Today, 52% of consumers evaluate a company’s values when making a purchase, this according to Forrester. In the age of the connected customers, brands can resonate with buyers by being authentic, establishing a deeper emotional connection, be clear about core values and deliver meaningful experiences. At the same time, marketing is being transformed by the unprecedented growth in the marketing technologies landscape. Emerging innovation in artificial intelligence (AI), virtual and augmented reality, e-commerce and CRM platforms will result in significant automation opportunities in marketing. Yet today, only 15% of companies have advanced marketing tools and capabilities, unable to deliver mass personalization at scale, and lower than expected innovation velocity.
“Marketing, which is highly quantitative, targeted, and tied to business outcomes, will likely become highly automated by 2025. The few people who will comprise the team of the future will be responsible for ensuring that promotions are creative and for overseeing the automated systems.” — Tom Davenport, Deloitte
To better understand the top priorities for chief marketing officers (CMOs) and research around digital marketing transformation initiatives, Ray Wang and I invited one of the most innovative and experienced CMOs in the world to our weekly show DisrupTV.
Diana O’Brien is the chief marketing officer (CMO) of Deloitte and Advisory partner for several clients. As CMO, Diana’s focus is on building the firm’s reputation, creating world-class client experiences, developing insight, building relationships, innovating marketing approaches, and ultimately fostering the growth of Deloitte’s businesses. Diana was recently named one of Business Insider’s “Top 50 Most Innovative CMOs in the World.”
Diana O’Brien, CMO of Deloitte
O’Brien was the first managing principal for Deloitte University and the managing principal for talent development. She served as the global client portfolio leader responsible for Deloitte’s global clients and industries program, and led Deloitte Consulting’s Life Sciences practice. You can follow O’Brien on Twitter at @DianaMOBrien.
Here are 10 CMO lessons from Diana O’Brien, CMO of Deloitte:
1. To deliver on your brand promise, the CMO must be the chief collaborator. Marketing has transformed quite a bit in the last two years, and the role of marketing and CMO has changed. According to O’Brien, the mandate for CMOs has changed based on recent business disruptions. In the past, the CMO and marketing was responsible for protecting the company’s reputation. They were responsible for projecting an image of your brand identity through one-way broadcasts. In the past, marketing was a cost center. Today, marketing has to engage every part of the organization in order to live your brand. The CMO and her team must engage all stakeholders in order authentically reflect who you are. Marketing is now a growth engine for business.
According to O’Brien, the new CMO mandate includes the following:
2. Successful CMOs demonstrate strong business acumen. CMOs must more deeply understand the business. Marketing leaders have to smarter and conniver of the c-suite.
3. Marketing must own the customer journey and the customer experience. CMOs have to drive growth by championing the customer experience initiatives.
4. CMOs must be out in the market, listening and engaging with clients. Marketing must take feedback from stakeholders (clients, partners, employees, community) and bring that back to the entire company.
5. CMOs must have the confidence and competence to engage the C-Suite. According to O’Brien, many CMOs did not have the confidence or competence to engage the C-Suite because they lacked the necessary business acumen and understanding of sophisticated business processes and inter-dependencies. The second pressure that CMOs face today is that they are inundated with new marketing technologies. By focusing too much on new technologies, marketing organizations and negatively impact their ability to execute and focus on important business outcomes.
6. CMOs must focus on business outcomes, not just new technologies. O’Brien notes that the primary focus for CMOs should not be new technologies, but rather the problem that you are trying to solve, and then identifying the necessary ecosystem needed to solve the problem.
7. CMOs can improve marketing innovation by adopting a mindset of experimentation and an outside-in discovery model. According to O’Brien, the process of innovating is all about sensing what is around the corner. Next is a process of incubation with testing, failing, learning and experimenting. Safe is no longer risky. Marketing must be agile, adaptive and forward looking. This process allows marketing to find the right platforms, partners and solutions. O’Brien and her team work with stakeholders to expand the overall capabilities of the entire ecosystem.
8. Your company is only as good as the company you keep. According to Deloitte, 25 percent of millennials surveyed would leave their current employer in the next year, and 44 percent would leave in the next two years. How can companies better attract and retain the very best marketing talent? O’Brien believes that what keeps the very best and brightest employee isn’t different for different generation. O’Brien believes companies need to focus on three success factors for recruiting and retaining talent:
- Meaningful purpose - everyone must believe that their work matters
- Environment to grow: everyone must feel safe to experiment, learn and grow
- Environment that seeks inspiration and innovation from all
9. Your culture is your brand. O’Brein encourages companies to create a culture that allows people to authentically show up in their best. What can we do to inspire people to do their best work. How ca we create moments that matter, where you can create mutual trust, respect and deeper connections? One example is having employees walk in the shoes of their peers in different parts of the business.
10. Customer service is marketing. O’Brien comes from a services background which greatly influences her organization to put the clients at the center of all of their decisions and actions. O’Brien believes that clients must feel the brand based on each engagement. O’Brien and her team leverage advanced technologies like mobile, AI and machine learning to accelerate and bolster their ability to service clients. O’Brien reminds us that technology is important, but at the root, how you make the customer feel, and the value that you deliver to clients, is what will ultimately define your brand.
Diana O’Brien is a brilliant CMO. Please watch our video conversation for more incredible insights from one of the most innovative CMOs in the world.