Tag: CMO

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.

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.

B2B ≠ Better to Bore

Posted on by Drew Neisser

stay-normal-and-be-boringOnce upon a time in the realm of corporate America, there lived a stalwart named B2B. His purposeful walk and confident grin belied his unwavering subservience to all the almighty Sales King, who demanded daily tribute in the form of leads, leads, and more leads. Then one day, quite without warning, B2B died. No one mourned. The end. (Note: If this article seems familiar, then you read it first on FastCompany.com).

Or was it?

Okay, enough with the fairy tale, but here’s the truth: Long synonymous with “better to bore” communications, B2B marketing is in the process of being reborn. Leading this rebirth is a new generation of marketers like Jonathan Becher of SAP and Trip Hunter of Fusion-io, who are overturning conventional wisdom and establishing four new B2B marketing decrees that just might stand for years to come.

Culture Trumps Strategy
When he became the new CMO of software behemoth SAP in 2011, Jonathan Becher (pronounced Becker) was keenly aware of the imbalance of power between Sales and Marketing. Sales demanded leads and Marketing kowtowed. To make matters worse, his team battled internally about metrics, tactics, and budget, not to mention the overall strategic approach.

To fix this, Becher eliminated departmental silos, moving staffers around every six months and committing all to the same primary goals. Staffers no longer just had “majors” but also “minors” that broadened internal expertise. As Becher explained recently at The CMO Club Summit, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, so fix your culture to make your strategy work.”

The focus on culture went well beyond reorganizing his staff. Becher banned empty adjectives from internal documents in an effort to eliminate “SAPanese” and other self-indulgent communications. Applying this same “eliminate barriers” mindset to SAP’s external activities, Becher encouraged his team to get to know their customers as individuals, reminding them that “big glass buildings don’t buy products–people do!”

Pursue Hearts, Not Just Minds
When your product is truly disruptive and offers significant price and performance advantages over entrenched competitors, the conventional wisdom would be to focus on rational, feature-heavy messaging. As VP of Corporate Marketing for the rising tech star Fusion-io, Trip Hunter has taken an entirely different approach, finding uniquely “emotional” means of connecting with his targets.

Following the highly successful he engineered in 2011, Hunter has taken Fusion-io marketing to the top of the world–literally–by partnering with mountaineer and U.S. Memory Champion Nelson Dellis, who is currently making his second attempt to summit Everest. Along the way up, Dellis is also testing his memory and raising money for Alzheimer’s research.

Chronicled on a Fusion-io microsite, Dellis’ climb is a multi-dimensional metaphor for the new era of B2B marketing. Explains Hunter, “The Everest Memory Challenge is about getting to know us a bit better, beyond bits and bytes, by sharing something that we think is worthwhile, compelling, and has an emotional connection.” (Proud disclosure: My agency, Renegade, LLC, designed and architected this microsite.)

Less Really is More
As companies grow and products multiply, there is a tendency among B2B marketers to carve up budgets and splinter messages. When Becher took over as CMO, he heard from customers that they received as many as 50 different emails about SAP events and products in any given month; at one point, Becher even realized that multiple events were scheduled in the same week within a few blocks of the same customer. As you might suspect, this marketing onslaught did not endear SAP to its clientele.

In response, Becher and his team created a new evaluation process for events that emphasized quality of engagement over quantity of attendees; in doing so, SAP ultimately reduced the number of events around the world from 3,500 to 1,200. The event overhaul proved its success: A tiny 10-person event led to two deals valued at 70 million euros.

This process of optimization, Becher argues, is a marketer’s best friend, and he practices what he preaches by placing a small number of bigger bets in each of SAP’s communication channels. This also means avoiding what he calls “ego metrics” such as Facebook “Likes” and instead shifting to outcome-focused KPIs that also acknowledge the lengthy sales cycles that are inherent to many B2B efforts.

Content is the Message
Much has been made of content marketing as a powerful new discipline and complement to traditional messaging approaches. Inspired next-generation marketers aren’t bothering to make the distinction between what they say in their ads and the content that they create. For them, this “content” is in fact the message–a message they consider just as effective, if not more so, than traditional ads.

This is certainly the case with Fusion-io’s two-year partnership with Nelson Dellis. Hunter notes: “The Everest Memory Challenge represents qualities that Fusion-io values and embraces. Like Nelson, the Fusion-io team and our customers are people who are adventurous, and take calculated risks to overcome obstacles.”

