Tag: CMO Club

CMO Insights: Putting Innovation to Work – Part 2

Posted on by Drew Neisser

In part one of my interview with CMO Hall of Fame Inductee Beth Comstock, we talked about the innovative marketing campaigns she’s enabled as the CMO of GE. In this second part, we talk more about how personal passions and inspirations can translate into exciting campaigns and a culture of creativity. I was surprised by her background in biology but not by her sharp insights on what it means to be a marketing leader and how to helm innovative campaigns.

Drew: I couldn’t help to notice that you were biology major, which is not exactly the typical liberal arts path of a future marketer. Did you imagine yourself being a marketer when you were studying biology?

Not at all. I was torn between anthropology, psychology, and biology and I picked biology because I thought I wanted to go to medical school. But it turns out that biology is actually a great background for marketing. Something that Biology and Marketing have in common is that they both deal with the interconnectivity of each individual living thing to a broader system and that’s the world we live in. We are all connected. We can’t innovate without partnership. I think my study of ecology and my study of systems has trained me to think in a more systematic way and view the world – and certainly the business world – more systematically.

Drew: How important is it to you that you spend time managing personal brand activities on social media?

I think it’s important to do it to learn. Again, if you believe your mandate is to connect to outside of yourself and your company, you have to use the best mechanisms to do that. If you look at my Twitter for the past few months I haven’t been as active as I need to be, but I kind of go through cycles. I love it as my daily newsfeed and I love it as way to connect with people and ideas.

For me, LinkedIn has unearthed a passion. There are a lot of people who I actually want to connect with; people whom I want to come and work with GE or potentially our customers. LinkedIn is a really good place to do that. As a marketer, our jobs aren’t easy, so I try to use it as a way to share lessons and say, ‘hey, we’re all in this together’. We’ve all been in those tough situations. For me, it’s been a bit cathartic to just kind of share some of those talks.

Drew: I know you’ve talked about spending upwards of 25 percent of your time in Silicon Valley, talking to your GE team out there. That’s a lot of time relative to all the things that you have to do. How do you rationalize that investment relative to other ways of spending your time?

I would say that may be skewing a little bit more but we are investing a lot of the company in the Industrial Internet and in partnerships that help us get to be that market. Silicon Valley is kind of a metaphor for where innovation is happening. Just to give you an example, last week I was in Asia for a week and spent time in three cities in China and in Seoul, Korea. In every city I went to, 75 percent of my time was spent on GE or customer efforts, but I also made time to see what was happening in the marketplace. In Beijing, I spent time with the Xiaomi team. In Chengdu, I got to meet the Camera360 startup guys who have developed apps and in Seoul, I participated in a roundtable innovation discussion with some incubators and founders. I do it with my venture cap, but more importantly I do it to keep the company tethered externally. It’s partly my job but it’s also a metaphoric way to describe that kind of sense of where innovation is happening.

Drew: Looking ahead either in terms of trends that you’re seeing or just personal things that you would really like to get a handle on next year, what is on your priority list for 2015?

For the marketing mandate, I think just continuing to create stories that connect and scale. I think the journey is never done. I want to continue to find these different partners, media and ways to tell stories that connect them in scale. We don’t have a big budget so there’s a lot of ongoing pressure for us as a team to raise the bar. That’s always on our list.

I am a big believer in this idea of what we call the global brain. It’s this idea of using digital connections to tap into people who don’t work for us. It’s called open innovation but you can also call it a digital workforce. There are a lot of ways you can get people who have insights and capabilities to do work with your company and I think it will continue to take off.

We have a culture of speed and simplicity and kind of delight in things that can explain what we do at GE. I feel very committed to being a part of that in this coming year. The discovery agenda is still looming large. By the end of 2015, I hope to find three new trends of things that are just absolutely exciting.

CMO Insights: Innovative Marketing

Posted on by Drew Neisser

The job of the detective is to not simply to take the facts as they appear but instead to dig for hidden clues and ultimately reassemble these into a cohesive fact-based narrative of what actually happened.  With this in mind, I would propose that Mayur Gupta, the Global Head of Marketing Technology and Innovation at consumer goods giant Kimberly-Clark, is the Sherlock Holmes of digital marketing.  Though our one conversation transcribed below hardly qualifies me for the role of Watson, I will say that if you read our Q+A, you too may finally have a clue what programmatic marketing is all about.

You will also come to understand what big data can actually do for big brands, especially if (and this is a big IF) you can shift the internal conversation from channel-centricity to customer-centricity.  As Mayur sees it, opportunities abound for the marketers who “break the channel silos and drive seamless or so called “omni channel” consumer experiences.”  Read on.  It won’t take any detective work on your part to see why he received the Programmatic Marketing award at The CMO Club’s CMO Awards.

Drew: This is a great quote from you: “We don’t believe in digital marketing; we believe in marketing in a digital world.” Can you explain what you mean and how it impacts your planning process?

