Kinvey's ebook, "CIO vs CMO in the War for Mobile" unpacks the benefits and drawbacks of a marketing-driven mobile strategy versus an IT-driven program. And it's full of tips from global enterprises and start-ups alike.

2. Where is the branded equivalent of Snapchat? Where is the enterprise
version of the vanishing-photo app with which iPhone users sent over
one billion vanishing photos in just one year? We ask this not because
brands should be in the business of sexting, but because, five years
after the launch of the Apple App Store, the watershed moment that
gave business entrée to the defining gadget of the 21St century, the
enterprise has yet to really crack the code on mobile development.
Snapchat. Instagram. Words With Friends. Draw Something. What’s
App. It seems like a new app goes viral every week, giving some
previously unknown dudes in co-op workspace a valuation beyond
their wildest dreams. For brands trying to figure out the mobile space,
the opposite has been true. Despite entering the mobile game with
massive consumer awareness and trust, big companies have had a
difficult time getting consumers to welcome them on to their Android
and iOS devices.
Back in 2011, Deloitte found that 80 percent of branded apps
struggled to get even 1,000 downloads. That was a grim headline for
1

3. mobile marketing operations and, over time, there’s not much to
suggest things have changed. Breakout branded apps—and we’re
excluding those created by media companies that have an unfair leg
up over marketers of dog food and insurance policies—are still few
and far between. How many do you download only to delete them a
day later when it comes up short on form or functionality? You know,
the airline app that won’t allow you to book a flight; the rental car app
that’s just a link to the company
website that—curses!—isn’t
optimized for mobile and won’t
remember your 23-digit user
number; the diaper brand
doohickey that doesn’t do, well,
anything. Can you name five
127 Downloads branded apps you use regularly?
286 1,023,068 How about three—and we’ll spot
you Nike and Starbucks? The
Downloads Downloads
same goes for apps developed for
employees. The app stores are
littered with poorly-reviewed and little-used apps that were meant to
help out folks who take orders, make sales, and generally keep the
enterprise rolling.
The point is this: For even the most sophisticated companies, mobile
app strategy remains a work in progress. Big budgets, flashy agencies
and development shops, and enormous amounts of customer data all
have done little to make a dent in the consumer apathy. What’s to
blame? Well, you have to remember the mobile revolution is only five
years in the making. It naturally takes enterprises some time to figure
out the realm of the possible and then make it happen.
But let’s not let enterprises totally off the hook. It’s fair to say that too
many have tripped over their own feet as they’ve struggled to organize
around mobile. A case in point is lingering ambiguity around a central
organizational question: Who should own mobile app strategy? The
CMO, served by an increasingly left-brained marketing department
2

4. and an ever growing array of agencies? Or should the CIO, the tradi-
tional buyer of technology and maintainer of servers and intranet, rule
the roost?
That’s the question we’ve asked a
number of leading thinkers to
ponder in this eBook. The answer
matters in no small part because
marketing and IT come with two very
different sets of baggage. If either
side is to win the mobile game they’ll
O
have to change and become more Cm
like the other. CIO
Our book’s structure is simple. First
we’ll discuss the respective cases for the CMO, and CIO before
concluding with some ways that eschew those legacy power struggles.
The case study there is a company you might have heard of—Walmart.
We begin our study with the C-suite denizen who at this moment
time—and if you blink, it might change—seems to be sitting in the
catbird seat.
3

