Branda Co-hosts CMO’s Panel on Digital Marketing and Analytics with CA Technologies/IDG CMO’s at YJP New York at Digitas.

YJP is an organization dedicated to Executive Marketing and Communications networking and Education.  The most recent networking forum was on July 12 at Digitas World Headquarters in NYC. 

Topics Discussed/Key Take Away’s:

The role of Brand in a Digital World and the influence of Digital Analytics in Marketing.   Branda discussed the role of AI and Big Data on Marketing Applications. 

There is a fair amount of skepticism in terms of which AI and Machine Learning applications can be monetized and commercialized for impact on marketing performance and the customer experience. 

Branda explained that right now many machine learning solutions are still under construction and may not be ready to be leveraged in marketing applications but some of the areas that show promise are:

-         Robotic Process Automation: Using automation to enable standard business routines such as following up on servicing and compliance requests to consumers. There is an opportunity to apply these automation technologies to remove friction in the application and servicing processes for sure. These solutions increase net promoter scores and speed to market in getting a firm’s value proposition into the hands of consumers.  

-         Chat Bots and Virtual Assistants: While the world of having an AI or Machine Learning enabled Virtual Assistant whose algorithmic brain is trained well enough to respond to all queries online to facilitate an assisted experienced is still 1 to 2 years out, chatbots that can use NLP and other types of text analytics to respond to standard queries from consumers online show far more promise in the near term. Firms will need to test and learn their way into what answers these bots can provide and how successful they are by using KPI’s and Digital Intelligence platforms to monitor success.   

-         Branda also pointed out the investments made by Sensei an Adobe AI solution and its’ role in creating a real-time customer recognition experience by combining digital insights with visual analytics is showing promise but is in its’ initial stages of being rolled out for application such as customizing digital journeys based on customer recognition through visual analysis. 

-         Branda also mentioned Professor Einstein and its ability to underlie the entire Salesforce ecosystem to augment information sales people and marketers need to collect from consumers. This idea of having AI augmented data collection that can prompt consumers as to what to do next to keep their engagement with the firm, value prop or sales process moving forward was regarded by all as promising. 

-         The role of Data and Analytics in removing friction from the customer acquisition process was also discussed at length in terms of the real-time ability marketers now have to plug in the needed data that consumers need to complete a process but they might not have with them at the time. This idea of “Friction Removal” using data monetization and real-time data delivery was recognized by all as a win for marketers.