Being genuine, authentic and behaving like a friend to the audience really works for Netflix in building a human to human interaction that has really helped in shaping a positive brand perception.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

I think we're seeing an even greater divide and demand for H2H vs. pretty much everything else. Many consumers crave the trust and credibility factor that seems to accompany the H2H approach. I think consumer-facing tools should focus on H2H options while the management tools are automated.

Angelica Kajiwara Influencer | Digital Marketing | Content Development

6 ways of achieving great H2H marketing : 1. "Engagement is the new form fill." 2. Quality is more important than quantity 3. Marketing is now omnichannel 4. Your future customers come from a community 5. A renewed focus on storytelling 6. Become the trusted advisor

Keith S. White Strategic Growth Officer

While some marketing (purchasing digital ads) can be performed well by automated systems, many categories of marketing - particularly around big-ticket purchases - benefit significantly from human influence. Edward Jones, in particular, has built their brand around personal interaction.

Paul Belle Isle Chief Marketing Advisor

We're seeing the benefits of combining humans and automation. The human interactions actually train the chat bot. And the chat bot lessons the workload for people. Customers win with more timely, better interactions and have a choice--wait to speak to someone or connect online with the bot.

Wendy Harrington Chief Marketing Officer

H2H and Automation will co-exist in the near term where H2H information is used as a pre-processor for data context and cataloging that is input into the algorithms used for automation methodologies

John Kornitsky Marketing Executive

When you get users to talk about your brand on social, it adds a human touch because people talk about emotions and real experiences attached with the brand. A great example is #AerieReal - they posted non filtered/retouched photos of models on IG and asked users to do the same when wearing Aerie.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

A prime example of underestimating good human to human marketing lies in customer service. Often it is a source of frustration -- you can't get a human to help you. In the future, great human customer service will be a true point of difference that can and will get good reviews and buzz!

Laureen Schroeder Chief Marketing Officer

One of the hottest forms of communication and marketing in the beauty industry today is the world of influencer marketing - which is essentially human to human marketing.

Laureen Schroeder Chief Marketing Officer

Automation can make humans more efficient & customer interactions smoother (chatbot support that hands off to live agents) but companies that believe the cheapest, mechanical option is best will lose out in the long run, most notably in industry/category that has a relationship component.

Paul Belle Isle Chief Marketing Advisor

As automation becomes the norm, H2H will be expensive to roll out - it has the potential to positively differentiate that company from others, we're not at that stage yet but will be. B2B marketing will ultimately go the way of the dodo - either automated marketing efforts or H2H will be the future.

Alex Dorward COO at Simple Story | Proven Entrepreneur | Award-winning Consultant | Public Speaker | Board Adviser

With advent of AI and Machine Learning, there seems to be a race between companies to apply automated marketing without giving a thought on how the customers want to interact the company at various points of product/service use.

Abbas Ravat Business Growth Strategist | Marketing Leader | Technology enthusiast

First, come up with personas - types of people that visit your site or types of clients. Second, define how your site will be different based on the personas (more relevant products, blog posts, (IA), site flow, etc). Third, define how a persona will be assigned.

Alex Dorward COO at Simple Story | Proven Entrepreneur | Award-winning Consultant | Public Speaker | Board Adviser

Personalization activities need to build relevance in order for it to be efficient. The data points used to personalize have to bring about the triggers for conversion or action. Connecting the data points in line with the consumer journey is what we should do when personalizing activities.

Roshan Nandwani Executive Director, Transformation at BBDO Guerrero

As a marketer, you will need to: 1) Know your consumer and build a unified profile of them 2) Develop a personalization strategy in your marketing plan 3) Deliver highly personalized content, offers, and recommendations at the right time in their buying decision making process.

Laureen Schroeder Chief Marketing Officer

Your communication should be anchored to the definition of product and the relevant target. Social is just one channel - It's easier and available compared to traditional mediums - but still needs to be relevant for the consumer in context of their needs and how your product/service resolves that.

Abbas Ravat Business Growth Strategist | Marketing Leader | Technology enthusiast

Some communication elements can be tailored with less expense. Promotional pricing can be used electronically via dynamic or algorithmic pricing, coupons or discounts. You can't personalize every element of the marketing mix and be efficient - but you can test.

Sam Araji MARKETING STRATEGY and PLANNING | PRICING - Drives business growth, revenues, market share, and profitability

Millennials are notorious for ignoring phone calls and opting out of e-mails, so text messaging is an obvious solution. 80% of millennials are waiting for when they can text a brand’s 1-800 number, versus calling. This would make customer happy ands ave the business money in terms of support costs.

Laureen Schroeder Chief Marketing Officer

An important lesson learnt : any touchpoint should not behave like it knows it all, or i-know-you-more-than-you-are-comfortable-with, and leave room for the user to explore and decide their options.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Personalization must be value-additive, either creating a feeling of genuine connection or making product/solution offerings more relevant. Personalization for its own sake - particularly in low-touch, commoditized businesses - may not bear fruit, and over-personalization can be counter-productive.

Paul Belle Isle Chief Marketing Advisor

MarTech needs to fit into a broader enterprise architecture. The reasons are: -if martech is treated separately, there may be integration and compatibility issues with other systems -minimize licensing costs as well as overhead -greater support quality and scope -maintenance is usually easier

Alex Dorward COO at Simple Story | Proven Entrepreneur | Award-winning Consultant | Public Speaker | Board Adviser

Features every stack should have: 1) Integration with core technology 2) Single source of truth for data; a complete customer view 3) Real-time information 4) Data that provides attribution (where your money is best spent) 5) Ability to reach customers anytime, anywhere: omnichannel experience

Laureen Schroeder Chief Marketing Officer

MarTech reflects a series of needs for an organization to more effectively & efficiently understand, target, and serve customers. I haven't seen an integrated solution that delivers on its promise nor have I found "best in class" that integrates as well as it should. It comes down to tradeoffs.

Wendy Harrington Chief Marketing Officer

You choose a MarTech Stack based on need, company size, time horizon, available budget and don’t forget support costs in your calculation. With the Landscape so enormous in number (over 5,000) there is nowhere else to go but down through consolidations/reductions via buyouts, mergers and closures.

John Kornitsky Marketing Executive

MarTech solution suites provide maximum value if used together. Using a single solution and not the rest, you won't be able to realize the full potential. However, every solution has its USP, in the world of customization, you should have the choice to choose based on business needs.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Our learnings: 1) Create business use cases when you are signing up (not after) 2) Understand the support system, the setup, integrations required 3) Within your organization, assign responsibilities for the tool 4) Marry technology to your business requirements.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

It's helpful to ask old-fashioned "marketing fundamentals questions" when choosing MarTech, because the world hasn't changed as much as we might like to think. The choice of MarTech should deliver on the main need, and do so in a way that is broadly and rapidly useable by the people who utilize it.

AJ Rollsy Founder: CORE Marketing Method. I help entrepreneurial business owners discover the life they want, and improve the world for others.

We have learned to best understand the difference in our client needs and then build the martech stack around that client. Then we try and group our clients with the same need for cost savings. So NO, we have not found one set of vendors for a martech stack to use across the board for all clients.

Keith S. White Strategic Growth Officer

Social platforms have started giving better analytics and CMOs are finding it easier to showcase ROI of digital. Businesses have more confidence in higher budgets for Digital. As Martech consolidates and integrates with CRM and finance, CMOs will find it easier to show better ROI.

Abbas Ravat Business Growth Strategist | Marketing Leader | Technology enthusiast

Digital marketing is measurable and it's great to quantify your efforts in terms of analytics. It's still a challenge to tie metrics to business objectives. Google & Facebook realize this and provide CTA’s along with videos to close the loop for the audience making marketing efforts more measurable.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Accountability for the CMO rests in 2 areas: 1) Strategic Direction: The metric for strategy is "did the CMO's grand plan succeed against the overall ambition?" 2) Tactical Choices: The metric is "did the deployment of resources through these tactics achieve their aims, and to what degree?"

AJ Rollsy Founder: CORE Marketing Method. I help entrepreneurial business owners discover the life they want, and improve the world for others.

I believe in the 70:20:10 rule. Put 70% of resources in initiatives that have been proven to show results, 20% to try the ones that look like they have the potential to drive great results and 10% for going completely wild and experimenting to the fullest.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

CMOs will start to feel pressure to be the 'chief profit officer', 'chief growth officer', and 'head of ROI'.' Further, I think CMOs in SaaS and subscription businesses should begin to measure customer lifetime value (CLV).

Sam Araji MARKETING STRATEGY and PLANNING | PRICING - Drives business growth, revenues, market share, and profitability

Before starting, develop KPI(s) for the tool/channel, and then measure. Few assumptions are required when you can easily quantify the success of marketing. New martech is also becoming incredibly integrated allowing for detailed tracking through your funnel (or spinwheel) and all your other tech.

Alex Dorward COO at Simple Story | Proven Entrepreneur | Award-winning Consultant | Public Speaker | Board Adviser

There are lots of ways to skin the marketing cat, depending on industry & customer base, but ALL require credible measurement and strong analytics. Without effective measurement, marketing results can devolve rapidly into a battle of competing opinions, and that's a place no for a marketing leader.

Paul Belle Isle Chief Marketing Advisor

The premise of analytics is you must know what you are looking for in advance of choosing metrics and it must be relevant to the objective. Many metrics are not significant or not significant in the timeframe, creating inaccuracies/misleading results when it comes to short term or long term impact.

John Kornitsky Marketing Executive

The fact that digital marketing is so measurable, and so instant, sometimes works against it. There is an expectation from digital to deliver results at a fast pace, because you see metrics right away. Sometimes, we do not give the campaign enough time to settle, and pause it before that.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

In rushing to prove the value of marketing, brands lose sight of telling a 360, online/offline story. By piecing initiatives together with the purpose of proving ROI, you throw creative vision out the door and it has a negative impact as the results are not what they should be, leading to a low ROI.

