind of background or experience would a pi-shaped person bring?

One thing that has become apparent with the rise of digital marketing is the sheer number of channels and techniques at the disposal of companies. There are a huge variety of ways to engage your customer base. That number is still growing. What this means is that companies at the cutting edge need to be able to maximize their results across all these channels, particularly as marketers move towards becoming the CEOs of tomorrow. In my opinion, this requires a special mix of many talents and attributes.

A pi-shaped marketer is essentially someone who has a wide breadth of skills and knowledge across various marketing disciplines, but crucially possesses both ‘left-brain’ and ‘right-brain’ abilities. These marketers are both analytical and data-driven, yet understand brands, storytelling and experiential marketing. The qualities that these people bring result in the potential for creating brilliant customer experiences that also have a real impact on the bottom line.

Drew:  How do you explain business’s growing interest in attracting pi-shaped marketers to their digital teams? Is it is consequence of marketers skills changing, or business needs evolving/functions merging?

What we’ve seen is that behind great digital experiences lies both a great deal of creative talent and a deep understanding of what the customer needs. Businesses looking to create great customer experiences need to have people who can tie these elements together. Business needs are changing in reaction to consumer expectations.

The other aspect to consider is the rapidly changing nature of digital business today. Skills need to be relearned constantly. People who are pi-shaped are naturally more resilient to change than those who aren’t, as their broad range of capabilities makes them able to adapt as change continues.

Drew: Are there particular marketing ‘prongs’ that are more in demand than others?

Data analysis is obviously in demand. But being good with numbers isn’t the only area generating increasing interest. There is a need for marketers to communicate this understanding of data into a clear narrative that drives business results and wins board buy-in. This is where creativity can come into play.

Drew:  Witnessing the growth of job titles such as ‘creative technologist’ or ‘chief marketing technologist,’ it seems the gap between analytics and creative roles is closing. So what are the structural implications for businesses bringing in pi-shaped people?

I don’t think pi-shaped people alone pose structural implications for businesses, but one structural change we are seeing is an increase in the fluidity of company structures as the speed of change continues to rise. Decision-making is being gradually woven throughout levels and departments, and digital people with broader understanding are becoming empowered to drive business change more quickly. Connections between different departments are also important, and marketers who span multiple disciplines will propel collaboration.

Drew:  So is there no longer a place for T-shaped people, those with deep specialist knowledge of say a specific industry or SEO or who may be simply a brilliant copywriter?  And how about generalists, who may fall into middle management, will they lose out?

I wouldn’t say that there isn’t a place for T-shaped people. In fact, people can be pi-shaped and T-shaped, although those who are the former are better positioned for leadership roles.  Digital will continue to need people with particular expertise in their domain, and deep skills to work at the coalface and drive results. T-shaped people are still important. The added benefit comes from those who can join their domain to others, which is where pi-shaped employees come in.  One thing I can see happening in the future is a lower importance placed on middle management as we move towards self-organizing agile teams. Generalists won’t necessarily lose out, as they can act as effective playmakers in bringing different groups of people together.

Drew: Finally, is raising the bar when it comes to pi-shaped hiring requirements asking too much?

I think companies will have to look at addressing the requirement for both creative and analytical nous more explicitly if they haven’t done so already. Hiring people with a broad business knowledge and deep understanding key specialism’s is a big ask, but those people are out there. A lot can also be done in-house through effective training, coaching and mentoring.

If this is done and opportunities to exercise both hemispheres of the brain are provided, then the right foundations can be laid for business success. Quite frankly, it would be a mistake not to refocus hiring and training programs for a digital focus.

 

CMO Insights: Keeping It Personal

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Think of customer service in today’s airline industry, and “human” may not be the first phrase that comes to mind. JetBlue, on the other hand, has been putting faces to names for quite some time. Marty St. George, SVP of Marketing and Commercial Strategy, caught up with me during this year’s CMO Club Awards and clued me in to the strategy behind JetBlue’s marketing operations. For starters, the airline keeps it personal by shunning a corporate persona and getting the whole crew involved—literally—by treating the planes’ staff as an extension of the marketing team. After all, the flight is the most important customer touch point of all.  Not surprisingly, Marty is a very bright guy and has a lot of good advice for anyone who is smart enough to ask for it.  So I asked and you’re the beneficiary assuming you read on…

Drew: CEO David Barger famously posed the question ‘How do we stay small as we get big?’ to the JetBlue team. As CMO, how do you take on this challenge?

