DM Magazine May 2021 by Lloydmedia Inc

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Data Analytics in the New World of Customer Service

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VOL. 34 • NO. 5 • MAY 2021

THE AUTHORITY FOR THE DATA-DRIVEN BUSINESS

Acting On

PURPOSE

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Vol. 34 | No. 5 | May 2021

Acting On Purpose

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The Moment of Payment is a Marketing Imperative

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Direct Mail Can Outperform Digital For Luxury Brands MAY 2021

Back to the Future: eCommerce and the Return to Instore Shopping

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Always a Point Whenever humans communicate there is always a reason, or point. Often the point is unconscious. Part 3.

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Data Analytics in the New World of Customer Service BY RICHARD BOIRE

ustomer service is certainly one phrase that generates strong varied emotions. Increased automation and technology have attempted to increase customer service levels while at the same time enhancing the cost efficiencies of companies. No doubt that companies are reaping the benefits but are customers really experiencing increased levels of customer service. Endless menu options and mind-numbing instructions from a chatbot await the customer who dares to call the company regarding some issue. The virtue of patience is the really the key to a happy customer in today’s environment. Recognizing the virtue of patience which all of us exhibit to some degree, one can argue that this is something which should not have to be demonstrated by customers in a truly positive customer experience environment. But what is customer experience. In previous years, most marketers used the term CRM (Customer Relationship Management). But with the explosion of digital data, this term has now morphed into the more common vernacular term of customer experience. In fact, this term of “customer experience” is better suited to today’s environment where technology and an abundance of data can not only help the customer’s engagement with the company of the customer but also the ability to do it in real time. Of course, the capability of doing this well relies on analytics and specifically advanced analytics. Algorithms working in the background can produce detailed information about that customer that allows the CSR rep to offer the right product or service to the right person at the right time. For example, a customer may call up a given company regarding some issue which may be as simple ❱ DMN.CA

as a request for information to the more challenging issues of customer complaints. The rep, of course, would first address the issue at hand and then with the output of predictive models and other tools, be more proactive in describing products and/ or services that are relevant to the customer. For example, the information on the CSR screen might indicate that I am a high-risk customer but also one who is high value. Various marketing options would be offered to this customer depending on the value and defection risk of the customer. But amidst all this information can we really say that customer defection should be the next best action or should the company be pursuing some other action. For many organizations today, the issue is not one of an information deficit but rather one of information abundance. In this environment of abundance, the challenge becomes one of priority by being able to offer the right product or service for the consumer at that point in time. This can be very daunting given the many products and/or services of many organizations alongside all this information. So, what can organizations do? Taking their cue from such organizations as Netflix or Amazon, recommender engines have been used by organizations particularly those with a large suite of products and/or services. Without delving too deeply into the math, the underlying concept is to explore the existing pattern of purchased products and services where the engine then offers the next suite of products/services to the customer. There are many options that are available to the data scientist. These options typically conduct the analytics at two levels with the first level being at the product/service level, often referred to as the item level. In a way, this option is conducting

massive correlations between products or similarity between products. Several different options are readily available in python and include such options as Jaccard similarity or Cosine similarity. Of course, one can readily decide which option to use by observing a small list of products and services that are most similar to the current product and/or service. The second level is at the customer level or user level where techniques like clustering identify distinct customer groups who would have similar purchase patterns regarding certain products and services. Some organizations may use a hybrid which is the combination of both the item-based and user-based solutions. In these cases, each item would have both a user-based and item-based score. By combining both scores together, the analyst can create a composite score and then rank each item or product based on that composite score. Obviously, these types of tools make sense when there is a vast array of product/services such as retail. But what about scenarios when products and services are limited in scope. The use of predictive models can then be extremely useful by predicting broad courses of action. For instance, within a financial institution, these broad product/ service areas might be as follows: ❯❯ ❯❯ ❯❯ ❯❯ ❯❯

Credit card Mortgage Line of Credit Loans Wealth/Investment

Predictive Models could be developed in two broad areas where the first activity represents the likelihood of purchasing that product or service while the second activity represents the likelihood of retaining that product or service. With model scores built for each activity,

the bank could determine the next best likely outcome. The advantage of predictive models over recommender engines is that predictive models use historical information to mathematically predict a future outcome or event while recommender engines use historical information to impute a future outcome. There is no mathematical prediction with recommender engines. If predictive models are most robust in theory, then one might ask why we cannot use predictive models in the retail environment. Because of issues related to sparsity and cardinality, the use of recommender engines is better suited analytically to exclude sparse type products and to focus on those products which have enough purchase data. With these tools readily available, the underlying challenge is how to deploy these solutions. As the focus always seem to be on automation, many organizations opt for chat boxes which use the information arising from these tools. Speaking as a customer now and not as a data scientist, I sense customers are experiencing fatigue with these automated menus and chat boxes. Would not a more optimum scenario be one where a human being is interacting with all this information and truly creating a more personalized type of experience. As a customer, I want to interact with another human who can quickly provide me with what I need as opposed to jumping through menus and screens. It is this complementation of information and the human interaction which will certainly mitigate the above-discussed issues of patience and in essence allow organizations to strive towards that elusive goal of optimal customer experience. RICHARD BOIRE is the President of Boire Analytics in Pickering, Ontario and is one of Canada’s premier experts on data analytics. MAY 2021

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Direct Mail Can Outperform Digital For Luxury Brands BY STEVE CROWE