Matt Owens Director, Client Services at Stylus Innovation + Advisory

Benchmarketing- a form of marketing accountability that balances the need for hard ROI metrics with an effort to broaden the value of marketing tactics that may be less measurable at this time. These are marketing tactics that may be so new or creative that no traditional metrics are in place.

Laureen Schroeder Chief Marketing Officer

We rolled it out our chatbot to supplement our customer success team. Prospects know they're interacting with a bot and have the option to speak to someone. It's been effective in answering straightforward questions and helping people through questions after hours.

Wendy Harrington Chief Marketing Officer

This is an area where the melding of human & AI will have an immediate benefit for consumers (from all aspects). Chatbots turn complex tasks into more efficient, conversational processes. The benefit from a customer service standpoint is a no brainer but it goes beyond just chatting with an expert.

Matt Owens Director, Client Services at Stylus Innovation + Advisory

We found that our chatbot had to satisfy 3 areas. 1) the user had to know that they were talking to a bot. Anything else felt disingenuous. 2) 2e had to provide real value. 3) we had to create a conversation flow that was natural. Once we found that balance, our performance improved dramatically.

Don Seaberry Director, Digital Marketing

We should utilize as rich targeting and customization as we can for the open platforms, but be very thoughtful and careful about communicating in their private space, especially in B2C. I would always ask myself : “Is it necessary? Is it empathetic? Will the receiver be comfortable with it?”

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

We have to find balance. We often say that we need to go where our customers are. Our customers are on their phones. Our customers are on social media. Our customers are communicating via text. The trick is to engage them in a way that does not seem like an intrusion or does not feel invasive.

Don Seaberry Director, Digital Marketing

Find out where YOUR customers are, speak to them there. I wouldn't have a B2B Financial company on Facebook, but LinkedIn & Twitter? Sure. Content should be specific to the platform, nothing is worse than cross-posting to all your channels with the same content.

Scott MacDougall Sr. Marketing Manager at Wolters Kluwer Canada

Messaging platforms are an extension to the platforms that brands built over the past few years. In a regulated industry like healthcare, the key is to handle requests/messages in a compliant manner and be ready to direct customers to the appropriate channel if need be.

Glenn Butcher

It starts with social engagement. If you can engage a core group of customers early on, you likely have something that will scale. You want fans who will rave about you. Early studies suggested that 15-20% of the "users" generated 80-90% of the content. If you don't have them, you'll lose.

Wendy Harrington Chief Marketing Officer

Customer engagement can be a step to loyalty. Social sharing represents organic advocacy. Social media engagement leading to community can create business benefits & may open opportunities to actionable new business relationships. Engagement can improve efficiency. Many new customers are “viewers”. 

Laureen Schroeder Chief Marketing Officer

I’ve found the best use of social to show colleagues value is highlighting the conversation happening, so you understand customer affinity. That with a number tied to performance is great, and I’m happy to highlight a post with 100 likes and tons of comments over 1000 likes and fewer comments.

Tim Rivera Integrated Marketing Consultant and Brand Strategist

Social media is the best medium for a two way conversation, but at times we are so engrossed in putting out the right content & talking to the right people, that we forget to harness the power of social listening. Hence, indulge in not just “passive” listening, but “active” listening too.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Awareness is no longer as important as relevance and relevance is strongly reliant on what you’re doing on social, how you are part of and adding to the conservation - making people care again. Not sure that can be measured by big data on social media alone, it requires human-centric understanding.

Emma Worrollo Generational & play expert - Kids and Youth

Social media needs to be authentic and organic. If the process is cookie cutter and not relatable, it turns people off - especially Gen Z. Brands need to be creative, witty, timely, responsive, engaging and helpful. Social needs to be an extension of your brand and provide value to consumers.

Matt Owens Director, Client Services at Stylus Innovation + Advisory

Social media is perceived differently by different people within the organization. It's important to articulate the key objectives & deliverables of social. Not everyone will understand the metrics, so it is best to define it in terms of the business impact social media can drive.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

You can measure success via growth in followers & engagement, conversions from mobile, discussions, and content. But, you can't measure the value in a traditional sense. Social media for businesses is similar to customer service - a service to customers that helps brand exposure/thought-leadership.

Scott MacDougall Sr. Marketing Manager at Wolters Kluwer Canada

We get the two sided feedback that leaders think they should see social media programs start up or be expanded but will say at the same time they don't believe in it for our businesses. This undermines efforts as people don't want to put energy into projects leaders are not fully behind.

Michael Margolies Advertising, Digital Marketing, MarCom, eCommerce, PR, Creative Production, Commercial Photography, Marketing Executive

Big corporations have weeks worth of "scheduled tweets" and an approval process that includes multiple sign offs. You want to engage in social yet you want to have everything planned, have a say and approve certain posts? This removes the responsive and conversational nature of social.

Matt Owens Director, Client Services at Stylus Innovation + Advisory

We partner with legal, audit, compliance & cyber security teams when crafting social policies before presenting to senior leadership. Marketing manages the programs, accounts and approvals for formal accounts while educating users/employees on representing the company on their personal accounts.

Michael Margolies Advertising, Digital Marketing, MarCom, eCommerce, PR, Creative Production, Commercial Photography, Marketing Executive

Having an existing (and regularly updates) social media playbook helps a brand stay on the front foot of dealing with problems wherever they crop up.

Tim Rivera Integrated Marketing Consultant and Brand Strategist

Customer data protection is above everything else for us, because it is a reflection of the trust they place in us.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Empathy and integrity become part of the brand. Take the time to explain the what and why and give consumers options.

Wendy Harrington Chief Marketing Officer

The consumer needs to know that their right to privacy will be respected. This is especially true in the digital world where we can upload consumer data and create lists for marketing. Consumer privacy must be a priority and not an afterthought.

Don Seaberry Director, Digital Marketing

As this issue continues to gain consumer interest/concern - it has the potential to destroy long-term brand value - instantly based on a bad business decision. Marketers must guard customer data - just as they guard their logo, employment practices and everything else that's core to the brand.

George Ravich Chief Marketing Officer

With marketing technology allowing smarter and smarter use of data, we have a critical role to play in what data to collect and how to use it. But increasingly too in how such data is governed and protected. Data protection is a key element of the transformation of the role of marketing in my view.

Veronique Cornu Head of Digital

While there is some technical knowledge (regulations/laws, information technology, etc.) that is needed, the responsibility of consumer privacy should be a marketing responsibility. If consumer's privacy doesn't fall under marketing, then who is in charge of consumers' privacy for your organization?

Randy Shoemaker Chief Marketing Officer

Consumers are skeptical about brand motives. They get there is a value exchange and if fair, they will be loyal. But the provision of customer information and the discerning of customer information without asking has added a wrinkle to trustworthiness & transparency between consumers & brands.

Paul Kadin Senior Advisor

There is a very thin line between personalizing communication for the audience v/s intruding their privacy. Marketers need to respect this distinction & value customer data privacy.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Consumers will only be willing to sacrifice privacy as a trade-off if: 1) they are properly informed about data use; 2) this exchange is made under their own terms; 3) they own and control their data, and can opt-out at any time. Transparency and communication (like in any relationship) are key!

Mariana Gomes Product Manager | Co-founder

Customers today not only look at how the company cares for them, they also see what is the greater good for the society by the company, or what are the causes the company cares about.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

The foundation of fundamentals has to be in place, or whatever is on top of it will collapse. Companies that rush to "surprise and delight" before meeting expectations consistently aren't demonstrating authentic care - they're using a shiny object to distract from shortcomings - customers can tell.

Paul Belle Isle Chief Marketing Advisor

Singapore Airlines is unique in how they care for frequent travelers. They always go beyond expectations. Ground staff & flight attendants are dedicated to the best experience. Rarely have I seen such consistent execution of care, from the company mission to every detail across your experience.

Veronique Cornu Head of Digital

You have to seriously care--not just for marketing purposes. It has be in context, authentic, and across all touchpoints. It shines through in actions and messages across the company. We've all experienced far too often where it falls apart, and that changes our perception of the company.

Wendy Harrington Chief Marketing Officer

I expect care and help when something goes wrong. I don't care that mistakes happen, but it's the moment for a company to prove that they understand and fix it. Teaching employees to feel empathy and help when a mistake has been made can be an event that locks a customer to a company for life.

Travis Murdock VP of Marketing at Xinova

Ellen DeGeneres - Her brand stands for kindness, the ultimate expression of caring. Her show & actions promote kindness & caring. Even her jokes are NOT nasty - but funny & kind. Her line of clothes & home goods are soft, comfortable and easy to care for. I don't know anyone who doesn't love Ellen.

Laureen Schroeder Chief Marketing Officer

Summing up, when companies show they care for their customers it really reflects on their bottom line, either through loyalty (e.g. more frequency) or new quality leads (e.g. referrals; public reviews).

Mariana Gomes Product Manager | Co-founder

Why is care important? Monetizing existing customers is cheaper than acquisition of new customers. If a customer is satisfied, conversion is higher. You know more about existing customers than about prospects. Digital gives additional functionalities for control and increase customer satisfaction.

Chris (Krzysztof) Szarski senior digital manager

One company that really gets this is Chick Fil-A. They have a reputation for service with a smile and for courtesy. They will put people in the parking lot to speed customers through the drive -thru. Those are simple things. But, they go a long way towards developing a customer-first brand.

Don Seaberry Director, Digital Marketing

The customer journey has become a lot more complicated. From a marketing perspective, it's critical to reduce/eliminate friction points for customers and work to not only engage them, but connect & collaborate with them in meaningful ways, making them advocates of your brand and build the brand.

