I. Basic Elements
Element one on the Periodic Table, in the upper left, is hydrogen.
Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Perhaps you’re even made of it. It’s the most abundant chemical substance in the universe. By atom count, it’s two-thirds of water. Associated elements like carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen, or elements from the table’s first two columns like sodium, magnesium, and potassium, are no slouches either. All are some of the essential building blocks of our lives.
Similarly, the Basic Elements of marketing are the building blocks of what we do. They’re things like research, strategy, metrics, and branding. They’re the concepts we’ve been studying and practicing since our first bright-eyed day on our first marketing job, and they’re the concepts we’ll be continuing to use and profit from until the time comes to ride off into the sunset and hang up our spurs.
Like hydrogen or sodium, the Basic Elements tend to keep turning up as essential components in many, if not most, of the “compounds” that comprise our efforts as marketers. Everyone from the fresh-out-of-school marketing neophyte to the most experienced and accomplished CMO needs to make study and review of the Basic Elements a regular, if not daily, practice.
Many marketers make the fatal mistake of neglecting the concepts in this section, particularly when they’re in the seductive grip of some flavor-of-the-month marketing trend that has no real staying power. When the bottom falls out as the hot trend becomes yesterday’s news, the fall is steep and painful for the marketer who hasn’t kept the Basic Elements at the core of his or her thinking.
The Basic Elements are simple concepts but they take a marketing lifetime to master. And as the digital landscape of our work evolves at an everfaster rate, successful marketing initiatives will require constantly re-examining these concepts and reformulating how we apply them. But what they are will remain the same, as they have since the dawn of modern marketing.
I was really excited to land every one of the interviews in this section. To truly understand these core concepts, it’s critical to hear about them from a person who’s truly nailed each one. And that describes every one of the marketers you’re about to meet.
Starting with the dynamic, pull-no-punches Jeffrey Hayzlett, this section brings together nine leaders who show that once you have a strong grounding in the essential elements, there is no limit to where your creativity can take you and your marketing.
We’ll sit down with Colette LaForce, who shows how strategy is your greatest ally when you’re a small company facing off against an industry super-giant. We’ll check in with Visa’s maestro of measurement, Antonio Lucio, and follow that up with a conversation about metrics with the innovative Dan Marks.
And a whole lot more.
From healthcare to fashion, from microprocessors to tequila, get ready to see how the most fundamental ingredients of marketing success are handled by the best in the business.
Making Sure Your CEO Gets the Picture
“A lot of CMOs fail because they forget to get conditions of satisfaction.”
Do you follow @JeffreyHayzlett on Twitter? If not, may I encourage you to join the 67,000+ who do? Another option is to join his legion of 36,000+ fans on Facebook.
Either way, keeping up with Jeffrey’s regular online dispatches—every one of which bursts with sui generis energy and tell-it-like-it-is attitude—is a smart move if you’re in the business of marketing. You can also sit down with any of his best-selling books, catch his show on C-Suite TV, or cue up episodes of his podcast All Business on play.it.
Anyway, I digress. Here’s what you’re going to learn from Jeffrey right here and now, drawing from his tenure as CMO of Eastman Kodak and currently as Chairman of C-Suite Network: In marketing, expectations are critical. For one, this means adjusting the expectations you and your team have of the campaign and of each other. It also means managing the expectations your client or boss has as a result of what you tell them...or fail to tell them. Before anything else, you have to get this right!
Our interview also covers mobile advertising, how the ever-changing economic climate affects marketers, and a long-overdue update to the famous “four pillars” of marketing.
Where do setting expectations with the customer figure into your marketing priorities?
A lot of CMOs fail because they forget to set conditions of satisfaction. I won’t move forward until I know exactly what makes the customer (who, in some cases, may be my boss) happy. Business leaders need to set their conditions of satisfaction as soon as they take their position. Mine have always been the same: to make money, grow professionally, and have fun doing it. These remind me why I’m in business and guide each decision I make.
How does risk-taking enter the equation?
No one is going to die in marketing; we’re not surgeons. If you want to grow, you’re going to have to take risks. Risks may work or they may not, but you just won’t know until you try it. The biggest mistake you can make in business is to do nothing. Marketers constantly need to adapt, change, or die.
What emerging trends do marketers need to be on top of...yesterday?
Mobile is the most personalized technology—which replaced the car as the more personal device. I would tend to say that at any given moment, most people know where their phones are—perhaps even more than they know where their children are. In fact, I question if most people lost their children or lost their phone in a mall, which one they would go looking for first. But mobile is still in its infancy stage and it’s extremely complex. Like the early days of the Internet, and with varying browsers and service providers, we have the same thing with mobile today. While it’s in the millions, it’s not in the billions in terms of revenue with regards to advertising and marketing. With regards just to advertising, it’s certainly become one of the best; it’s become a place to go for search but it has not become a place to go for [great] advertising. But the good news is, the best is yet to come!
I was lucky enough to catch a panel appearance where you proposed an update to the famous “four pillars” or “4 P’s” of marketing (product, place, price, and promotion). Can you explain that additional P here?
The 4 P’s aren’t going away, but it’s hard to deny they’ve been joined by a powerful 5th “P”: People. This is the social element of marketing, and it leads us to the fact that we can never, ever discount the power of one. Just one follower, whether they are an evangelist or a critic, will tell their friends and followers. Feedback from your customers is critical; in the past I’ve used that feedback to develop new features and products customers loved and bought like crazy. As marketers, it’s critical we really listen and respond. That creates brand ambassadors for your company. On the other hand, don’t ignore the critics. I call the ROI of social media “return on ignoring.” You can’t ignore the comments, whether they’re positive or negative.
Tell me a little more about turning positive social media interactions into sales.
It’s all about listening. When a consumer tweets something positive and mentions a company or product, chances are they’re thinking about buying. If we’re listening when that tweet goes out, we can point them in the right direction. When I was CMO of Kodak, I wanted to put a lot more emphasis on the voice of the customer. To that end, I created a Chief Listening Officer position to bring scale to all our social activities. The CLO did a lot to ensure that questions were answered, comments were addressed, and, yes, that complaints were addressed too.
You’re widely viewed as a “maverick.” How would you describe your attitude towards risk-taking?
