Brands: Stop Spending So Much Time ‘Navel Gazing’

The pressure on CMOs shows no signs of letting up, according to top marketers from Patrón, Clorox, Kayak, and eBay, among others, at the Financial Times’ annual event.

Marketers have to rethink their organizations to deal with an increasingly empowered consumer and more complex demands within their companies, according to speakers at the annual Future of Marketing Summit, sponsored by the Financial Times.

The pressure on CMOs and marketing leaders doesn’t show signs of letting up, said the panelists at Wednesday’s event, in New York City. Speakers said consumers are ever more demanding, while marketing departments are being forced to take more risks with media and messages while also being held to higher ROI standards.

The public’s malaise about an economic recovery that has left the average citizen feeling left behind has led to two trends marketers need to watch, said Gillian Tett, the FT’s U.S. managing editor. One is the rise of “Generation C, for customization,” Tett said. “The next generation assumes it has a God-given right to customize everything.” The other is “Generation F, for frustration,” he added. Digital natives, frustrated by student debt and limited opportunities, “have the promise and the illusion that they have information about everything in the world, and have a choice and can change it.” But, Tett warned, “politics isn’t tweeting.”

After the financial crisis of 2008-09, the public went through a “complete inversion in the pyramid of influence,” said Matthew Harrington, global COO at PR agency Edelman. “That has huge implications for all of us as marketers.”

The opportunity for brands is in engaging consumers and giving up some measure of control, he said. “Brands need to be not-so-precious,” Harrington said, noting how GE has invited outsiders to work from its patents and advance the technology. GE has traditionally held its patents very close, so it is a big deal for the company to open its “storeroom of expertise,” he added.

Adrian Parker, VP of digital marketing at The Patrón Spirits Co., spoke about consumers wanting to know more of the stories behind products. “People are more curious,” he said.

Patrón invested in a virtual reality (VR) movie about its distilling process to build its tequila’s image as an artisanal product, Parker said. It was so successful, he said, that Patrón expects to do more VR in the future, as well as work with Amazon’s Alexa interface and other interactive efforts.

“It used to be the most important thing was the liquid in the bottle … [now] the process of discovering this bottle is important,” Parker said.

The truism that brands need to have conversations with consumers and follow their lead received a ringing endorsement from speakers.

“The central verb to me in marketing strategy is ‘listen,’” said Hannah Grove, CMO of State Street. “The reality is we’ve gone from cathedral to marketplace … There are no more top-down communications.” Brands spend too much time talking about themselves and “navel gazing” instead of thinking about what their clients’ stories are and how to tell those, she said.

“If we’re still having that conversation that we need to put the customer in the room … we have to look at ourselves and ask if we’re doing the right thing,” said Suzy Deering, CMO of eBay.

“We have to force ourselves as marketers to go back to the human question. … People respond to stories,” said Eric Reynolds, CMO of Clorox.

Data can help marketers’ efforts, but analytics also holds them to a higher standard, speakers said. “Data is a snapshot” that can’t forecast the future, said Jason Chebib, VP of consumer planning, North America at liquor marketer Diageo.

One of the hardest parts about being a marketer working with data is predicting the future effect on people’s emotions of decisions made against business criteria with today’s data, Chebib added.

Kayak made “a pretty bold bet” when it cut TV buys in favor of on-demand platforms, said Ian Akehurst, VP of marketing analytics and media. Kayak’s data showed frequent users are frequent travelers who consume less live TV and more on-demand video. Its move was a net positive, but marketers had to be cognizant of the risk at the time they made the decision, he said.

“Marketing is a gamble because you have to be future-facing,” Chebib said.

CMOs have to evolve their organizations to cope in this environment, the speakers also said. Complexity has grown within companies as the customer journey becomes less linear and marketing is expected to play a new role, said Vivek Bapat, senior VP and global head of marketing strategy at SAP.

“It’s a great time to be in marketing, but we’re going through a difficult transition,” said Richard Steele, principal of business strategy consultants SYPartners. “We have to build a new function out of cloth that is not going to come from the usual sources.”

New specialties are rising within marketing, led by data and technology, and a chief marketer needs to orchestrate them all, Steele said.

“There’s a lot to learn, and learn very quickly, by putting together diverse teams,” he said. “The leader is going to have to check their ego and learn from their team.”