5. When we caught up with Amy Kavanaugh in early March, the VP-public
affairs and engagement at Taco Bell was still in the whirlwind of a new
product launch. The lustily-awaited Cool Ranch Doritos Locos Taco had
arrived in stores a day later than expected and the fast food equiva-
lent of a riot erupted around the internet. The new menu item is the
next beefy/cheesy chapter in what’s turning out to be a storybook
marriage between Taco Bell and Frito Lay. It’s already yielded the
Doritos Locos taco, an historic product launch that sold at a rate of
almost one million per day in 2012. Riding its spicy shell, the Yum
Brands brand has become the fast feeder to watch as it plans to open
2,000 new restaurants over the next decade. Things are moving <em>
muy rapido</em> at Taco Bell and the mobile experience is no excep-
tion.
“Agile is our middle name,” said Kavanaugh, referring to the project
development methodology preferred by many top software compa-
nies and, increasingly, on corporate campuses far from Silicon Valley.
Taco Bell, which offers a fairly basic app with store locator and gift
4

6. card functionality as well as menu and nutritional informational, is
now in preliminary testing of a mobile ordering experience and has
just signed an agreement with Cardfree, the mobile merchant
platform. Why? Mobile ordering is what the consumer wants and Taco
Bell, according to Kavanaugh, has made the shift from an advertising-
led company to an insights-led
one.
“Suddenly they’re making
That shift means one thing for
software—a long way from the
mobile app strategy. “If you’re
driving an insights brand and days when marketing was all
responding to and co-creating about outsourcing ad
experience with consumers and campaigns to Madison Ave
identifying their needs, then this
is a function that should sit in
agencies. ”
marketing.”
Kavanaugh is part of a growing
chorus that favors a marketing-
led mobile app strategy. Market-
ters, the argument goes, own the
consumer insights and the brand experience, and therefore should
oversee the increasingly important mobile app channel. But bearing
this responsibility augurs a new reality for marketing departments.
They have to become more tech-savvy and comfortable with building
and maintaining a rigorous development roadmap. Suddenly they’re
making software—a long way from the days when marketing was all
about outsourcing ad campaigns to Madison Ave agencies.
“When I started in marketing, it was the arts and crafts department,”
said Brian Kardon, CMO of Lattice Engines, which offers big data
analytics for sales and marketing departments. “We did the logos, the
colors of the website, the branding. Now it’s all left brain. Everyone on
my team is a digital native. They know about HTML, search, how to
build an app. Increasingly in bigger companies you have marketing
technologists embedded.”
5

7. The rise of the marketing technologist—or creative technologist in
many an agency’s lingo—shows just how far we’ve come in blurring
the lines between what used to be two very distinct departments,
skillsets, and worldviews. The marketing department needs people
who get tech—and vice versa.
Scott Brinker, CTO at Ion Interactive
and proprietor of the ChiefMarTech
blog, has been studying this dynamic
for years. He believes that “market-
ing has to own the experience and to
do that they have to take responsib-
lility for the technology.”
It’s logical that marketing is respon-
sible for mobile app strategy, but
this comes with a caveat that echoes
throughout many of the other
conversations we had. Marketers have to earn it by really immersing
their organizations in technology.
“I don’t think it works when marketing sketches out the experience
and throws it over the fence for IT or some third party to build,” he
said. “Marketing folks don’t even know what’s possible with the tech-
nology just as tech folks might not understand how it impacts experi-
ence. You need someone on the team who speaks both languages.”
Who marketers partner with is another important factor in how
successful they’ll be in owning mobile. Forrester analyst Michael
Facemire observed that the digital agencies once best known for
design acumen are getting better at working with backend technology,
helping apps with sharply-designed front ends add more functionality
and value through connections with the vast amounts of data present
in the enterprise. The association could help CMOs gain tech credibil-
ity.
“The CMO is trying to branch out and not just be about pretty pictures
6