I’m always open to trying new things and I love to take risks. But I also think it’s important to continue to examine your company inside and out, drive change, and make tough decisions. In my new book, Think Big, Act Bigger: The Rewards of Being Relentless, I want to inspire readers to take risks and stop making excuses. It’s about taking action and having an attitude to put oneself out there, steamrolling obstacles, ignoring perceived boundaries, and even being a little irrational.
I enjoyed your past books, Running the Gauntlet and The Mirror Test, a lot. Tell me about your new book.
Think Big, Act Bigger weaves together personal stories and anecdotes from my time inside both small and Fortune 500 businesses. In this book, I want to teach readers that the one value you need to succeed in business is true, hard work and to own your own persona.
Further reading:
Jeffrey Hayzlett, The Mirror Test: Is Your Business Really Breathing?
Better Planning, Better Pizza...Papa John’s
“I am the type of leader who doesn’t try to fix things that aren’t broken.”
It won’t surprise you to learn that Papa John’s is a busy place, from corporate headquarters all the way down to each individual oven at the mega-successful chain’s 4,600-plus individual franchises. So how does it all get done? When it comes to marketing, the “special sauce” is the savvy planning of CMO Bob Kraut.
In the spirit of Papa John’s “Better Ingredients. Better Pizza.” tagline, Bob is a big believer in fundamentals as the basis of effective global and local marketing plans. These fundamentals include product quality being essential, customer satisfaction as the bellwether metric, employees as a critical ingredient of the brand experience, getting your message right, and (perhaps hardest of all) sticking with it.
It was my privilege to be on the receiving end of Bob’s refreshingly matter of fact and commonsensical sharing of his insights on how he makes the fundamentals click at Papa John’s. Of course, to paraphrase President Harry S. Truman, “If common sense were so common, more [marketers] would have it.”
When it comes to putting together a plan, how long did you give yourself from your first days at Papa John’s and what were the key steps in the process?
When I first joined Papa John’s, I inherited a good situation. The company was doing well and was profitable as a result of their strong position of quality through “Better Ingredients. Better Pizza.” It was not a typical situation where the new CMO comes in and changes everything. I had to transform surgically without breaking down the systems and practices that made the company great. I gave myself about sixty days to develop a plan. I did a lot of listening and analyzing.
My first task was to meet and listen to as many store operators and franchisees as possible. I went on a multi-city roadshow that was already scheduled and met over 700 people. Next, I met with our leadership team at Papa John’s and our Franchisee Council to get a sense of where we wanted to go. Then I met with every team member in the marketing department. I did an extensive SWOT analysis and reviewed all the key customer data. This led to developing a plan that built upon our success and elevated everything that we were doing to the next level. The resulting seven-point plan included the following activities:
1. Elevate the quality of our advertising and better define the role of our founder, Papa John.
2. Redirect budget dollars to target fast-growing customer segments.
3. Maximize our media spending to gain more reach and impact.
4. Increase spending in digital and social media and institute a big data program to more precisely and effectively reach customers through eCRM and our Papa Rewards loyalty program.
5. Institute a premium pricing strategy to solidify our quality positioning.
6. Develop a winning marketing calendar process through a more data-based approach to promotion and product development.
7. Restructure the marketing department to deliver on the plan and to “execute with excellence.”
The “brand renaissance” plan was introduced in 2014 and the results were very strong. Papa John’s became:
• #1 eCommerce brand, with more than 50 percent of sales derived from online sales
• #1 in Customer Satisfaction according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index
• #1 loyalty program, according to Bond Customer Loyalty
• #1 recognized NFL sponsor
In addition, sales growth doubled and we launched our first-ever Hispanic campaign, resulting in a 43 percent increase in Hispanic sales according to NPD.
QSRs (Quick Service Restaurants) are notoriously responsive to media activity, especially promotional deals. Does this make it a little harder to have a long term plan? How do you resist the temptation to go from promo to promo...or is that just the nature of the beast?
Well, you have to do both in the QSR category. You have to make the sale every day, and you have to sell the brand long term. The QSR pizza category is in a state of maturity so it’s very promo-driven. In my opinion, you have to be focused on your position but have a good blend of brand news, product innovation, and promos. At Papa John’s, only half of the calendar consists of promos and value offers—in the rest we are very focused on better ingredients and recently announced to remove unwanted artificial ingredients. We focus on value when customers want that and create news through digital and product innovations.
As for the timelines, we are very “planful” for a retail business—we know what we are doing six to nine months out and we practice “optionality.” If the market or customer preferences change, we have the ability to adjust in that we have multiple options that are in development. The key thing is to stay on task with the positioning because everything flows from there, but be flexible to make adjustments; so in the end, we “plan the work” and then “work the plan.”
“Better ingredients. Better pizza.” has been the Papa John’s tagline for a long time. What has allowed you to stick with it for so long?
Papa John’s is a textbook case on how to build a brand based on quality and consistency. Quality is the core value of the company. It’s in our DNA and it’s given the company the strength to resist changes over the ups and downs of the business cycle. And I think it’s a testament to the leadership of our founder, John Schnatter. Great leaders have discipline. “Better Ingredients. Better Pizza.” continues to work well for us. I am the type of leader who doesn’t try to fix things that aren’t broken. That said, we are making progress in enriching our brand promise and injecting a more contemporary currency to the brand.
How have you been able to impact the customer experience in your current role?
For us, the consumer is at the center of all we do. We always “keep our eye on the pie,” so that the ultimate customer experience is bringing people together to eat great pizza at a great price with an exceptional ordering and service experience. As for marketing’s role in the customer experience, we do the heavy lifting in creating emotional connections with our customers in our branding, online experience and social media, and engagement. The pizza business is dominated by heavy price promotion, which I don’t think contributes to a sustainable customer proposition. At Papa John’s, we have incredibly loyal customers and they love the brand experience. The American Customer Satisfaction Index has ranked us the #1 pizza brand in satisfaction thirteen of the past fifteen years.
Is employee advocacy a priority for you? How are you handling it?
