24 Hour Global Conversations - The Marketing Society

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h ou r g lo ba l con v e r satio n

24

hour global conversation

fo r ewo r d To mark the launch of our Asian operation, we invited 40 business leaders across five continents to discuss their biggest challenges in a series of conversations across a single day, asking the question, “What is the greatest opportunity and challenge in your market over the next ten years?”

The 24 Hour Global Conversation revealed some interesting differences and commonalities, with five key trends emerging: • • • • •

Embrace an agenda of customer-centricity Operate globally but be ever more relevant locally Keep up with technology Think strategically about data Develop personal skills that meet these challenges

Running through each of these are common threads of adapting to a changing marketing environment and how this has enabled and required a deeper focus on the customer.

Thank you to everyone who took part in the 24 Hour Global Conversation and a special thanks to our friends at Warc for helping to produce this report.

Ruth Rowan CMO, AMEA, BT Chair, The Marketing Society Asia

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Customer centricity

How do marketers stay relevant given the pace of change in technology, media and consumer behaviour? The best brands are seen as making long-term plans, but the pressure on marketers is toward more short-term goals and hitting quarterly figures. This hectic environment of change was seen as here to stay, with the downside of exciting technological developments being shorter industry life cycles. In this fluid environment, marketers agreed on the opportunities created by being close to the consumer.

Greg Levine, director, new business, PruHealth cautioned, “Marketers must avoid being siloed as the communication experts. When the voice of the consumer is at the heart of the product offering and product development team, that’s when success and magic happens.”

The need to understand and enhance the customer experience was consistent across all regions.

“Marketers have a very privileged palace in a business,” agreed Amanda Rendle, global head of marketing, HSBC, “businesses need to become more customer focused, and marketers have the voice of the consumer. We have access to data and analytics and it’s our responsibility to bring it to the business.”

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C usto m e r c entr ic ity

The focus on the consumer as a route to success was echoed by Feng-Min Chien, regional marketing director Asia-Pacific, BNY Mellon, “With the technology drive, the customer and brand part will become more important because companies will need to provide the most comfortable client experience.”

Technology has enabled a closer relationship with the consumer, and some taking part in the 24 Hour Global Conversation highlighted a sense of responsibility in this new relationship. Tash Whitmey, CEO, Havas EHS asked, “How do we stand for something that fits with the emotional side of our consumers’ lives as well as the transactional?”

Greg Levine highlighted, “For me, as much as we have to look after the business, and how we have to drive performance and all those elements, I think there’s going to be a massive wave of personal wellbeing and personal health in what is going to become a more noisy and cluttered world.”

Another aspect of the new consumer relationship is the need for clarity in the value exchange that consumers are expecting. What is the value add to the consumer so they are willing to give information?

Consumer security and privacy, and perceived trustworthiness of the business are increasingly important areas for marketers across the globe.

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Customer centricity

One outcome of this change in consumer expectations is that “You don’t get to choose how your company is regarded”, in the words of Caroline Taylor, CMO, IBM Europe, who described a world of ‘radical transparency’. “You can’t have a corporate brand and a corporate culture that are different and separate. They’re irrevocably one thing – the culture of your organisation and the culture of your people in your organisation, become your brand.” This transparency extends to business practices, and how employees conduct themselves, how products are made, and the supply chain.

If the company is ‘always on’ and under scrutiny, this is also true for the brand and many highlighted the evolution from discrete marketing campaigns to continual communication with consumers. Marketers need a consistent set of messages over a long period of time, and need to ensure that messaging flows through all interactions with the audience wherever they might be.

Nicki Smith, SMB global marketing director, Microsoft, talked about the major challenge of creating differentiation, “There seems to be more and more devices, more and more information, more data, more products, more brands that provide an overwhelming choice of offers – the challenge for the marketer today is: How do we stand out? How do we make it easy for consumers to make a purchase decision?”

Overall the attitude towards disruptive change in customer relationships was to highlight the opportunities, and that capitalising on these is a skill in itself. Emma Hewage, trade marketing lead, EMEA, LinkedIn explained, “One of the really big opportunities is going to be learning how to spot trends as a person, but also as a business. To be very agile and adept at spotting the next new thing and quickly understanding how to take advantage of that opportunity.”

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co n n e ct i n g g lo bal ly

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connecting globally

The international business community was described as having an established language and way of doing things across borders, and multinational companies saw little difference in working with colleagues in different countries. The challenge was seen as when marketers delve deeper into domestic markets, and best practice was identified by Mohan Mohan, former Procter & Gamble marketing executive, as “localising the global opportunity.”

How do marketers get close to so many different types of customers in multiple markets? Brands must understand exactly what they are offering as what works in one market doesn’t always in another.

Scott Neuman, CMO, IBM Central and Eastern Europe, noted that “although a brand might be well known, what it means to the consumer is different depending on the country and target audience.”

Global brands were cautioned not to follow a template into each market, which may have different languages, culture, economy and use of technology. However the opportunity for Asian marketers to work across many different cultures and regions was seen as a major plus and it was emphasised that great ideas can translate across markets. For example, in India there are cultural differences and multiple languages, but there’s still a common thread and when global brands share a resonant brand idea it works.

India was singled out as a particularly challenging market because of its young population – half of Indians are less than 25 years old. Prabhakar Mundkar, director of business strategy, Percept, cautioned, “Traditional companies like Unilever and Procter & Gamble, the FMCG companies, are still talking to the middle aged housewife in our market. It’s really the Internet-based brands, e-commerce, e-shopping and other digital ventures that are actually talking to the youth.”

The significance of the youth market in India was backed up by Vasantha Kumar, director of marketing and communications, IBM Mumbai, who highlighted that they have “very different aspirations when it comes to work, relationships, the kind of choices they make and the way they decide.”

Another consideration for marketing in India, as well other areas in Asia, were differences in infrastructure, supply chain and lack of market data. Internet connections are often slower and there was seen to be less digital sophistication in Asia, which was compared to the UK and US five or six years ago. Mohan Mohan advised, “If FMCG companies are to thrive, particularly in cultures which are significantly different to the US, they need to spend their time to build the value of a particular product or service in to the fore front. You need to empathise and make to bring more emotion more important into the mind space of the consumers rather than facts and figures.”

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connecting globally

Despite these challenges there were also huge opportunities for marketers in Asia. In particular connecting with the growing middle class in China and engaging those living in third and fourth tier cities who are adding cash-rich segments in Vietnam, Cambodia, and many cities in China. In Asia there are huge differences between more mature markets like Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong through to high growth, relatively immature markets like Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines. The real challenge was described as finding the right strategy to manage growth in this diverse part of the world.

The focus for global growth was not only in Asia. Donna Hindson, director of trade marketing, Microsoft UK, stated that “the largest growing economic force in the world isn’t China or India, it’s women. What they really want is someone to help them curate, and design products for them.”

Looking at global growth in a broader sense was echoed by Andrew Harrison, development director Asia-Pacific, Brand Union, “Think about the consequences of growth and the sustainability of the industrial base and the industrial growth – environmental credibility and sustainability will become more important. Protecting the planet for future generations is being grappled within China and India as well as Europe and the US.”

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evolving technology

The third area that was particularly highlighted by The Marketing Society’s global marketers was developments in technology. Stephen Maher, chairman, The Marketing Society and CEO, MBA noted that “the way we talk about brands has changed, and they might be first described as having great apps or great social activity.” The conversation is no longer dominated by ‘social’ and ‘mobile’ but screens and data.

Companies need to embrace technological change to stay relevant. Annabel Venner, global brand director, Hiscox, highlighted the importance of agility for businesses – fail fast and move on.

Organisations need to integrate new technology to enable customer centricity and “to really drive growth through the business, combine the culture of the business and technology.”

The fundamental shift to customer centricity is changing marketing on a day to day basis, according to Erica Kerner, VP, marketing and communications Asia-Pacific, Tiffany & Co. Over the next five years, Kerner said she “will be shifting a larger component of the marketing budget to digital and social media, which allows us and demands of us to be communicating and listening with the consumer.”

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evo lv ing tech no log y

Pete Markey, former CMO, RSA Insurance Group enthused that “the most exciting aspect of changes in technology is the closeness to customers it gives you.” He highlighted the example of insurance companies who previously assumed people were alike because of their postcodes, cars or history. Now technology, such as black boxes in cars, allows personalisation of pricing to the individual.

It leads to a better customer experience and brings emotional resonance to a previously rationally dominated marketing process.

While there was much enthusiasm for the changes that technology is bringing to the customer relationship, the marketers also advised caution. How can marketers achieve brand credibility in a prolific social media channel? And what are best practices for point of sale – what was a print-oriented space is now an interactive digital space.

As technology is changing so rapidly marketers have to choose their investments wisely and be future proof. It was noted that in Asia different countries will adopt new marketing techniques on different timelines. And the diversity in consumers’ media behaviour has made it very difficult to build customer experiences that are making use of the right technology and device for each market.

Todd Hancock, CEO Asia-Pacific, Tag Worldwide described how “courageous leaders are those who are a little smarter in terms of how they’re rolling out technology – their companies will test a new technology with a specific brand in a specific market, then tweak and roll out to next phase.”

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evolving technology

Janette Kendall, marketing consultant, Kendall & Partners, based in Macau, also advocated a considered approach to changing technology, “There needs to be a commercial logic for adopting these new techniques, it should drive a competitive advantage which will then translate into a commercial pay back.”

Several conversations raised the importance of the marketing discipline and the basic principles of consumer marketing were seen as critical in the changing technological environment. Huw Pennell, managing director, Maxxium highlighted the risk of over communicating with the consumer and cautioned marketers not to get too carried away with all the new approaches.

Andrew Warner, former senior marketing director, Expedia EMEA, applies learnings from the IT sector to marketing, “It’s all about test and learn and iteration for us as a digital business – not just on the product side, but how we communicate and engage with people.”

The proliferation of digital media also means that the brand experience needs to be seamless and consistent, while also appropriate to the medium used. Consumers are in different mindsets on different devices. Nicki Smith, advised that “marketers need to be very thoughtful about where people are in the consumer decision journey, and what content they want at what time on what device.”

“Embracing each technology for what it’s good at, rather than treating mobile, desktop and tablet as interchangeable”, was the advice from Frank Hamlin, CMO, GameStop.

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data st r at e g y

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data strategy

How to deal with data was perhaps the most mentioned challenge for marketers in the 24 Hour Global Conversation. How to use it, how to simplify it, how to act on it and how to analyse it. In the future marketers will need to straddle creative and analytics, and there was discussion of where this data should reside in the organisation. Caroline Taylor quoted IBM CEO, Ginni Rometry, who refers to data as the new natural resource, “just as hydrocarbons were in the twentieth century a key natural resource, data is the new natural resource on which businesses will grow.”

The huge opportunity for marketers to come out of big data is that the drive for better measurements and ROI is increasing the importance of marketing to the enterprise. Data is allowing for embedding marketing strategy into commercial thinking.

Vasantha Kumar stated that big data is going to lead competitive advantage in the future and is one of three strategic operatives of IBM. “Big data is about how it influences industries and professions. It’s about how it helps a CMO do its job better.”

His views were supported by Caroline Taylor, who described the opportunity of ‘fast data’.

“The speed is becoming more significant than the volume of data, and everything that enables us to do as an organisation. It is forcing a transformation driven by the volume of data we all generate as individual human beings.” The opportunity is to marry historically collected data with real time data on social or online retail sites and make use of it, “It’s enabling us to see every individual, rather than a segment, and there the opportunity to respond and market to them as an individual.”

Several marketers spoke about ‘mapping people with opportunity’. Now this might be refined targeting based on data gathered via recent actions in digital media, and in the future, the customer’s lifetime value and consumption will become more predictable.

Emma Hewage said, “Our platform’s vision is to create economic opportunity for every professional in the world and we’ve identified a market size of 600 million professionals worldwide.”

A similar strategy was described by Russell Wallach, president, LiveNation US, “with Ticketmaster we have one of the largest databases in the world, and want to target events to consumers in a way that makes sense to them.”

Andrew Warner shared how Expedia is using the signals from booking data to improve consumer utility, to give people the right information at the right time on the right device. However, he noted that the downside is what’s been called the ‘creepy line’, so for Expedia “it’s about giving people transparency – helping them use all of our data but also putting them in control of it.”

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data strategy

There was widespread acknowledgement that consumers know brands are collecting data and that they expect them to do something about it. There must be a value exchange for the consumer, particularly when they are asked to provide sensitive pieces of information.

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skills and workforce

The final challenge was more personal – a shortage of appropriate experience and skills.

Marketers now need to be broaden their skill base: creative yet analytical, with the ability to collaborate across teams and agencies.

Some highlighted the fact there’s often a generation gap between marketing professionals and those they are communicating with. In addition, senior marketers are usually experienced in more traditional media, but untrained in newer digital channels. Pete Markey put his global team through a digital marketing academy to ‘up-skill’ them in digital marketing. As he explained, “They’ve fallen into digital marketing, they used to do DM or outbound and suddenly they’re doing social media, search, affiliates and email.”

This approach was also taken by Amanda Rendle, “I now want all my team to be able to be proficient digitally, because they have to be, they can’t work in a multi-function environment if they don’t get it. It doesn’t mean that they’re all digital marketers, but it does mean that they know what they’re doing in that space.”

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skills and wo r kfo r c e

This proactive approach to training meant that some client companies felt ahead of what their agencies can offer. Andrew Warner said he “sees agencies struggling to keep up with some of the things that take place within a more digitally oriented organisation.”

Feng-Min Chien explained they are looking for someone who can integrate the different elements of marketing, PR, events and market research, “As a client, our needs change, we need someone who’s truly good at integrating marketing, a true expert to help us deliver it to companies holistically. I think that the agencies will have to change as well.”

The lack of digital expertise and integration wasn’t only highlighted by clients. Wayne Arnold, chair, The Marketing Society Southeast Asia and global CEO, Lowe Profero said he was having conversations with clients about how to restructure their workforce internally, “Despite all the talk of leveraging new tech and insights, not one of our clients sits there with a tech person sitting as the core of their marketing team or a user experience person who understands how we’re using these different touch points.”

Tash Whitmey also emphasised the need for collaboration and integration, “It’s about being an orchestration partner for the brand, rather a fully outsource provider, and then striking the right partnerships.”

The new creative team in agencies was described as a copywriter, an art director and a technology expert. Prahakar Mundkur encouraged creative teams to work alongside a tech to exploit opportunities in marketing. The skills each individual needs have also changed.

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skills and workforce

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Business leaders

Amanda Rendle noted, “In the past you could have a marketer who was very good at creative or very good at campaigns. Now you’ve got to have marketers who are very good at analytics, very good at understanding data, good at understanding insight; they’ve got to be creative, got to be curious; they’ve got to be quite future-thinking.”

These expanding skillsets mean that many top marketers raised the need more formal training for marketers in all disciplines. The need to develop and recruit local talent in Asia was highlighted as a particular challenge. It was considered that few people have a full understanding of how to operate cross channel, and some highlighted the need for training in branding best practices in the digital space.

Wayne Arnold Global CEO Lowe Proferro, Singapore

Rachel Catanach SVP, Managing Director FleishmanHillard, HK

Feng-Min Chien Regional Marketing Director, Asia-Pacific BNY Melon, HK

Jonathan Cummings Managing Director StartJG, HK

Scott Gallacher Director The Aston Group, UK

Martin Glenn CEO United Biscuits, UK

Susan Griffin CMO BrainJuicer, NY

Frank Hamlin CMO Gamestop

Todd Handcock CEO Asia-Pacific Tag Worldwide, HK

Jason Harris President & CEO Mekanism

Andrew Harrison Development Director, Asia-Pacific Brand Union, HK

Emma Hewage Trade Marketing Lead, EMEA LinkedIn, UK

Achieving a balance between disciplined and cutting edge marketing was seen as a huge challenge and opportunity for the global marketers. But at the end of the day, the conversation returned to the importance of the customer experience. Andrew Warner cautioned, “You can have the best social media strategy in the world. You can have the best marketing strategy in the world. But if your customer services function or the person on the front line, on the phone, or in the shop, or the finance department in the way they deal with invoicing, aren’t completely aligned with you, it’s very easy for that brand message to fall apart.”

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Business leaders

Donna Hindson Director of Trade Marketing Microsoft, UK

Erica Kerner VP, Marketing & Comms, Asia-Pacific Tiffany & Co., HK

Stephen Maher CEO MBA, UK

Mohan Mohan Coaching Professional Former Procter & Gamble, Pittsburg

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John Kearon Founder, CEO & Chief Juicer BrainJuicer, UK

Vasantha Kumar Director, Marketing & Comms IBM, Mumbai

Pete Markey CMO Post Office, UK

Prabhakar Mundkur Director, Business Strategy Percept, Mumbai

Business leaders

Janette Kendall Marketing Consultant Kendall & Partners, HK

Huw Pennell Managing Director Maxxium, UK

Amanda Rendle Global Head of Marketing HSBC, UK

Ruth Rowan CMO, AMEA BT, HK

Greg Levine Director, New Business PruHealth, UK

Matt Scheckner Executive Director Advertising Week, NY

Nickie Smith SMB Global Marketing Director Microsoft, Washington

Caroline Taylor CMO, Europe IBM, UK

Nick Marsh Managing Director, Asia-Pacific Harvey Nash, HK

Annabel Venner Global Brand Director Hiscox, UK

Russell Wallach President LiveNation, US

Chris Walton Managing Director Nunn Media, Sydney

Scott Neuman CMO, Central & Eastern Europe IBM, Prague

Andrew Warner VP Marketing Monster, UK

Tash Whitmey CEO Havas EHS, UK

Charlotte Wilkinson Managing Director Clear, Singapore

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Business leaders

Darren Woolley Founder TrinityP3, Sydney

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Jeffrey Yu Consultant Former Publicis, HK

Edge Zarrella Data & Analytics Head, China KPMG, HK

about the marketing society

The Marketing Society is an exclusive network of senior marketers. Over the past 55 years we have emerged as one of the most influential drivers of marketing in the business community. The Society challenges its members to think differently and be bolder marketing leaders by supporting the development of leading-edge thinking and promoting the evidence of effective marketing. We are the place for discerning marketers to learn, develop and share best practice. Our vision is to lead the creation and become the leading global network of senior marketers focusing first on our expansion in Asia.

We inspire and challenge over 2700 members via our 60 national events, our digital platforms including 20,000 Twitter followers, our exclusive LinkedIn group, and our exclusive online Clubhouse offering members a rich source of marketing content including interviews, case studies and resources. www.marketingsociety.com 020 8973 1350

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