8. anymore,” Facemire said. “I can reach out and work with folks who
have technical chops, who are not just pretty-picture guys but can
work with back-end systems as well. This can become a common
ground.”
Another common ground can be Agile development, the project
management philosophy that may end up being the Esperanto of a
properly integrated marketing-
tech world, only, unlike Espe- “Adopting Agile is part and
eranto, people actually use it.
parcel of the changes that have
At Mindjet, the San Francisco- washed over the marketing
based creator of work manage- business...”
ement software, the marketing
department has adopted a
version of Agile that has them
operating in three-week sprints.
“When we sit down with an
engineering team, we’re more
effective because we all speak the
same language,” said Mindjet CMO Jascha Kaykas-Wolff.
Adopting Agile is part and parcel of the changes that have washed
over the marketing business that as for decades acclimated to long
planning cycles and communications strategies that were hatched
behind closed doors and shoved out into the world with little if any
room adapting to customer feedback.
Agile is about fast sprints, testing and learning, iterating and reiterat-
ing. Said Kaykas-Wolff, “The idea of having a big campaign, pumping a
bunch of media against and then pulling it down six months later
doesn’t really work. You have to operate differently and one of the
models to pull from is software deployment.”
To his mind, marketers shouldn’t be automatically handed responsibil-
ity for mobile. They have to earn it by educating themselves and
7

9. showing that they get how software is made rather than try important
ways of thinking and doing from old marketing models.
“If you approach mobile strategy like it's a bunch of campaigns you’re
destined for failure. You have to be empathetic to how you develop
and deploy software. If you're not, then you're in a horrible position to
raise your hand to take over mobile strategy.”
Until about eight months ago, Mindjet’s mobile operations was led by
the product team. Now it’s organized by a steering committee for
mobile comprised of a number of senior executives including the head
of product and Kaykas-Wolff. Injecting marketing and other functions
into the mobile development process ensured that Mindjet began to
better focus on its paying customers and even led to a new product.
Over time, Kaykas-Wolff said marketing may end up owning app
strategy. Or it may not. In any event, ownership doesn’t preclude
collaboration with other parts of the enterprise, least of all IT. And, no
matter the organization, there are things that IT just does better.
“There are requirements in terms of privacy protection and security-
things that I would have no business being involved in,” Kavanaugh
said. “They are important for brand and consumer protection. That is
driven by the back-end, a really strong IT team and partnership.”
8

10. There’s good news and bad news for the CIO who wants to own
mobile strategy. Let’s get the bad news out of the way.
Mobile success requires speed and openness to a more iterative way
of doing things. With mobile, you’re constantly issuing updates,
optimizing, perfecting and innovating. Unfortunately, CIOs and the IT
organizations they oversee are historical symbols of corporate slow-
ness. You don’t look to IT for innovation. You look to IT to keep things
up and running.
“The office of the CIO was never thought of as an innovation center,”
said Facemire, of Forrester. “It’s been perceived as a cost center
hoping to get stuff done at a containable cost.”
This is a perception that, rightly or wrongly, has lingered. Most people
we talked to don’t think that your average CIO is cut out for the job, a
number that includes some of their own.
9

11. “I'm heavily biased that the marketer should own it,” said Jim O’Neill,
CIO of HubSpot, a marketing SaaS company based in Cambridge,
Mass. “IT is there to help the business. IT should help with the build-
out or with sourcing the engineering development, but only at the
direction of the CMO. The legacy power struggles need to go away.
Here’s the good news. There are
indications that CIOs are taking on a
broader role within their organiza-
tions, that they are no longer mere
shepherds of a just-say-slow IT
department. A 2012 survey from
Gartner captured the change roiling
this geeky corner of the C-suite.
Seventy-seven percent of CIOs
interviewed said they have responsi-
bilities beyond IT, compared to just
50 percent four years before. IT management, until recently the be-all
and end-all of the job, now ranks a paltry sixth on a list of priorities
that’s topped by analytics and business intelligence and mobile tech-
nologies. Sure, CIOs are still called upon to oversee security, virtualiza-
tion, CRM and legacy modernization, but they’re increasingly tasked
with building new channels and markets.
Chris Silva, an analyst at Altimeter Group, breaks the recent history of
the CIO role into three phases. In the first, the CIO intensely focused
on his own backlog and lost track of what consumers were doing
tech-wise. This was followed by a period of disintermediation during
which enterprises went with line of business-led initiatives that often
ended up with purchases off-the-shelf solutions. We’re just entering a
third phase that’s a result of dissatisfaction of those solutions. And
we’re playing catch up to consumers.
“I haven't been able to quantify this in data points, but over the past
six months or so the tide is shifting back toward the CIO,” Silva told us.
“CIOs are caught up. They know what’s needed: building platforms
10