When I came to Papa John’s a little over a year ago, my biggest surprise was how happy the people are and how aligned they are with our vision and positioning. Simply put, when you are in the service and delivery business, “happy employees equal happy customers.” So I think we count on all of them to be great customer ambassadors. One of the ways that our employees feel like an owner of the business is through our “open innovation” culture. We solicit and source product ideas and ways to make things better for our customers, and I think it shows up in customer ratings and in our business results.
How have you used social media to advance your brand’s overall marketing efforts? Are there any networks/platforms that are working better for your brand than others?
We use social media to talk to our brand believers and to reach broader audiences in ways that are authentic, real time, and meaningful to them. Pizza is the perfect platform for social media. At its core, pizza brings people together. In 2014, we greatly expanded our social reach beyond Facebook and Twitter and are now active on Instagram, Google Plus, Vine, the publisher platforms, etc. And we have taken our highly visible NFL sponsorship into social media, especially on the local level—where we sponsor twenty-one NFL teams.
What have your experiences with mobile marketing been to date?
We run an eCommerce site, with nearly 50 percent of sales coming from online, and we have a greater share of customers accessing our brand online than any other pizza brand. So we’re doing very well there. An increasing share of our sales is coming from mobile so we have increased our investment in all things mobile: advertising, apps, alternative payment, and localization. These are all working well so far.
Further reading:
John Ellett, The CMO Manifesto: A 100-Day Action Plan for Marketing Change Agents
Research Is Great, Insights Are Greater
“We wanted to offer our customers and prospects some insights that they could use immediately to plan and execute increasingly effective events.”
Steve Jobs and Henry Ford aside, few leaders can find their way through the marketing wilderness without using research as a guide. Whether to shed light on consumer behavior, gather feedback on customer experience, or figure out which landing page is the stickiest, nothing can substitute for going out into the marketplace and asking questions. Learning awaits the curious.
The questions of what research you need and what you do with it depend entirely on your marketing situation, so this chapter is by no means meant as a comprehensive roadmap. Instead, I want to share an off-the-beaten-path approach taken by Eric Eden, who served as CMO at Cvent, the leading event management software company.
Cvent’s Global Event Industry Benchmarks Study, as you will soon see, performed multiple roles simultaneously. These included offering insights for product development, establishing performance benchmarks for customers, and creating all sorts of PR-friendly content, all of which reinforced Cvent’s leadership role in the industry.
Research seems to be a very important part of Cvent’s DNA as it is baked into your product offering, and you do a lot of other market studies. Can you talk broadly about the importance of research to your organization and how it impacts your overall approach to marketing?
Research informs every aspect of our business. As an organization, we are dedicated to constant improvement and as such we need research to help us figure out not just what needs to improve, but how to make those improvements. Usability research is an essential part of our product development process.
For the marketing department, research is fundamental. It helps us narrow our target and understand their needs. Research also helps us figure out what messages perform the best.
You recently conducted a global study on event marketing effectiveness. Why invest in a global study?
Let me answer the second part first. Cvent is a global company and events are a global business, so doing research on a global scale made tremendous sense to us.
Now to the first part—as the leading provider of event marketing management software, we believe it is imperative that we celebrate events as a highly effective marketing channel and help our clients make their events as successful as possible.
Put another way, as the category leader we have the opportunity, if not the obligation, to help grow the category by continuing to prove and thus celebrate event efficacy. To make this happen, we actually surveyed over 2,000 event planners, executives, and marketing professionals from all over the world.
What were you hoping to learn from this study?
We wanted to learn a lot of things about how events can be planned better, executed better, and ultimately measured better. We also wanted to establish a number of norms that event marketers could use to compare and evaluate their own event success. Finally, we wanted to offer our customers and prospects some insights that they could use immediately to plan and execute increasingly effective events.
Were there some findings that you expect could have an impact on product development?
Without revealing any trade secrets, I can tell you that some of the findings that were most interesting to us were where event planners spend their time and what causes them the most stress. Given the findings, you can expect us to develop a number of tools that will help planners do their jobs that much more efficiently.
How do you see this study being of value to your current clients and prospects?
This study helped establish a number of benchmarks that previously didn’t exist in the event business. For example, we now know what the average conversion rate of attendees to leads is. We also have the average conversion rate of leads to new business sales. These benchmarks, along with facts like the average renewal rates of current customers who attended events and the average cost recouped through registration fees will be very helpful to the next generation of event planners.
One of the findings of the study was that 90 percent of event organizers conduct post event surveys, though more than a quarter of these folks still use paper or comment cards. Shouldn’t manual surveys be a thing of the past?
Yes, that part of the research was quite surprising. First, the fact that 10 percent of event marketers don’t bother to survey after their events is astonishing. But equally astonishing is the fact that the paper surveys and comment cards still account for roughly a quarter of all of the measurement at events. That said, given the fast growing use of mobile apps, we expect most surveying to be done digitally in the very near future.
I seem to recall that you work with a NYC-based agency called Renegade on a variety of projects like the study already referenced! Can you talk about that experience and the role they play?
Of course I can do that, Drew. Renegade played an integral part in helping us think through our overall social media and content marketing strategy. One of the many recommendations Renegade offered was the Global Event Industry Benchmarks Study. And happily for us, your work didn’t stop there. You and your team helped us shape the questionnaire, field the survey, and draft the study itself. Oh, and you yourself presented the findings in a highly entertaining yet enlightening fashion at our annual user conference, Cvent Connect. In all honesty, Renegade has been a great partner.
Further reading:
Fred Reichheld, The Ultimate Question 2.0: How Net Promoter Companies Thrive in a Customer-driven World
A Force to Be Reckoned With
“One critical trait I see in great leaders is an ability to simplify goals and objectives.”
I don’t blame people for being incredulous when I tell them that when I was growing up, my hometown boasted an oral surgeon named Dr. Gum and a plastic surgeon named Dr. Smiley. But I swear with my hand on any book you like that they were real.
Perhaps I naturally gravitate to people whose surnames are accurate descriptors of who they are, like Colette LaForce, currently the CMO at Cars.com. Colette, at the time of this interview in 2014, was the CMO of AMD (Advanced Micro Devices), the nimble microprocessor company that plays David to Intel’s Goliath, and she is a true force of nature when it comes to strategy-driven marketing leadership.