Actually, that was me quoting our CMO, Clive Sirkin, who has gone on record to say “we don’t believe in digital marketing but brand building or marketing in a digital world.” As an organization we have adopted that mantra as a founding principle behind all our marketing strategies. It’s quite simple if you think about it – we are engaging a consumer who is living in a massively digital world, she is dependent on digital technology, which is now part of her daily life. She no longer differentiates between the analog and the digital world in her expectations from brands and how they engage, she expects the same value and experience seamlessly across the board. However, on the flip side, brands continue to consider digital as a “thing” or a “silo” which breaks and fragments that experience. We at Kimberly Clark believe in breaking these silos by driving convergence that eventually builds legendary brands in this digital world. It’s a shift from being multi-channel (channel focused) to truly becoming “omni-channel” (consumer focused).

Drew: Also, the same article mentioned you had eight principles for innovation in the corporate ecosystem—can you talk about the top 3 principles your fellow marketer’s should concentrate on first and why?
Sure, will share 3 of them, not necessarily the “top” 3 but I think these are most fundamental in context to driving innovation:

*   #BeConsumerObsessed — For the most part, marketers and, in fact, the entire industry is “channel obsessed”, from strategies to operations we think about channels and touch points first and consumer second. The way plans are laid out, technology landscapes are orchestrated – it’s all channel driven. For marketing and innovation to be successful, it needs to be consumer driven and consumer obsessed, solving consumer needs and desires and when you do that, you organically break the channel silos and drive seamless or so called “omni channel” consumer experiences. Technology and innovation can very easily overshadow this simple fact.

*   #DontKillTheButterfly — I don’t think any explanation can do more justice than this video itself:

Innovation is about letting the ideas fly which can be challenging in a corporate world that is increasingly driven by ROI from day one

*   #ConnectTheDots — Finally and most importantly, I strongly believe that creativity and innovation is all about connecting the dots. Most times, it’s all out there; all it needs is wiring.

Drew: What innovations are you proudest of leading in 2014?
We are still in early stages of driving disruptive innovation in a digital world – we introduced our Digital Innovation Lab (D’LAB) at CES in Vegas in 2014. We have a number of pilots that are currently in flight, some of them are in market right now and some ready to launch in early 2015. But personally I am most proud of innovating how we drive and orchestrate the complex data and technology ecosystem across marketing. We have established a global marketing technology organization within marketing reporting into our CMO while working very closely with our CIO and her organization. We have innovated our organizational model that has allowed us to drive innovation across the board with data and technology, launching capabilities like programmatic, data management platforms and other content and eCommerce capabilities with speed, agility and nimbleness across the globe.

Drew: Can you talk to one area of innovation you’d really like to crack in 2015?
Don’t know if I can share the actual ideas on this forum but a big area of focus for us in 2015 is driving data convergence, an ability to stitch the fragmented data ecosystem across 1st party, 2nd party and 3rd party data. In order for us to drive relevant, personalized and frictionless consumer experiences across channels and touch points, we need this universal data set just in time and the ability to make decisions and predictions relevant to our consumer as she hops from one touch point to the other. This is more critical for us than “big data”, in fact we put big test and big learning far ahead of big data which for us is a good “buzzword”.

Drew: How has programmatic marketing helped you reach your overall marketing objectives?
It has helped us become smarter as well as more relevant and personalized from a media buying and consumer engagement standpoint across paid channels. Having utilized and scaled the obvious benefits of programmatic, we are now in the next horizon where we are starting to leverage the impact of programmatic across rest of the ecosystem including our owned and earned channels as well as weight our retailer partnerships. The early horizons of programmatic have helped us optimize our media buying efforts and maximized the ROI but the subsequent horizons will include leveraging consumer data and insights in driving stronger consumer engagement and inspiring behavior across the board which arguably is the most under utilized and ignored benefit of programmatic buying.

Drew: What were some of the challenges of adopting programmatic and what advice would you give to another marketer who is just getting started?
Programmatic has been at Kimberly Clark for a few years now even before I had joined, so the credit goes to our media leadership and Clive Sirkin, our CMO. We were clearly one of the early adopters and pioneers in the space. The challenge for us now is to go beyond the obvious and scale the capability globally. We have already seen tremendous success with our current trading desk and programmatic buying capability, we are now challenging ourself to take it to another level and impact the broader marketing ecosystem, smartly leveraging consumer data and insights that will drive seamless experiences and inspire consumer behavior across paid, owned and earned.

Drew: Have you leveraged any new technologies or platforms in the last 12 months and if so what were the results relative to your expectations?
We have spent the last 12-18 months to establish a marketing technology ecosystem at Kimberly Clark that includes technologies in three broad buckets – 1. enterprise capabilities that need to be globally scaled, 2. tactical and localized capabilities that need agility and speed and pertain to local market and consumer needs, 3. lastly technologies and start ups that we need to partner with to drive innovation. Underneath these buckets, there have been a number of new capabilities that have successfully been launched this year but more importantly we have focused on wiring these technologies, ensuring it’s a connected ecosystem and not isolated technologies.

