Category: Drew’s Articles

Innovative Marketing and ROI

Posted on by Drew Neisser
Antonio Lucio, Visa
Antonio Lucio, Visa

A marketer’s work is never done. This is especially true at Visa, a company that’s not new, by any means, but has a full agenda ahead of it, especially when it comes to engaging with its customers. I recently spoke to the company’s Global Chief Brand Officer, Antonio Lucio, who walked me through Visa’s innovative marketing strategies, how it measures ROI and the future of its social communications.  (By the way, Antonio was a recent winner at The CMO Awards hosted by our friends at The CMO Club.)

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 couple of years?

Given the increasingly complex media landscape, deepening Visa’s focus and commitment to digital and social communications is a constant priority for my leadership team and me. The imperative has never been greater for us to better communicate the strengths, values and mission of Visa to our full range of stakeholders in an integrated way. This meant that some structural changes needed to be made to set us up for success. We have made significant progress on this front, but it is a constantly evolving ecosystem so our work is never done.

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

It’s not really a surprise, but what I’ve learned is that showing vs. telling is the way to go. Whether it’s addressing a question from our management by showing results and data, or teaching the organization how to do social by putting a team in place to show them what a best-in-class social effort looks like (i.e., our recent #goinsix social media campaign). Showing has a much bigger impact that just teaching alone.

Drew: How do you stay close to your customers when you operate in so many markets and have so many different types of customers?  

Social media is a great equalizer in so many ways. It enables global brands like Visa – and myself personally – to stay close to customers in markets around the world, understand what is important to them, what they are talking about and what they care about, all while providing the ability to engage them directly.

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

At Visa the ultimate measure of success for our marketing is ROI – our ability to drive the business.  We break that down to three components: 1) reach (how many people can recall our campaigns); 2) short-term impact (the short-term usage lift of consumers); and 3) long-term impact (lift in our brand equity and our ability to influence consumer behavior longer-term).

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?

While the media ecosystem is definitely becoming more complex, our approach of putting the consumers at the center has not changed. We strive to understand how our consumers are using different devices, where they are spending their time and what they want to hear from us. And then we adjust our media mix and messaging accordingly. We want to ensure we are delivering unique and relevant experiences across all these screens by using the unique capabilities of the technology or platform the consumer is engaged with and delivering them a message that will interest them. Through technology we are better able to measure engagement with our brand and understand the impact of the experiences we are delivering to our customers.

Drew: How does new product development work at Visa? Does it report in to you? If not, how do you make sure you have the right “news” to market? 

While product development is led by our global product teams, our marketing and communications teams have strong partnerships with these teams – often sitting on their leadership teams. A collaborative work environment is essential to product development that registers as being innovative and relevant among clients and customers. As a team, we bring our respective areas of expertise across product, marketing and communications to ensure that we are bringing new products to market that will truly resonate with consumers.

Drew: Your “Go World” cheer campaign during the 2012 Olympics was one of the most successful examples of traditional and online marketing integration to date. What strategy did you use to integrate the various channels and what were some of the biggest lessons learned from that campaign?

We used our “Audience First” approach to develop a global campaign framework that directly engaged consumers through a global social platform that allowed fans to connect with the Go World marketing campaign by “Cheering” on athletes. London 2012 was heralded as the most social games ever and our Olympic Games marketing campaign was the most successful in our history – a true “game changer” in the way we drove engagement. We’re still applying the lessons learned from London, such as the benefits derived from engaging in social with concise, snackable content which inspired our #goinsix campaign.

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

Our key performance metrics evolve to address changing dynamics in the industry.  For example, we recently added metrics to address social marketing, which enable brands to build direct relationships with consumers. We added social KPI goals that are part of a select few KPIs known to drive the business.  We closely track our progress, and have timely and transparent accountability across leadership towards delivering against these business driving KPIs.

Drew: Visa has made a big push to integrate social media into their overall marketing efforts over the past few years. Can you comment on your current strategy and where you plan on taking the program in the future?

Visa believes we are in a social era that extends beyond any platform or community; social is a mindset that empowers consumers and connects communities. We are incorporating social in the very heart of our marketing, not merely during the execution phase. We strive to develop social-at-the-core campaigns by designing for share-ability and planning for conversations. We invite consumers to drive the conversation while structuring our ecosystem to make sharing frictionless.

Drew: Do you agree with that 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?  

Everything is marketing when it comes to the customer experience because whether you are designing a product or a marketing campaign it is about designing it to be a more consumer centric, intelligent and seamless experience.