Her bold determination and mastery of the big picture has exploded AMD’s global presence and guided it through complex rebranding and (simultaneously!) corporate restructuring.
What’s the first thing current and aspiring marketing leaders need to know about strategy?
One critical trait I see in great leaders is an ability to simplify goals and objectives. People can’t remember ten goals, or even five. Great leaders, like great sports coaches, prioritize just one or two compelling goals for the team to commit to and focus on.
AMD is considered an “ingredient” brand, but you’ve said that your customers’ relationship with your product is more emotional than with other such “ingredient” brands. How did you come to that conclusion, and how has that realization helped your strategy in sparking consumers’ passions for AMD?
We consider AMD beyond just an “ingredient” and more of an “enabler” brand. Semiconductor technology powers the devices we use every day, giving people very personal, rich computational and graphical experiences that literally enable us to change the world. Our research with thousands of users echoed this sentiment, and we are actively building a more emotional connection with buyers.
AMD recently underwent a major rebranding. Describe that process and how you met the challenges it presented.
We recognized that our multi-year business transformation needed to start with a global brand transformation. Evolving a brand while simultaneously cutting costs, completing a corporate restructuring, and pushing into new markets with new competitors is quite challenging and might seem even counterintuitive to some. But without a baseline for purpose, values, and mission and an outstanding team to execute, we could not have effectively united 10,000 employees and millions of fans worldwide.
For better or worse, marketing budgets are a constant presence in a CMO’s strategic planning, and they’re getting more complex as new tools become available. How are you staying on top of budget allocation and optimization?
One of the first things I did when I came to AMD was create a Marketing Operations team. We now have centralized visibility to spending, metrics, and ROI. We have a great team that may not always have the fanciest new tools, but we are steadfast about how we measure and optimize marketing performance.
Did you make any major strategic changes to your budget allocation in 2014?
Like many marketing organizations, while our overall marketing budgets continue to shrink, we’ve protected funds for earned and owned media. We’re also setting aside funds for what I like to call “innovation marketing.” For example, we’ll soon kick off a unique program in China, designed exclusively to engage with our Chinese fans. Too often, U.S.-based corporations pilot programs in North America and then try to localize further. We’re starting in China and then will see where it goes!
On LinkedIn, you bill yourself as a “Transformative CMO.” What does that mean?
For me, the word ‘transformative’ represents a desire to be a steward of change. Stewardship is really all about making lasting contributions that leave your environment in better shape than it was the day before. Couple that with a leadership approach that encourages meaningful change and an outstanding team that can drive execution and consistency, and you get true transformation.
What are the first specific steps to transforming an organization?
To drive transformation, a team must to be aligned on the organization’s purpose, goals, and values. Why do you do what you do? What are you trying to do? And how will you do it? Once you get clarity on those points, true transformation can begin.
AMD competes in a market category dominated by Intel. How has this dynamic shaped your approach to marketing? Does it compel you to be innovative?
Innovation and creativity should always play a role in what we as marketers do, whether you work for an existing market leader or an emerging player. Many of us are drawn to challenger brands because of the “underdog” phenomenon. Being the underdog can be a great motivational tool that builds character, forces innovation, fosters creativity, and can be very rewarding.
Further reading:
Rick Page, Hope Is Not a Strategy: The 6 Keys to Winning the Complex Sale
The Building Blocks of Branding
“We focus less on brand loyalty or retention than we do on positive health outcomes.”
What is a brand, anyway? If you ask ten CMOs, don’t be surprised if you get ten different answers. Yet that doesn’t diminish the importance of branding to the work we do every day.
Building, coordinating, and maintaining a single brand can seem like a never-ending challenge. Now imagine juggling over twenty brands, each with its own “personality” and idiosyncrasies. That describes a typical day at the office for Dave Minifie, CMO of the St. Louis-based multi-line healthcare enterprise Centene.
Dave came to Centene after a distinguished 12-plus years at Procter & Gamble, where he was required to master the ins and outs of diverse brands and build strong relationships every step of the way. Here, he shares valuable insights on how to make sure branding always furthers a larger goal, and how a strong peer network is a linchpin of marketing success.
How did your tenure at Procter & Gamble prepare you to thrive as Centene’s CMO?
P&G has a strong brand building framework which is key to its effectiveness in cultivating marketers and business leaders. It’s certainly been useful to me during my career, whether I’ve been marketing toilet paper, dog food, or healthcare. It provides a reliable method for meeting challenges, especially in times of transition.
In short: Learn the culture of the organization; assess the landscape of the category and your competition; understand, articulate, and drive your point of difference; ensure you never waver when it comes to getting the basics done first and done well.
When you take on a new senior marketer role, what are your top priorities? Do you have a first 100-day plan?
I strive to execute a three-tiered 90-day plan as quickly as possible. First, I assess the internal and external landscape. What are the drivers of the business? What is our point of difference? Does my organization have the right culture, capacity, and capability to accomplish everything that needs to be done? Second, we strive to execute all the basics well. Finally, we can work on accelerating the business.
Several of Centene’s subsidiaries have undergone rebranding under your leadership. Describe how you’re managing these rebrandings.
The answer to this question highlights the importance of doing the basics well when it comes to branding. When I arrived at Centene, each subsidiary had a different name, different mark, and different look and feel. However, as we sought to drive scale efficiencies (we’ve gone from $5 billion to $15 billion in three years), we saw we could move to a common visual identity for each of our health plans, and this is what we’re doing now: updating their look and feel while staying true to our company purpose, and incorporating consumer-driven insights to better connect with our members. In the end, all healthcare is local, and must be delivered locally.
Do all of Centene’s subsidiaries have a common identity now? If so, how long did it take and what was the biggest hurdle in making this happen?
Yes, nearly all of Centene’s health plan subsidiaries are working from a common visual identity, brand character, tone of voice, and common health literacy best practices. With almost two dozen health plans, it took over a year to update each brand’s look and feel, even though we didn’t meaningfully change any names. We needed to work with each state’s regulatory bodies, and work within the parameters of each health plan’s “plan year” to ensure we changed at appropriate times and didn’t confuse members or providers.
How can you tell when a branding initiative is successful, especially when it involves a name change and a possible drop in awareness?