Drew: Storytelling is a big buzzword right now.  Is your brand a good storyteller and if so, can you provide an example of how you are telling that story?
Sure it is and don’t we love these buzzwords, I think storytelling is the “big data” of 2014. On a serious note though, we believe in the power of having a brand story but not necessarily in “storytelling” because that still represents the old mindset that lacks participation and engagement. We believe in “story building” where as brands we share stories that are connected to our brand promise; these stories inspire consumer behavior and participation where eventually our consumers end up creating their own stories on a canvas and foundation that we provide. That is the ultimate state for us that we call “story building.”

CMO Insights: Leadership for the CMO

Posted on by admin

Sorry Kermit the Frog, if you think its hard being green–try being a CMO. The demands are relentless, the barriers to success are often as large inside the company pond as they are out of it and the timeframe for delivering meaningful results are a de minimis hop or two away. So finding a CMO who knows how to not just survive but thrive under these conditions is worth celebrating — which is exactly what The CMO Club did when they recognized Stephanie Anderson with their President’s Circle Award late last year.

During her tenure as CMO of Time Warner Cable Business Class, among other accomplishments Anderson reorganized her group, established a Customer Experience and Knowledge (CEK) team and most recently led the launch of PerkZone, a multi-dimensional customer loyalty program.  (Proud disclosure: TWCBC is a Renegade client and is part of the team that created and manage PerkZone!)  Here is my interview with Anderson conducted around the time of The CMO Awards.

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?
I think when you are in any leadership role you need to spend the right proportion of time with key stakeholders and constituents to get the job done in a collaborative way, without being too far into the details or overshadowing your people.  I use my boss’s rule: 1/3, 1/3, 1/3.  A third of my time is spent with my peer group and up, making sure they all understand the strategy, focus, and priorities for Marketing, Advertising and Offers and 1/3 is spent with my direct reports (3 GVPs and 2 VPs) helping them with priorities and any people/budget issues, and 1/3 out in the market, with customers, suppliers, vendors, events, continuing education, etc.

Drew: Have there been any big surprises in terms of what’s worked really well and what hasn’t?
Not any big surprises about what has worked.  But, one that continues to baffle me is that I have had challenges drawing a straight line conclusion that direct mail influences the web or overall leads, even though we have used purls, phone numbers, vanity urls – but over time, without the DM in our industry you start to see a reduction in overall sales related calls.

Drew: Big data is a big part of the CMO conversation these days.  How are you tackling big data?
This is a tough one.  We are revamping our database as we speak to not just be more encompassing, but really more searchable and friendly.  The data is useless without the ability to pull together the storyline and make decisions based on what you find out.  That is the challenge.

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?
Yes, and more importantly in my case our CFO (who has the office next to mine!).  I, myself, actually drive us harder than the CFO because I want us to always be spending on relevant, revenue impacting marketing initiatives.  I think the easiest and most enjoyable is SEM.  The toughest is loyalty and brand – but we do prove the link to revenue or reduced churn or improved consideration in everything 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?
More sophisticated, not necessarily more complex.  The depth of knowledge you can glean from online activity to inform offline is sophisticated, and extremely useful.  We have one marketing team that has all digital and mass for that reason – because of the relationship between on and off line.  Also, while the analytics can seem daunting, the end results generally help you make better decisions overall, so now you may spend a bit more of your budget tracking, learning and understanding and less on the actual tactics because you’ve mastered and fine-tuned them.

Drew: How do you stay close to your customers when you operate in so many markets and have so many different types of business customers?  
Not so well on the low end, but we are changing that.  We serve very small, small, medium and large enterprises.  It’s easy when you are dealing with a national customer to be responsive, available, etc.  but in the mass world of transactional, very small and small, it becomes harder and pretty soon your relationship is boiled down to email and a monthly bill.  We do have newsletters, are building a value–added benefits program for small business and try to send them information that can help their business grow and/or stay healthy.  It’s getting better as we use campaign and life cycle management tools, but there’s always room for improvement.  Our job is collecting and keeping customers.

Drew: One of the big challenges a CMO faces is organizational, given all the different marketing channels.  How are you addressing these organizational challenges? 
I am going for Best in Class in this area.  I recently implemented what I call an “outside in” structure that takes the customers and competitors in the segments we serve into consideration.  So I have a lead GVP of Small, a lead GVP of mid-market and Channels, and a GVP of Enterprise and Carrier business.  They run the marketing end-to-end for their segment including offers, competitive, life cycle strategy and then I have two functional teams that are shared resources – one is mass & digital and the other is customer experience and knowledge for all of the database and research/retention etc.

It’s a new design, but I believe any structure that puts the customers/prospects at the core of it should work out!

Drew: Content marketing is a hot topic at the moment. Are you increasing your investment in this area?
Content marketing is hot – but not new.  Being in technology, that is the way we work – be relevant, educate and then solve.  I would say yes, we are increasing our investment here but not because we are following a content trend, but because our own thought leadership and solutions have advanced and we need to be able to tell our stories quickly and with the prospect or customer in mind.