Randy Shoemaker Chief Marketing Officer

There are lots of ways to go from point A (awareness) to point B (conversion). The modern customer journey allows brands to expand their paths, multiplying and adapting them to increase relevance and to improve the overall experience of a user. It's like having a conversation!

Mariana Gomes Product Manager | Co-founder

With a more interested & invested customer, the journey is anything but traditional. The journey will likely involve all of the marketing tools discussed to create a unique and authentic journey that does not stop at the point of purchase but continues to (hopefully) lead to brand loyalty for years.

Matt Owens Director, Client Services at Stylus Innovation + Advisory

Brand advocacy/championship; Again, in the traditional "transactional" journey, the last milestone was closure. Not so anymore. You don't have a *customer" until you have a customer who is also an advocate, or one who's CLV (Customer Lifetime value) one may roughly predetermine.

Nayyara Rahman Director Digital Services; Ethics At Work Advocate

In the beauty & fashion industry, I see that influencers and brand advocates that recommend and/demonstrate the products have the most power in the path to purchase. Their power often outweighs any brand communication. With that in mind, marketers need to focus time and resources in this area.

Laureen Schroeder Chief Marketing Officer

Consumers nowadays want everything there and then. This requires marketing to be much more contextual, personalized and customized. The brand needs to be omnipresent in a sense, so the customer can find them anytime, anywhere they want.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

We (Figure) looked at the home equity space--45-day funding, uploading of docs, appraisals requiring on site reviews and fees, trips to the notary. What if we could do it all in 5 days, all digital. The next fastest is 23 days. We've delivered and the testimonials show it.

Wendy Harrington Chief Marketing Officer

It's not just the consumer that matters but any user who interacts with the brand at any touchpoint: website, app, social media, content or physical store. It's important to listen to not just our own consumer/potential consumer, but all those who will form an opinion about the brand.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

These three perspectives should be taken into account in order to have a complete view of what our customers want: 1) Internal View 2) Data View 3) External View

Mariana Gomes Product Manager | Co-founder

I've seen a ton of success being more actively in involved with customers through the design process. Getting feedback as you are developing products or marketing plans can really help create more relevant content.

Michael A

As business people we tend to have a predatory approach to customers. This is the single largest obstacle when it comes to social listening. Try thinking of your customer as a student, or as a child. Would we be asking the same questions? Would we be interested in the same things?

Nayyara Rahman Director Digital Services; Ethics At Work Advocate

The problem is, that when we don't know the customer, we lose the touch/feel part of our marketing. Im a believer that the most important thing for a marketer is to know our consumers. We are rarely marketing to a target similar to ourselves, which forces us to listen, observe and learn.

Graham Robertson Founder and CMO

Once you can look at the problem and listen through someone else's lens... is why the magic can happen on engaging them in a new ways, thinking creatively about content or new ways of approaching a customer. Having that level of intimate knowledge is where you stumble on game changing insights.

Kyrsten Musich Global growth strategy, brand and customer experience

Listening to current consumers to predict future activations or marketing campaigns is extremely important. If you don't have a proper understanding of your target or current market and just "wing it", you risk failing miserably (i.e. Pepsi & Kendell).

Matt Owens Director, Client Services at Stylus Innovation + Advisory

Fortnite Avengers activation was MARVELous. They recently launched a Jordan collaboration with in-game shoe drops. Listening for both current & future marketing initiatives is important - you can do as much research as you'd like but without consumer input, you risk missing the mark.

Matt Owens Director, Client Services at Stylus Innovation + Advisory

While Amazon Alexa and Google Home promise shopping by voice, I'm seeing consumers slowly responding to using it for shopping. The technology is still new and doesn't have a lot of consumer trust - meaning what I order, will that actually be what arrives without seeing a visual confirmation first.

Michael A

If you ask people what they use their smart assistant's for, it is almost always just "Alexa, play {insert song here}" or "Alexa, what's the weather"" I've yet to meet a single person that has used it to shop, and Amazon's own data even supports that.

Tom Murray Managing Director, Agency

50% of search is expected to be done by voice by 2020 (per comscore); google voice is already on over 500 million mobile devices. You need to: -understand the nuance of a voice search over a touch search - people use short phrases and sentences for voice -ensure your website loads fast enough

Ann Hoeger CSO

For brands creating Alexa + Google Assistant Skills, it’s often difficult for consumers to remember the name of each branded skill - if you don’t remember the name, it’s often hard for Alexa/Google to locate. If a skill name is sticky, catchy, memorable - brands can have a hit by getting in early.

Jennifer Degtjarewsky Chief Brand + Product Development Officer | Principal at Media Lab One, LLC

This will catch up soon and brands are not ready for it. Most brands are only lightly experimenting with voice. They should be heavily researching, engaging, testing and getting ready for it. With voice being built into more experiences from hotels, apartments & cars it's only a matter of time.

Michael A

I turn on my voice channel and ask - "Can you tell me the benefits of Brand X and where to buy at the best price? Can you tell me what the beauty influencers are saying about Brand X?" It will serve as a curator of information that will help my research and purchase decision.

Laureen Schroeder Chief Marketing Officer

TONS of brands have partnered with Amazon to provide a more life hack environment through Alexa - i.e. Patron mixologists, cooking recipes and other quick and easy ways to make the consumer's life easier. Isn't that what it is all about? How can I make my consumer better than they were yesterday?

Matt Owens Director, Client Services at Stylus Innovation + Advisory

Leveraging automation is our current biggest challenge, but also our biggest opportunity. Lower value tasks that are repeatable in nature should be automated where possible in order to save time, become more strategic, and free up monotonous time that typically employee's hate the most.

Tom Murray Managing Director, Agency

Mindset shifting as fast as technology - While the organization may sign up for the most advanced tech solutions, the real adoption and practical application remains low, since a mindset shift is required to derive complete value out of the solution.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Personalization and in-the-moment messaging will continue to dominate in a variety of media channels requiring brands to have more data around each consumer they are talking to

Michael A

creating a learning organization and one that uses brand, customer experience, marketing and sales all together to create unified, seamless interactions.

Kyrsten Musich Global growth strategy, brand and customer experience

the need for speed and new skill sets in the ever changing global world... A marketing team that can flex in terms of these skills from data to tech to digital engagements with a superior delivery of creativity will be necessary to survive.

Laureen Schroeder Chief Marketing Officer

Expectations of cultural awareness and inclusion will continue to be on the rise. Brands will be expected to understand what's happening in culture and create inclusive marketing.

Michael A

Hybridized roles (such as digital marketing personnel with IT or Database backgrounds) are increasingly more desired and essential.

Lillie Beiting Director of Data and Marketing Analytics at The Impact Partnership

organizational change will come from both new roles and the evolution of current roles. Robust succession planning against organization goals will be important.

Ann Hoeger CSO

Digital media expertise will need to expand on our teams. Deeper understanding of the evolution of channel strategy will need to be built and an on-going learning plan will have to be in place

Michael A

It's important to hire curious people, empower them, and learn together to create the future.

Ann Hoeger CSO

It will be important for brands to be inclusive with all their external facing marketing communication. Brands will need to be quick to respond and apologetic when they don't get it right.

Michael A

Not being shy to try and test these new technologies. Many see it as a threat, but we see it as an opportunity to separate ourselves from the pack

Tom Murray Managing Director, Agency

The Facebooks, Googles, etc of the world are leading in machine learning, as they have invested millions of dollars into this, and it shows in their ad algorithms, which generates billions of dollars in revenue per year.

Tom Murray Managing Director, Agency

Unilever - A huge company that has been very successful at evolving to meet the needs of marketing. They have in house experts and utilize outside agencies. share best practices globally and are leaders in purpose driven brands

Laureen Schroeder Chief Marketing Officer

People tend to ignore Jet and Walmart while falling over themselves to focus on Amazon's ever move but forget its very competent in online retailing and very successful at it.

Michael Margolies Advertising, Digital Marketing, MarCom, eCommerce, PR, Creative Production, Commercial Photography, Marketing Executive

Seed Beauty/Colorpop - Their brand was born on Instagram. Their marketing team is continually evolving, and leading edge in terms of digital and the required skills. Hub and spoke model. Their digital team have separate staff for each platform - email, Instagram, web etc.

Laureen Schroeder Chief Marketing Officer

it is the smaller more nimble companies that have no dollars and creative marketing teams. The lack of resource forces you to think differently and move differently than some of the bigger guys

Kyrsten Musich Global growth strategy, brand and customer experience

An extreme focus on the customer (B2B) and the consumer (B2C). Rather than marketing products or services based on the organization’s capabilities (production orientation), marketers should market, sell and build relevant and differentiated solutions to me customers’ and consumers’ needs.

Vic C

Marketing teams are catalysts. Their imaginative energy is contagious across the organization. They inspire each other, executives and broader teams and bring to life a larger purpose for the organization to rally behind.

Michael A

A high performing marketing team is nimble, extremely detail oriented, and results driven. They are a great group of collaborators that feed off each each other

Justin Clutter Analytics Manager at Monkedia

Realistic & Practical - They do not always run behind the shiny new things in marketing, till they have figured out how it will work for their business. They are realistic about timelines, result expectations & resources required.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Takes intelligent risks - In today's data driven world, only taking risks is not enough. It is important that teams take calculated, well thought out, intelligent risks that are backed by observations & predicted results.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Highly performing marketing teams are curious, They don't settle for what's been done in the past. They tackle opportunities that others have failed by learning from their mistakes. They create a learning culture and always looking for outside for inspiration

Michael A

They're respectful. To each other. And the client. Saying they should be respectful is easy. Implementing this with disciplinary measures is how we make it happen.

Nayyara Rahman Director Digital Services; Ethics At Work Advocate

key characteristics of a successful and high performing marketing team requires creativity, flexibility, knowledgeable and leaving any and all egos outside. It requires a leader that allows this team to work without micromanagement.