Marty: Every leader at JetBlue takes full ownership of that challenge. There are elements of the JetBlue experience that naturally lend themselves to helping us stay small.  We don’t ask our people to do anything that we wouldn’t do.  (For example, when we are flying on a trip and we arrive at the gate, we ALL clean it, not just the flight attendants….on the holidays, many of us work at the airport helping customers during the busiest days.)  But specifically as CMO, I am focused on making sure that our mission and values come through in every communication we do, both internal and external. When we start looking like a faceless conglomerate to our people, we will have lost the battle.

Drew: JetBlue operates within a notoriously difficult industry. Much of your success has come from effectively connecting with your customers. What steps do you take to better understand and communicate with your customers?

Marty: I am very lucky, in that our founders gave us a mission and a set of values that are core to our DNA. Our mission is to inspire humanity, and part of what we try to accomplish is that personal connection between the brand and our customers. Our customers feel personal ownership of the brand, and they are very vocal about the things they love, and the things they want us to change.  

Drew: Innovation is a sexy word but not as sexy to a CEO as ROI.  Have you been able to link your innovative marketing activities to the kinds of business metrics favored by CEOs?

Marty:   Luckily we have a CEO who recognizes that innovation is part of the brand personality of JetBlue.  We report brand metrics to our board, just like we report financial metrics and the board expects us to push the envelope.

Drew: What is the biggest marketing risk you’ve taken at JetBlue? How did it play out?

Marty:  There have been a lot of them, but I think the biggest risk was the “Election Protection” promo we ran in New York during Fall 2012. The simple idea: if you’re one of those folks who says, if my candidate loses I’m moving to XX? We will give away 2,012 free tickets out of the country. It was risky because election promos are inherently risky; voting is a sacred duty, and there are many examples of brands commercializing the election to their detriment. Luckily, we played it perfectly and got more buzz than we ever imagined, and zero blowback. ( http://www.mullen.com/election-protection-from-jetblue-make-sure-to-vote/ )

Drew: How do you evaluate/measure the success of your marketing?  Are there some channels that work a lot better for you than others?

Marty:  Two key methods; first, on a macro level we look at brand metrics for us and our competitors. On a micro level, we measure every dollar we spend digitally and translate it into a cost-per-booking.  We share our metrics with our media partners and expect them to help improve campaigns and targets to get our CPB lower.

Drew: Has marketing become more complex for you and if so, how are you dealing with that complexity?

Marty:  We deal with it by keeping up with technology, and by finding partners in that space who can help keep us current. In fact, every year we have a “digital day”, where we invite current and potential marketing partners in to pitch our entire team. We’ve found several exciting new technologies and channels that way, just through an open “casting call”.

Drew: Content marketing is hot topic at the moment.  What’s your perspective on content in terms of its effectiveness?  Are you increasing your investment in this area?

Marty:  I think “content” is a concept that’s going to become obsolete very soon – rather than focusing on content as a means, we focus on engagement as the end. Content is one of many ways to create engagement, but certainly not the only way.  We have done some innovative programs (like Getaway with it – http://www.google.com/think/campaigns/jetblue-getaways-get-away-with-it.html ) but we do it with the goal of engagement.

Drew: What have been your top priorities in the last 12 months?

Marty:  My top 3 priorities are talent, talent and talent. We are always looking for brand evangelists. It’s easy to find people who can do the work, but it’s much tougher to find people who treat the brand like it’s their baby.  

Drew: Have there been any big surprises in terms of what’s worked really well and what hasn’t?

Marty:  We did a promotion called “Carmageddon” – when the 405 Freeway was closed in LA, we flew for a day back and forth between Burbank and Long Beach. When the team brought the idea to me, I said “I can’t imagine this getting buzz but feel free to do it, if you can do it cheaply.”  For about $10,000 in spend, we generated almost $10mm in impressions.  We had captured the moment in a fun, creative way.