Drew: As CMO, have you been able to address the entire customer experience?   
Yes, I actually have a Customer Experience and Knowledge (CEK) team.  We work very closely to survey and research what customers/prospects want, pilot the findings in market and then implement across the company, working especially close with our care organization and field operations.  We all own the interactions as employees of TWC, but my team has the ultimate accountability to make sure we capture and harness the best experience possible and deploy that across our business.

CMO Insights: Leading and Believing in Your Brand

Posted on by Drew Neisser

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A few months back, Mary Kay’s CMO Sheryl Adkins-Green won The 2013 CMO Award for Officers given by The CMO Club.  This award, according to Pete Krainik, founder of The CMO Club,”was based on a marketing executive’s demonstrated leadership in leading the brand beyond the marketing department and leading the growth agenda for the company.”  When you read the interview below I think you will understand not only why Sheryl won this award but also why Mary Kay represents such a distinctive marketing challenge.

Founded just over 50 years ago, Mary Kay depends on independent army of beauty consultants that is now 3 million strong.  For Sheryl, marketing is less about driving demand from end users and more about motivating their consultants to champion Mary Kay products all over the world. Doing this requires genuine insights into the dreams and aspirations of these women who have the potential to transform their own lives AND to make a huge difference in the lives of others.  Connecting with their beauty consultants on a highly emotional and personal level has created a culture that’s become the lifeblood of the company. Read on as Adkins-Green highlights Mary Kay’s unique marketing strategy and her most successful campaigns:

Drew: A challenge that a lot of CMOs face is: where do you spend your time? How do you know where to spend it, and has that changed at all over the last couple years?
I find that my time is best spent with our customers and my team. Ideas and the success of their implementation come from that time spent. I don’t feel like that has changed substantially. I’m also spending more time exploring all the new developments that are expanding digital marketing options – and the trends regarding how consumers are using social media channels and mobile apps. These are areas where, out of necessity, I have been investing more time.

Drew: Let’s break down the time that you spend with customers. Your first round of customers, we could say, are the folks that your 3 million Independent Beauty Consultants. The Mary Kay Independent Beauty Consultants really define the brand for many customers. Do you spend time with both them and the end user?
Actually, the Mary Kay Independent Sales Force is our only customer, and to your point, they in turn have a customer base. I connect with the independent sales force in larger forums such as our annual Leadership and Seminar events. When I travel to international markets, I also attend sales events and solicit suggestions from the Independent Sales Force. We also include the Independent Sales Force in any research that we’re doing on major new products and new promotion concepts. I’m also “listening” to the independent sales force via our social media channels. In addition, we have an intranet where we’re receiving input from the independent sales force. Certainly, on the public social channels such as Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest, we’re in touch with what they’re interested in, what they are talking about, etc.

Drew: You brought up social media; in one case on your Facebook page, there were more shares than likes, which is very unusual for a particular post. Would you say that a large percentage of those fans are your consultants?
Certainly a large percentage are Mary Kay Independent Beauty Consultants, but the total metrics and the types of engagement indicate that it is a combination of both Independent Beauty Consultants AND their customers who love the products. Our fan base is made up of women who love Mary Kay products, what the company is doing in the community, and also women love their Mary Kay beauty consultants! It’s definitely a combination.

Drew: For other brands, the concept of employees-as-brand-ambassadors has been very difficult to manage. At Mary Kay, the Independent Sales Force are the brand ambassadors. The role that social media plays for them is somewhat different; it’s an educational channel as well as a marketing channel for them, because they can share your content with their friends who presumably are also their customers. How do you manage that?
That is exactly our goal: to make it easy for them to access and share relevant brand content that supports the success of their business. We definitely provide a best practices example and make sure that the content we provide is timely to new product launches—we incorporate what’s trending in the beauty world, whether it’s the holiday season, the Oscars, how-to tips, etc.—and then we make it very easy for them to share. We have what we internally refer to as a “digital zone,” where we aggregate the digital content so that it’s easy to access and share.

Drew: One of the issues other companies have is compliance. In this case, it’s getting the Mary Kay Independent Beauty Consultants to actually use this intranet, so you end up having to market the marketing. How do you make sure that your consultants spend a little time on marketing versus spending all their time in the field?
We work to make sure the content is easily accessible. The goal is not to encourage them to spend a lot of time at their desk, but to have it available, as they need it, when they need it.

Drew: How do you manage your overall marketing, recognizing that success and failure are almost always determined by that Independent Beauty Consultant?
It really ties back to the strong values that Mary Kay Ash herself built into the company and into the culture. It’s something that’s literally been embraced by the Independent Beauty Consultants who’ve decided to start a Mary Kay business. Those values are around the Golden Rule, and treating people the way you want to be treated. It’s what we call “Golden Rule Service,” providing the kind of service that we would want for ourselves. When you ask how we manage the customer experience that individuals might have, I really credit the value system and the Independent Beauty Consultants’ commitment to those values. It’s something that’s shared and reinforced in how the company interacts with the Independent Sales Force, and then reflected in how they interact with their customer base.