Although we took the opportunity to streamline some of our names, we didn’t change any. Also, we performed A/B testing on before/after designs to confirm that all our new designs were better: easier to read on a billboard, easier to read in a handheld device, and more tightly tied to our corporate purpose visually.
We test brand awareness and brand equity on a rolling, iterative basis, and with multiple audiences. This helps us keep a grip on how we’re doing in market with our names, identity, and overall brand experience.
When chatting with a fellow CMO about branding, what advice would you give them?
First, know your brand; own your brand. What do you stand for and why? How and why are you bringing this to life? What brand experience do you deliver across multiple touchpoints?
Second, do not constrict your brand. While you own your brand, so do your stakeholders. Learn what they feel about your brand and adjust where necessary. P&G does this by innovating on product. Google does this more literally by playing with their brand mark on the search page. Howler Bros innovates on product and plays with their mark (http://howlerbros.com). Depending on your business model, one of these may be more or less appropriate.
How do you drive loyalty in your category?
We focus less on brand loyalty or retention than we do on positive health outcomes. To drive positive health outcomes, we educate our members on proactive health management techniques and conduct outreach to members who may need additional assistance such as expectant mothers and people struggling with addiction. We believe if we can improve health outcomes for our members, they’ll probably want to stay with us.
Further reading:
Debbie Millman, Brand Thinking and Other Noble Pursuits
A Healthy Rebranding Process
“Rebranding isn’t a one-time event.”
Rebranding is something most long-lived businesses eventually must do or at least closely consider.
And it’s a nerve-wracking process. The stakes are high, there are many moving parts, and there’s little room for error. A misguided or half-baked effort can sink the brand permanently.
Marketers who pull off effective rebrandings are deservedly hailed as heroes. A sterling example of a successful rebranding is the one Wendy Newman orchestrated at AMN Healthcare, the San Diego-based healthcare staffing innovator where she served with distinction as Senior Marketing Executive.
The story of her rebranding initiative, which united diverse brands and subsidiaries under one coherent and appealing message, is a clinic in what to do and what not to do to maximize the odds of rebranding success.
Where did your rebranding journey begin?
The company started as a healthcare staffing company in the space of travel-nursing, and over the years evolved into the nation’s leading healthcare staffing company. We went through multiple acquisitions and did not have a strategy to integrate these brands under the umbrella as AMN. In addition, there were missed opportunities to leverage all the service offerings of these brands to client stakeholders. Over time, the company also realized there was a lack of corporate brand awareness among prospective clients as a result of the fragmented multi-house of brand approach.
How did you lay the groundwork for AMN’s rebrand?
We interviewed probably 3,200 current and prospective clients, healthcare professionals, team members, executives, and analysts and asked questions such as:
• What does our corporate brand stand for?
• How many brands do we need in our portfolio?
• What’s the value of each brand?
• What are the key attributes of our client-facing brands?
We had to go through the entire positioning of the company. We went back and looked at our core values and made sure that all corporate strategy was aligned.
I imagine it was a time and thought-intensive process.
It got very complex and took us about a year to finish the entire project. We went through all of the decision-making criteria along the way, figuring out what the ideal brand architecture was. The bottom line was the realization that we needed to have one master brand that went out to our clients overall.
Did you have an outside partner helping you?
Yes. We worked with a partner on the initial strategy work, the brand architecture, and the design of the research. We involved an internal research person, so once our partner helped us with figuring out the right questions to ask, we conducted a lot of the actual research internally. There were some cost savings and efficiency with this approach. We used another agency to do all of our brand identity visual work.
What was the primary message of the rebranded AMN?
The two-second version was: “Inspiring connections.” AMN is composed of numerous brands, each with their own team members, unique culture, and value propositions. But every single one of the brands importantly contributes to this successful organization. And while they all provide value to our customers in unique, non-interchangeable ways, there’s a core message and set of values underlying all of them. They are all interconnected. That’s what we wanted to convey in the rebrand.
What was the response like?
There was an overwhelmingly positive, enthusiastic response. There were accolades from our investors, our clients, and our team members. And we received great blog coverage that said AMN did it right, and our methodology set a great example for others looking to rebrand.
What are the three most important takeaways from your rebranding experience?
First, having the buy-in of the CEO and other executives is critical. You need your executive team as champions and advocates for the rebrand. Don’t get me wrong—you’re not going to achieve consensus on all aspects during this process. But the CMO has to do a stellar job getting executive team members engaged with the rebranding, and to continue that process along the way.
Second, you need to motivate every member of every team to believe in the rebranding effort and take ownership of it. Don’t look it as some directive coming down from the top that everyone in the organization just has to accept whether they like it or not. Work with them to be sure they’re truly comfortable with it and feel great about what it means for them and the company. The CMO needs to create a compelling value proposition for the rebrand and “sell” it company-wide.
Third, don’t just go through the rebranding and then put it in your file cabinet and walk away from it. Rebranding isn’t a one-time event. After it’s “done,” the company and the market are going to continue to evolve. You have to consider how each change ties into the brand and consider appropriate adjustments. And, don’t just react to the present. You need to remain future-oriented, always thinking about what your brand is going to look like and how it needs to evolve.
Further reading:
Al Ries and Laura Ries, The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding
Measure Twice, Market Once
“Showing has a much bigger impact than just teaching alone.”
At Visa, a company that’s been a household name for decades, staying ahead of the curve when it comes to customer engagement is more important than ever. This requires having a clear and accurate sense of what’s working and what isn’t in their marketing, and acting decisively on that information.
The man in charge of making all of this happen for Visa was Global Chief Brand Officer Antonio Lucio, who recently became the CMO at HP. At the time of our interview, we started off by talking about the why and how of measuring, and this led to a valuable discussion about marketing innovation and the future of social communications.
With the entire world watching, Antonio brought this all together in a seriously successful campaign that ran during the 2012 Summer Olympics—a gold-medal triumph we can all learn from.
How do you measure the success of your marketing?
At Visa the ultimate measure of success for our marketing is ROI—our ability to drive the business. We break that down to three components. First, reach. This is defined as how many people can recall our campaigns. Second, short-term impact, defined as the short-term usage lift of consumers. Third, long-term impact, defined as lift in our brand equity and our ability to influence consumer behavior longer-term.