Drew: Do you agree with the notion that marketing is everything and everything is marketing and if so, how have you extended the boundaries of your job beyond the normal purview of the CMO?  

Marty:  Absolutely agree; and luckily at JetBlue we all recognize that the experience is the ultimate manifestation of the brand, and our people learn this on day 1.  How?  Every month we hold an orientation for new Crewmembers at our training center, and many senior leaders attend.  When I speak at Orientation, my first line is to welcome everyone to the Marketing team – since everyone who touches a customer owns a piece of the brand.

 

CMO Insights: Providing a Consistent Experience

Posted on by Drew Neisser

For The Camuto Group brand family, one thing is certain: luxury runs in their blood. But with such a diverse portfolio, including brands like Vince Camuto, Jessica Simpson, BCBG Max Azria and Arturo Chiang, how does the company know where to focus its marketing efforts?

In my recent conversation with Louise Camuto, CMO of The Camuto Group and recipient of a Marketing Innovation Award at this year’s CMO Club Awards, she explained how her company provides a consistent luxe experience for women around the world, no matter which designer they prefer.  Having never taken on the challenge of fashion marketing its always been a bit of a mystery to me but talking with Louise, its clear that there are those who’s success in this stylistic milieu is no accident.  Read on to find out why.

Drew: The Camuto Group is a family of 11 very different brands. How do you infuse The Camuto Group values and maintain consistent messaging across all of your brands?

Louise: At Camuto Group, We spend a lot of time thinking about how we can interpret product – from footwear to apparel – in the most on-brand manner.  We have been able to lead a brand-building effort with the development of footwear as well as develop product into an existing apparel collection that not just extends a brand into new territory but enhances the presence at retail.  In addition, I emphasize the importance of IMAGE and brand consistency daily with my team.  We work closely with our international partners to ensure that the way a brand is represented at every consumer and trade touch point not only reflects the DNA but also reinforces the message and aesthetic which allows for the brand experience to omnichannel.

Drew: How does new product development work at The Camuto Group? Does it report in to you? 

Louise:  Yes, the design teams report in to me for the 18 women’s categories. Our design process is extensive.  We have a team of people who shop all over the world for inspiration and they bring ideas, concepts and materials to the table for review.  We sit as a team and determine what items are appropriate for each of our brands and we spend a lot of time analyzing the marketplace for trend direction as well as what’s happening at the consumer level.  What I have found to be paramount is listening to customers.  When I am in any of our stores, I watch how the customer shops, how she selects product, as well as her purchasing process.  When we work on our campaign looks we collaborate with Vince, our marketing team and with PR to ensure we are on trend and delivering something exciting to the customer.

Drew: A CMO has a lot of choices in terms of where they invest their time.  What have been your top priorities in the last 12 months?

Louise: My focus recently has been building the Vince Camuto lifestyle.   I have spent a lot of time working on our retail store roll out globally.  It is so important to have a strong store image that supports the brand direction and it has been my goal to create a luxe consumer experience for women around the world at this price point.  I am proud of the 30 stores that we have opened including the luxury flagship, VC Signature by Vince Camuto on Madison Avenue in New York.  I spend a lot of time working on the creative presentation of all of our brands.  We live in a world where the ways in which a customer can be reached are online, in-store, in print and of course through social media.  I have invested a lot of time over the past year ensuring that the brand voices are consistent with the brand DNA.

Drew: Have there been any big surprises in terms of what’s worked really well and what hasn’t?

Louise: We have been so fortunate lately with our initiatives.  We haven’t experienced too many hiccups, nor have we had any product launches not succeed.  I think our biggest challenge is constantly innovating and being ahead of the curve in terms of our product offerings, assortments and design direction.

Drew: How are you using social media as a marketing tactic? (Awareness, customer service, etc.)