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arketers worldwide are all trying to solve the same problem — how to get their products in front of an audience who will be interested in them and ultimately want to buy them. That’s where specialist marketing companies can be of such a great advantage. Getting test products into the hands of high net worth individuals is the ultimate goal for many luxury brands, as this is a brilliant way to kick start a word of mouth marketing opportunity. — IS IT? Direct mail was for a time a ‘dirty word’ in marketing — but its results are undeniable. In 2016, The Data and Marketing Association reported that the direct mail customer response rate increased by 43 percent. Even better, the prospect response rate increased by 190 percent compared to 2015. Despite being several years old, the data and evidence stands today. Direct mail is highly effective, especially for luxury brands. Here are my Top Ten brand marketing moments in the luxury sector from around the world. What can you learn from these samples? If you’re a luxury brand or you do work for a luxury brand, and you’re not plugging direct mail into the mix, you’re probably missing the opportunity to power better results overall, and that means missing sales, revenue or billing commissions or fees. Take a look. MAY 2021

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HMS Spirits Gin https://hmsspirits.com/ We first met Ben from award-winning HMS Spirits at the Monaco Yacht Show. Ben wanted to launch their Dreadnought, Mary Rose and Elizabeth Gins to the Ultra High Net Worth Individual (UHNWI) owners of superyachts. Shortly after we had the concept and marketing strategy nailed and were delivering 2,000 Gin miniatures and a scratch card competition, giving superyacht owners and captains the chance to win a distinctive full sized square bottle of HMS Gin. HMS Spirits’ Gin received an outstanding reception during the deliveries in France and Italy, with the excitement and engagement continuing during the follow up events at the Cannes and Monaco yacht shows.

Defenda Fenders https://www.defenda.eu/ Every yacht, no matter how big or small, needs fenders, and even the world’s most advanced fenders need marketing. So when Defenda sent us their branded chamois, we knew this would make many a Kiwi, Aussie or Brit deckhand super happy whilst they cleaned, polished and dried their owner’s yachts. A fantastic and essential free gift that can be used daily by the crew.

1862 Wines and Spirits https://www.1862wines.com/ When you are the reference for lovers of fine wines and spirits, and your cellar lists Rosés for $500+, Whites at $1,200 and Reds for as much as $17,000 (all CAD), your marketing needs to be memorable. We needed a quality gift that would be a frequent reminder of this incredible brand. Fortunately, 1862 presented us with 500 of Coutale’s top quality branded Sommelier corkscrew, most of which are almost certainly still reminding superyacht crew where to buy the superyacht owner's finest wines to this day.

Chez Laurent http://www.chezlaurent.net/ From its simple fishmonger beginnings to a fully HACCP and EU Certified laboratory supplying the world’s largest yachts, the finest restaurants and international clients, Chez Laurent is one of the best. A superyacht owner often does not MAY 2021

care where the most sensational seafood or fish comes from, but a superyacht chef does! Chez Laurent provided us with a fantastic gift for superyacht chefs. Simply wash your hands with this branded stainless steel hand soap bar, and the fish odours disappear whilst reminding you where to buy your top quality seafood next time — chefs loved it! Chez Laurent knew exactly when we had started the distribution, because they had new clients calling them daily.

Sunseeker magazine https://sunseekermagazine.com/ https://www.sunseeker.com/en-GB/ We’ve been delivering Sunseekers luxury magazine directly to superyachts for the past three years. A fantastic magazine which provides a sophisticated mix of features, interviews and stunning photography that both helps them to stay in touch with their world roaming owners and provides added value to their advertisers at the same time.

Neptune Rum https://www.neptunerum.com/ A brand new premium Rum with a premium price point needs a USP or two to gain market share and distribution. The owners of Neptune Rum approached us and wanted to be able to say they were the superyacht industry’s Rum. A worldwide marketing campaign, competition, and several thousand miniatures later, you could kind of say they’ve achieved their goals with over 70 Global awards won since 2018 and an enormous distribution network.

Press Art lemon squeezer https://www.thepressart.com/ An ingenious lemon press from Paris, ideal for seafood, fish, carpaccio, tabbouleh, tea and superyachts. Already a favourite among restaurants, the superyacht industry was Press Art’s next target market. We delivered Press Art’s luxury engraved lemon squeezer to 500 of the world’s most luxurious yachts, and the response was fantastic.

Joseph’s Toiletries https://www.josephs-toiletries.com/ The world’s most luxurious, soothing and

absorbent toilet paper, where each individual sheet is a multi-layered microcosm of form and function constructed with comfort and cleanliness in mind. When money is no object and you have to have the best, Joseph’s Toiletries provide perhaps one of the world’s finest bathroom accessories. Throughout the Côte d’Azur news travelled fast that we were delivering $70 Joseph’s box sets. Deliveries started in Monaco on a Monday, and before we even reached the yachts in Marseille, word had spread and chief stews were waiting for their Joseph’s sample box sets.

Annick Goutal Paris – Eau d’Hadrien toiletries https://www.goutalparis.com/en Goutal Eau d’Hadrien Luxury toiletries discovery set — if it’s good enough to be stocked by Harrods, Selfridges, Liberty and of course all the best addresses in Paris, then superyacht owners and guests are an obvious extension to any quality brand. We delivered 500 beautifully presented discovery sets containing the classic Eau d’Hadrien shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, body lotion and perfumed soap.

Fusi Yama Coffee https://www.fusiyama.com/ One of our most recent campaigns, Fusi Yama exceptional coffees were created for superyachts by a superyacht captain. I guess you could say nobody knows a superyacht owner better than his yacht captain, so it was no surprise to find out that a significant part of their marketing strategy involves getting their 500g taster packs directly delivered to yachts. The fantastic reception we received when we distributed their coffee and brochures on the French Riviera was mirrored by their website testimonials from the world’s largest yachts. In this increasingly digital world, it can be easy for brand managers and marketers to dismiss well planned sampling and direct mail of their latest brochure from their marketing mix. These brand stories demonstrate the power of getting your product into the hands of potential UHNWI customers. STEVE CROWE is CEO of the UK-based Yachting Pages Delivers. For almost 20 years, Yachting Pages Delivers has been helping brands get directly to the individuals who are their target market. While not many of us own luxury yachts, we can all take nuggets of advice from their experience in this channel. And it’s fun to dream.