Anthony Williams CEO | President

The team looks like a sports team -- role players, coaches with long term visions and clear ways to settle conflicts.

Peter Shafer President

A great marketing team has a high EQ that results in stronger communication and better problem-solving. Self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, and empathy are a few areas that a group of marketers with high EQ will excel at.

Grant Gooley MBA, Marketing

The culture needs to be a learning culture with accountability, bias for action, and ownership as key ideals of this culture. It must reward risk taking but also always asking - "What did we learn? What can we do better next time? What is the next action we take?"

Laureen Schroeder Chief Marketing Officer

Highly performing marketing teams are successful in a culture of transparency, collaboration, and a shared visions. A culture with these attributes help teams thrive.

Michael A

Inspiration comes from being authentic with your team - motivating from a place of honest enthusiasm for the project goals while recognizing the challenges that may impact the process.

Roberta Rosenberg Senior Director, Marketing

What makes me an effective leader is all though I am a CEO I work with my team as a part of the team, I believe all ideas have validity and should be heard.

Anthony Williams CEO | President

Be invested in their overall career, not just their career at the company - Team members feel more connected to you if they know that you are going to be there for them, even if they are no longer in your team, or in the company.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Team leaders just can't call it in and delegate everything away to a team which may not be fully up to the challenge. The line between necessary hands-on management and toxic micro-managing is often slim and difficult to gauge

Roberta Rosenberg Senior Director, Marketing

Motivating and inspiring teams to a higher level of performance is a fine balance between "walking the talk" and setting boundaries

Nayyara Rahman Director Digital Services; Ethics At Work Advocate

Great leaders provide mentoring, opportunities for growth, and public recognition of team efforts and individual contributions. It is motivating and fun to be a part of a winning team. This, of course, needs to be followed up with $$$,

Laureen Schroeder Chief Marketing Officer

Focus on the solution, not the problem - There will be situations of conflict within the team, or times when you do not agree with the team. If the team follows a solution oriented approach, these conflicts can be resolved more easily

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Recognition - a simple thank you goes a long way with hard working teams. It's important for me to take the time to recognize great work and team members on a regular basis. I get to know how my team members like to be recognized.

Michael A

What "sacred cows" or practices in our organization should I push to get eliminated or revised.

Vic C

How to deal with poor performers/disengaged team members? I find once in awhile I have a team member who simply disengages and is no longer a fit for the team.

Michael A

One of the biggest challenges is always internal politics that affect the team. Often it is also internal team competitiveness. So I ask the question - "How do you handle these situations or individuals - so it builds the team and not destroys it?"

Laureen Schroeder Chief Marketing Officer

One of our company values is "Collaborate Intentionally". We've identified behaviors of what collaborating intentionally does and does not look like, and we recognize and reward successful behaviors and course correct non-compliant behavior.

Vic C

Collaboration in my organization has its ups and downs. We try many different things from changing sitting arrangements to changing teams to try and find the best fit. I think change will always be needed to refresh the groups and continue collaboration at its highest level.

Justin Clutter Analytics Manager at Monkedia

I'd describe our current state as a work in progress across all departments. We now have a new focus on strategic communication and where most of the collaboration with marketing is taking place. We're all still trying to figure out whose lane is whose.

Roberta Rosenberg Senior Director, Marketing

the most challenging comes from sales. Marketers tend to think sales are too tactical and too reactionary, and that leads to conflict. What marketers have to realize is sales people are just as strategic, it's just that the focus of their strategy is different than the marketer.

Graham Robertson Founder and CMO

there always seems to be a little tension between sales and marketing. The primary reasons are typically: Budgets, internal power struggles, performance accountability, limited resources, connected at the top, but worker bees don't feel this same collaboration.

Laureen Schroeder Chief Marketing Officer

A lot of leaders and CEOs believe they are marketers. Collaborating with these types of people is the most challenging because not only do you have to spend time validating you are the expert in marketing, messaging and going to market vs. someone with a good idea for a tagline. I

Kyrsten Musich Global growth strategy, brand and customer experience

Development - because of the technology side and articulating properly from dev to the other functions what is needed and why something does not work and then the other function does not understand because it is such a technical answer.

Justin Clutter Analytics Manager at Monkedia

I have found marketing collaboration with HR can create overlapping responsibilities or ownership battles when it comes to who truly owns communications for an organization...each having different agendas and mindsets when they really could work and speak from a similar place.

Charlie Riley Director of Marketing

the most important teams to collaborate and align to are Customer experience, sales, sales ops and product.

Kyrsten Musich Global growth strategy, brand and customer experience

Sales- they are on the frontlines with retail buyers and need to be able to articulate why our brand and products stand out from the competition, and sell in our brands to drive revenue which our brand budgets are based on.

Randy Shoemaker Chief Marketing Officer

The most important collaborations for marketers has always been sales, product development, and their agencies. We rely on the greatness of others, which means we must inspire them to deliver their greatest work on behalf of our brand

Graham Robertson Founder and CMO

My approach is to remain task and goal-oriented. Acknowledge the personalities - different skills, experience, and interest - but that the only way forward is together. No divas allowed.

Roberta Rosenberg Senior Director, Marketing

daily communication with the sales team so we are in lock step with them, weekly brand updates via an internal CRM system and bi-annual sales meetings. Quite often, brand marketing joins the sales team on the initial brand pitch to the retail buyers.

Randy Shoemaker Chief Marketing Officer

Collaboration must be developed with intent. It is more than top down communication or weekly meetings. Unique perspectives must be looked at as important, everyone has a voice. Goals must be set before collaboration begins to keep on track and make the communication valuable.

Grant Gooley MBA, Marketing

Relationships and mutual goals are key to building cross functional collaboration. I take the time to get to know what teams are goaling themselves on and tend to stick to proposing opportunities to first working together around ideas that meet both our goals.

Michael A

Find that unique space where your win matches up with their win. When I was at J&J, we had a thing called the triple win...a win for the consumer, win for the brand, and a win for the channel customer. When you put this lens on the ideas even get better.

Graham Robertson Founder and CMO

(stakeholders play "marketer") I handle with the respect of listening and to build on their comment or ask a high performing question. If the intent is collaboration "no idea is a bad idea" until it has been thought through. Willingness to be open is key.

Laureen Schroeder Chief Marketing Officer

I always found that if the marketing team was invited to sales meetings and gained exposure and/or had more ability to communicate directly that collaboration improved.

Laureen Schroeder Chief Marketing Officer

Our email team's priorities are set by our merchandising team, not marketing. By taking the time to understand how the team measured success, I could pitch them ideas that would help achieve our team's broader messaging goals while still allowing their goals to be met.

Michael A

It is hard to move fast when you need to 20 people to get aligned. It impacts your ability to be bold because you end up collaborating to the obvious or the least offensive place. It also can cause a lack of empowerment among teams.

Kyrsten Musich Global growth strategy, brand and customer experience

Thought leadership has been emerging as a top priority with sales and marketing executives. Strong subject matter expertise and a strong point of view are now essential to success in the digital, social and mobile channels that buyers use during most of the buying process.

Scott Cook Helping organizations redefine their markets and make their competition irrelevant.

Thought leadership plays a HUGE role in the strategic importance in today's leadership style and needs. The thought leadership style will continue to increase in use as organizations, needs, and tasks continue to become more plentiful, dynamic, and diverse.

Rick J. LoCastro President, RJL Consulting Team

If you don’t have a point of view or perspective on what’s happening in culture you're part of the noise and clutter. Having a POV and perspective gives your brand an opportunity to show off your values for others to connect to. 87% of consumers stated they would purchase a product based on values.

Michael A

Thought leadership influences customer purchase behaviors. It leads decision-makers to invite companies to bid on projects (RFPs), creates preference with buyers and directly contributes to winning business opportunities and can influence a buyer’s willingness to pay a premium.

Vic C

t has definitely helped us stand out against competitors who do not invest time and effort into solving complex problems. We get a great deal of leads from organic search for the solutions to unique problems our thought leadership solves.

Charlie Riley Director of Marketing

Let's face it, buyers today want to do business with the best; this means they want to interact with the experts. Thought leadership via executive branding provides a unique opportunity to help a company showcase that you understand your clients’ needs better than your competition.

Scott Cook Helping organizations redefine their markets and make their competition irrelevant.

Brands that show thought leadership can create disruption & keep their business relevant with the changing times. Thought leader companies also end up getting the best of talent, because people want to work at such places.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

thought leadership of (sr. leaders) is really important to drive agendas and set an example to think ahead of the curve for all employees. It is a practical reality that a lot of projects are driven "top-down" & hence top management has the biggest onus of displaying thought leadership.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Engage industry experts to speak out on key topics, not sell your key brand messages. Your role as a brand is to engage the community to move your brand into the consideration stage of your potential customers. Let the content breathe a bit, before looking to close the deal..

Graham Robertson Founder and CMO

Being sincere about trying to help others with your knowledge and not expecting something in return is much better than doing it to personally benefit primarily. If done well, that will be a byproduct, but should not be the primary reason or it will seem forced.

Charlie Riley Director of Marketing

1. focus on defining our world view (heritage, culture etc). 2. focus on our view of the industry how we can help our customers overcome challenges to take advantage of opportunities. This pulls people in on a human level, shows what we stand for and we understand the trends and can navigate them.

Brian McLeod Vice President Content Solutions at Forbes

In this competitive world, it is critical to build a personal brand if you want to stand out and social media provides excellent opportunities to share views, opinions & ideas. Personal branding helps you contribute beyond your role at your workplace.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Thought leaders are informed opinion leaders who are trusted sources that move and inspire people with innovative ideas. True thought leadership should focus on giving...providing deep insights and relevant knowledge to help teach and engage the community.