Drew: Mary Kay as a company does not recruit or hire the Independent Beauty Consultants. Because the Mary Kay brand is in their hands, it is important that Independent Beauty Consultants share the company’s values. Is there a screening process that ensures a higher likelihood of signing an agreement with someone who has those shared values?
The culture is so strong, and this might be an oversimplification, but as it relates to the value system, like attracts like. In other words, the women who typically have interacted with an Independent Mary Kay Beauty Consultant have learned about more than the great products. They have learned about what the company is doing in the community. There are core values that resonate in regards to how the Mary Kay brand and opportunity are really about more than just cosmetics. It’s about empowering women, helping them discover their inner beauty, their confidence, their passion and their special gifts through the opportunity. There are typically meetings and discussions that the Independent Beauty Consultants and Directors would have with someone as they are considering this opportunity. It’s not a screening process per se, but there are conversations that help women understand the company’s culture and values as they are considering the Mary Kay opportunity.

Drew: Let’s get to specific marketing programs that you’ve done over the last three years where you were really proud of the results.
There have been a couple; the first took place in 2013. It was a campaign that was developed to commemorate our 50th anniversary, and our mantra for the anniversary year was “One Woman Can.” It not only paid homage to the accomplishments of Mary Kay Ash, but it also represented our empowerment message. One woman can do amazing things, and one woman can do anything that she sets her desires on. The marketing program, specifically, was centered on a global makeover contest. It kicked off on March 8th, which was International Women’s Day. Our goal was to complete the highest number of makeovers ever, and we did complete 44,000 makeovers within a 24-hour period. Earlier this month, Mary Kay Independent Beauty Consultants and their customers actually beat this record by completing 58,808 makeovers!

By engaging the Independent Sales Force all around the world, it kicked off a global contest where women not only participated in makeovers and agreed to have their picture posted in a gallery, but more importantly they had an opportunity to tell a story about a cause that they cared about. The winners of the contest also had an opportunity to win a grant for the charity or not-for-profit of their choice. The specifics varied a little bit, but in the United States, the company awarded 50 5,000 grants on behalf of the 50 women who received the most votes in the “One Woman Can” makeover contest. Mary Kay Ash started her company with her life’s savings of $5,000. This anniversary marketing initiative, therefore, celebrated what Mary Kay is about—inner beauty showing through as outer beauty. It was an opportunity to engage the Independent Sales Force not only with their current customers but also to connect with potential new customers. A lot of women shared that they typically wouldn’t be interested in a makeover, but because there was an opportunity to support a cause that they care about and possibly earn a grant, then they would be willing to lend their faces.

Drew: How did you promote this program?
We promoted it via social media. The Independent Sales Force outreach and PR coverage was a great way to tell the story to the media. We did get some great offline and online TV coverage that provided the opportunity to share our “One Woman Can” anniversary message and convey why we were celebrating with a makeover contest that was anchored by inner beauty.

Drew: Other than posts on Facebook and Twitter, could you enter via social channels?
Yes. The information on how to enter you could access through social channels, but you needed to enter through an Independent Beauty Consultant. If you didn’t have a consultant, we directed women to the consultant locator on www.marykay.com—you could enter your zip code and find an Independent Beauty Consultant in your area. That’s the way new customers were able to connect to the sales force.

Drew: How do you evaluate the success of your marketing?
We used several metrics. As a leading indicator, we were able to track our sales to the Independent Sales Force; that’s just one element. We were also able to track our social media metrics. We also have annual surveys of the Independent Sales Force to understand not only this type of marketing program, but in general how well our initiatives are supporting their businesses, and if there are any gaps or opportunities, what those are so that we can address them.

Drew: When you sit down with your CEO, how do you frame the role of marketing?
I frame it in the context of supporting the success of the Independent Sales Force. For example, when I talk to the CEO about social media initiatives, I don’t talk in terms of likes or fans but in the context of how social media engagement is driving awareness, consideration and trial of brand, since these activities support the Independent Sales Force. Just as you noticed some of our engagement numbers—we look at how the social media programs drive traffic to the website, to shopping pages, and the consultant locator. Our most compelling metrics are the ones that tie to the success of the Independent Sales Force.

Drew: You mentioned you have a global audience and it’s growing. As a CMO, how do you get to know these international markets?
My team and I spend as much time as possible with our international markets through our organizational structure, working with regional- and country-level marketing teams. It starts with a clear and consistent strategy from which the different marketing teams are able to develop their plans. They start with corporate strategy and programs but have leeway to be locally relevant.

Drew: Have you had to make product adjustments for markets outside the U.S.?
Yes. First and foremost, any regulatory requirements are going to be factored in. For example, in the Asia Pacific market, the skincare category is larger for beauty brands, so we do offer more skincare regimens in this market than in other parts of the world. In Latin America, where fragrances are a very highly developed beauty category, we offer more fragrances that have been specifically developed to deliver against preferences in Mexico and Brazil.