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Acting On

PURPOSE C

BY STEPHEN SHAW

oming out of this pandemic the time has come for every company to take stock of the role it plays in the world and define its true social purpose. But that job cannot be left to marketing alone — it demands a top down commitment to a purpose-led vision and adoption of a new governance model that treats all stakeholders fairly. It has been called the “Great Reset”: the opportunity for humankind to do things differently in a post-pandemic world. Businesses are now expected to do their part in reshaping society — to be a “force for good”. But first they have to ask themselves a basic question: Just how far should they go in improving the lives of people? In the past, the answer would have stopped at “wealth creation”. But most people now concede that the single-minded pursuit of profitable growth does nothing to fix the systemic problems facing society — in fact, it may even undermine the quest for a more sustainable future. The vision should be broader and more inclusive with the nobler aim of advancing the human condition. A purpose-led vision can guide a company through times of extreme uncertainty by serving as a stabilizing force: the vision never changes — just the path to get there. But more than that, it can help to restore public trust in business now that the pandemic has exposed the deep contradictions in society, where a new billionaire is minted every day1, while ordinary people are having a tough time making ends meet. Without a strong moral compass, companies are free to act like pariahs, doing anything they please. When people see corporate bosses rewarded with excessive bonuses in the middle of a pandemic (defending their exorbitant pay by saying, “we should be paid what we’re worth”) — when they hear of global corporations paying zero taxes despite record earnings — when they learn that some large profitable companies padded their earnings using government wage subsidies — when they listen to reports of big business objecting to a modest increase in corporate tax rates that would put people back to work — they feel betrayed. Each fresh revelation of

A meaningful purpose statement needs to be crafted with the same diligence as a constitution and the fervour of a manifesto.

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corporate wrongdoing — from Wells Fargo to Purdue Pharma to Goldman Sachs, all fined last year in the tens of millions of dollars for corrupt practices2 — deepens the level of mistrust. The public has always had a wary relationship with big corporations, going back to the Gilded Age, when industrial magnates were known as “Robber Barons” for their unscrupulous business practices. Their companies grew into conglomerates so immense, so monopolistic, that they eventually had to be broken up by antitrust action. But even in the mid-20th century, when companies were finally being run by professional managers instead of autocratic owners, corporations behaved as if they were above the law, using their lobbying clout to bend the will of government. It was left to consumer activists like Ralph Nader to protect the public interest and crusade for stronger safeguards against wilful corporate negligence. From the 1980s onward, the Ayn Rand philosophy of unfettered self-interest was adopted as boardroom dogma and corporations abandoned any pretense of a social contract. Hard won labour benefits were whittled away — a gig workforce was ❱ DMN.CA

favoured over salaried employees — high-paying manufacturing jobs were offloaded to low-wage countries — and working life became more precarious for everyone. CEOs went from earning 20 times the pay of an average worker to 300 times, making in a few days what the average worker earns in a year.

So, before their purpose statements can ever be taken seriously, corporations must give up their “win at all costs” mindset. After decades of treating the consequences of their actions as someone else’s problem, a carefully worded statement of good intentions is unlikely to be very convincing, seen as “virtue

Total Shareholder Return suddenly became the only metric that mattered. In the aftermath of the Great Recession in 2008 the combination of slow job growth and wage stagnation inflamed social ills. And now, in this current K-shaped economy, the wealth gap is much more acute, where the greatest sacrifices are being made by the most vulnerable. Food insecurity is rampant — people are struggling to keep up with bill payments — many households are flirting with insolvency. Meanwhile, stock prices keep climbing, fuelled by an endless surge of investment capital.

signaling”, “woke capitalism”, “greenwashing”, or just empty rhetoric, rather than a heartfelt sentiment. Which is why the job of defining purpose cannot be left to marketing or it will come across as a public relations ploy — ending with a hyperbolic press release and a pretty wall poster. A meaningful purpose statement needs to be crafted with the same diligence as a constitution and the fervour of a manifesto. It has to be inspiring. It needs to be championed by

corporate leadership. It needs to be brought to life with an activation plan. And it needs the company shareholders to give it their unconditional blessing. The common good Even the plutocracy recognizes the threat to social cohesion unless corporations become more accountable. In a now-famous proclamation that shocked Wall Street three years ago, Larry Fink, the chief of Blackrock, the world’s largest investor, issued a written warning to CEOs: either they made more of an effort to help society, or they might be denied the support of his firm. “To prosper over time,” he wrote, “every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society”. In his most recent annual letter to CEOs he said: “As we move forward from the pandemic, facing tremendous economic pain and inequality, we need companies to embrace a form of capitalism that recognizes and serves all their stakeholders.” Similarly, in his recent annual letter to shareholders, Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, which enjoyed a record year in 2020, had this to say: “Shareholder value can be built MAY 2021

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A new kind of capitalism The first acclaimed management strategist to challenge the Friedman model of shareholder primacy was Michael Porter who in a widely hailed Harvard Business Review article in 2011 wrote, “Profits involving a social purpose represent a higher form of capitalism, one that creates a positive cycle of company and community prosperity”. The purpose of a corporation, Porter stressed, must be to create “shared value”, which “involves creating economic value in a way that also creates value for society by addressing its needs and challenges”. In short, corporations had a duty to be mindful of their social obligations, not just make a profit for its owners, a direct rebuttal of Friedman’s belief that corporate managers were “agents” acting solely on half of the shareholders. Porter’s call for an end to shareholder primacy was joined in subsequent years by a highly accomplished group of reformminded business founders and executives. Corporate chiefs like Whole Foods founder John Mackey urged his peers to embrace a new credo he called “conscious capitalism”. SalesForce CEO Marc Benioff famously declared that, “Capitalism, as we know it, is dead”, predicting, “We’re going to see a new kind of capitalism — and it won’t be the Milton Friedman

only if you maintain a healthy and vibrant company, which means doing a good job taking care of your customers, employees and communities. Conversely, how can you have a healthy company if you neglect any of these stakeholders?”. He goes on to state: “Businesses must earn the trust of companies and communities by acting ethically and morally”. The fact that he had to remind shareholders that morality was important just goes to show how out of touch they must be with the mood of the public. Those words, spoken just 10 years ago, would have been shouted down by the investor class as blasphemous. But in these unprecedented times, coming from two of the preeminent capitalists in the world, they are now conventional wisdom, thanks to a reform movement that began around a decade ago calling for a more altruistic form of capitalism. Stakeholder capitalism, as it has come to be known, is a total repudiation of the “Greed Is Good” era. Until recently the doctrine of shareholder value had been an article of faith in every corporate boardroom. It was first advanced in 1970 by the neoliberal economist Milton Friedman in a landmark New York Times essay called, “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits”. All that should matter in running a business, Friedman decreed, is the pursuit of maximum profit, calling CEOs who think otherwise “unwitting puppets” of the “intellectual forces undermining free society”. Corporate social responsibility is akin to socialism, he groused, just a distraction from the real purpose of a business, to enrich its owners. The corporate elite now had all the justification they needed to ignore the common good. Total Shareholder Return soon became the only metric that mattered. Executive compensation was tied to stock options as an incentive for MAY 2021

COURTESY KENNA

“We’re going to see a new kind of capitalism — and it won't be the Milton Friedman capitalism, that is, just about making money.” – Marc Benioff (CEO, SalesForce)

management to maximize shortterm gain even at the expense of other stakeholders. Corporate management redeployed surplus cash to buy back stocks and boost the share price — money that might otherwise have been reinvested in job creation. The quarterly earning report became the CEO report card, with activist investors grading it, while hedge funds scooped up “undervalued” businesses in order to restructure and sell them. Thus began the unraveling of the “affluent society”. Over the last four decades, a massive transfer of wealth occurred between the upper and lower echelons of society. Despite a 70 percent gain in productivity, hourly wages increased just 12 percent. The top 1 percent of households increased their share of wealth by one third, while the bottom half saw their part cut in half3. The ensuing social blight — the vanishing middle class — the extra hardships

imposed on the working poor — the growing “deaths of despair” — eventually became so untenable that it gave rise in 2011 to the “Occupy Wall Street” movement which placed the blame squarely on what it called “pathological”

Marketers struggle to elevate purpose from a messaging strategy to a company-wide set of operating principles. corporations. But it also led to dissension in the ranks of more progressive thinking corporate leaders who were so appalled by the irreparable harm being done that they began to agitate for a reimagining of capitalism.

capitalism, that is, just about making money”. Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, who is credited with coining the term “stakeholder capitalism” in 1971, defined a company’s purpose as the creation DMN.CA ❰

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of long-term value for society at large, taking his cue from the Nordic model of social solidarity. The official seal of approval for stakeholder capitalism came in 2019 when the Business Roundtable, an elite cabal of the largest corporations in the world, released a revised “Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation.” Signed by 181 CEOs, the new statement retracted its previous endorsement made almost a quarter century earlier of the Friedman model. “Each of our stakeholders is essential”, the Statement emphasized, “We commit to deliver value to all of them”. At the Annual Davos World Economic Summit in 2020, attended by corporate moguls from around the globe, a Manifesto was agreed to, declaring that “A company is more than an economic unit generating wealth. It fulfils human and societal aspirations as part of the broader social system. Performance must be measured not only on the return to shareholders, but also on how it achieves its environmental, social and good governance objectives.” Even Fortune Magazine, that venerable voice of capitalism, acknowledged in a recent issue devoted to corporate accountability that change is overdue, calling on business to meet higher ethical standards: “As far as society is concerned — as far as a company’s customers, employees, and even investors are concerned — how a company ❱ DMN.CA

behaves in the world is now as important as what it sells or produces”.4 Creating genuine value As calls for corporate reform escalated, marketing influencers began beating the drum for change as well, coming at it from a slightly different angle. Their perspective is similar to management guru Pete Drucker’s advice from long ago: “To satisfy the customer is the mission and purpose of every business.” Making money is only possible, they reason, if companies create genuine value for customers, not simply look for ways to increase efficiency. In 2010 one of the world’s leading management thinkers Roger Martin published an article in the Harvard Business Review called “The Age of Customer Capitalism” in which he argued that businesses do better when they put customers first, calling the deification of shareholder value a “tragically flawed premise”. A smarter “optimization formula”, he suggested, is determining what customers value and “focusing on always pleasing them”. In that same year Simon Sinek gained fame with his viral Ted Talk “The Golden Circle” in which he posited that people don’t buy what companies do, they buy why they do it. His mantra “Start with Why” became a war cry for many marketers. “Why” is what inspires people, he said — “why” is the reason people would miss

the company if it disappeared — “why” gives work a higher order of meaning. Phil Kotler, the “Father of Modern Marketing”, called for a socially responsible approach to business, where the focus is on creating a better world — what he called the “4Ws”: Wealth, Wellness, Well-being, Wisdom. The job of marketing, he said, is to link the needs of customers and society with the commercial needs of the business. “Marketing’s job today is to sell materialism and consumption. Tomorrow’s marketing will be markedly different.” Jim Stengel, the former CMO of Proctor & Gamble, proved in his 2011 book “Grow” that brands which improve people’s lives grow three times faster than competitors, and outperform the market by a wide margin, basing his conclusions on a Millward Brown study of company performance over a 10-year period. Countless other research findings since then have confirmed his thesis that companies with strong brand ideals — who are clear in what they stand for and why they exist — who put the needs of customers first, and share their values — do much better than those that don’t. These days the concept of brand purpose has gone mainstream. Yet in spite of a growing stack of literature on the subject, an expanding network of advocacy groups, and a cottage industry that

has sprung up to help companies get it right, marketers struggle to elevate purpose from a messaging strategy to a company-wide set of operating principles. Which is why brand purpose needs the involvement of senior leadership, with the CEO cheering them on. Paragons of purpose The companies that do get it right consistently top the charts in every measure of brand health, such as trust, reputation, loyalty and credibility. One of the first companies to prove that purpose can pay off is Unilever, the giant packaged goods company whose portfolio of brands dominate their respective categories, such as Dove, Ben & Jerry’s, Lipton, Hellmann’s and others. Its purpose statement: To Make Sustainable Living Commonplace. Select brands are given license to improve health and wellbeing as well as champion a social cause related to their category. According to the company, its 28 “Sustainable Living Brands” have grown 69 percent faster than the rest of the product portfolio. The CEO Alan Jope has said, “We have extremely strong data on the link between purposeful communication and short and long-term growth”. To showcase its commitment to social progress, Unilever has even built a dedicated marketing platform called “Every Day, U Does Good.” Dove is Unilever’s star example of a purpose-led brand. By MAY 2021

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STRATEGIC INSIGHTS taking the lead on the issue of women’s lack of self-esteem, Dove succeeded in reaching the pinnacle of brand purpose by creating a self-sustaining movement. Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty struck an emotional chord with women who felt they did not measure up to the media depiction of beauty, fostering a public discussion that continues to this day. Dove is now Unilever’s largest brand, the beneficiary of all that spillover talk. Proctor & Gamble is another packaged goods company that has pledged to be a responsible corporate citizen, taking an unequivocal stand on issues of racial justice and gender bias, and flexing its massive media muscles to get the message out with awardwinning video content, storytelling platforms, TV campaigns, and social media. All of the brand teams are expected to own a specific societal challenge which they must bake into their strategies, aligned with the P&G purpose of “making each day a little bit better for people, families and communities around the globe”. A global brand that companies have leaned on heavily during the pandemic is Cisco, the leading provider of networking and collaboration technology, and well respected for its “walk the talk” commitment to humanitarian causes. In June of last year, the CEO Chuck Robbins announced a new mission statement, “Power an Inclusive Future for All”, explaining that, “We know our responsibilities don’t end with technology. It’s now about making the world we envision possible”. The company is dedicated to four main social goals: helping the underprivileged segments of society; extending care to families and their surrounding communities; accelerating healthcare innovation through technology; and enabling educational and healthcare institutions to adapt more quickly to change. Here in Canada the communications technology giant TELUS is on a similar mission, stating that its “longstanding commitment to putting our customers first fuels every aspect of our business”. Its long-time CEO Darren Entwistle is a true believer in what TELUS calls “social capitalism”, saying “it is MAY 2021

important that we lead by example and action”. His advice to other companies is to “leverage your core business to improve the social, economic or educational outcomes of your community”. That’s exactly what TELUS has done in setting up a $100 million social impact investment fund for socially conscious start-up businesses; in starting up a new agricultural business to improve the food system through technology; in creating an IT company to transform the healthcare system; and in devising a series of community-based programs to give disadvantaged Canadians equal access to technology.

make the most meaningful impact on society at large. That is not a marketing exercise — it is the job of executive management. Marketing can clarify what value really means in the minds of customers — it can reach out to customers to get their perspective on how things should ideally work. But it is up to corporate leadership to pick the right social causes to pursue. In arriving at the right purpose statement, there are four “purpose planks” to consider, all of which need to be thematically linked through a higher order expression of intent — how the company plans to make the world a better place.

Philanthropy is not the same as making good citizenship an intrinsic part of corporate purpose. These four corporations are exemplary models of acting on purpose, simply because the impetus for change came directly from the top. While many corporations have opened up their wallets for COVID-19 relief aid, philanthropy is not the same as making good citizenship an intrinsic part of corporate purpose. The real test is whether publicly traded corporations are prepared to put purpose ahead of profits. There are very few brands like the activist apparel company Patagonia willing to say “we’re in business to save our home planet”. So how do companies make that trade-off? How far do they go? How do CEOs convince their boards that the future health of the business means giving up the sugar high of short-term boosts in share price in exchange for steadier long-term gains? And how do they even decide which social causes to throw their weight behind? Purpose planks The starting point is to connect how the brand creates value for customers — what it does better than anyone — with how it can

The first and most important purpose plank is Customer Value: How the company is uniquely positioned to serve the needs of customers, now and in future. What does the company do best? What does it want to be famous for, not just today, but far down the road? These are tougher questions than they appear because value creation is a constantly shifting equation: What someone values today may not be the same tomorrow. Clues may be found in the company’s origin story — why it was founded in the first place. The definition of value marks the playing field where the company is best positioned to win. From there, a cascading set of questions: What are the core values and beliefs of our best customers? What kind of world would they like to see? What gives meaning to their lives? The answers can frame the discussion around the next plank which is Social Progress: How the company can be “a force for good” by helping solve systemic global challenges like climate change, poverty, racial injustice, and the like. The non-profit group JUST Capital, which tracks and

measures the social performance of companies, offers a scorecard which can be used as a starting template. The next couple of planks are closely related. Community Development covers local relationship building — like infrastructure upgrades, help for the disadvantaged, or sponsorship of cultural and recreational activity — which might otherwise be left to government to fund. And then you have Responsible Citizenship: acting with integrity, treating employees fairly, respecting the law (even if it’s a constraint on profitmaking), and proactively seeking consensus amongst everyone who has a stake in the outcome. That last bit may be hardest of all, given the acrimonious clashes of the past with organized labour, consumer rights groups and save-the-world movements. But it’s called stakeholder capitalism for a reason: social harmony can only be achieved through compromise and reciprocity. Making extortionist threats to kill job creation is no longer a socially acceptable bargaining strategy. The one saving grace of this past year is that it has given progressive businesses an excuse to put the idea of shareholder primacy behind them once and for all — to move on to playing a more constructive role in society as opposed to constantly appeasing shareholders. Everyone has witnessed first-hand how fragile society becomes when the privileged take advantage of the underprivileged — when society splits into the haves and the have-nots. Building a fairer society that rewards all stakeholders will restore trust in business. But that depends on business being more generous in spirit. As Virgin owner Richard Branson says, “The brands that will thrive in the coming years are the ones that have a purpose beyond profit”. Now companies just need to find the right balance between purpose and profits. STEPHEN SHAW is the chief strategy officer of Kenna, a marketing solutions provider specializing in delivering more unified customer experiences. Stephen can be reached via email at sshaw@kenna.ca. 1 In 2020 493 people joined the Forbes list of new billionaires. 2 See GoodJobsFirst.org, “Violation Tracker” 3 Scott Galloway, “The Great Grift”, January 2021 4 Fortune Magazine, “Trust and Consequences”, April/May 2021.

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ECOMMERCE

Back to the Future: eCommerce and the Return to Instore Shopping BY CHRIS APOSTLE

ill businesses return to offices, post pandemic? That’s a question on everyone’s mind. The flipside to this question in the eCommerce space is will consumers return to brick and mortar stores? No question they will, but how will eCommerce brands and platforms and their agencies, which have grown rapidly during the global crisis, navigate this return to instore retail shopping? By now consumers have been conditioned to the value of buying online. As long as the security associated with data and consumer behaviour remains aligned with privacy covenants, eCommerce growth may slow but it won’t stop. We’re going to continually see an increasing number of people buying online and most brick and mortar retailers are preparing for this. They’re providing choice where consumers want choice. The “buy online & pickup in store” dynamic will certainly kick into higher gear. The hybrid, digital and in-store shopping experience is already working for brands such as Lululemon, Gap, Walmart, Target and Peloton. In order to keep and maintain a competitive edge, many more retailers will need to adopt this model. Their longevity as retailers will become more and more reliant on this. A recent key development at play for maintaining and expanding eCommerce success as we face an in-store shopping revival is the rise of frictionless purchases. For ❱ DMN.CA

years, online retailers have been working on the best way to transfer the in-person experience to online storefronts. It has become less about competing and more about the circumstances that are right for the shopping instance. Factors such as product type, how fast the product is needed, price-point are important, but being able to move from inspiration in an engagement-oriented environment through to purchase without ever leaving that experience is critical to the growth of online shopping. The new-ish focus on Facebook and Instagram shops, and the idea of native checkout inside of platforms like Pinterest and Tik-Tok, is the immediate future of eCommerce. For example, on your Facebook feed you see an ad for a pair of shoes from Under Armour. You click on the ad, it pops-up a storefront over your feed and allows you to browse styles, colors and availability. You then place the item you’d like into a shopping cart and go through to purchase without ever leaving Facebook. When the purchase is complete, the store pop-up disappears and you are right back where you left your feed. This is what will continue eCommerce growth — marrying content consumption, such as Pinterest ideas and inspiration, and the engagement and entertainment that you see on Facebook and Instagram, with a direct path, without leaving that environment, to purchase. The challenge for eCommerce brands

and their agencies will be to accelerate the optimization of this digital shopping experience, to continue evolving the frictionless purchase process, especially for Gen Z, which prefers the frictionless experience above all else. Young consumers will keep the momentum of eCommerce on track as long as brands and agencies keep up with them, if not stay ahead. Here are five strategies that eCommerce brands, platforms and agencies should adopt in order to adapt and prosper post pandemic: 1. Be sure you know your customers’ (new) journey. Enhance your brand’s understanding of how consumer journeys have evolved and advance the hybrid “buy online & pick up instore” model; 2. Personalize. Using a combination of your customer knowledge and insights into new behaviours, customize the key touch points along their buying journeys to ensure the most relevant and action-oriented tactics guide them to purchase wherever it suits their desires and needs; 3. Extend the brand experience. Partner with brick and mortar retailers on programs that extend the in-store experience into their digital channels and touch points to maintain the brand essence at every step; 4. Keep engaging. Work closely with agency partners to maintain your brand’s distinctive voice, messaging, its

look & feel, loyalty programs, as well as identify engaging content platforms and partnerships for ongoing engagement through the frictionless online shopping experience; and 5. Further your learning agenda. A solid and sound testing framework is imperative to keep your hand on the pulse of consumer sentiment, buying behaviour and brand affinity. Keep it active and pay close attention to it. Shifts will continue to happen and coursecorrection will be needed to ensure performance stays strong. Will the return to instore end the eCommerce boom? Not by a long-shot. The vast majority of consumers who previously avoided shopping online due to security reasons or lack of comfort in the online shopping environment have been conditioned to trust and prefer the experience. That said, we will likely see a short-term slow down in the growth in eCommerce sales until consumers realize how much more efficient and effective they can be while shopping in the comfort of their own homes or when and where it works for them. Personalization is the foundation here. If you are able to provide consumers with an experience that is unique to them without having to go into a store and speak to a sales associate, the eCommerce landscape will continue to flourish. CHRIS APOSTLE is EVP of E-Retail & Marketplace, Labelium Americas. MAY 2021

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TRANSACTIONAL DATA

The Moment of Payment is a Marketing Imperative BY JASON COTTRELL

fter over a year of not touching anything — door knobs, items on a store shelf, other people — it’s perhaps no surprise that Amazon is trialing a new, contactless payment method that requires nothing more than the swipe of a hand in front of a sensor. It captures all that we’ve learned and will take forward with us in the new world of digital commerce, lessons that could be summed up in five words: connected convenience above all else. As they almost always do, Amazon has provided us with a great window into a possible future — but whether it’s a probable one remains to be seen. Over more than a decade working with Fortune 500 companies to MAY 2021

enable connected convenience, we’ve learned important lessons about how to implement new technologies successfully. Our growing body of research into consumer comfort with technology is adding to our understanding of what works when and how to implement new tech with the greatest chance of both technical success and consumer buy-in. So what does it take to roll out a successful new tech solution? Strong technical underpinnings and an empathetic customer approach. Set the foundation for success Contactless payment isn’t new; we’ve had tap and mobile pay options for years in Canada. But the difference between tapping your bank card and using your

palm as a personal barcode is significant, at least in the minds of consumers. To win customers over to a new technology, you have to start by getting the technical execution right. If it doesn’t work properly the first time they use it, they won’t deign to use it again.

system is remarkably accurate — years of testing and training the system before launching it to the public paid off. The added convenience it promised in concept is being executed on in practice, and that’s crucial. Our data shows that shoppers

As it is, Amazon’s foray into checkoutless shopping has done remarkably well. Amazon Go, the first checkoutless shopping experience from the mega-retailer to make headlines, relies on cameras and geofencing technologies. The

are relatively keen to embrace the checkoutless experience (it ranked in the top 25 technologies we surveyed), but they’re wary of the underlying technologies DMN.CA ❰

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TRANSACTIONAL DATA (facial recognition and geofencing rank last and a mere six spots higher, respectively). To overcome that hesitancy, Amazon had to execute perfectly on the technical execution from the get-go. If not, consumers would have resisted the experience and the experiment very likely would’ve gone nowhere. As it is, Amazon’s foray into checkoutless shopping has done remarkably well and the ripple effect has been profound. Not only are they piloting even more technologically advanced payment methods, but others in the grocery and retail industry are following suit in their own ways. Smart shopping carts, on-the-go selfscanning — the possibilities are varied and experimentation is on the rise.

today — to move at least parts of their business off of a monolithic solution and embrace a more flexible, adaptable architecture — are the ones we expect to see succeeding tomorrow. Understand what your customers want Getting the technical details right is a challenge, but there are almost always logical ways to overcome the hurdles and once the right underlying structure is in place, organizations are free to experiment with new tech solutions. That said, knowing which innovations to pursue doesn’t come with the same clear answers. (If it did, it wouldn’t be an experiment.) This is where we turn to research, combining reams

Consumers like checkoutless shopping, but the technologies are significantly less welcome. Both Forrester and Gartner have written about composable architectures as the future of enterprise. It’s a position that we believe in and it’s picking up steam across the industry. The emergence of the MACH Alliance is a testament to the growing faith in composable architectures, as is the proliferation of technical solutions that enable organizations to build the exact right experiences for their business. With a composable architecture, organizations have the ability to rapidly test new technologies with minimal risks. They can work with best-of-breed solutions, allowing them to roll out the best possible version of an experience at launch. Because those early trials need to be executed extremely well, this is a huge potential differentiator between successful experiences and failures. A first iteration can be lightweight and even low-featured, but it needs to do the things it can do correctly every time. A composable architecture isn’t the absolute best solution for every business, but for the Fortune 500 clients we work with, it tends to be. Those that are actively working to implement this approach ❱ DMN.CA

of data and insights about an industry with the expertise of our clients, and increasingly, with our own consumer comfort data. To help inform and support the approaches we take, we’ve surveyed thousands of people about new and emerging technologies. Our Robots Among Us survey provides a snapshot of current levels of consumer comfort with the changing digital landscape and tracks those responses over time. Consumers like the idea of checkoutless shopping, but as noted earlier, the technologies that enable checkoutless shopping are significantly less welcome. That distinction tells us a lot about how to approach the rollout of a new experience. Being able to assess the perception of technology solutions plays a huge role in their success. It can drastically alter your messaging and even the ways in which you implement it. We know that focusing on the benefits is crucial to a new tech’s success, but the survey data adds an interesting layer to that story: when it comes to checkoutless shopping, it’s important to present the idea as a whole instead of its disparate parts. This isn’t

always the case with emerging technologies. With cars, autonomy is being introduced in pieces — lane and parking assist features first, full self-driving sometime down the line. But unlike autonomous vehicles, which consumers view as scary and overwhelming when presented as a whole, checkoutless shopping is scary for consumers when presented in its parts. Consumers would reject facial recognition without the checkoutless benefits attached. The circumstances in which the technology is deployed also matter. Busy urban professionals are more likely to find the ease of the walk-in, walk-out Amazon Go experience worth the privacy trade-off facial recognition requires. But overburdened suburban parents who need to get everything their large family needs for a week would likely adapt to a smart shopping cart better, since it isn’t dependent on facial recognition technology and meets their needs more closely. Understanding where trade-offs lie with consumer comfort is important for determining what technology you choose, how much of it you experiment with at a time, and how you present it to the public when you test it out. For retailers looking to prepare for a future of connected convenience, whatever shape it takes, now is the time to lay the groundwork with a composable architecture that enables them to spring into action to test out best-in-class new solutions as they come. Amazon One is still in early days, and while consumers may not be willing to give a palm print to a corporation for the sake of a little added convenience just yet, the likelihood that they will

in a few years — especially if it connects to additional services that offer significant benefits for them — isn’t that outrageous. JASON COTTRELL is CEO of Myplanet, a software studio specializing in AI-driven digital platform experiences, Jason has developed AI and digital interface solutions for high-profile clients such as New Balance, Uber, Google, and Salesforce. He is based in Toronto, Ontario.