Have there been any big surprises in terms of what’s worked really well and what hasn’t?
It’s not really a surprise, but what I’ve learned is that showing, rather than telling, is the way to go. I’ve observed this whether it’s addressing a question from our management by showing results and data or teaching the organization how to do social by putting a team in place to show them what a best-in-class social effort looks like—for example, our recent #goinsix social media campaign. Showing has a much bigger impact than just teaching alone.
Marketing seems to be getting increasingly complex in terms of ways to spend and ways to monitor. Has it gotten more complex for you and, if so, how are you dealing with that complexity?
While the media ecosystem is definitely becoming more complex, our approach of putting the consumers at the center has not changed. We strive to understand how our consumers are using different devices, where they are spending their time, and what they want to hear from us. And then we adjust our media mix and messaging accordingly. We want to ensure we are delivering unique and relevant experiences across all these screens by using the unique capabilities of the technology or platform the consumer is engaged with and delivering them a message that will interest them. Through technology we are better able to measure engagement with our brand and understand the impact of the experiences we are delivering to our customers.
A CMO has a lot of choices in where to invest time. Where have you been investing yours lately?
Given the increasingly complex media landscape, deepening Visa’s focus and commitment to digital and social communications is a constant priority for my leadership team and me. The imperative has never been greater for us to better communicate the strengths, values, and mission of Visa to our full range of stakeholders in an integrated way. This meant that some structural changes were needed to set us up for success. We have made significant progress on this front, but it is a constantly evolving ecosystem. Our work is never done.
How do you stay close to your customers when you operate in so many markets and have so many different types of customers?
Social media is a great equalizer in so many ways. It enables global brands like Visa—and myself personally—to stay close to customers in markets around the world, including understanding what is important to them, what they are talking about, and what they care about, all while providing the ability to engage them directly.
Your “Go World” cheer campaign during the 2012 Olympics was one of the most successful examples of traditional and online marketing integration to date. What strategy did you use to integrate the various channels, and what were some of the biggest lessons from that campaign?
We used our “Audience First” approach to develop a global campaign framework that directly engaged consumers through a global social platform. That allowed fans to connect with the Go World marketing campaign by “Cheering” on athletes. London 2012 was heralded as the most social games ever, and our Olympic Games marketing campaign was the most successful in our history. It was a true game changer in the way we drove engagement. We’re still applying the lessons learned from London, such as the benefits derived from engaging in social with concise, snackable content (which inspired our #goinsix campaign).
Have you been able to link your innovative marketing activities to the kinds of business metrics favored by CEOs?
Our key performance metrics evolve to address changing dynamics in the industry. For example, we recently added metrics to address social marketing, which enables brands to build direct relationships with consumers. We added social KPI goals that are part of a select few KPIs known to drive the business. We closely track our progress, and have timely and transparent accountability across leadership towards delivering against these business driving KPIs.
Visa has made a big push to integrate social media into their overall marketing efforts over the past few years. Can you comment on your current strategy and where you plan on taking the program in the future?
Visa believes we are in a social era that extends beyond any platform or community. Social is a mindset that empowers consumers and connects communities. We are incorporating social in the very heart of our marketing, not merely during the execution phase. We strive to develop social-at-the-core campaigns by designing for shareability and planning for conversations. We invite consumers to drive the conversation while structuring our ecosystem to make sharing frictionless.
Further reading:
Michael Porter, Competitive Strategy
The Metric System
“My team still cringes when I say, ‘You can’t eat awareness.’”
Dan Marks had a great idea...the sort of idea many CMOs would love to have fall into their lap. It was a new system for gathering and analyzing marketing metrics and it made a big difference for First Tennessee Bank, enabling them to look backwards at the impact of 84 percent of Dan’s marketing spend and predict with reasonable accuracy what would happen when budgets change—up or down.
I’m not going to encapsulate his stroke of brilliance here because Dan—who recently moved to the CMO position at Hancock Bank—is about to explain it better than I could ever hope to, and also give a clinic in how to approach the overall question of metrics.
It’s worth noting that the fact he’s sharing this with the world is a testament to his intellectual generosity, which is also a key element shared by the most successful marketers.
One of the terms you used that I really liked is the notion that creating a metrics program is a journey. Talk to me a little bit about the journey.
The revolution really is in saying, “Let’s not have a separate set of metrics,” or “Let’s, at the very least, connect the marketing metrics to the core bottom line revenue and costs and profit objectives.” And so that’s the journey. The measurement approach varies by type of marketing activity and channel. So the stages of the journey start with direct marketing, where the linkages and the science are the most developed. Even in B2B, if I can quantify that I’m helping create opportunities from introduction or helping move things along the pipeline, all of a sudden now you are speaking the same language as sales. One of the most elusive goals and one that’s still not there yet is the overall full media mix impact—what’s the cumulative impact of everything working together?
What’s the difference between an outcome measure and a diagnostic measure? Can you put them in a priority order relative to job security and doing your job well?
Outcome measures have impact on revenue profits and margins. These are the key results that the CEO and board ultimately care about. And so those are the cardinal metrics. Diagnostic measures are important to understand outcomes. Diagnostic metrics are things that help us understand what the potential actions we should take are, and the prioritization of those actions based on understanding the customer, the customer and the marketplace, and the buying process and the competition.
So for example, we look at awareness. My team still cringes when I say, “You can’t eat awareness.” But it’s important to understand that customers do go through this buying process of awareness, consideration, purchase, and then various levels of loyalty. That said, our goal is not to create awareness. Our goal is to get people to buy stuff and generate revenue. We have to understand the buying process. We have to understand if we’re having trouble getting people to buy stuff, is it because the awareness is low? Do they not know about the product, or are they trying it but not repeating it?
Do you look at the various points of contact in the customer experience and measure each of those?
We look at it both overall and after a key experience point. So after you’ve had an interaction at a branch, after you’ve had an interaction with a business banker, after you’ve interacted with some of our online technology. So we do. We definitely understand how they are all different. And we’ve studied it. So we also know that our experience scores and our recommend scores strongly correlate/predict future changes in retention and revenue.
So when you see your experience score decline, you can go to the CEO and say, “Sales are going to be down next quarter”?