Randy Shoemaker Chief Marketing Officer

it is a balancing act for marketers as we see others seemingly having success carving out their own niche but it needs to fit within your personal comfort zone of being very public while also managing what is best for the company. Sometimes it can fulfill both agendas, while other times, it may not.

Charlie Riley Director of Marketing

I think building a personal brand requires a lot of time & effort apart from your job/business & it takes patience to figure out what works for you. You need to commit to make conscious efforts.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

If your organization accepts it and there is a learning opportunity personally, I feel like we become better marketers by sharing what we know and seeing where it sticks.

Charlie Riley Director of Marketing

it helps stretch comfort levels and dive into topics of interest a little deeper. We all have areas of expertise to share.

Charlie Riley Director of Marketing

Not being genuine/authentic - . Copying content and posing as your own, or sharing wrong details in public can be extremely detrimental to your image & should be avoided at all costs.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Brands need to make sure the thought leadership stays focused on setting up the brand for success. Avoid looking for the direct transaction. White Papers need to stay clean of sell, with a genuine approach to helping

Graham Robertson Founder and CMO

Being inconsistent - It is important to keep sharing content at regular intervals, and not disappear for a long period of time from the conversations, as the connectivity with the audience is lost.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Trying to showcase thought leadership in too many aspects - It is better to not try to be the Jack of all spades, but pick a few topics that you are really passionate about & stick to those. This way, you can really establish your expertise & authority over a subject.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Don't spend months creating content without a distribution strategy. Don't create one form or piece of content and think people will simply read it. Don't bury your thought leadership on a website with no traffic. Don't use your thought leadership as a pitch.

Brian McLeod Vice President Content Solutions at Forbes

Great thought leaders take risks, and sometimes those risks fail. I saw a Wells Fargo leader start a presentation with "Does anybody know what happened to us?" She immediately lost her audience. Nothing happened to WF - they did something wrong.

Jim Tincher Mapper-In-Chief

We live in a world of data overload... There is just too much information and data to process & hence the challenge is to not always get access to data, but more importantly what to make out of it.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Data rich & insights poor - Too many marketers are focused on tactical analytics, and not enough marketers know how to go deeper to assess the health and wealth of your brand. If you only stay at the surface level, you'll miss out on the true health of the brand.

Graham Robertson Founder and CMO

we have disjointed data sources & systems that are not integrated, no (overview) dashboard bringing the key indicators together, NO AI systems. Net, the system is NOT supporting the team and everybody is looking at his preferred set of data (but not a holistic overview), thus driving silo thinking.

Sebastian Oppermann International CMO | E-commerce | DTC | Growth & Optimization | Digital Transformation | Change Management | Cloud | Branded Consumer Goods

ne area where improvement is needed either because they fail to look at the data or they don't know what questions to ask of the data

Scott Cook Helping organizations redefine their markets and make their competition irrelevant.

There is a lot of dependency on external agency partners to cull out the data & insights, hence I think somewhere the bigger picture gets missed at times.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Our best work is at it's best when there is a tasteful combination of art and science. Data is extremely important, but marketing needs heart to have emotional appeal and impact.

Michael A

Analytics behind better understanding the voice and needs of customers is a priority

Vic C

Types of data: In Market, Brand Tracking, Market Research, Internal Health/Wealth

Graham Robertson Founder and CMO

Demographic, Behavioral, Performance data and analytics, Industry, CRM, Firmographic and Technographic data

Scott Cook Helping organizations redefine their markets and make their competition irrelevant.

Good marketers know what questions to ask and they know what problems they are trying to solve. To do this you might be required to normalize your data from various data sources first before you ask the questions

Scott Cook Helping organizations redefine their markets and make their competition irrelevant.

I'm not advocating over analyzing to the point of "analysis paralysis", but I do recommend using whatever data and tools you have at your disposal to make the best, most informed decision possible.

Randy Shoemaker Chief Marketing Officer

The analogy I use is with human health; we can see some people look perfect, have low body fat, and muscular....yet if they have high blood pressure, or cholesterol issues....we can't see those at the surface, we have to dig a layer deeper.

Graham Robertson Founder and CMO

if you don't have the RIGHT PEOPLE who know how to utilize the info to make your operation better... all you are doing is collecting numbers. I've seen this all too often where a team has their head in the spreadsheets but don't know how to use the info or worse yet, they just don't utilize it.

Rick J. LoCastro President, RJL Consulting Team

The numbers are one thing, but your operation can be failing behind you or just not as successful as your data and analytics show... especially if you don't have the right LEADERS utilizing the data and also using their own eyes and ears.

Rick J. LoCastro President, RJL Consulting Team

As a starting point every organization needs to identify the following: What data to use and where to source it from?What tools or technologies to select for analysis? How to implement the analysis findings?

Scott Cook Helping organizations redefine their markets and make their competition irrelevant.

IMPROVE UNDERSTANDING OF THE VOICE OF THE CUSTOMER WITH COGNITIVE COMPUTING AND SENTIMENT ANALYSISEMPOWER CUSTOMER SERVICE AND SUPPORT WITH COGNITIVE COMPUTING AND NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING

Vic C

Artificial Intelligent (AI) engines are built using both the data acquisition and analytics phases of this platform. The AI technology will provide seamless access to all forms of data and will automate “reasonably complex” analytic tasks.

Dr. Frank Musmar Adjunct Faculty Instructor

Specialist skills must be acquired to deliver every stage of an organizations data and analytical needs. Hiring a data scientist is recommended as they are best at: Data cleansing and data transformation, Analytics Interpreting reports and developing actions, Programming development and automation

Scott Cook Helping organizations redefine their markets and make their competition irrelevant.

targeting is a way of identifying the relevant audience & personalization is a way of communicating the message to the audience. Hence, for me, they are not exactly mutually exclusive.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Targeting vs. personalization at scale depends on where you are in your relationship with your customer. If you don't have a relationship, then targeting at scale makes sense. As your potential consumer becomes more engaged with your brand, personalization becomes more relevant and powerful.

Randy Shoemaker Chief Marketing Officer

Start broad to build an ideal customer profile. Once we have sufficient data, we build audience targeting lists that resemble our qualified individuals, and from there, we build lookalike audiences and focus high volume/top of funnel efforts to them

Jon Kagan VP of Search at MARC USA

Targeting at scale is much easier (currently) vs. personalization. With targeting at scale I can personalize the message to a certain extent however it will not always feel quite right

Michael A

Brand awareness is a foundational priority before any type of customer can even be engaged with the brand. Most mature organizations tend to have a very strong brand equity which can be leveraged for targeting at scale and bring awareness of new products to the existing community of customers.

Yury Gomez Global Leader, Mergers and Acquisitions, Marketing, Sales, Commercial Strategy

Personalization at scale is to deliver a unique marketing messages specifically targeting individuals in ways, which are well accepted and received and which increase the impact of business products, hence the efficiency of marketing communications to achieve a competitive edge.

Dr. Frank Musmar Adjunct Faculty Instructor

Personalization at scale enables specific messaging based on information shared, past behavior or predicative analytics. Messaging can feel very personal and direct. It. This requires me to have permission from the consumer and they must see real value to them.

Michael A

It’s not just brand communications that need to be more relevant--consumers are also interested in purchasing more personalized products and services and are willing to wait longer to get them

Rick J. LoCastro President, RJL Consulting Team

Significant barriers to creating effective personalization at scale is time and expense. According to Gartner, by 2022, content creators will produce more than 30% of their digital content with the aid of AI, increasing productivity, and advertising effectiveness.

Dr. Frank Musmar Adjunct Faculty Instructor

Personalization responds customers along their journey with relevant & timely messaging to take action. This does not come without a lot of planning that requires a great deal of testing, evaluation, measurement, and revisions to get it right. It requires agile processes in place to ensure success.

Scott Cook Helping organizations redefine their markets and make their competition irrelevant.

As your potential consumer becomes more engaged with your brand, personalization becomes more relevant and powerful. This can be achieved as you learn more about your consumers and they learn more about your brand.

Randy Shoemaker Chief Marketing Officer

Personalization can reduce acquisition costs by as much as 50%, lift revenues by 5–15%, and increase marketing spend efficiency by 10–30%

Scott Cook Helping organizations redefine their markets and make their competition irrelevant.

The top five benefits of personalization include increased visitor engagement (55%), improved customer experience (55%), improved brand perception (39%), increased conversion rates (51%) and increased lead generation and customer acquisition (46%) (source).

Scott Cook Helping organizations redefine their markets and make their competition irrelevant.

January 2019 Gartner study found that 55% of surveyed marketing leaders have increased resources devoted to personalization since 2017 and that for 36% of marketing teams the responsibility for personalization primarily falls on them—rather than on a cross-functional team

Dr. Frank Musmar Adjunct Faculty Instructor

Start broad to build an ideal customer profile. Once we have sufficient data, we build audience targeting lists that resemble our qualified individuals, and from there, we build lookalike audiences and focus high volume/top of funnel efforts to them

Jon Kagan VP of Search at MARC USA

Targeting vs. personalization at scale depends on where you are in your relationship with your customer. If you don't have a relationship, then targeting at scale makes sense. As your potential consumer becomes more engaged with your brand, personalization becomes more relevant and powerful.

Randy Shoemaker Chief Marketing Officer

The customer journey is complex and existing customers are demanding more targeted solutions that fit their needs. This is where the key opportunity exists for personalization at scale and requires customer data & insights to better serve those needs

Yury Gomez Global Leader, Mergers and Acquisitions, Marketing, Sales, Commercial Strategy

Cadbury matched a Dairy Milk flavor to users based on Facebook profile, including age, interest, and location. Once the user agreed to connect, personalized video was auto generated. The campaign obtained a 65% click-through rate and a 33.6% conversation rate, proving the personal touch works.

