The Future of Marketing: Strategies from 15 Leading Brands on How Authenticity, Relevance, and Transparency Will Help You Survive the Age of the Customer

by Nicholas Johnson

Overview

Reinvent marketing for your radically new environment: smarter, faster, more agile, more customer-driven! In this "by marketers, for marketers" primer, Nicholas Johnson offers evidence-based guidance for transforming what you do, and how you do it.

 

The Future of Marketing shows how to anticipate and respond to relentless change in channels, media options, organizational relationships, technologies, markets, products, services – and most important of all, customers. Johnson investigates each key emerging trend marketers are facing, from shifting customer expectations and fragmenting media landscapes to the challenge of synthesizing vast troves of data into actionable knowledge. He explains how these trends are eradicating ‘marketing’ as we know it, and helps you respond by refashioning organizational structures, marketing campaigns, marketer roles, and much more.

 

You’ll learn how to:

¿ Move from "campaigning" to storytelling and authentic conversations

¿ Achieve true ‘real-time marketing" and greater agility throughout the marketing function

¿ Migrate from big TV buys to a pervasive multi-channel/omni-channel approach

¿ Accelerate marketing processes, eliminate bureaucracy, and optimize agility

¿ Mitigate risk when everything’s moving at lightspeed

¿ And much more

 

Johnson supports his recommendations by taking you behind the scenes with some of the world’s top marketing teams, at companies including L’Oreal, Old Navy, Time Warner, Adidas, HP, McDonalds, Wells Fargo, and Universal. These highly-successful marketers have recognized that they too must change to flourish in a radically new environment. Johnson shows how they’re planning and executing those changes – and how you can, too. Whether you’re a marketing executive, strategist, or manager, The Future of Marketing offers what your organization needs most: a clear path forward.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780134084596
Publisher:	Pearson Education
Publication date:	05/30/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Nick Johnson is founder and CEO of the Incite Group, a leading business intelligence firm that provides highly relevant, research-based insights on customer experience for the marketing, communications, and advertising communities. He has worked closely with chief marketing officers and other senior executives from major brands since founding his first company, Useful Social Media, in 2009

Table of Contents

Introduction     1
    Who Is It For?     2
    Research and Development     4
    A Note on Contributors     5

PART I:  WHAT’S CHANGED?    9
Chapter 1  The 4 P’s Are Passe     11
Power Has Changed Hands     12
How Has the Brand/Customer Relationship Changed?    15
    A Brief History of Online Marketing     15
    A Free Loudspeaker for All!    17
New Competitors + More Noise = Need for Relevance     18
    Noise Levels Are Increasing     19
    Digital Has Changed the Game Marketers and Consumers Are Playing     20
How Has the Changing Media Landscape Changed the Marketer’s Role?    21
    How Media Disruption Has Impacted Marketers     23
    A Fragmented, “Transmedia” Landscape     25
    Things Are a Lot Harder Than They Were Back in the 1990s     28
    It’s Not All Bad...    29
How Does the “Flood” of Customer Data Impact the Marketer’s Role?    29
    From Art to Science     30
    More Data = More Accountability     31
The Democratization of Your Brand     32
    Your Customers Have More Choice and Power     33
    Backstory Is More Important Than Tagline     34
    The Impact of the Global Financial Crisis     34
    Brand Is a Conversation Between Companies and Their Customers     35
Not Everything Has Changed: The Fundamentals Remain the Same     37
    ART Means Major Changes Must Be Made     41
The New Customer Contract: Authenticity, Relevance, and Transparency     41
    The New Customer Contract: Authenticity     42
    The New Customer Contract: Relevance     44
    The New Customer Contract: Transparency     45
How ART Will Impact the Future of Marketing     46
Endnotes     48
Chapter 2  What Is a Customer Journey, and Why Does It Matter?    53
The Customer Journey Means Expanded Roles     56
Endnotes     56

PART II:  HOW ARE COMPANIES COPING?    59
Chapter 3  How Are Companies Doing Right Now?    61
The Marketer’s Expanding Role: Confusion on Next Steps     62
Internal Structures Are Beginning to Change     62
Collaboration Is Key     63
    Departure Lounge     66
Marketing Is Under Pressure to Increase Speed     68
    1. Customers Expect Responses to Queries Far More Quickly     68
    2. Customers Reward Marketing Campaigns That Are Closely Linked to Developments in the World Around Them     70
    3. New Platforms Reach Maturity (and Huge User Bases) More Quickly Than Ever     70
    4. Data and New Measurement Methodologies Quickly Give Marketers Usable Insight into Campaign Success     72
How Are Marketers Beginning to Increase the Speed?     73
Media Fragmentation Is Tough to Deal With     74
    Things Are Changing Fast     76
    Marketers Must Mix Paid, Earned, and Owned Channels     76
Delivering a Consistent Brand Message Is Increasingly Challenging     77
    The Speed with Which Channel Fragmentation Is Taking Place Is a Challenge All Its Own     79
Most Companies Are Not Fully Leveraging Customer Data for Better Customer Insight     80
A Long Way to Go—But There’s Increasing Clarity on the Route to Take     82
Next Steps     83
Endnotes     84