Well, maybe not quite that quickly! We know over time if scores are trending down or scores are trending up, that will translate into a strong probability of having lower or higher revenue in the future.
Give me a sense of how often you’re looking at numbers.
Well, we do have an alert mechanism. So if poor scores are spiking, we know that pretty fast. But generally speaking, we look at our customer experience and customer buying metrics on a monthly basis, and that’s where you see trends.
In a round of budget cuts, were you able to predict how the marketing budget cut would impact your business?
Oh, yes. And the level of prediction was pretty close. I mean, not a hundred percent. No model is completely perfect, but it’s definitely useful.
What three pieces of advice do you have for CMOs about to start the metrics journey?
One, definitely have the conversation with your key partners, whether it’s your CEO, CFO, or sales leaders. Figure out who is going to judge your performance and collaborate with you because most of the time CMOs can’t actually sell stuff themselves. They’re influencing sales activities. Have that conversation early on, and ask what metrics are important to them and what are the outcomes that you should focus on.
Two, I would definitely commit to a program of optimization and continuous improvement of marketing results.
Three, connect to and focus on giving back to the community. And there are a number of different ways to do that—The CMO Club is one example. There are also several great CMO-type organizations that exist to help CMOs share information. And you’ve got to do that, carefully. You don’t want to give away trade secrets, but there are great resources out there to help talk about common challenges, common best practices. And every CMO has got something to add to the conversation, and what you give, you get back in spades.
Since we originally talked, using data to inform marketing decisions has become even more prevalent. What are you excited about now in the area of marketing metrics?
There are some really exciting advances in tools and techniques for marketing assessment and optimization. Two of the areas that show the most promising advances are in programmatic buying and full media mix optimization. Every marketer should be at least experimenting with programmatic buying because of the ability to more precisely target and track results. There is a very good chance that some of the big digital players will have a usable buying and reporting tool that lives up to the promise of an integrated cross channel dashboard at least for digital and potentially for both online and offline media buying this year or perhaps in 2016.
I hear marketers use the expression, “If you can’t measure it, don’t do it,” which can favor direct response over other forms of marketing. Are you a subscriber to this notion? If so, are all forms of marketing really measurable? If not, have there been some components of your marketing plans that go into the “leap of faith” bucket?
Marketing has to be about winning the hearts and minds of the people in our target market. Ultimately, the buying decision makers, even in a B2B type setting, are people. People make decisions based on a mixture of emotion and reason. The marketer that errs in either direction will just not be as successful.
Markets also change, so marketers who spend all of their resources on “proven” tactics or channels will get left behind as the market moves. Therefore, experimentation is essential. In experiments some stuff will work and a lot of stuff will not. Edison said something like an essential part of creating the lightbulb was first finding ninety-nine ways that did not work. In the same way, proper marketing should always have a portfolio of experiments where some work and some do not, but you learn from both. Setting an expectation that everything should work just sets the team up for never advancing or learning. Measurement helps with that learning.
Also, the level of rigor and attribution will vary depending on what the goal is. I remember when we first got started with social media, we did not attempt to put a short term ROI goal on it. There was a high level sense that based on the millions of people engaging with social media, this was going to be an important communication channel and that we needed to learn. We decided to allocate a very small percentage of our overall spend to experiment and learn in the channel. The purpose was to gain a long term understanding and determine what the potential ROI could be in the future. The shorter term measurement was more along the lines of followers and engagement with the channel as indicators of potential relevance.
Further reading:
Shane Atchison and Jason Burby, Does It Work?: 10 Principles for Delivering True Business Value in Digital Marketing
Consistency Is the New Black
“At the end of the day it’s not about what I think should work or is going to work, it’s about how the consumer responds to the brand and product.”
I’ll admit it: I’m not much of a fashionista, and I’ve never marketed a fashion brand.
But after talking with Louise Camuto, whose responsibilities as CMO of Camuto Group include such marquee brands as BCBG Max Azria, Jessica Simpson, Vince Camuto, and Arturo Chiang, it’s clear to me that the top fashion marketer’s success in the milieu is no accident.
Louise’s insight on how Camuto Group provides a consistent experience for different demographics of women around the world contains lessons we can all use to market more effectively.
How do you infuse Camuto Group’s values and maintain consistent messaging across all twenty of your brands?
We spend a lot of time thinking about how we can interpret each product—from footwear to apparel—in the most on-brand manner. As CMO, I emphasize the importance of image and brand consistency daily with my team. We work closely with our international partners to ensure that the way a brand is represented at every consumer and trade touchpoint not only reflects the brand’s DNA, but also reinforces the message and aesthetic which allows for the brand experience to be omnichannel.
How does new product development work at Camuto Group? How do you ensure brand consistency without stifling creativity?
Our design process is extensive. We have a team of people who shop all over the world for inspiration and they bring ideas, concepts, and materials to the table for review. We sit as a team and determine what items are appropriate for each of our brands, and we spend a lot of time analyzing the marketplace for trend direction as well as what’s happening at the consumer level. What I have found to be paramount is listening to customers. I make sure to spend time in our stores watching how the customer shops, how she selects product, as well as what her purchasing process is.
How are you using social media in your marketing?
We’ve invested heavily in a social media team to build the brand voice cross-channel. Today, a lot of looking at fashion happens online, and the Internet has really democratized the business, which is exciting. The influence of bloggers is a breath of fresh air to me. On a good fashion blog you can see how the customer actually wears and styles your product. Delving into the online space has also helped with the design process as it gives me so much insight into the women I hope to win over or keep as customers. I can learn so much about what she’s looking for in the upcoming season. Online is also a great venue for sharing new product and immediately testing the response.
How do you evaluate/measure the success of your marketing? Are there some channels that work better for you than others?
I read all the selling reports and market recap reports daily. At the end of the day it’s not about what I think should work or is going to work, it’s about how the consumer responds to the brand and product. I also look at how our advertised styles perform versus the items that are not included in our campaign. That can tell you some really interesting and unexpected things.
I love analyzing our online business as well because it is the purest form of analysis in the marketplace today. With a few clicks you can get a deep understanding of how your direct mail, email blasts, print campaigns, celebrity support, and editorial credits impact sell-through, and in turn leverage the knowledge to further reach the customer and meet her needs.