Dr. Frank Musmar Adjunct Faculty Instructor

We used hyperlocal personalized communication when we launched a paint that curbs indoor air pollution..."The Air Quality Index around you is 102. While outdoor air pollution is slightly out of your control, you can take care of the pollution in your own home."

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

YouTube Director's Mix (formerly Vogon) enables you to personalize the communication to every video content. It is gets served automatically, so you just have to put in few pieces of information & the system does the magic thereon.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

It's a market that best suits top talent. Organizations cannot under estimate that the majority of applicants now consider an employers brand before applying for a job and look at the social impact organizations can make that they too are passionate about.

Scott Cook Helping organizations redefine their markets and make their competition irrelevant.

It's really hard to fill an open slot. Even at the asst. brand manager levels. Impacts can include needing to being more competitive in salary, benefits, flextime, and it’s very important to understand what candidates value. Sometimes, for the younger generation, it’s about quality of life vs. money

John Zigament Strategic Planning • Innovation • New Product Development • Brand Building • Product Management • Advertising • Public Relations • Agency Management • Consumer Promotion• Customer Marketing

I find it difficult to hire individuals that have experience developing campaigns for a true omni-channel experience. An omni-channel experience is what most businesses should invest in to connect with their customers no matter where they might be.

Scott Cook Helping organizations redefine their markets and make their competition irrelevant.

Finding talent (senior and junior) who balance the thinking and knowledge around performance & technical marketing with the more "classic" approach (creative, mid/long-term view, brand building, etc.) is rather difficult.... It's rare that people take the best of both worlds.

Sebastian Oppermann International CMO | E-commerce | DTC | Growth & Optimization | Digital Transformation | Change Management | Cloud | Branded Consumer Goods

Finding people with experience in traditional plus digital marketing. Companies should encourage cross learning and exposure, so as to nurture their talent within the company to take on roles with ever changing job descriptions.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

recruiting is about networking. Whether it be putting the word out to my own personal network or using recruiters, you have to get the word out to the people that meet your needs. Recruiting at universities and having internship programs are great ways to identify new candidates.

John Zigament Strategic Planning • Innovation • New Product Development • Brand Building • Product Management • Advertising • Public Relations • Agency Management • Consumer Promotion• Customer Marketing

Referrals from trusted networks are a place to start. Put the word out to folks whose judgment you trust. It scales the search down to a few high-quality candidates... you may miss someone out there but it won't be because you chose the wrong filter categories.

Tim Boone Executive Leadership Coach

companies should no longer focus on hiring talent with a linear career growth in just marketing. Organizations should rather choose to hire talent with diverse experiences such as marketing, analytics, social media, communications and foundational knowledge of the value stream of the industry.

Yury Gomez Global Leader, Mergers and Acquisitions, Marketing, Sales, Commercial Strategy

Mapping out levels and all jobs allows you to determine who fits and doesn't. If you are building job descriptions every time then how do those roles fit your overall people system. You should have them mapped out already and then fit the person to the role, not adjusting the role to the person.

Graham Robertson Founder and CMO

Top talent should be able to combine skills: leadership, creative, analytical, content creation, product expertise, innovation, and execution. Additionally, it is critical to ensure that the talent are continuous learners and have willingness to keep up educated with technology changes.

Yury Gomez Global Leader, Mergers and Acquisitions, Marketing, Sales, Commercial Strategy

Recruit young. We partner with Brand Lab (local) that introduces, guides and prepares students for careers in marketing. We host high schools during the summer to educate on marketing then bring them back when in college and give them the opportunity to own projects and experience marketing.

Michael A

Take ownership, start early and make people development a priority: , i.e. recruit and develop your own mid- and senior-level talent, so that hiring from outside (later on) is rather a question of add-on/mix, then your main stream of talent in-sourcing.

Sebastian Oppermann International CMO | E-commerce | DTC | Growth & Optimization | Digital Transformation | Change Management | Cloud | Branded Consumer Goods

As technologies continue to usher in the automation of knowledge work, HR practitioners will need both academic and professional development training to design and support the automated workplaces of the future where human and artificial intelligence work side by side.

Dr. Frank Musmar Adjunct Faculty Instructor

Recruiting thru platforms like LinkedIn, Indeed, and other AI driven platforms. Current technology exist to where I can market a product to people who, based on their profile have a high propensity to purchase. This technology could be used for recruiting. Right now the technology isn’t there.

John Zigament Strategic Planning • Innovation • New Product Development • Brand Building • Product Management • Advertising • Public Relations • Agency Management • Consumer Promotion• Customer Marketing

Inclusion is defined as a sense of belonging and security from the team. Inclusive leadership comprises the speech and behavioral performance of leaders in encouraging their subordinates to work, contribute, and innovate which lead to business success.

Dr. Frank Musmar Adjunct Faculty Instructor

inclusion is about building a space where all feel respected, accepted, included and a sense of belonging. It's an ongoing journey towards building a more inclusion in the work environment

Michael A

Inclusive leadership emphasizes equal opportunity and fair distribution. Inclusive leaders can treat employees with recognition, respect, and tolerance, listen to and recognize the opinions and contributions of subordinates, and promote their work performance.

Dr. Frank Musmar Adjunct Faculty Instructor

Aberdeen research found that 90% of organizations believe that employees make decisions to stay within the first year. Organizations have a year to make positive impression on top talent. Only 15 % of organizations extend onboarding beyond 6 months compared to 20 % in 2012..

Dr. Frank Musmar Adjunct Faculty Instructor

HARD BENEFITS: Diversity of thought, Broader media audience perspectives, Lowered risk of offensive marketing messaging, stronger retention

Michael A

SOFT BENEFITS: An "always on" learning environment, Stronger sense of purpose and community, stronger emotional connection to work from consumers

Michael A

Having a process in place to on-board new employees is critical so you're not scrambling the day before they arrive

Randy Shoemaker Chief Marketing Officer

it is important to have a standardized on-boarding process across the company that allows for the necessary adaptions per department to avoid having no (or bad / sub-optimal) on-boardings or that every manager has to re-invent the wheel.

Sebastian Oppermann International CMO | E-commerce | DTC | Growth & Optimization | Digital Transformation | Change Management | Cloud | Branded Consumer Goods

Best in class, onboarding is comprised of three major components, Forms (All internal and external new hires forms), Task management (Meeting with managers, receiving a computer, and gaining access to the system), and Socialization in the company culture.

Dr. Frank Musmar Adjunct Faculty Instructor

We do what's called "100% in 100 Days". Essentially, the goal of this onboarding is to work towards having new hires effective in their roles within their first 100 days.

Vic C

The first 90 days are crucial. It takes 90 days for the new person to figure out the role. And, 90 days to judge if they are going to be successful. An informal sit-down at that 90 day mark should occur to have an honest discussion of performance. Waiting for a formal performance review is too late.

Graham Robertson Founder and CMO

The on-boarding process should vary because not all "hired" candidates are new to the organization. They may be new to management or moving from a role of authority to one of influence, across divisions or regions.

Scott Cook Helping organizations redefine their markets and make their competition irrelevant.

Giving enough time to understand the category/business : Too often for lateral hires, the expectation is to start contributing from day one & hence the person is too soon into the cobweb of fulfilling KRA's. This does not allow them to do enough market visits & understand the business better.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Meetings with each of the key functional leads or the adequate level in the function (as not every newhire can or has to meet the CFO, CSO etc. but certainly somebody from Finance, R&D, etc. who can provide perspective on the function and interaction between the departments.

Sebastian Oppermann International CMO | E-commerce | DTC | Growth & Optimization | Digital Transformation | Change Management | Cloud | Branded Consumer Goods

Spending a day at the offices of the agency partners helps the new joiner get well acquainted with the teams & also about the work done so far & the overall landscape. This works much better than just an introductory meeting at the brand office with a review presentation.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Key focus areas include: 1) Admin and IT, 2) company knowledge, 3) company strategy and financials, 4) industry overview, 5) key stakeholder meetings (internal and external), 6) systems and tools, 7) business processes, 8) operations and manufacturing, 9) training and development, 10) miscellaneous

Vic C

Arrival package (incl. pre-info / email before the first day) with the necessary tools and systems set up (desk, computer, access to accounts, etc.) to make them feel welcome

Sebastian Oppermann International CMO | E-commerce | DTC | Growth & Optimization | Digital Transformation | Change Management | Cloud | Branded Consumer Goods

An opportunity to improve the on-boarding, is to consider softer skills like what’s are the personalities of the team members and new member? Don’t get me wrong the functional is very important, but so much success of that new employee depends on “fit”. There are a lot of soft skills in “fit”.

John Zigament Strategic Planning • Innovation • New Product Development • Brand Building • Product Management • Advertising • Public Relations • Agency Management • Consumer Promotion• Customer Marketing

Giving enough time to understand the category/business : Too often for lateral hires, the expectation is to start contributing from day one & hence the person is too soon into the cobweb of fulfilling KRA's. This does not allow them to do enough market visits & understand the business better.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Pitfall: Newhire's agenda is literally blocked in the first month by "get to know or on-boarding meetings" (with team members and other functions) with basically no room for the "real" job (and thus creating outcomes/results).

Sebastian Oppermann International CMO | E-commerce | DTC | Growth & Optimization | Digital Transformation | Change Management | Cloud | Branded Consumer Goods

I've seen new team members show up for their first day with no computer, no meetings and managers who are scrambling to cobble something together. This is NOT the way to make someone feel welcome and expect the best of them.

Randy Shoemaker Chief Marketing Officer

We also had a marketing committee that was made up of senior marketing leaders in the organization. This committee discussed the skill sets we wanted to see in the organization and made sure the the appropriate training was developed to up-skill both new and existing marketers in the organization.