Prior to his climb, Dellis also appeared at several Fusion-io customer meetings where he could demonstrate his astounding memory skills, including one stop in Japan where he remembered the names of over 70 attendees after meeting them just once two hours earlier. Hunter concludes, “Attaching ourselves to something that is inspirational and representative of who we are as a company says much more about what drives us and our business.”

Final Note: Becher, also known as the “Social CMO,” delivered a keynote at The CMO Club Summit that was well-received by fellow CMOs and well-chronicled by other bloggers (link here). For more on Hunter, see my complete interview with him right here on TheDrewBlog.com.

CMO Insights: Risk-taking for the Marketer

Posted on by Drew Neisser

If you’ve been in this business awhile, you have seen many an ad campaign launch strong and then fizzle out in just a year or two. Perhaps this is why I was so bowled over when I heard Terri Funk Graham (at last year’s CMO Club Summit) tell the story of the  “Jack” campaign that is now in its 18th year of productive service for Jack in the Box.  As a student of marketing, I couldn’t help but wonder, how does such a campaign come into being? How do those in charge keep it fresh?  What role does the agency play?  What’s the secret sauce here?

I got the chance to ask Ms. Graham these questions and many more earlier this year and it was then that I realized she is truly a rock star in our industry. During Graham’s long tenure as CMO at Jack in the Box which ended at the end of 2012, the Jack campaign consistently drove product sales, introduced new menu items, helped overcome recessions and bonded with a new generation of fast food consumers.  Graham, as you will soon see, has the courage to take risks not just once but year after year, has the wisdom to stick with one “genius” creative partner and has the curiosity to explore emerging communication channels.  Here is part one of our interview:

Neisser: So tell me how initially the Jack campaign came into beginning back in ’95?
Graham: Well, it came out of the E. coli crisis. So the reality was the company needed to do something to revitalize the brand and make the brand relevant again in the marketplace.  And so it came from a crisis.

Neisser: Which must have been a scary and interesting place to start, right?
Graham: I think that when you’re in a situation like this, you’re willing to put a lot more on line.  And I so I think it actually it drove the ability to take more risks.

Neisser: Really interesting.  So you decided to bring Jack back? 
Graham: Yes, but let’s bring him back in a way that’s relevant and different and will catch attention.  So it was 1995 when we launched Bringing Jack Back.

Neisser: So tell me about those initial ads?
Graham: Well, the very first spot had some controversy around it because it showed Jack coming back.  He had had plastic surgery and he blew up the boardroom because the folks from the boardroom are the ones who blew him up in the ’80s.

Neisser:  I see. A little revenge.
Graham: So he blew up the boardroom and basically reintroduced himself in the marketplace as coming back, better than before with plastic surgery and that he was going to be a big advocate for the consumers. The message was Jack was back and he was going to give fast food customers what they wanted.

Neisser:  So did that seem like an idea that could endure 18 years?   
Graham:  Well, that’s where Dick Sittig, the creative mastermind behind the Jack’s Back campaign, comes in. We constantly challenged Dick to keep Jack relevant, and because he used this sense of humor that was a bit unconventional, described often as irreverent, he kept rising to the occasion and the campaign endures to this day.

Neisser:  So why do you think the ads worked so well?
Graham:  I think what drove the campaign to continue to last is that we tapped into the emotional branding side. I think that often that is not given enough emphasis. We tapped into the emotional side that really gave it a personality that people could connect to.

Neisser:  So how did Jack end up having Dick Sittig’s voice?
Graham: That was actually by accident. That wasn’t planned. When he did the initial pitch, it was in his voice and then when we finally went to casting, we had the actor and we’re putting everything together that we’re looking at all kinds of different voices and the problem was everyone liked Dick Sittig’s voice more than anything that was put in front.  So we decided to go with his voice.

Neisser:  What does it take to keep a campaign like this together for so long?
Graham:  I think there are a couple of things to consider. One is I was always willing to take a risk. So we were unapologetic about who we were. Dick Sittig would present things that would make us feel uncomfortable.  But we knew that it was going to grab attention that it wasn’t going to hurt the brand as long as we were true to who we were. And so it was a combination of being unapologetic about who we were. It was about allowing great creative work to be done. I am not a believer in dealing any sort of pretesting of advertising. We never did anything of that nature. I also think that approval by committee is the death of a campaign, you end up with mediocre work. And, I think that, we truly trusted each other in our work and I think that’s also what helped build that campaign. And so we would constantly challenge each other to keep it relevant.

