2017 The Beginning of Marketing’s Big Reunification
In a world of fragmentation, we can expect 2017 to mark the beginning of a new era of reintegrating marketing around the customer and the brand.
Today’s marketing landscape is bursting with specialisms and technology solutions that have been broken into tiny pieces. There are thousands of players, but none of them are putting it all together into one cohesive offering.
I feel it more and more every day from CEO’s, CMO’s and the Consumer: a growing hunger for the reunification of the customer experience. One little piece of the technology, or one stream of data is no longer sufficient. To me, the only pathway forward to bring together technology and data with creativity and big brand insights.
Performance marketing must be brought together with Brand. Media needs to get closer to Creative.
We must invest to train our specialists to think "integrated", and our generalists to fully appreciate the power of deep specialism. Reduce the number of P&L’s, business units and other barriers to seamless, fluid experiences for customers and employees alike.
The driving force behind this new era will be customer-centricity. Every piece of technology, data, talent and structure needs to be evaluated in terms of its contribution to the customer experience.
At Ogilvy we’re taking our own medicine and embarking on our own mission to reunify -- reducing business units and eliminating P&L’s while embracing client-centric structure and doubling down on targeted training and talent. Taking this customer-centric view, rebuilding unified brand experiences and unifying customer experiences will be a great gift to our industry and our customers. It will mark a resurgence in the world of marketing. Trying to solve problems in isolated fashion is destructive, and the current state of fragmentation is a time bomb ready to blow up. We need to reverse the negative situation by re-energizing around unification. If marketers can embrace the customer-centric view in every conversation, whether that’s in finance, brand, vendor selection, or data, they will make their way back to powerful messaging and true customer-centric marketing.
Time to reunify.
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7 年Right on Brian, breaking down a matter into micro-matter is the creation of nuclear fusion. This is destruction in it's purest form.
Advertising and Digital Marketing Mentor
7 年I was just telling someone that I think people have had enough "disruption". They want coherence.
Global Chief Marketing Officer, GM Direct Commerce at Fortune Brands Innovations
7 年Good thought! Now it only has to be reunified within the businesses themselves to be effective...
Bringing Responsible Leaders from Good Intentions to Action in Business and People Growth: AI | Cultural Change | Marketing | Innovation.
7 年This is IT. I would like to add that the foundation for "reunification of the customer experience" will be two fold: the application of design thinking principles across all the strategic, creative and media thinking + a focus on brand behavior vs. brand beliefs.
Strategy, knowledge and project management, communities of practice
7 年Great post, although I winced about 're-energizing around unifcation'