Regina D. Shanklin, MBA Marketing Executive | Marketing Strategy Consultant | Marketing Training & Coaching | Seeking Consulting Opportunities

A handbook that explain what employees can expect from their organization, expectations as an employee, a commitments from the organization, brief company history and community or industry position, and reasons why they should be excited to work there.

Dr. Frank Musmar Adjunct Faculty Instructor

Lever created a Diversity and Inclusion Handbook that you might find useful. The link gives you access to an 80 page PDF that also includes 40+ fresh ideas for how you can include diversity and inclusion in your workplace.

Scott Cook Helping organizations redefine their markets and make their competition irrelevant.

New-school marketing whispers to the most loyal brand fans, hoping they drive awareness with influence to their friends. The word of a friend will bring more influence to their purchase decision. They also look to the brand lovers, giving them evidence the brand does deliver what it promises.

Graham Robertson Founder and CMO

Our focus on social media isn't to "sell, sell, sell."" or push campaigns when it's convenient for us. Instead we take the approach that social media should be used to advocate for our brand and participate in cultural relevant conversations when it's convenient for our consumer.

Michael A

Our strategy was to develop a relationship ship with the consumer. We wanted the consumer to enjoy and learn about their pets by interacting with our brand. Tactics we used were: newsletters, interactive contests such as photo contests, and developing and engaging key influencers.

John Zigament Strategic Planning • Innovation • New Product Development • Brand Building • Product Management • Advertising • Public Relations • Agency Management • Consumer Promotion• Customer Marketing

the "like us on Facebook" is slowly dying, but the lesson is still powerful for the idea of how we should do social media. I still see many bad examples. I was driving past a rock quarry...with like us on Facebook. Just because you can...doesn't mean you should.

Graham Robertson Founder and CMO

Too many marketers think they have to be part of every social media tool, without asking where will your target be most likely to see and engage.

Graham Robertson Founder and CMO

advertisers are becoming more effective at targeting the right people in the right stage of their decision making process. I believe smart advertisers are already pivoting to use social media more as an awareness/branding tool

Jason Kaska Global Director of Sales Operations

The non linear consumer journey has an element of social media involved in some way. The zero moment of Truth concept, states consumer builds a perception even before the physical encounter with the product, is driven mainly through social media

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Customer engagement is a multidimensional concept manifested in customers’ emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses with a firm focus. It is a motivational state that leads to heightened involvement with interactive, brand-related responses and experiences that go beyond transactions.

Dr. Frank Musmar Adjunct Faculty Instructor

If the customer comes in contact with relevant content (how-tos, product news, recommendations by other users, inspiration, etc) that fit the stage he is in, then this can of course impact his next step or decision. He can decide to visit a store or website, add a brand to his relevant set, etc.

Sebastian Oppermann International CMO | E-commerce | DTC | Growth & Optimization | Digital Transformation | Change Management | Cloud | Branded Consumer Goods

Behavioral engagement is where customers make voluntary contributions to a firm, such as knowledge, time, network resources, and social influence. Firms can influence customer engagement using tactics to motivate, empower and measure a customer’s voluntary contribution beyond a transaction

Dr. Frank Musmar Adjunct Faculty Instructor

Research shows that customers engage more actively with content and experiences that are interesting, novel and transformational. Interacting at a personal level and being responsive to their comments/questions can boost customer engagement and brand value.

Dr. Frank Musmar Adjunct Faculty Instructor

For social listening, it is about measuring brand love through the sentiment, complaint & query resolution of consumers & an understanding of the kind of conversations happening on social media about the category, which helps understand the trends and rising topics of interest.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

The broad overarching objective for social media marketing for us is twofold : 1. Keeping the audience engaged at all times. This engagement is driven in different ways for the purposes that they want to achieve.2. Listening to consumers & conversation happening around relevant topics.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

New-school marketing whispers to the most loyal brand fans, hoping they drive awareness with influence to their friends. The word of a friend will bring more influence to their purchase decision. They also look to the brand lovers, giving them evidence the brand does deliver what it promises.

Graham Robertson Founder and CMO

Our focus on social media isn't to "sell, sell, sell."" or push campaigns when it's convenient for us. Instead we take the approach that social media should be used to advocate for our brand and participate in cultural relevant conversations when it's convenient for our consumer.

Michael A

Our strategy for social media is to distribute thought leadership. This has the ability to impact the customers' pre and post sales journeys through a form of social proof. Posting on public platform provides credibility as prospects assess us a potential partner/solution.

Jim Tincher Mapper-In-Chief

Social media can be a great opportunity to build your brand. Your content can express the “emotions” of your brand. Encourage your team to have fun and explore new and innovative ideas. Social media is a great incubator!!

John Zigament Strategic Planning • Innovation • New Product Development • Brand Building • Product Management • Advertising • Public Relations • Agency Management • Consumer Promotion• Customer Marketing

Social will change from a “here’s an ad for something you might like based on your information, click here to buy it” to a more slow drip, influential model. marketing strategies will evolve to be more dynamic to personally cater to all the stages of the sales funnel

Jason Kaska Global Director of Sales Operations

The future of social media is headed towards automation. You can already schedule posts for a future date and automate data collection and measurement

Nayyara Rahman Director Digital Services; Ethics At Work Advocate

The future of social media marketing is in mobile video. Live streaming video decreases costs while increasing customer engagement and enhancing influence.

Dr. Frank Musmar Adjunct Faculty Instructor

The future of social media can be bright, but there is a dark side that could significantly undermine it. Current technology allows social media companies, especially Facebook, to understand consumer through psychographic data.

John Zigament Strategic Planning • Innovation • New Product Development • Brand Building • Product Management • Advertising • Public Relations • Agency Management • Consumer Promotion• Customer Marketing

On the dark side, technology exists today to have “bot” accounts flooding social media with whatever messaging and driving whatever action the programmers’ desire. My hope is that the social media companies on their own and if not law makers will insure the legitimacy of social media.

John Zigament Strategic Planning • Innovation • New Product Development • Brand Building • Product Management • Advertising • Public Relations • Agency Management • Consumer Promotion• Customer Marketing

Rise of closed group communities - People are moving away from conversations on public forums to moving to smaller groups or cohorts That is the reason why platforms like What's App have been so successful. Hence, community building is one of the largest objectives that brands should drive.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

there is also a shift in mentality from using research as a go / no go. To using research to learn and optimize.

Lee R. Roth Senior Marketing Executive | Gamechanger

Too much small tactical testing, not enough big innovation exploration.

Graham Robertson Founder and CMO

More is outsourced with only small Insights teams who rather coordinate the external agencies and internal customers. What's driving going outside: a virtual research organization, that can be scaled up/down as required while being able to use outside experts on the latest methodologies and trends.

Sebastian Oppermann International CMO | E-commerce | DTC | Growth & Optimization | Digital Transformation | Change Management | Cloud | Branded Consumer Goods

traditional & digital research are not interchangeable. While digital is quick and provides scale, face to face interactions are more free flowing and immersive. People are generally less lazy about talking than typing it out in a form.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Traditional approaches still have their place within our work. Surveys, focus groups, in-home conversations, etc. However they can take a ton of time to conduct. With the fast-pace we are making decisions this has required us to find quicker approaches.

Michael A

We have an internal consumer research team which works heavily with external agency partners, for the expertise they bring in & the methodological approach. Need identification & a broad requirement is formulated by the internal, the next steps are usually in partnership with the external partner.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Externally the key challenge is finding qualified vendors that show results. Once you get beyond the big market research houses (Nielsen, GfK, IRI) it’s quite fragmented. I had experiences where vendors are too “pie in the sky” and report results were worthless..

John Zigament Strategic Planning • Innovation • New Product Development • Brand Building • Product Management • Advertising • Public Relations • Agency Management • Consumer Promotion• Customer Marketing

When we want to quickly do a test and learn in the market, we count on our sales teams, who are connected to distributors, business partners & consumers to churn out fast results.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Lag time between research & reports - It currently takes a lot of time for the final report to be ready, so for a robust research, you are looking at a minimum of 6-8 weeks by the time you see the final results. That's pretty slow for this fast paced world.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Speed is the main issue facing research today. Especially for the digital marketing and social media. We can no longer rely on traditional approaches to research even from top sources because they are not up to date by the time they are published, meaning they are not actionable

Rebeca Montaner, PMP Ceven Digital saves you time and hassle with top social media experts so you can focus o your business. @cevendigital

It can feel like boiling the ocean when looking for insights because we have access to so much primary and secondary data, consumer content over social and other platforms.

Michael A

if we truly want to understand decision-making, it requires a very different approach. Most of our decision-making quant work is flawed, because the data captures the remembering mind's perspective - but not the experiencing mind, which is whom we're actually trying to win over.

Jim Tincher Mapper-In-Chief

it's important to work with people who are not stuck in the same methodologies and wont evolve. There are new research companies emerging daily, a great insights partner will be investigating new ways of doing research.

Lee R. Roth Senior Marketing Executive | Gamechanger

The traditional approaches are falling short in the era of big data. Integrating traditional research methods with big data analytics provides an exceptional opportunity to understand what customers are doing, why they are doing it, and, most importantly, what can be done to change their behavior.

Dr. Frank Musmar Adjunct Faculty Instructor

digital ethnographies are our go-to method to uncover journeys, especially for consumers. The platforms are evolving to be more immersive, making it easier for customers to share what is happening as the journey unfolds and uncover deeper emotions and unmet needs.

Jim Tincher Mapper-In-Chief

A shift to using on-line based research. This “need for speed” is driven by every business manager’s want for the results as soon as possible to drive the business forward as fast as possible. One very interesting area is use of social media to understand consumer needs, real time

John Zigament Strategic Planning • Innovation • New Product Development • Brand Building • Product Management • Advertising • Public Relations • Agency Management • Consumer Promotion• Customer Marketing

Integrating traditional qualitative and quantitative research methods with big data analytics can help marketers systematically address a myriad of potential business actions and challenges while maximizing impact and minimizing the risks associated with making ill-advised marketing decisions.