Neisser:  Very few CMO’s are given permission to take risks.  You must have had a lot of management support?
Graham:  Yes, I had full support and I had permission. Linda Lang absolutely let me run with it and she always backed it. And, there would be situations where I would come up and say, “okay, I have got one that’s going to rile up some folks, prompting phone calls, e-mails and potentially, this all will need to be discussed in the board.” And she would say, “okay, is it worth the risk? And I’d say, “yes.” And she’d say, “I’ll back you, but you need to stand tall.”  So I would have to do all the explaining in the boardroom anytime something went a little astray.

Neisser: What do you think were some of your most risky efforts?
Graham:  Running Jack over  — that was a trying moment. We were essentially putting the most — the biggest brand equity that the company had, Jack, and putting him on the line to see if people cared because if they didn’t care that he got hit by a bus, we were going to be in trouble. So that’s when we had Jack Get Hit By a Bus and of course it proved out to be quite a success and that was in 2009.

Neisser: So how did this part of the campaign unfold?
Graham: We only showed the ad one time and it was on the Super Bowl. And then everything went basically digital and social from there. That was our way of stepping into the whole social media area. So all of a sudden it got millions of views on YoutTube and it was talked about all over the place. We had amazing press and impressions on that. And, we had people sending cards and teddy bears and everything that — flowers, everything that you could imagine for Jack’s recovery. And then we created a storyline. We created multiple ads that followed up afterwards that talked about how he was doing and it became a campaign within a campaign.

Neisser:  So what about the hallucinating kid who sees Jack on his dashboard?  That must of stirred things up.
Graham:  Yes it did. We really wanted to focus on selling our 99-cent tacos. And there is a real following to those tacos. And young people, after they’ve gone to the clubs tend to head to Jack’s for their tacos. And so we played off of that, if you will. And so we had, you know, a young guy in a van come up and he wanted to order as many as 30 tacos. And needless to say, that got quite a bit of attention.

Neisser: Did you end up selling a lot of tacos?
Graham: Everything that we did we also did with the premise of generating sales and driving traffic. I mean we didn’t do funny ads just for the sake of doing funny ads. Our goal was always to drive traffic to the brand. And that’s exactly what we start out to do and that’s what we accomplished each and every time. So in that case, we certainly sold a lot of tacos and we got a lot of buzz about tacos.

Neisser:  You know, I think you told the story of how on that one, some protestors were showing up at your corporate headquarters?
Graham: Yeah, and I turned on the sprinklers. Yes, then the true story — we were going to have protestors and media show up and at the time we had grass all around our corporate headquarters. And it was in the afternoon. And so my way of stalling that was we became a water park in the afternoon and we turned on the sprinklers and we didn’t have any protests that showed up at all the rest of the week!

FYI, After a 22-year run at Jack in the Box, Terri Funk Graham recently joined the Board of Directors at Hot Topic Inc., is working with The CMO Club as the Chairman of its President’s Circle and is consulting for HOM Sotheby’s Realty.  Fellow CMOs can meet Terri in person at the upcoming CMO Club Summit in NYC. 

 

The Expansive Role of Marketing Part I

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Tim McDermott, CMO of the Philadelphia Eagles makes a compelling case that marketing a sports team is not all that different from marketing other products like consumer packaged goods.  After spending over an hour with him on the phone, I not only came to see his point but also realized that he’s a marketer who really understands how to build a successful brand.  (By the way, I met Tim through The CMO Club.)

Having spent a number of years marketing sports teams (both hockey & football) Tim also did a stint at Comcast and earned an MBA from Harvard along the way.  Here are the highlights of my conversation with Tim broken into two parts that I think you’ll find most enlightening even if you aren’t an Eagles fan!

Neisser: is there anything keeping you up at night?
McDermott: Insuring that we are providing value for season ticket holders. We need to continue to find ways to add value to being a season ticket holder. Find ways to invest with our fan base, and continue to market why it’s a great experience. Why it’s fun to come to the games. Why it’s great to watch us on TV or to be part of purchasing our merchandise…

Neisser: And that’s an interesting place to start, in that there are things that you can control as the marketer and then there’s what happens on the field.
McDermott:  I think there are a lot of similarities between marketing sports property and marketing for other companies. Whether it be the jean companies or the entertainment companies. The reality is we’re probably doing the same things that the marketers are of other retail oriented companies. We’ve got “widgets” to sell in the form of tickets. And we go through the exercise of segmentation, targeting, and positioning our products and our brand the same way that other marketers do. We build brands. We engage in all the different forms of marketing, and advertising as other companies do. So we’re doing everything from market research to CRM implementations, to automated emails; to managing social digital campaigns to direct marketing, to direct response. You name it and I think we do it.