What’s the biggest marketing risk you’ve taken at Camuto Group? How did it play out?
Several years ago, we re-launched Vince Camuto footwear and invested in a broad-based marketing campaign that crossed all channels. It was important for us to get the message out and we immediately saw success through exponential growth in brand awareness as well as sales. The marketing investment also allowed us to expand the multi-category licensing program rather quickly as we became a more significant brand for our retail partners almost overnight.
The fashion business more than most seems to favor new, fresh, and different. How do you balance the need to remain au courant yet somehow maintain brand consistency?
We look at adapting the concept for our ad campaigns each season to evoke the tone of the product. We also look to highlight key trends while offering a consistent brand message by using models and photographers for multiple seasons to drive brand recognition.
Has there been a product or design that you thought might be “off brand” but was just so unique you had to introduce it anyway?
The recent culottes and crop top trends were quite forward but we made them wearable, put them in our campaign, and they sold out. I was excited to see the results as they clearly indicated that customers were responding to the product.
Have you “freshened up” the marketing of any of your product lines recently and, if so, what inspired the change and was there a conscious effort to be consistent with previous activities?
When we launched men’s apparel, we shifted our ad campaigns and brand imagery to integrate the man within the total lifestyle. Since the launch of menswear, our campaigns have been shot with both a male and female model and this year we moved from a studio to a location as we wanted to create a more cinematic feel and give our customers a more intimate look inside the complete brand experience. The consumer is really responding to the connection between the man and the woman and the way the product is showcased as the hero of the images, complementing the mood of the entire campaign.
Further reading:
Sally Hogshead, Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation
New Products, Shaken and Stirred
“Creativity and innovation aren’t just about another page in a magazine or another billboard with clever imagery or copy.”
When Lee Applbaum stepped on board as CMO of the iconic beverage brand Patrón Spirits, he took an admittedly conservative “stewardship” approach to his new duties. People around the world ask for Patrón by name when they want a fine tequila that conveys prestige and class, and they don’t need much outside motivation to do so.
But as a relentless innovator honored by the CMO Club with their Creativity Award, it wasn’t long before Lee was making his mark and showcasing his outside-the-box talents, all the while maintaining and amplifying what was already working for Patrón. The successful new product launches Lee has devised and overseen are an excellent reminder that the best marketers are always looking for ways to connect with customers by doing something that hasn’t been done before.
In this interview, you’ll see prime examples of the way Lee is driven to realize ambitious marketing initiatives that lesser CMOs might dismiss as logistically unfeasible, and consistently deliver a solid ROI.
How are you being creative in your current role, and how is that advancing Patrón’s overall marketing efforts?
A lot of my team’s creative energies are directed towards reimagining the conversation in our category, which is ultra-premium wine and spirits and, more specifically, tequila. Creativity and innovation aren’t just about another page in a magazine or another billboard with clever imagery or copy. They’re about what we can do that’s disruptive in our increasingly digital, social, and mobile ecosystem.
Can you talk about a recent launch that showcases your approach to new products?
We recently launched a new line of artisanal tequilas called Roca Patrón. Historically we haven’t launched new products very often or in a particularly strategic way. The traditional approach for this brand and for the industry would have been to splash it out in magazines, maybe advertise a little on TV, and see what happens. But we were very cognizant of the fact that a majority of media today is being consumed digitally, and we were determined to capitalize on that opportunity.
One of the keys to marketing in the spirits industry is the consumer’s interest in sharing stories and experiences. We latched onto the insight that consumers in the luxury space now feel that it’s not just enough to have a big bold logo. They want to know the backstory, and understand the authenticity and integrity of a brand. And importantly, they want to share this all with others.
So we rebuilt all of our Web assets, including building experiential mobile-optimized microsites for Roca Patrón to help consumers learn about the product. We explained the artisanal process that goes into making Roca Patrón through a series of vignettes, and we made it easy for the audience to curate and share the information. We created a tool for both consumers and the trade to streamline sharing and commenting on cocktail recipes featuring Roca Patrón.
Did you rely on organic discovery of the new Web assets, or did you “market the marketing?”
We did “market the marketing.” We wanted it to be known that Patrón was very serious about making Roca Patrón a success. We marketed the marketing to our distributors, who in turn marketed our marketing to the retailers. Our objective was to inspire confidence that if they bought Roca Patrón, their efforts to sell it would be supported by an ample amount of media gravity owned, earned, and paid for by us.
And how has the response been?
The initial response has been nothing short of phenomenal. We launched it in July 2014 and we’ve already beaten our annualized sales goal by 50 percent. Now is that attributable to the digital piece alone? No. But our digital marketing initiatives were certainly a key driver of that great result.
It’s interesting that you talked about this story becoming social currency. Can you explain this idea a bit more?
The focus for the launch of this particular product line was rooted in the handmade, artisanal, very traditional production process. We’re talking to a very specific artisanal audience; the same people who follow the farm-to-table movement. This is a garden-to-glass movement.
We’re unapologetic about the success of our marketing. There are cynics who believe that, because the core product can’t deliver, they just have to be clever. But the truth is we don’t. We’ve got a very honest, real, great artisanal product, and we developed really great marketing to go with it. We wanted to make sure that everything was really rooted in authenticity, and that we never got accused of just fancy window-dressing.
Is there one specific program you’ve created at Patrón to date that you’re especially proud of?
Yes, “Roca on the Rails.” Patrón owns a 1927 vintage railcar that Clark Gable and Huey Long and FDR rode on. We gutted and restored it in a very cool, very authentic style. This thing makes the Orient Express look like a New York City subway car. It’s over-the-top opulent.
So we took the railcar into cities all over the U.S. and got leading mixologists and an iconic chef from each city to create beautiful, bespoke dinners and tastings on and off the car featuring Roca Patrón. And we harnessed our huge social media footprint to give consumers a “behind the velvet rope” look at these massively luxurious events. Roca on the Rails got wide media coverage from bloggers to big publications, and just created a ton of buzz within the mixology community and the consumers who follow it.
Further reading:
Clayton M. Christensen and Michael E. Raynor, The Innovator’s Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth