CLIC 2016: CMOs Lead Innovation From ‘Now’ To ‘Next’
With disruption more a probability than a possibility, CMOs understand that innovation has taken on higher significance.
With disruption more a probability than a possibility, CMOs understand that innovation has taken on higher significance. They also realize innovation is not about problem-solving for the “now” but focusing on the “next.”
This topic was front and center at the second annual CLIC event, organized by Lisa Nirell, founder of EnergizeGrowth. (CLIC stands for CMO’s Leading Innovation Conference.) The event attracted a group of 32 accomplished CMOs from both legacy and startup companies—all of whom have moved beyond being “marketing order takers.”
Nirell kicked off the conference by reminding attendees of the areas where innovation can happen, and outlined the global trends that every business is dealing with today. She also spoke about her latest annual “CMO Innovation Trends Study,” in which 64% of CMOs cited innovation as essential to their success. (More on the study here on CMO.com next week.)
Next, Nirell introduced Mark Levy, president of Levy Innovation, a positioning and branding consultancy, five-time time author, and amateur magician (read about that here).__
Levy led the group through an exercise using a tool called “List Making,” which he has been using with senior executives in business, entertainment, and politics for decades. List Making (PDF) frees your mind to go beyond self-imposed barriers.
Levy’s key quotes:
• “List Making is an ideation technique where you make multiple lists from different perspectives. Look for gaps and connect things.”
• “This nonstop, free-writing technique—where you keep writing fast, allowing for mistakes and not letting your internal editor edit—releases you from the burden and stress of feeling that you have to get everything perfect. It generates new thoughts you probably would have consciously or subconsciously filtered out.”
• “Role-play and visualize your toughest innovation challenges to anticipate issues, obstacles, and possible solutions.”
USA Today: Longtime Disruptor
If you think about all of the industries that have been radically disrupted since the birth of the internet, the media industry—and, specifically, newspapers—would be a top pick. But once upon a time, USA Today, itself, was a disruptor in traditional print media, launching in 1982 with easy-to-read stories accompanied by engaging colorful graphics and pictures.
Andy Yost, CMO at Gannett/USA Today Network, has led the digital and marketing transformation of the 110-year-old organization. He shared at CLIC the story about what the USA Today Network has done to reinvent and disrupt its industry again—venturing into new formats such as virtual reality with the newly launched news show “VRtually There.”
Following are some highlights from Yost’s talk. (You can view his full presentation here or at the end of this article.)
• “Data, content, and technology together are a powerful combination for today and tomorrow.”
• “USA Today was Facebook before Facebook, and Twitter before Twitter. We had small, digestible news that you needed with strong brand engagement. We were the original social networks in the regional communities that we serve. And there is power in owning this position and proving it out. We are now bringing these communities to life in new and different ways than you would typically see a newspaper brand doing.”
• “I am fortunate that my role not only includes branding and marketing but also everything from a consumer perspective and revenue. This helped make our digital transformation easier.”
• “Sometimes you and your industry can be your own worst enemy of innovation. The newspaper industry hasn’t done itself a service by continuing to talk about its products as ‘newspapers.’ Only recently the Newspaper Association of America took out ‘newspaper’ and rebranded to ‘News Media Association.’”
• “One of the things important to rallying our organization and guiding all of our innovation was to have a purpose. Our new purpose is to empower communities to connect, act, and thrive. We have local communities with our local products. We also believe we will be able to connect like-minded individuals in various communities of interest, like people passionate about sports, travel, food, and wine. So we are thinking about how we can start to build products and experiences that align with this.”
• “We had to transform our organization, culture, and valued behaviors from a manufacturing- and distribution-focused model to more of a startup, digital-first model.”
• “We’ve posted innovation challenges to our entire organization, asking people for thoughts on identifying an interesting consumer experience, and another one where we asked people to identify an advertising solution that we need to tackle. Employees throughout the organization submitted entrees. … The executive team reviewed the ideas, and then we called back about five groups to do live pitches to the executive team. We then funded several teams to take their ideas forward, which created two new exciting products: IamSport and HumanKind.”