Drew: I love the 50th anniversary story—is there another initiative you would like to call to my attention from your portfolio as a CMO?
Another initiative is our college campus tours, which is actually in its third year. We call it “Fall Into Beauty,” and it’s been in partnership with Cosmopolitan and Seventeen Magazine. Importantly, beyond being an introductory beauty experience on college campuses, we have also partnered with a not-for-profit, LoveisRespect.org. Mary Kay has been the lead sponsor for their text support line. “Love is Respect” educates young women—more broadly, young adults—about healthy relationships. In a nutshell, the goal is to head off domestic violence before it begins. This organization targets younger women, and the text support line provides them with a confidential channel to ask questions either for themselves or on behalf of someone they care about and get advice on how to handle a situation, hopefully before it becomes abusive. They just need to text “loveis” to 77054. Our message on campus is about more than beauty—it’s about creating awareness about this service and about domestic violence in the hopes that young women who are away from home for the first time have the confidence to recognize and avoid unhealthy relationships, and help other young women do the same thing.

Drew: How do you evaluate the success of a program like that?
Specifically with “Love is Respect,” it is one of those things where, on the one hand, if you get a lot of comments and questions coming through that channel, you feel it’s good that those women had a place to go, but at the same time, part of you doesn’t want to see a high number because you feel like that might be indicative of a high number of women in a difficult situation. Our primary goal with “Love is Respect” is to create awareness and to disseminate that this help is available. The campus tour gave us an opportunity to get the word out about the text support line, leveraging the fact that college students are highly connected and can then pass that information on to those who would benefit from it.

Drew: I’ve read that interest in the Mary Kay opportunity is somewhat counter-cyclical—if the economy is bad, then more people are interested in running their own businesses. Does the cyclical nature of your business come into play as you think about your own marketing?
Yes, certainly. When economic times are challenging and when career opportunities are limited, we definitely see more people interested in the opportunity. Those who had a Mary Kay business part-time may decide to invest more time into it or even make it a full-time option. Having said that, the flip side is that when the economy is a little stronger and women are spending more money, it’s also good for the Independent Mary Kay sales force. When they are selling a great product and are part of a brand that’s doing great things in the community, that’s also appealing. From my vantage point, it’s always a good day to start a Mary Kay business. That’s how we approach the marketing. We always treat it as a new and exciting, rewarding opportunity.

Drew: Does content marketing play a role? Did you have any new initiatives in that area? Is that even relevant to your business?
On one level, I am more of an old-school marketer and I feel marketing has always been about the brand messages – not simply the advertising. Everything speaks –  I’ve always marketed with that in mind. But more importantly, brands should always be about discovery. Content marketing is about creating and keeping a fresh face on your brand – everyday! Content marketing is about all levels of the customer experience with your brand—all touch points, telling a relevant and consistent story. I’ve always tried to do that on any brand or portfolio I was responsible for.

Drew: As the CMO, have you been able to address the entire customer experience?
I’ve been able to influence and impact a number of dimensions, but it is shared with other team members in Mary Kay that have a more direct responsibility in terms of customer service and the Independent Sales Force. The ultimate influencer is the Independent Beauty Consultant herself, and this is consistent with how Mary Kay began this business. We use our company principles and education to make the brand experience as relevant and consistent as possible around the world. I believe my team and I have been successful in leading the evolution of the overall Mary Kay Brand experience, but I have to say it does take a village!

CMO Insights: Preserving Customer Loyalty

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Following the year of “content marketing” that was 2013, we can only hope that 2014 is destined to be as rewarding a year for consumers on social media. Many brands are figuring out that earning customer loyalty via great content is on par with nurturing a real, face-to-face relationship, in that being a supportive, useful and interesting friend will almost always earn you an invite to the birthday party.

Some, like Torani, are well ahead of this curve. For a product like Torani, which relies on retailers to establish the first relationship with customers, it pays to keep tabs on the rolodex by not just touching base over social media, but also adding to their daily lives in a fun, relevant way. CMO Julie Garlikov, who won a President’s Circle Award at the recent CMO Club Awards, explains the ways Torani grows and manages its loyal fan base on a modest budget.

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?

Our business continues to grow like crazy.   I am most focused on growing our consumer business and improving household penetration.  This includes some significant product innovation, as well as educating and engaging our consumer in new ways.

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

We’ve launched a lot of new products this year.  What’s surprising is how long it has taken to get some of them off the ground, especially when you’re educating a market on a new behavior.  The other big surprise to me this year is the explosive growth in mobile, which now accounts for almost 30% of our online traffic.  We’re rapidly adapting our ecommerce platform to be better optimized for mobile.

Drew:  Has the fact that Torani does not have a huge multi-million budget forced you to be more innovative?  

