New Role For The CMO: Be A Connected Marketer

This requires not just marketing expertise but the ability to bring the physical and digital together, “which will result in ‘emotional’ connectedness,” said mCordis co-founder Paul Berney.

In this new age of the “connected individual”—modern humans who are digitally dependent, constantly connected, and loathe to relinquish their connected devices—some believe it’s time for “the connected marketer” to rise up. This new role for the CMO requires not just marketing expertise but the ability to bring the physical and digital together—for they have become one.

This concept was explored in-depth at the inaugural “Connected Marketer Summit,” earlier this week in San Francisco. Paul Berney, co-founder of mCordis and the Connected Marketer Institute, kicked off the event by telling the audience: “Our mobiles have become our external brains, and distraction is the new normal. So great, connected brands must synchronize physical and digital experiences.”

By 2020, Berney noted, each person/household will have 10 connected devices and 40 sensors. “Every surface will become interactive,” he explained, “and the ‘super-connected’ brand will bring together physical and digital and sensorial, which will result in ‘emotional’ connectedness.”

In order to fully understand and function in this new environment, Berney said, CMOs and brands will have to embrace research, data, data science, behavioral economics, and experience mapping. Then, they will have to determine what role they play—or wish to play—in their customers’ lives: curator (Sephora), guide (Amazon), confidant (Google), or disruptor (Uber).

“And, of course, there is no linear customer journey anymore,” Berney reminded the audience. “Understanding how the new customer journey will play out will, first, require segmentation, then personas, to, finally, profiles of customers. Mobile makes this all possible, but it is still going to be hard to do.”

Berney continued: “Big data influences small decisions, allowing you to serve up the right message to the right person in the right place at the right time.” But brands must also be of service to customers, he cautioned, through understanding, recognition, automation, personalization, and contextual relevance. “Data should be used for creating value for the individual,” he said. “Face it: YouTube, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Starbucks have all reset customer expectations. Today, it’s all about individual marketing at scale.”

As for privacy, Berney said, it will become a luxury as we move further into the 21st century. “Data about me? No, my data, will be what consumers are saying,” he said. “Permission is a process, not a moment, and you will have to shift from ‘terms of service’ to ‘terms of trust.’” Tomorrow’s marketer, he concluded, will have to capture data but use it is a new way. This is what makes the connected marketer “a Renaissance man or woman, who can combine science and art into something new.”

Paul Berney recently spoke about mobile in The CMO Show podcast. Click here to listen.