Louise: Social media continues to  be a significant portion of our business.  We have really invested in a team to build the brand voice cross-channel.  Today, customers spend a lot of time online looking at fashion.  The internet has really democratized the business which is exciting.  The influence of bloggers in today’s world is a breath of fresh air to me.  You really see how the customer actually wears and styles your product.  Delving into the online space has really helped with the design process as I continually think about the end use of a skirt, top, pant, dress and what she would be looking for coming up in the next season. It’s also a great way to share new product and immediately test the response. Louise Loves on our site has also reached a following. It has a selection of great items to make a look and we can follow how many hits we get and how it drives her to buy.

Drew: How do you evaluate/measure the success of your marketing?  Are there some channels that work a better for you than others?

Louise: I read all the selling reports and market recaps reports daily.  I am very engrained in the business as it is not about what I think works, it is about how the consumer responds to your brand and your product. I also look at how our advertised styles perform versus the items that are not included in our campaign.  I love market research as I think it helps establish a framework for understanding who your customer is and what she is looking for when she shops.  I love analyzing our online business as well because it is the purest form of analysis in the marketplace today.  You are able to understand how your direct mail, email blasts, print campaigns, celebrity support and editorial credits impact sell-through and in turn leverage the knowledge to further reach your customer and meet her needs.  Online has been very successful for us but we are also seeing a lot of positive results from our brick and mortar stores as well.

Drew: Content marketing is a hot topic at the moment.  What’s your perspective on content in terms of its effectiveness?  Are you increasing your investment in this area?

Louise:  We are investing in content and product marketing extensively as we find it highly effective in engaging with our customers.  It also allows us to be able to extend our brand message to a wider audience.  We utilize content marketing online to relate to the woman that is looking for fashion tips, advice and information.  It is another way for us to be helpful to our customers while not pushing product.  I think the balance between creating interesting content and achieving sales goals is important as content marketing is truly an extension of our commitment to customer service.

Drew: How do you see the retail design industry evolving over the next 10 years? What steps are you taking at The Camuto Group to stay ahead of the curve?

Louise: I think we are in a period of true innovation.  I think stores are creating experiential programs that allow for engagement with the customer at point of sale.  We have adopted several tactics in order to engage with our customers at retail.  When we build out a store, we have created a shoppable wall as the store barricade so that customers can shop the line and engage with the brand while the store is being built out.  Once the store opens, we utilize video to bring the brand to life.  We just launched men’s so this year we are able to have the woman interact with the man in order to tell the full brand story.  We also have ipads in store so that people can look at the total Collection, even if an item is not carried, they can style what they are purchasing with the total collection in order to create a complete look that is their own!

What’s the biggest marketing risk you’ve taken at The Camuto Group? How did it play out?

Louise: Several years ago, we relaunched Vince Camuto footwear and invested in a broad-based marketing campaign that crossed all channels.  It was important for us to get the message out and we immediately saw success through exponential growth in brand awareness as well as sales.  The marketing investment also allowed us to expand the multi-category licensing program rather quickly as we became a more significant brand for our retail partners almost overnight.

Drew: Do you agree with the notion that marketing is everything and everything is marketing and if so how have you extended the boundaries of your job beyond the normal purview of the CMO?   

Louise: I absolutely believe everything is marketing and marketing is everything.  You truly live marketing every day.  Marketing occurs across every channel and touch point and I think the total experience is what drives a customer to love a brand and become a loyal enthusiast.  I think we constantly need to push the envelope in marketing to be ahead of the curve and innovate so we are always an intriguing brand for our woman.  I believe in always trying to lead and not follow and I work closely with the team to always be at the forefront of what’s happening with the consumer so we reach her every day, in every way.

CMO Insights: Providing a Meaningful Customer Experience

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Jonathan Becher, CMO of SAP, sees innovation as absolutely mandatory, to be approached by organizations in leaps and bounds rather than baby steps. In his world, ROI means “return on innovation,” and the culture of innovation at SAP is an essential foundation for providing an innovative, meaningful customer experience.  Its little wonder that Jonathan won The CMO Award for Innovation from The CMO Club.  Here’s our interview:

Drew: In your presentation at The CMO Club Summit in April, you mentioned that innovation isn’t a buzz word; it’s an imperative for marketers. Can you explain why innovation is so important, particularly for CMOs?