We have to find the right partners to work with us who believe in our brand and who want to work with a great, local, family-owned business.  And, we need to focus more on things like PR and creating social buzz to get the word out.  We can’t do a lot of mass tactics, so we look to build really high loyalty with our business and consumer users, turning them into uber fans.

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

I use a lot of test/invest methodology, trying things out small scale, proving that they deliver and then expanding.  It’s the only way to make ensure the best ROI on limited budgets.

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?

Julie: For such simple products, we have a very complex business with many channels and differing needs.  When you add all the new ways to market, it is complicated, and that’s what makes it interesting.  We’ve really focused the team on specific channels and segments and that helps them market the most successfully.

Drew: How do you stay close to your end users when the relationship with these folks is mainly owned by your retailer partners?  

Julie:  We get a great sense from social media and listening of what’s important to our user.  We’ve also been doing a lot of event marketing and mobile tours the past two years so we can hear more directly what our users like.  Between our retail partners and our foodservice distributors, we can be one step removed.  So, we have to create opportunities to engage regularly and we do a lot of research like ethnographies to really understand what our consumer wants and needs.

Drew: Has social media played much of a role in the driving your brand?  If so, how has it helped or how do you see it helping in the future?  

Julie:   We have a very active, loyal fan base that we engage with daily on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, etc.  We also have done a lot of blogger outreach and engage with various bloggers on a regular basis, sending them new products, etc.  This helps get the word out on a small brand and is a big part of our acquistion strategies.

Drew: Content marketing is hot topic at the moment.  Are you increasing your investment in this area?

Julie:  Yes, this is a huge area for us.  We’ve developed videos and will be producing even more as the year wraps up.  Everything from how-to videos to funny content.  We also continue to create enticing inspirational photos and editorial, almost like what you see in a food magazine.  We’ve found that inspiring people with seasonal recipes and super on-trend ideas generates significant sales lift, so content is key for us.

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?    

Julie:   This is so true.  We’ve actually created a social media/buzz marketer position within our department and moved consumer service into marketing.  That way, if someone engages on Facebook or Twitter or the old school phone, we’re able to have one seamless approach to dealing with their experience.  And, we’ve got a team who does the same thing for our commercial user too.

 

CMO Insights: Marketing Innovation

Posted on by Drew Neisser

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Look around your home, and you’ll find that you own at least one product by 3M. Chances are you own many. And the brand isn’t only an American staple, it’s made its way into marketplaces across the globe. From Post-It Notes and reflective traffic signs to your dentist’s favorite cleaning tools, 3M prides itself on providing useful products to customers around the world.

Part of what keeps 3M so successful is its ability to innovate and adapt to consumers’ changing needs in the digital space. Heading up this effort is Raj Rao, who chatted with me during the CMO Club Awards, where he took home a much-deserved Programmatic Marketing Award. And with a title like VP for Global eTransformation, it’s no wonder—Rao lives and breathes marketing innovation on a day-to-day basis. Enjoy, as he gives us a glimpse into the eCommerce operations behind 3M.

Drew: I love that your title suggests forward movement and innovation. What are your responsibilities?
My role in the organization is to use social and digital channels to strengthen 3M’s product innovation and eCommerce commercialization programs product roadmap activity for multiple brands in several global locations. As a marketer, my responsibility is to drive digital excellence through the adoption of world-class cloud and on-premise services that enable our marketers to get to real-time engagement and strengthen the competitiveness of 3M brands in industrial, professional, government and retail channels. A second key responsibility is to foster new skills and capabilities at all levels of our marketing and sales teams so that they can embrace new tools and insights that accelerate our commercialization programs.

Drew: A CMO has a lot of choices in terms of where he/she invests their time. What have been your top priorities in the last 12 months?
The top 4 priorities for my team have been a) content excellence programs that improve our social and online brand engagement programs, b) ROI and marketing analytics that focus our investments on the right portfolio of programs, c) eCommerce webstore functionality and SEO/organic search optimization to lead to higher sales conversion, and d) migration and upgrade of 3M marketing platforms to responsive design capabilities, leading to optimized desktop, tablet and mobile experiences.

Drew: Have there been any big surprises in terms of what’s worked really well and what hasn’t?
The big wins have been the real-time personalization using heuristics and our self-solve tool box. We have seen a significant increase in eCommerce conversion and lower costs of sales lead management as a result of these programs. I was also surprised at the rapid rise of marketplaces in China (like TMall), which eclipses all other 3M eCommerce channels in the APAC region. What has not delivered for 3M is apps. We have not been successful at driving branded engagement in the markets where we have invested. I am not sure that there is a real opportunity for branded apps.

Drew: Many people don’t realize that a huge part of the 3M business model is dedicated to developing new technologies. What roles do technology and innovation play in your marketing strategies?
We strive to create extended product experiences through digital channels. This has been evident in the cloud library service that we have successfully launched, in the custom car wrap business and in our health care brands. The digital channels play a key part in providing a differentiated user experience in all these businesses. Recently we unveiled an innovative partnership between our Post It brand and Evernote. We have an exciting pipeline of innovative solutions that exemplify the inherent technology strengths in diverse 3M markets and channels. Our marketing strategies are to promote user engagement and strengthen our insights so that we can drive focused commercialization programs.