CMO Insights: Marketing Online for Challenger Brands

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Rose HamiltonWant to know why I truly love this whole blogging thing? And no, its not because it affords me an infinite opportunity to pun around.  Nor is about a compunction to see my name in virtual ink although that is kind of cool.  The truth is I love blogging because it gives me license to interview really smart people and perhaps by osmosis, their insights and experiences make me a tad smarter or at least a better advisor to Renegade clients.

And thanks to our partners over at The CMO Club, I have had the good fortune to interview a lot of talented people of late including Rose Hamilton, the EVP and CMO of Pet360.  I met Rose a couple of years ago through The CMO Club and was not at all surprised that she recently won The CMO Award as a Rising Star.  It is with great pleasure that I share our Q&A covering a wide range of topics, including Pet360’s overall marketing approach, their focus on engagement over reach in their social channels and their success metrics.  As you may have seen in my recently FastCompany.com post, I am a big fan of Rose’s descriptor for their target audience, “pet parent,” and believe that insights like these are well worth barking about.  So go ahead and woof this one down…

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 couple of years?
Rose: As with any business, customer acquisition, retention and loyalty are critical measures that require a strong and differentiated brand. To set ourselves apart from our competition, our focus has been on creating valuable and relevant experiences for pet parents. We know firsthand that pet parenting can be challenging and even a bit overwhelming at times. New obstacles can arise at every stage of a pet’s life, and pet parents are in constant need of support. Most will say their vet provides answers to their pet parenting challenges; however, a vet visit takes place on average once per year and only lasts around 15 minutes. As a result, pet parents are looking to friends, family and various online resources for answers to their questions. The problem is that not every pet has the same needs – a Golden Retriever puppy, for example, has very different needs than a senior Yorkshire Terrier. What works for some pets will not work for all.

Our goal at Pet360 is to take the thousands of products, millions of pieces of educational content and countless discussions in online forums and provide each pet parent a relevant experience tailored to their individual pet.

Drew: Pet360 is a relatively young brand.  Do you find you are more nimble than your larger competition?  
Rose:  Absolutely. As a digital brand, we don’t have the distraction of brick and mortar operations. We leverage technology and data every day to make quick enhancements that are in the best interest of our customers.

Drew: How are you gaining competitive advantage?  
Rose: We knew we would never win on price. Over the past two years, we have evolved from a pure play E-Commerce business to a lifestyle brand focused on making pet parenting easier. Today, Pet360.com is the only experience (digital or offline) that truly improves pet parents’ lives by offering expert information, an active community of pet parents and a vast assortment of products all in a highly personalized manner. By bringing all three elements (community, content and commerce) together with a layer of personalization, we’re able to deliver a truly differentiated brand experience that builds engagement, trust and ultimately advocacy, resulting in higher lifetime value and lower acquisition costs.

Drew: Pet lovers are famously passionate about their animals.  How do you balance building emotional relationships with your customers and the need to drive transactions?  
Rose: Emotional relationships come first and eventually lead to advocacy and trust longer term. Pet supplies can be a commodity, but the expert advice and connection to other pet parents set us apart. The Pet360 platform inspires engagement and emotional connection at every touch point along the pet parenting journey. By offering relevant solutions, we build trust, engagement and frequency. As trust and emotional connection build, so will lifetime value and advocacy!

Drew:Has growing your popularity on social media channels been a priority?  
Rose: When it comes to social media, we are more focused on building engagement than we are on growing our popularity.

Drew: What role does social media play?
Rose: Social media enables us to engage with pet parents every day by answering questions, stimulating conversations, providing entertainment, gathering feedback and connecting them to the people and resources they need most.  Most importantly, social media is a way for us to connect 1:1 with pet parents in a very authentic way. It’s an opportunity for us to continue to build and strengthen relationships with pet parents.

Drew:   How does content marketing fit into your mix?  
Rose: Content is at the core of our brand. We invest heavily in creating valuable content for pet parents that is delivered on our site, in social media, across traditional media, through our email communications and by our various partners. 

b>Drew: Is content marketing an increasing part of your marketing budget?
Rose: Content marketing has been and will continue to be an area of investment and focus for Pet360. From a business model perspective, the efficiency and effectiveness of content marketing reduces the cost to acquire a customer and enables us to leverage paid channels in unique ways.

Drew:  Since your customer relationship is primarily online, is it a challenge for you as CMO to stay close to your customers?  If not, how are you doing it?
Rose: The digital space makes it easy for us to stay close to our customers. Every action they take online is measurable. We also monitor a variety of channels to keep a pulse on what our customers are saying, including our branded community, site behavior, surveys, call center reports, ratings and reviews, and social media.  As a customer-centric brand, our customers guide our decisions at every turn. We are constantly reacting to consumer feedback and trends as we work to solve unmet pet parent needs.

Drew: How do you evaluate/measure the success of your marketing?  Are there some channels that work a lot better for you than others?
Rose: Of course, there are countless digital metrics that can be measured and every business seeks profitable growth. In the end, marketing is measured by the cost to acquire a customer and lifetime value. When managing and optimizing your portfolio, it’s important to be moving the needle on both measures. Additionally, net promoter score is extremely important as it helps us understand how well we’re delivering on our value proposition.

In my experience, a diversified marketing portfolio that allows for constant testing yields the best results. Engaging with pet parents at every stage of their pet’s life requires a focus on creating a relevant presence across many channels. Each channel plays a different role and complements the others.

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?
Rose: Yes, attribution is a big topic of conversation. Along with the dynamic nature of social media and online advertising platforms. Now more than ever, it’s important to have a team in place that’s focused on monitoring, optimizing and growing your marketing programs. With complexity comes opportunity, and opportunity can be turned into innovation if you have a team that embraces technology, data, customer centricity and is not afraid to try new things. Building a team of marketers who not only understand data but also technology will become increasingly important to stay ahead of the changes in the industry.

Drew: As CMO, have you been able to address the entire customer experience?  Were there any organizational challenges you needed to overcome?
Rose: As an organization, we have a well-defined vision and clarity around how each of our roles supports that vision. We have a fairly flat organizational structure that allows us to move quickly. I’ve always been a fan of “being the change you seek” and getting involved across the organization. In order to address the entire customer experience, it requires collaborating with everyone and taking the time to truly understand the potential risks and challenges. By co-creating the pet parent journey with key leaders across the organization, silos break down and everyone’s strengths can be harnessed in service of our mission. In my experience, building strong relationships is the key to accomplishing a customer-centric organization and having influence outside of your area of expertise. It takes time to build trust and relationships and create “win-win” moments, but it’s critical to take the time and separate the “important” from the “urgent” to truly maximize your influence and impact as a leader.

Final note: Just in case you want a little more Rose, here’s a video interview from the October CMO Club Summit:

Insights From a Successful Marketer

Posted on by Drew Neisser

After defecting to the client side, former Renegade planner Tad Kittredge told me what he loved about being on that side of the fence, “I finally feel like I have all the marketing levers at my fingertips and now, its just a matter of pulling the right ones at the right time.”  I haven’t spoken to Tad in a while so I can’t be sure if he has found the right formula but one gentleman who has, without a doubt, is John Costello.  Currently President, Global Marketing & Innovation at Dunkin Brands, Costello has a long track record as a successful marketer with stints at Home Depot, Sears and PepsiCo among others.

Not surprisingly, Costello recently received the Officers Award from The CMO Club for his outstanding work at Dunkin and I had the pleasure of interviewing him before The CMO Awards event.  In this highly substantive discussion, Costello provides a clear blueprint for any student of the business, offering insights on strategy, TV advertising, measurement, mobile, building loyalty and much much more.  Its a bit longer than many of my interviews so grab a large cup of America’s Favorite Coffee and have at it.

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 (for Dunkin’) and if so, how are you dealing with that complexity?

John:  Marketing has become more complex as technology and consumer engagement continues to evolve rapidly.  A key factor in Dunkin Brands’ success has been the close partnership between our franchisees and the company.  This has enabled us to stay close to our customers and respond to the changing marketplace better than ever before. Our team has done a good job of balancing what has worked in the past with innovation.  We conduct very sophisticated ROI analysis on our marketing plans, but we also encourage our teams to try new things, such as our digital billboard in Times Square for Dunkin’ Donuts or our viral soft-serve video on Facebook with Baskin-Robbins.  On the product side, we’ve implemented a strategy called “Familiar with a Twist” that has combined old favorites like Dunkin’ Donuts’ original blend coffee and our breakfast wraps, along with innovative and fun new products like our turkey sausage breakfast sandwich and the glazed donut breakfast sandwich.

Drew: Pundits like to say that TV ads are dead yet every retail/fast food exec I talk to swears that TV is still the most cost effective way to drive store traffic. Are you still finding TV to be effective at driving traffic for Dunkin’ Donuts?  

John: Through the great work of our team and advertising agencies, traditional marketing tools like TV, out-of-home and in point-of- purchase displays still work very effectively for Dunkin’. However, consumer engagement is changing as consumers spend more time with their computers, tablets and smart phones and are using these multiple devices at the same time. Thus, while traditional marketing remains very important for Dunkin’,  our investments in digital, social, mobile and loyalty marketing are increasing even more rapidly.

All of these investments are driven by five key principles:  First, most great ideas flow from the consumer. Whether it’s B-to-B or B-to-C, there’s really no substitute for truly understanding your customers’ pain points and how you can address them. Second, building brand differentiation is the most important thing a marketer can focus on because it answers the fundamental question: why should consumers choose your brand over all their other choices? Third, building a strong team both inside and outside your organization is imperative. It’s not just about the people who report to you, but also about your peers within the organization and the key agencies and technology partners with whom you work. Fourth, tactics matter. While developing the right strategy is important, executing that strategy to the highest standards can really make a difference. And fifth, agility. The environment in which we compete is changing more rapidly than ever before, so it’s important to be agile and adapt your plans as needed. The bottom line is that, while the way consumers learn about brands, consume information, and decide where to buy brands has changed over years, they are still looking for better solutions to their everyday challenges. All five of these principles flow from the core principle of understanding your consumers’ unmet needs and meeting them better than anybody else.

Drew:  How important is mobile marketing to Dunkin’ in your overall marketing mix?  

John: For a company like Dunkin’ Donuts, mobile and marketing go hand-in-hand. The surge in mobile usage, coupled with the busy, on-the-go Dunkin’ guest, creates a very compelling business case for us. By launching the Dunkin’ App and offering mobile payments, we created an entirely new level of speed and convenience that further distinguishes our brand to current and new customers throughout the country.

While the majority of our mobile efforts are focused on adding value for our consumers through the Dunkin’ App, we do believe that it’s critical to optimize for mobile across all of our digital touch points. With consumers increasingly reliant on their mobile devices for information, it’s important that our website, online advertising, e-mails, social media communications and more, all be optimized for the mobile audience. Each month, we also host a number of fun promotions and programs for our consumers on mobile-friendly social media platforms. You may have seen our recent integration with ESPN’s Monday Night Countdown, where Dunkin’ Donuts has a billboard ad during the program that was created with Vine.  The billboard ad promotes a #DunkinReplay Vine, which re-creates a marquee play from the first half of each week’s Monday Night Football game with Dunkin’ food and beverages. The goal of creating the content and sharing it across Twitter and Vine allows Dunkin’ Donuts to engage with users who enjoy watching Monday Night Football while leveraging a mobile device to connect with others about the game.

Dunkin’ Donuts also recently partnered with Zynga’s Running With Friends for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, where we are providing players with in-game tips for perfecting their game, plus Dunkin’ coffee boosts to help keep them running past their friends and up the leaderboards. Guests can also earn 500 free gems to use during game play for checking in to a local Dunkin’ Donuts, further emphasizing how Dunkin’ keeps them running both in their everyday lives and during game play.

Overall, we are very pleased with the response to our mobile initiatives. The success of these programs supports the importance of taking a 360 degree approach and thinking thoughtfully about the best platforms that will help us to engage with Dunkin’ Donuts guests. The future of mobile for us is to continue putting Dunkin’ in everyone’s hands. We see a lot of potential for mobile to be an extension of the Dunkin’ Donuts experience. The Dunkin’ App has been very popular with our guests and we see a strong opportunity with mobile when we roll out our DD Perks loyalty initiative nationally in early 2014.


Drew: New products seem to be a really important part of QSR marketing yet in many cases product development does not report into the CMO. How does new product development work at Dunkin? Does it report into you? If not, how do you make sure you have the right “news” to market?

John: Our world class culinary team does report directly to me and is made up of chefs, food scientists, and operations folks.  They work very closely with our brand marketing group, supply chain, operations, and franchisee groups in a fast-moving, highly-collaborative, and highly-disciplined way. For example, we do sophisticated concept and sensory testing on our new products, and our culinary team has really embraced that as a key tool to help them get great new products to market even faster. I meet with the culinary team at least twice a month to review and taste our new products under development for the next 18 months.

Drew: At the start of my career, I worked on the Century 21 Real Estate account and became very familiar with the challenges of working with franchisees. How does the fact that Dunkin Donut shops are almost 100% franchisee owned impact your overall marketing strategy? How do you keep them all happy? 

John: Our franchisees are the core of our business at Dunkin’ Brands and we value their opinions and business decisions. I view our franchisees on both Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin- Robbins as a secret weapon in our product development and marketing efforts. These franchisees understand their markets in the U.S. and around the world better than anyone. They are a constant source of ideas, and we regularly review our product development plans with them to get their input.

Drew: How do you stay close to your customers with so many points of distribution (17,000 including Baskin-Robbins) in so many countries?

John: Because brand-building tactics and cultures may differ from country to country, people sometimes believe the principles may also differ. We operate in many different countries, in many different cultures, but we find the principle of understanding what our consumers want remains a constant around the world. We really try to adopt a global mindset that searches for the best ideas. It’s important to understand both the differences and the commonalities of countries around the world in order to remain close to our customers. For example, we sell a shredded pork donut in China right alongside a Boston Kreme donut, both of which are very popular. Green tea ice cream is popular in China, but so is French Vanilla ice cream.

We conduct extensive market research on key trends and get great feedback from our local teams and franchisees and business partners.  It’s also very important to visit local markets. I was in Europe earlier this year and will be rerunning to India and Indonesia next month.   Social media is another great way to stay in touch with customers. We understand that our guests like to use social media to interact with us, whether it be complimenting their favorite local shop’s crew members or telling us about their excitement for our pumpkin menu to return. We try to engage with our loyal fans as much as possible through these constantly growing channels in an effort to humanize our brand.

Drew: Consumers have lots of choices when it comes to coffee and donuts. What kinds of things are you trying to do to build loyalty?

John: The passion for Dunkin’ Donuts is unmatched and we believe the key to our continued success has been listening to our customers and evolving to meet their changing needs.  Providing great food and beverages at a good value, in a fast, friendly and convenient environment is the best way to build loyalty. We’re also planning to expand our enhanced DD Perks national loyalty program later this year. We believe that a customer-centric approach and ongoing commitment to evolving with our guests is why people have been coming to Dunkin’ Donuts for more than 60 years.

Drew: Do you agree with that 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?

John:  I believe that everything that touches the consumers drives the success of your brand.  It’s not just advertising.  It’s the products you offer, the guest experience in the store, how we handle customer feedback and the stories about Dunkin’ in the media.  A key part of our success has been a strong cross-functional team culture involving our franchises and internal groups within Dunkin’ like Marketing, Culinary/Innovation, Operations, HR, IT, Corporate Communications, etc..  We may different points of view on various issues, but after we discuss things, we move forward as one team.

This touches back to something that I mentioned earlier in our interview. I also believe that there’s really no substitute for truly understanding your customers’ pain points and how you can address them. This mindset keeps me inspired as I lead my team. I also believe this is a common theme across the Dunkin’ Brands leadership team, which allows for us extend the scope of our roles and promote a highly collaborative, cross-functional work environment from the top down. Coming together to take a 360 look at the entire customer experience cultivates a culture of innovation and has resulted in a number of powerful successes. Like any organization, there will always be the occasional road block, but I’ve worked hard to hire positive, proactive individuals who are strong communicators and adopt a solutions-oriented approach. Our industry is incredibly fast-paced and ever-changing, so we can’t let road blocks slow us down. Leading by example and encouraging people and teams to take initiative, has been a powerful recipe for success.

CMO Insights: Digital Innovations

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Beth ComstockSmall brands innovate out of necessity. Their very survival depends on finding not just a fresh solution to a customer problem but also a distinctive means of getting their story out there.  Fewer naysayers correlates to fewer entrenched ways of doing things equals faster pivots and a natural openness to experimentation.  For big brands, however, innovation is a triumph of determination over institutional inertia.  Or think of it this way, organizations are like planets–the bigger they get, the stronger the pull towards the center.

In this scenario, as one of the largest corporations in the world, GE should have the gravitational pull of Jupiter, crushing innovators before they can take a single step.  But guess again, big bias breath! From a marketing perspective, GE has been on the forefront of digital innovations for the last decade putting many smaller companies to shame.  Curious about how this was possible and thanks to an introduction by The CMO Club, I was delighted to be able to catch up with Beth Comstock, GE‘s CMO (who won The CMO Award for Leadership).  There is nothing more I could say that would be as near as insightful as the counsel Beth provides below.

Drew: For several years now, GE has been ahead of the curve when it comes to experimenting with new channels.  What is the strategy behind all of this experimentation? Is the medium essentially the message?
Beth: GE’s a leading technology company so we believe it important to be aligned with leading edge technology channels. The other thing to consider is that our audiences expect GE to be where they are – they aren’t going to always come looking for us.  We like to experiment as a way of learning, but our efforts have to align to our goal of connecting with our target audiences, which are largely industrial technologists and enthusiasts. And we’ve adapted our strategy around  being micro-relevant – meaning targeting the right audience in the right way. It doesn’t have to be a big audience, just the right one.

Drew: As the CMO, Is it a mandate of yours that GE explore all the newest coolest channels and if so, how are you finding them?
Beth: We have an awesome media team that identifies themselves as digital explorers.  We also take risks with new ideas and small companies as a way to learn and as a way to augment more traditional plays.  I’m a big believer in  carving out a percentage of your budget to develop new models.

Drew: Naysayers struggle to understand how a photo contest on Instagram or a promotion on Pinterest can help you sell GE products like aircraft engines. What do you say to those folks?
Beth: Selling a jet engine is a complicated sale.  Many people influence the purchase decision. And since GE is a company that traverses multiple industries, pretty quickly you’re targeting decision makers across a wide range of the economy and functional roles of business, which is why we believe in the importance of building a vibrant umbrella brand.  In addition to those who buy our products, we target enthusiasts, recruits and GE retail shareowners who want to experience GE in various dimensions.  Industrial technology is exciting, yes, even fun… and some of these outlets allow us the opportunity to open up and express ourselves in new ways.  People want to see that you are approachable.

Drew:  How has your role as CMO evolved over that past decade?  With the advent of “big data,” are you spending more time on analytics that you used to?  
The role of CMO has evolved from defining what marketing can do to delivering it.  I’m a  big believer in marketing’s role as developing markets, and new models. We like to think our contributions are in mindshare, marketshare and margin.  We’ve tried to make marketing a driver of commercial innovation that sits alongside our technical innovators to deliver a range of value to GE customers.  Big data is a perfect space for marketing.  A customer wants to run their business better not just have lots data – those insights help focus the data scientists on analytics that matter most.

Drew:  GE is primarily a B2B company yet you seem to act a lot more like a B2C company in terms of creating emotionally-rich consumer-friendly communications.  Any thoughts on why that is?
Beth: Since when does B2B have to be boring to boring?  Business people are people too. We are emotional beings, we don’t just rely on logic when it comes to business decisions.  Good marketing is about making a connection and delivering perceived value. Period.  In some ways, business marketers have an advantage in that they are closer to their customers and in theory should be more responsive and intuitive.

Drew: Content marketing is suddenly a hot buzzword in the industry.   Are you investing more resources in content development?  
Beth: We’ve been on a path as a content producer for several years now. We’ve widened our definition of content to include data, experiences and yes, emotional connection and even humor.  Content has to be useful and relevant to be effective.  We’ve invested in a range of skills like data visualization and user interaction design as a way to drive content that is engaging and relevant. The marvels of science, engineering and manufacturing offer good fodder for content, and we’re constantly seeking out storytellers who get as excited about this as we do.

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? Yes, it is more complex – we have a multitude of outlets and a range of content types to consider.  You need good partners, room for experimentation and a good dose of curiosity.  Trust me, it’s not about the size of your budget, it’s about the ability to use complexity to amplify your efforts, not stifle them.

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?  
Beth: Innovation can’t just be about fun ideas or wonky theories.  Innovation means new methods that yield results.  The challenge is often that time, trial and error are required to get to scale.  I’m a big believer in pilot projects to create proof points and staged development to make sure you get results.  Innovation without process is chaos. Trendspotting without translation leaves you empty.

Drew: Besides your efforts on Pinterest and Instagram can you speak about another recent innovative program that you are particularly proud of?
Beth: I’m especially proud of the work we are doing to help define what the industrial internet can mean to business productivity. It’s a new category for business, not just GE. We’ve put a lot of science and analysis into connecting with our customers and new tech partners in this area.  We’re doing much more in open innovation – meaning using digital communities to drive new methods at GE.  A recent example is a data science challenge with Kaggle that is shaving off minutes and fuel from flight landings – something thought unattainable.  And we’re having fun with Vine, having had a successful #SixSecondScience effort this summer that shows how science can be fun and connects with tech enthusiasts.

Drew: How do you stay close to your customers with so many different types of customers in so many countries?  
Beth: You have to live with them, analyze them, listen and empathize with them.  This means putting good marketing people on the ground in  markets around the world and more importantly, helping engineers and other business teams understand that marketing skills can be added to their jobs too.

Drew: Finally, I’ve heard it said that marketing is everything and everything is marketing especially when it comes to the customer experience. Do you agree with that notion and if so how have you extended the boundaries of your job beyond the normal purview of the CMO?   
Beth: I’m a big believer in Peter Drucker’s view that without a customer there is no business.  That is a rallying cry for marketing if I’ve ever heard one. And I think business leaders who believe that marketing is just about advertising and go-to-market communications miss out on all the market-making skills we have to offer.  I do believe the new frontier for marketers is holistic customer experience.  We haven’t cracked it yet but I’m looking forward to seeing how we can – and I think digital technology is taking us there very fast.

Embracing Social

Posted on by Drew Neisser

tiffany kraftOn June 16th, 2006, I was on a panel at Kraft Foods with Max Kaleoff and David Berkowitz to discuss word-of-mouth marketing and the rise of social networks.  Honestly, it was one of the tougher panels I’d ever been on as the then head of marketing concluded that “this stuff” just wasn’t scalable and could end up being a time suck for employees which is why they weren’t allowed to access Facebook at work.

Needless to say, times have changed and Kraft subsequently embraced social in a big way.  This became particularly evident to me at the recent Pivot conference where I met Tiffany Tamplin, Sr. Director of Refreshment Beverages.  As it turns out, Tiffany had been in the audience back in ‘96, has become a bit of a social evangelist herself and was at Pivot to share a mini-case history of Kool-Aid’s social activity.

Of course, I was all ears especially when she talked about the role LoudDoor (a sophisticated market research and audience targeting platform I’ve discussed before) had played in Kool-Aids efforts.  Through the LoudDoor research, Kool-Aid determined that its Facebook fan base was heavily skewed toward teens and not comprised of the moms who actually buy the product.  Recalibrating its Facebook ad buy, Kool-Aid was able to fix this and subsequently grow its fan base to a scale (>3 million) perhaps unimaginable back in 2006.

In the interview below, Tiffany sheds light on the role social plays for Kool-Aid, why the Kool-Aid man is now CGI, how they grew their Facebook footprint efficiently and increased engagement via a fun photobombing iPhone App. Its all good stuff if you ask me.

Drew:  You mentioned at Pivot that Kool-Aid had a new ad campaign & tagline.  Tell me about the new campaign/tagline, why it was needed and about the shift to the CGI Kool-Aid Man.
Kool-Aid is a brand that brings smiles to everyone because it is undeniably fun. Our new tagline embodies that.  The Kool-Aid Man has been around since the 1950’s and we felt he needed a face-lift for the new millennium.  CGI gave us the opportunity to truly bring the pitcher to life and our campaign is about getting to know the “man” behind the jug.

Drew:  What role did you think social media could play in the overall marketing mix of Kool-Aid?  After all, you already have near universal awareness.
Social as a marketing mix tool plays a key role in creating a personal, meaningful and memorable experience with our brand. It allows us to create a 1:1 experience that is of real substance; an experience you want to share with others. Television, Print and OLA helps us get the word out, but social is where the natural expression and passion of our brand advocates can be harnessed.

The outcome ranged from finding and growing our core consumer base on Facebook to launching our mobile app where the new Kool-Aid Man could be experienced through what we like to call ‘Random Acts of Fun.’

Drew: A lot of brands don’t take the time to research the social behavior of their fans.  Can you talk about why you felt the need to do the research you did with Loud Door and the role it played it refining your social target definition?
Analyzing our Facebook fan base conversation, our agency VSA Partners, could see that we were pulling in a lot of Male teenagers who probably appreciate the brand’s appearance on Family Guy but are not the people who are going out and buying our product. However, we knew our core consumer was online so we worked with LoudDoor to identify her and better understand her so we could start a social dialogue she would respond to.  The net result was significant fan growth this year, exceeding the 3million fan mark.  Today Kool-Aid ranks within the top 10% of branded site.

kool-aid-photo-bombDrew: So now you have a bunch of insights about your target one of which lead you to creating the Kool-Aid photo bomber app.  Talk to me about the app, the role it plays and how it has performed for the brand.
The Kool-Aid Photobomb app was designed to take advantage of the native social sharing that’s embedded in millions of Android and iOS devices.  Sharing and in particular photo sharing is an inherent characteristic of our core consumer and we wanted to facilitate an easy, fun way for her to do so with Kool-Aid.

Drew:  How else did the LoudDoor research help you?  
We leveraged the LoudDoor insights to target directly to the audience who would be most likely to download the app, purchase Kool-Aid and engage and advocate for the brand in social media.

The result? The app also ranked #24 in the App Store Entertainment category surpassing Hulu, Netflix and ABC in its first week. Mobile Ads supporting the app had 300% above the benchmark norm for awareness and 200% above benchmark for purchase intent.

We are [also] able to leverage the insights to provide more precise targeting to our media agency.

Drew: You also mentioned that your Facebook ad spend become 2x to 4x more effective than past efforts thanks to the insights from the LoudDoor research. Can you talk about why you think the ads were so much more efficient?
We saw 2x to 3x efficiency through LoudDoor targeting executed by Starcom, this was in contrast to using Facebook’s standard interest-based targeting.

Drew: Based on the increased responsiveness of your Facebook advertising, does this impact how much you would spend on FB in the future and or/ the role FB advertising plays in the overall marketing mix?  
Yes, we leverage the learnings to deepen our partnership with Facebook and optimize spending. We are working directly with them as part of their “Facebook Garage” program.

Drew: How would you like to see your social program evolve in the next 12-24 months?
Our plan is to grow and expand upon the fantastic momentum we started this past year.

Managing Customer Feedback

Posted on by Drew Neisser

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the volume of your brand’s customer service chatter, listen to this. McDonald’s receives five mentions every second on social media. That’s 300 per minute, 18,000 per hour… you get the idea. How can the company possibly sift through the noise and engage its customers with such a constant barrage of interaction?

Kim Musgrave, Social Media Team Leader at McDonald’s, answered this question and more during our panel together at the Social Media for Customer Service Summit in New York. There we discussed how to best capture, manage and analyze customer feedback to improve business performance and create lasting relationships. Kim shared how McDonald’s tackles customer service via social media and agreed to expound a bit further on their strategy in this interview. I suspect you will find her comments quite enlightening.

Drew: How long have you been in your current role and how long have you been at McDonald’s?
I have been at McDonald’s just over four years, and as the social opportunities evolved, I became the Social Media Manager in Customer Experience & Insights in 2011. In this role, I work closely with the Communication & Marketing teams to drive the social media strategy for customer engagement and insights for the U.S. business. This includes developing processes for targeted engagement to build customer loyalty as well as using social data as a source of customer feedback about products and service.

Drew: The Twitter handle @Reachout_McD is relatively new. Tell me a bit about the thinking behind this particular handle relative to @McDonalds and how it has worked thus far. 
The @McDonalds Twitter handle was born in late 2009 as a way for our customers to follow us for the latest McDonald’s news and promotions. As our follower count grew, so did the opportunity to give our customers a place to share feedback, ask a question, etc.

Drew: @ReachOut_McD Twitter tends to be mainly listening & responding versus creating original content. Just curious, why?
Our social service team responds to @McDonalds customer service issues via the @Reachout_McD dedicated handle. We wanted a place to celebrate our customers who have great experiences at McDonald’s, so we re-tweet those as well.

Drew: There is a lot of chatter on Twitter about McDonald’s every day. What kinds of challenges has this created from a listening standpoint?  
McDonald’s serves over 28 million customers in the U.S. each day. In social media, McDonald’s is currently mentioned every second! While tracking total volume/buzz is one metric, we really want to get to the “meat” of the conversations. Due to the fact that about 80% of our mentions are from Twitter, this context can ben be challenging with slang, sarcasm and profanity. “Just killed this Big Mac,” is that positive or negative? We are currently testing tools to get to the sentiment and emotion behind the mention and are finding only about 10% have this insight.

Drew:  Given all the noise, how do you decide what is worthy of a response? Or said differently, do you have different policies for how you deal with positive feedback from customers vs. how you deal with negative feedback from customers on social media? 
Our cross-functional team focuses on @McDonalds for listening and engagement 7 days a week. This team includes Customer Service (both at home office and call center), Communications, PR, and Agencies. As the volume of mentions has increased, we developed a “Playbook” with guidelines for response and a very simple Red, Yellow, Green light system.

Drew: Everyone talks about social listening but not every brand is doing it. How well do you think your team is listening, and are there any tools that are working particularly well for you?
McDonald’s has been listening in social media since 2008 and the way we report to the business has evolved as we have communicated the value of social data. Sentiment is the most challenging, as I mentioned above, so having a tool that can capture the volume, then break down the context in an accurate way, continues to be an area of opportunity.

Drew: Can you provide an example of social listening that helped inform other business activities (marketing, product dev, etc)?
Improving the restaurant experience is one of the opportunities for McDonald’s customer engagement in social. These engagement insights are combined with the traditional voice of customer insights to identify opportunities: how fast, accurate, and friendly is the service? Trending this over time (ie. monthly) can provide opportunities for operations.

Drew:  If a comment happens to come from a famous person, do you handle the response differently?  
Every customer of McDonald’s is important regardless of Klout, number of followers or celebrity status.  Recently, McDonald’s tweeted Al Roker because he missed his first day of work in 39 years by sleeping in. We thought it would be fun to post about it regarding McCafe and then they mentioned it on Good Morning America.

Drew: Let’s talk about your social team structure.  Do you have a separate group for brand social and service social?
We have a cross-functional team. Social customer service is my area, and I have a dedicated supervisor for Twitter customer service. We are currently working with a few of our call center agents to develop the social care process. Facebook is managed by an agency, but we stay very closely aligned and work on service processes.

Drew: How do you see service via social media evolving over the next 2-3 years? What kinds of things would you like to see improved?  
I see the customer expecting brands to be very responsive (just like calling), but also authentic in social customer service—no auto replies. For brands with increasing mentions in social, having the best social tool for prioritization and routing will be a necessity.