PART III:  BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE     85
Chapter 4  Brand Management and Storytelling     87
Managing a Brand in Collaboration with Customers     87
    Experience Supersedes Logo     87
    Brand Is How a Company Acts As a Corporate Citizen     88
How Can Brand Storytelling Help?    89
    This Isn’t a New Coat of Paint—It’s Deeper Than That     92
How Can You Build Storytelling into Your Marketing Campaign?    93
The Battle Between Art and Science Isn’t Over Yet     94
Endnotes     94
Chapter 5  Getting Your House in Order: How Internal Buy-In Impacts External Marketing     95
Consistent Experience Across Multiple Channels Is Hard but Essential     96
    Transparency Makes Consistency Essential     98
    Build Your Corporate Onion     98
Internal Is Where This All Begins     99
    Step 1: Build from the Ground Up, Not the Top Down     100
    Step 2: Build a Clear Role for the Individual and Highlight the Benefits of That Role     100
    Step 3: Immerse Your Employees in the Journey to Reassure Them     101
    Step 4: Focus on the Long Term, Not the “Year of Customer Experience”    103
Endnotes     103
Molson Coors Case Study     104
Chapter 6  How an Evolved Internal Structure Drives Authentic, Relevant, and Transparent Marketing     119
The Chief Marketing Officer’s Evolution     120
    From Part of the Matrix to a Leadership Role     121
Why a Centralized Marketing Community Is Critical     122
    Should Marketing Expand Itself Out of Existence?    124
    Splitting the Marketing Department     124
    New Roles and Responsibilities     126
Focus on Agility     127
    Why IT, Data, and Marketing Departments Need to Work Together     128
Breaking Down Silos for a More Comprehensive Customer Picture     130
    Unification of Information     131
    Internal Data     132
    Uniformity of Response     133
Randstad Case Study     134
Endnotes     137
Chapter 7  Data for Relevance and Agility     139
Importance of Data and Science     139
    1: The Scale Is Incredible     139
    2: The Opportunity Is Enormous—and the Imperative Is Unavoidable     140
    3: You’re Now Competing with Digital Natives     141
    4: Data Helps You Spot Problems     142
Setting Up for Data     143
    1: Hiring the Right People and Evolving the Marketer’s Role     144
    2: Build the Right Organizational Model     144
    3: Set Clear Goals Aligned to Overall Corporate Goals     145
    4: Find the Signal in the Noise     146
The Benefits One Can Expect from a Comprehensive, Forward-Looking Approach to Data Management and Analysis     147
    Better Understanding for More Relevance     150
    Finally, a Replacement for Focus Groups     151
    Enhanced Relevance: Building Better Campaigns—and Better Products     152
    Examples of Brands Using Data for Better Marketing     153
    Data for More Agility: Insight at Speed for On-the-Fly Campaign Evolution     156
    Data Is Not a Miracle Cure. There are limits to its Utility     157
    Allowing Data to Replace Creativity     158
    Are We Headed for a Data Drought?    158
    Avoiding Creepiness     160
Conclusions     161
Endnotes     162
One Medical Group Case Study     164
KidZania Case Study     170
Land O’Lakes Case Study     180
Chapter 8  Why Multichannel Matters     183
You’ve Got to Spread Yourself Thin     185
    Work out Which Channels Are Worth the Money to You     186
    Define How to Use Channels Appropriately     187
    You’ve Got to Make Sure That Channels Work in Some Form of Harmony     188
Multichannel As a Foundation     190
Endnotes     190
Hiscox Case Study     180
Chapter 9  Content Marketing to Drive Engagement     197
Create Content of the Requisite Quality     200
Relevance: Appealing Directly and Engagingly to Your Customers     201
    Content That Is Useful     201
    Content That Is Entertaining     202
Disseminate Content in the Right Way     203
Measure Impact and Track Success     204
Endnotes     205
Chapter 10  The Imperative—and Opportunity—of Conversation     207
How Conversation Drives Authenticity     210
    Conversation Isn’t Optional     211
    Set Up for Social     213
7 Elements of Successful Conversational Marketing from Brands Who’ve Done It Well     214
    1: Strike a Chord That Appeals     214
    2: Be Ready to Listen     215
    3: Get Everyone Singing from the Same Hymn Sheet     216
    4: Ensure That Data Has Been Shared and Silos Have Been Eradicated     216
    5: Expose the “Latently Happy”    217
    6: Don’t Just Talk about Your Products     217
    7: Don’t Cause a Scene     218
Endnotes     226

PART IV:  A PROPOSED NEW DEPARTMENT     229
Chapter 11  The Marketing Department of the Future     231
How Will Companies Deliver on Art?    233
    1: The Marketing Department Will Put Customer Experience at the Center of Its Operations     233
    2: A Simple Structure to Enhance Agility     236
    3: New Skill Sets for a New World     239
    4: The Walls between Employees and Customers Come Down     241
Final Conclusions     243
Endnotes     244
Index     245

 

Reinvent marketing for today’s radically new customers and business environment – and tomorrow’s!