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?
Yes, we do believe that content marketing holds the key to success with our top two digital priorities. Through our work in the healthcare (dental) industry, where we’ve invested in several content marketing programs, we have seen strong progress with eCommerce sales and actionable insights based on customer engagement. In the social media programs, content marketing is driving much stronger brand engagement, fueling the growth of advocates and influential followers on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. In China, our content programs in TMall and Weibo are leading to remarkable improvements in sales for both B2B and B2C sales.

Drew: How do you evaluate/measure the success of your marketing?  Are there some channels that work a lot better for you than others?
We measure 3 ways: the adoption of world-class tools and processes by brand teams and product marketers; the impact of the programs by audience and stage of engagement; and, the competitive benchmark performance. It is clear to us that our brand URLs are particularly effective for conversion tactics, while YouTube and social channels are well-suited to drive contextual engagement. The call center and webchat are very useful for issue resolution and responding to user issues. I am very impressed by the role that Amazon is playing in delivering high quality eCommerce programs for our consumer portfolio, and increasingly with our long tail B2B markets where we can increase market coverage and deliver new product applications.

Drew: 3M is the parent company of nearly a dozen different brands and operates within nearly every market segment. How do you stay close to your customers when you operate in so many markets and have so many different types of customers?  
3M has over 25 strategic global brands in consumer, industrial, professional and electronic markets. We also have a large portfolio of local brands that are organized by regional or local market. The key to success is the sustained investment in technology platforms that enable these brands to deliver compelling customer experiences. The $1.5 billion R&D budget provides a continuous supply of new formulations, advanced packaging formats, improved sustainability and differentiated benefits that are continuous and aligned to mega trends. We like to keep the customer insights separate yet connected with the technology roadmaps. This enables us to deliver a concurrent stream of “new to market Class V” innovations like the 3M Cloud Library, with “adjacent innovation Class III” products like Scotch Brite brand dish wands.  In fact, the diversity of brands, customer touch points and technology platforms is a tremendous source of strength for 3M. It drives our competitiveness and provides an endless stream of innovation outcomes.

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?
Our marketing activities enable the commercialization of 3M Innovation. Our CEO has challenged the teams to achieve a 40% NPVI metric by 2016. This means that new products and services need to account for 40% of 3M’s revenue in 2016. We are not far from that metric, but it is challenging to meet that goal while continuing to delivering 8-10% EPS growth each year. Sometimes this causes a paradox of choice. Should I optimize the current portfolio to drive margins, or should I create new products and invest in telling a new story to my customers? I think it’s a fine balance. Marketing activities like social media programs and YouTube video enable us to remain connected with influencers, while eCommerce initiatives allow us to test price points and packaging configurations ahead of finely-tuned broad market execution. Our CEO also wants our brands to exemplify the innovation positions in their markets in a manner that supports higher prices and premium margins. This can only be achieved when marketing activities are closely aligned to these objectives and allow us control over the conversations we need to have with the customers, versus relinquishing that to the channels.

Drew: How are you integrating social media into marketing efforts at 3M? Have social platforms proved to be a valuable channel for your brands?
Yes, social media has been a significant driver to value to our brands and corporate reputation. Recently, Interbrand called out our social media efforts as a key contributor to our position on the Global 100 Power Brands list. It provides the means for engagement with investors, employees, customers and media. Each of them is a voice for our brand and our global programs. Social media has also become a source for inspired ideas that translate to new products. For example, in China we developed a new line of pedestrian safety solutions, based in large part on social media listening programs that identified unmet needs and a groundswell of interest in new solutions. We also have used social media as a means to drive new product reviews that enable us to have stronger engagement with trade channels. By knowing how customers use our products in daily situations, we are better positioned to place the products in the right store aisle, optimize search results on digital eCommerce platform and train the instore sales personnel on what to recommend. In Latin America, some of the brands are using social media channels like Facebook to lunch new products. This is a really interesting proposition for 3M since it allows us to rapidly assess buyer sentiment.

Drew: Finally, I’ve heard it said , especially when it comes to the customer experience. 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?  
This is a really interesting point. My perspective is that the CMO needs to have strong operational knowledge of sales and customer service. Customers no longer follow a linear path to purchase, nor are they tied to any single channel. They are using digital tools like never before, amplifying brand experiences without any relationship boundaries and demanding more service options as part of the product purchase. So, the role of CMO needs to have that broader perspective on the customers’ experience journey and be prepared to generate appropriate content for that diversity. The big challenge is designing learning experiences for different levels of the organization that foster a new level of understanding, yet challenge us to break free from current channel or buyer/persona silos that are no longer relevant. To achieve this, we need to have courage and be prepared to risk losing some of the cultural heritage that has become embedded in our operational DNA. 3M is very well positioned for this change, and has already taken big steps in several business teams to make the leap forward.