Jonathan: For all good business leaders, there comes a day when you realize: “what got us here, won’t get us where we need to go.” We all know that the way customers consume information, products, and services has completely changed. It follows that the way we need to engage with customers must also change. However, incremental changes will not be sufficient; we need to innovate the discipline of marketing.

Drew: Real innovation requires organizational change. Can you talk about the changes you made to your marketing organization to institutionalize innovation?

Jonathan: A few years ago, I created a group called “Innovation Marketing.” The charter of that group was to try new things, break rules, make people uncomfortable, and change the status quo. The team generated tons of ideas, many of which were very interesting and impactful. However, it didn’t accomplish what I expected, as we were essentially segregating innovation to one small group. In fact, it created some resistance to change and innovation. We disbanded the group and focused on creating a culture of innovation instead. Now, we highlight efforts throughout marketing that push boundaries and embrace change, even ones that are not completely successful. In some sense, we’re reinforcing our corporate motto of “Run Better” – the quest for relentless improvement.

Drew: Marketing seems to be getting increasingly complex in terms of ways to spend and ways to monitor. Has it gotten more complex for you and, if so, how are you dealing with that complexity?

Jonathan: Luckily for me, I run marketing for a company that specializes in using technology to solve complex business challenges. For example, I have a mobile dashboard where my leadership team and I have real-time visibility into all parts of our marketing business. We can see what’s working and what isn’t, then redeploy resources and budget as necessary.

Drew: Have you been able to link your innovative marketing activities to the kinds of business metrics favored by CEOs?

Jonathan: Innovation is an investment, so you need ROI for it as well. Return on innovation.

We try to run marketing like a business, which means that we need to be able to prioritize between all of our initiatives. From an analytics point of view, we distinguish between the macro view (crunching data on a scale unheard of a few years ago) and the micro view (data equivalent of a focus group).

At the macro level, we apply marketing-mix modeling to get a holistic understanding of marketing performance across channels. We can then tie marketing investments directly to corporate objectives, and reallocate the mix accordingly. Based on this type of analysis, we have shifted unproductive spend to tactics where we have seen higher ROIs.

At the micro level, we’re constantly trying to optimize each interaction with our customers. Whether it’s an outbound marketing campaign, a customer event, or an inquiry on our Web site, we apply statistical analysis to the wealth of information we have about our customers to predict what’s relevant to them and to personalize the engagement. This level of customer-centric targeting, along with a test-learn culture, allows us to measure the effectiveness of everything we do and maximize ROI at the micro level.

Drew: SAP seems to be in the midst of a brand transformation. Can you describe that transformation?

Jonathan: I’m not sure whether you should call it a transformation or a brand expansion. For many years, our approach was talking about how big, successful companies run SAP. You didn’t know what exactly we did for the companies, but you knew we were somehow linked with their success.

Now, we’re taking a much more human approach that’s closely linked to our company mission to “help the world run better and improve people’s lives.” We’re telling stories of how we create value, not only for our customers, but for our customers’ customers. For example, rather than talking about how a big bank benefits from an SAP deployment, we talk about how a man in a very rural area who can’t physically get to a bank is now able to bank on his mobile phone. This access to banking opens up entirely new economic possibilities that weren’t previously an option to this man and improves his life. SAP makes that possible.

It’s not just “business runs SAP”; it’s also “life runs SAP.” You can sum up the change as moving from B2B to P2P – people to people.

Drew: As CMO, have you been able to address the entire customer experience? Were there any organizational challenges you needed to overcome? 

Jonathan: In my view, the customer experience is the responsibility of every single employee at SAP. That said, marketing must be the champion of the overall customer experience across all channels.

While marketing doesn’t own all the customer experience channels, it can help make the experience consistent. For example, we know that, if we invite a group of executives to one of our briefing centers for a day of meetings, we’re obligated to deliver a consistent experience – from the messaging on the invitation to the car ride from the airport, and everything else until our guests are back in the airport to go home.

Marketing doesn’t manage the briefing centers, but we provide counsel to the facilities managers and the sales teams that run the meetings to help them understand the story they want to tell and provide them with the right assets to help them tell that story.