Dr. Frank Musmar Adjunct Faculty Instructor

We are always exploring new research approaches/methodologies. We assemble a group of researchers and have them explore new approaches to add to our toolkit. We also have researchers/teams give feedback on current offerings so we can adjust, identify gaps, etc.

Michael A

New approaches include using a new app called "Persky" https://www.getperksy.com/ It actually makes giving feedback fun for gen z. Lots of memes and visuals. We can hyper target audiences and get feedback in less than a few hours as the platform has an element of gamification.

Michael A

esearch functionality is even built into the advertising tools. For example, Facebook allows you to split test your ads to see which one is the winner and then automatically optimizes your spend to the winning ad

Randy Shoemaker Chief Marketing Officer

classical advertising/brand building is vital and will come back to the detriment of performance advertising that many have over-focussed in past years. The recent statements and learnings from Adidas are just an example of how companies are realizing the importance brand building plays in the mix

Sebastian Oppermann International CMO | E-commerce | DTC | Growth & Optimization | Digital Transformation | Change Management | Cloud | Branded Consumer Goods

Direct-mail will make a comeback: With virtual inboxes getting overwhelmed with messages, physical mailboxes will find new love to help brands communicate in a more human way. Just look at this year... Amazon shipped a physical Holiday catalog to mailboxes.

Michael A

Experiences will continue to rule: Pop-up stores as big advertisements, pop-up moments at festivals, etc will all continue into 2020 as consumers look for more experiences with brands.

Michael A

CCPA will start to change marketer behavior on how they collect consumer data. Expect many companies to struggle to comply in the beginning. It will be interesting if the California laws will effect the rest of the country or will it just stay in California.

Lee R. Roth Senior Marketing Executive | Gamechanger

Legal forces are threats for digital. The House Judiciary Committee, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Trade Commission are all conducting anti-trust probes into dominate players. .

John Zigament Strategic Planning • Innovation • New Product Development • Brand Building • Product Management • Advertising • Public Relations • Agency Management • Consumer Promotion• Customer Marketing

Marketers are going to be very careful about using customization & personalization of communication, as consumers are becoming increasingly sensitive about how & where their data is used. There will be a greater transparency on the side on the brand's side that is required.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Social media - will continue to get scrutinized, especially during the presidential election. Twitter will continue to pass on political advertising. Facebook will continue to irritate lawmakers and get more pressure. Advertisers will question the ethics and analytics.

Lee R. Roth Senior Marketing Executive | Gamechanger

Facebook advertising will fall: As brands and consumers become more aware of how Facebook is using data, brands will pull out of advertising on their platforms to ensure the safety of their customers and to hold Facebook more accountable to data privacy.

Michael A

New software will allow us to see who's been on our website, called our contact center, and purchased services, and made a return. We'll then be able to customize responses and keep engaged

Jim Tincher Mapper-In-Chief

Blockchain marketing - a peer-to-peer network of information technology that keeps records of digital asset transactions free from control of banks and governments. It can mitigate risks in hacking, privacy etc

Dr. Frank Musmar Adjunct Faculty Instructor

Blockchain implementations can reduce transaction costs such as negotiation costs and search costs, and eliminate the costs of intermediaries. In the financial services industry, blockchain technologies are expected to allow for annual cost savings of $15-$20 billion by 2022.

Dr. Frank Musmar Adjunct Faculty Instructor

Given the ever increasing fragmentation of media channels and marketing platforms as well as consumer expectations of personalization, marketers will increase martech / marketing automation tools to deliver against these expectations

Sebastian Oppermann International CMO | E-commerce | DTC | Growth & Optimization | Digital Transformation | Change Management | Cloud | Branded Consumer Goods

Direct to Consumer will continue to grow...there will be lots of tests, trials and failures. Expect brands to leverage previous launches and incubate/launch new brands in D2C, putting more pressure on traditional retail.

Mike Anthony Make brands grow at retail: Speaker, Writer, Consultant, Trainer & Coach.

New models emerge - more and more alternative to traditional agency models will emerge while a few will gain real traction. The need to reduce costs (driven by procurement) and reduce time to market (driven by consumers and competition) will drive this change.

Lee R. Roth Senior Marketing Executive | Gamechanger

Stronger demand for ROI from Marketing : While marketers are already moving away from vanity metrics to clarity metrics. There will be more pressure on marketers to prove what kind of ROI that marketing efforts are bringing on to the table & what are the implications in the long term.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

An influencer is someone who provides something of value to consumers, usually content, that fosters a trusted and loyal following. The influencer and consumer have a relationship

John Zigament Strategic Planning • Innovation • New Product Development • Brand Building • Product Management • Advertising • Public Relations • Agency Management • Consumer Promotion• Customer Marketing

Influencers help tell stories about your brand/product/service in ways you can't authentically tell yourself through your owned marketing channels. For example you might be extremely committed to sustainability as a brand, but not have an active voice in the space.

Michael A

Modern-day influencer marketing is connecting savvy marketers in an Internet-enabled, global business environment with their target audiences in an authentic manner, and avoid interruption marketing techniques of the past that have lost effectiveness due to ad blockers and other infor filters.

Dr. Frank Musmar Adjunct Faculty Instructor

There are many type of influencers, micro, macro, celebrity, industry experts, etc. When done right, influencers can be the best ambassadors of your brand. They tell your story in a way that is authentic and believable.

Lee R. Roth Senior Marketing Executive | Gamechanger

Three ways to define influencers 1) the number people they influence. Call it size or reach, 2) un-paid and paid. 3) individual and corporate.

John Zigament Strategic Planning • Innovation • New Product Development • Brand Building • Product Management • Advertising • Public Relations • Agency Management • Consumer Promotion• Customer Marketing

There needs to be a fine balance between the influencer tonality & the brand voice. While each influencer has their unique style & that should be respected, the brand must define the guardrails & let them craft their own messaging. This requires good communication between the brand & the influencer.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

working with an influencer cannot just mean sending them a product for free and hope they will speak well about it, But it means entering into a relationship between the brand owner and the influencer whose target audiences align with their own and who share the values of the brand.

Chiara Covone VP Innovation & Executive Coach

To find the right influencer consider: Does this influencer authentically like the brand? Are they easy to work with? Do they embody your values and have a vested interest in promoting your brand? Do they create content that comes natural? Does it naturally integrated in their conversations?

Lee R. Roth Senior Marketing Executive | Gamechanger

Align influencers with where consumers are on the consumer adoption curve, which leverages four types of consumers: Trend influencers, Early adopters, Early mass and Late mass.

Graham Robertson Founder and CMO

look for new tech to help provide proactive research and analytics before signing an Influencer program (helps validate the brand match)

Morgan Barclay VP of Digital Media

Unfortunately, there are too many influencers out there just after short term wins and screening them out is fundamental to leverage this channel in the right way. Go for quality vs. quantity and invest in longer term relationships.

Chiara Covone VP Innovation & Executive Coach

Avoid fake followers and avoid bot-backed services and automation to increase the number of likes; it is terrible on ROI.

Dr. Frank Musmar Adjunct Faculty Instructor

Long term collaborations between brands and influencers are key for the success of influencers and the proof of veracity of the connexion.but beware brands, influencers are coming up with their own brands

Laëtitia Zemiro Investment Manager - Luxury Goods, Fashion, Lifestyle and Innovation

2 paths 1) influencers become the new google add - with influencers acting like mercenaries representing the most generous brands 2) we reach an inflexion point, and there is a new kind of influencers, more qualitative and objective, engaged with brands, with a different business / economic model

Philippe Gorge Director in Strategy Consulting

For sure, brands are using them more however, with the industrialization of this model, we are progressively destroying the initial nature of their role. Customers are losing trust, as influencers are progressively converging to become a paid advertising channel as the other ones.

Philippe Gorge Director in Strategy Consulting

e-commerce through influencers on social media platforms will continue to grow and get easier - as platforms like Tik Tok experiment in this space.

Lee R. Roth Senior Marketing Executive | Gamechanger

Burger King's throwback menu - BK started liking & commenting on influencer tweets from 2010s. The influencers were amused, thought this was a mistake & started taking about it on social media. BK engaged influencers without really paying them.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Just because an influencer is popular doesn't mean that collaborating with them is suitable for your brand. Gap's association with Sarah Jessica Parker bombed, even though she is the style icon from 'Sex & the City'. The style she is known for is not in line with Gap's simple clothing image.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

I previously worked with a company that operated in a politically-charged industry. One of our biggest communications risk was drawing the attention of influencers on the other side of the issue. We would look to our "positive influencers" to balance out the "negative" ones.

Jeff Morrow, MBA Marketing Leader, Lead Generation, Project Management, Strategic Planning, Brand Management, Digital Marketing

Influencers now look for a way to develop a strong image and community and not only be ambassadors for brands. They also look to have additional revenue such as collaborating with brands or launching their own brands. Examples are Glossier, Amlul, Kylie Jenner ...

Laëtitia Zemiro Investment Manager - Luxury Goods, Fashion, Lifestyle and Innovation

I’ve seen influencers become an important part of the marketing mix at the local level — being used to drive measurable, trackable leads, analyzing performance against key KPIs that drive sales. If performance doesn’t meet expectations, relationships get severed.

Christina Dolan Strategic Marketing Executive, Integrated Marketing Communications

Influencers have become more effective in establishing concepts or building notions than just endorsing products. They can start a movement through challenges, engaging posts & the brands can jump in with their relevant messaging. The #10yearchallenge was an example where many brands participated

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100