Always a Point CONTINUED FROM page 18

By questioning the solidity of generally accepted presumptions about how the mind works, I had deviated from what is common sense, without explaining, step by step, why they should believe what I was saying. I should have anticipated the impasse, because for my entire career I have been coming up with new ideas, including new brands, as well as marketing messages, and guiding audiences through the steps that lead to a mutually beneficial mental destination. End of Part 3. TOM BEAKBANE is president of Beakbane: Brand Strategies and Communications, a company that has delivered over 20,000 projects to Fortune 500 clients since 1986. He resurrected the concept of consilience after attempting to account for the gap between textbook theories of human behaviour and his experiences creating marketing communications. He closed the gap by tapping into his passion for understanding developments at the frontiers of science. Beakbane earned an honours degree in biochemistry and neurophysiology from Durham University in England. He lives near Toronto, Canada with his wife. They have two daughters.

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MY VIEW

Always a Point

Whenever humans communicate there is always a reason, or point. Often the point is unconscious. (Part 3)

ducators, in order to make different subjects easier to teach, demarcate ideas in various ways. There are demarcations between disciplines, and ideas placed in the textbooks of different disciplines are further split between chapters and subject areas; for example, biology and the study of human communication are presented separately, with little crossover. Marketing research is not regarded as having similarities to scientific research — for example, selling beer has nothing to do with explanations of Boyle’s law. While distinctions are needed so that we can communicate and understand one another, they do not accurately reflect the complexities and commonalities we experience in our daily lives. Ideas have their own structure and dynamics. Just because an idea is true does not mean it will be easy to communicate or that it will stick in someone’s mind. For an idea to stick, it must largely conform to what people already understand, and it needs to be useful in some way — that is, it must have a point. The fact that all communications need to have a point is itself not sticky. It does not stick for two reasons. First, this fact applies universally and therefore does not fit neatly into any subject categorization. Second, it infers that we humans are not fully in control of the data in our heads and therefore is not self-affirming. However, the fact that all communications need to have a point is important because it helps explain how the brain handles complexity and how ideas evolve over time. It also explains how ideas graduate from being a personal insight to becoming something other people understand and, from there, passing into general acceptance and becoming so-called common sense. After three years of attempting to write Total Quality ❱ DMN.CA

Communications, I felt that I had uncovered a number of insights that business leaders would find useful, including how to manage company communications and make ideas stick. At the time I was a member of an organization called The Executive Committee, where each month groups of about 12 CEOs would gather for a full day to discuss their business and offer each other advice. As members of each group got to know each other, they would speak about matters that were stressing them. The list of issues was never-ending. Most of these were related to interpersonal matters such as friction from business partners or pressures in their private lives of every sort, from children behaving inappropriately to marital breakdown. Before discussing business issues, we would spend half the day learning about a new management technique presented by an expert in a particular field. I began delivering workshops on how to evaluate marketing communications. The purpose of my seminar was to “understand the human brain and make better decisions about marketing communications.” I started the sessions by showing the CEOs eight different concepts for a homepage for an organic fruit smoothie company, then I asked them to pick the ones they judged would be the most successful in the market. All the designs were well executed, but very different from each other. One was clean and elegant. Another made the fruit the hero. Another was steampunk and so on. When each executive rank-ordered the designs, there was no consensus on which design would be the most successful or the best criteria by which to judge them. So I established there was a need for the seminar. To create a framework that would improve their ability to make decisions, I described a universal characteristic of

Tom Beakbane

PHOTOS COURTESY TOM BEAKBANE

BY TOM BEAKBANE

A series based on Tom Beakbane’s new book.

effective communication: the use of a narrative chain to make a well-defined point. I used books as a metaphor to explain the importance of choosing a point with a single sharp focus, as well as several techniques writers use to communicate, such as avoiding words that are nonspecific, including the words “quality” and “value,” and using concrete visual metaphors, rather than adjectives. I also described that, when we see an image, our eyes jump around the interesting parts in steps called saccades. I explained how to pick images that attract attention. I spelled out the cardinal rule for good decision-making, which is to look at communications through the eyes of the target audience and recognize that they’ll register meanings that are different from their own. I also explained the principle of coherence, and the need to maintain a consistent style and tonality. I spent two hours going step by step through practical tools for making better decisions. If I had left it at that, the session would have been satisfying and worthwhile. But I could not resist expounding scientific findings about how the human brain works, and how it does not operate using reason independently of emotions. I presented certain facts about feelings and why these are so important. As soon as I said, “The

way you think you think is not the way you think,” the narrative chain was immediately broken. The point of the session switched from being about helpful tools for improved decision-making to “he says the way I think is unreliable.” These CEOs were under constant stress dealing with the pressures of running a business. They did not wish to hear that their ability to reason logically is not how the brain really works. Daily, they need to make decisions, and need approaches and management tools that strengthen their position and build their confidence. Being told that they should become more aware of feelings did not provide the self-assurance they craved. The statement, “The way you think you think is not the way you think,” is problematic for at least three reasons. First, our mind is linked with our self-identity, which is deeply personal and something each of us cares about. We don’t need someone acting like they have figured us out. Second, most of us have an idea of what our mind does. Every waking moment we are, at least to some degree, thinking. So it is reasonable to believe that most of what we do is the result of conscious deliberation. And third, human reason and free will are concepts that underpin much of the academic enterprise and the merits of higher education.

CONTINUED ON page 16 MAY 2021