Neisser: So what are the key differences in marketing a sports team?
McDermott: Everyday my product can fluctuate–it can change. And as much as I want to or want our fans to have an undefeated Super Bowl season, I can’t control that. Whereas when you walk in to the McDonald’s or when you purchase Tide, it can be consistent. And that is certainly a challenge to the sports marketer is that you have to able to accept the fact that it is inconsistent. You have to accept the fact that at the end of the day, you can’t control your product. And yet still be able to create demand for your product and create engagement, and create interest in your product.

Neisser: What about your fans?
McDermott: Then the one thing that we do have going for us, which some of those other types of companies don’t, is the tremendous amount of passion that our consumer has for our product. And you see that displayed in a lot of different ways. You should see the letters that we get and the emails that we get. People write stories, poems, music about our product, and they’re willing to sit down and spend time with you, for free of course, to tell you all about how they feel about your product. And to wear your logo on merchandise and they’re walking around with your product. When I step back I know I’m very fortunate because we have such a passionate consumer base. There are many companies out there who would love to be able to have consumers who are as passionate as ours.

Neisser:  A losing season must be a sort of torture test of brand loyalty.
McDermott: There’s obviously some level of correlation between winning and off the field success. How much that correlation is, and how much the causation is between the two, is probably open for debate. And probably depends on a lot of different variables, from the city that you’re in to the kind of the winning tradition or how much success your team has had over an extended period time. To the sort of marketing and brand engagements that you do, all the way up to how people perceive your ownership group. I think if you look at the best sports brands though, all of the ones that have crossed that threshold, where independent of wins and losses, they create a brand that fans want to be associated with. And even in times that aren’t so good on the field, or on the ice or on the court, fans are still showing up. And they’ve created a connection with that fan base. They’ve made being a fan of that team something that does cross the threshold of just wins and losses. So that is something that all sports marketers are trying to do, is build that equity so that when the rainy day occurs people don’t leave. The fans don’t depart.

Neisser: What can the team do off the field to build loyalty?
McDermott: One of the biggest things we can do as team marketers is to create transparency and real trust with our consumer base. I think you can create trust through creating that transparency; and so having ways and methods on processes in place to listen to your fan base, to engage your fan base; to talk with them, but also provide them an avenue to share what’s on their minds. That’s something that we’ve been very successful with.

Neisser: Can you give me a specific example?
McDermott: We’ve created a season ticket holder advisory board. We’ve got a 35-person board that we started a year ago. The board membership runs two years. And it’s not just a glorified focus group. The people that have signed up to be part of this board, signed up to be solutions providers. They are very passionate about the Eagles. At the same time they would tell us what we’re doing right. They will tell us what we’re doing wrong. And they provide or I should say the quid pro quo is, they as being part of a sports membership they also have to provide us or help us come up with solutions to the problem.  Don’t just tell us what we’re doing wrong, but be an extension of our marketing department, and help us create the solution. So we’ve been very successful with doing that. And I think it’s truly a concept of listening, and engaging, and developing trust with them.

Neisser: What measures do you have in place from a brand health standpoint?
McDermott:  We look at TV ratings, website traffic, overall traffic on Facebook and Twitter accounts among other metrics. Merchandise sales is generally another sign of brand health. And of course, season tickets and how well you’re doing with ticket sales. If you’re sold out as in our case, then it’s a matter of monitoring your wait list and seeing if your wait list is growing. And then there are more scientific research based brand tracking studies. We do our own brand tracking study every year to see how we’re performing. And then are third party brand trackers, ESPN Sports Poll is an annual brand tracking study. And some others that are out there as well.

Neisser: And how is your brand doing?
McDermott: Our brand is doing well. Going back to early 2006, we were the fastest growing brand in sports according to a poll by Forbes. You can see some correlation there between how we were performing on the field as well. We had gone to a Super Bowl in January 2005. We lost in the Super Bowl to the Patriots in 2004-5 season. So there was some correlation obviously between on field success and off the field success. Overall today if you look at our website traffic, if you look at merchandise sales, if you look at the TV ratings, all of them are doing extremely well. In the 2010 season, we set TV ratings records. We set website merchandise sales records. 2010 was a very strong season for us. Last year, we saw a little bit of a dip. Again we were an eight and eight football team last year. We didn’t live up to some of the expectations. But when you look at most of the metrics, we performed well. We’re an extremely a strong brand, and you can see that even in a not so great on the field year, that our brand has been built in such a way that it can withstand a not so great year.

Be sure to read part 2 of this interview.