12. across the organization so that everyone can benefit from mobile in a
way that’s consistent and fully funded and resourced.”
Facemire said this is changing
how CIOs think of their jobs. “The “With the number of mobile
CIO,” he said, “is trying to pivot devices set to exceed the
and become the chief digital
officer and become the center of
world’s population, we’re not
not only information but of digital going out on a limb in saying
interaction.” that understanding mobile is a
And of course there’s no way to
key part of the CIO’s future”
think of digital interaction without
thinking of mobile. With the
number of mobile devices set to
exceed the world’s population,
we’re not going out on a limb in
saying that understanding mobile
is a key part of the CIO’s future.
But how can he or she put an elbow to the ribs of the CMO humble-
bragging about how he owns consumer insights and user experience?
The CIO does hold one card here: the employee. It’s important to not
forget that an important user base for apps is to be found in the
workforce and the CIO has, for a long time now, been charged with
designing a technology experience just for that audience. As workers
of all kinds—from salespeople to community managers to waiters-
get more mobile, they need devices that combine the friendly interace
of a consumer product with the back-end functionality that allows
them to dip into enterprise systems where necessary.
Happily, the CIO has already been trying to make this marriage
happen as he confronts the consumerization of IT, which, put simply,
means what technology an employee uses in the workplace will be
informed by the choices he makes as a consumer. Although you might
issue staff a Blackberry, Dell Inspiron and an Outlook account,
11

13. employees are actually using an Android, an iPad and Gmail. It’s a
trend that has any number of implications for HR, IT and legal depart-
ments. One effect of the Bring Your Own Device phenomenon is that
it’s forced CIOs to better understand how workforces use technology
and that’s a good first step to understanding what consumers are
doing. It’s given topics like good design and usability a higher profile.
Another advantage that CIOs also
“IT shouldn’t give up on metrics bring is a different mindset to
bear when it comes to metrics. In
like security or process support the worst cases, marketers can
simply to serve marketers’ get snagged on soft but sexy
metrics” metrics—say the number of
reviews and stars in the App
Store—and lose sight of bigger
questions.
“IT shouldn't give up on metrics
like security or process support
simply to serve marketers'
metrics,” said Altimeter’s Silva. “You can take great expertise from
serving customers and use 90 percent of that, but serving customers is
probably going to be different from serving folks internally. Are you
solving a user problem? If you're not or you're not focused on that,
you're wasting your time and your money.”
Among the keys to success for the CIO, according to one information
chief who prefers to remain anonymous, is not leading with technol-
ogy and speaking the language of business objectives. Hiring IT people
with broad technology stack knowledge who can sit comfortably next
to marketing and design people on cross-functional teams also
helps—as does a mindset that allows innovation to flourish through-
out the organization.
Even an empowered CIO is faced with an unfortunate reality: no
matter how expansively you view your role, a good chunk of the job is
12

14. about keeping the operation running and managing an endless project
list. To a degree, this CIO remains a service provider who doesn’t
wholly control her own agenda. Innovation is often far down the list
unless there’s a budget set aside for it. But that doesn’t mean innova-
tion isn’t going on elsewhere in the organization—in other corporate
functions or at the business units. When that happens, what’s a CIO to
do? Snuff it out and stay true to a command-and-control notion of IT
or let so-called shadow IT bloom?
The answer to some degree is a barometer of how well this CIO is cut
out to run mobile app strategy and other operations that are inher-
ently forward-thinking.
“Fighting this sort of shadow IT is not a prescription for success,” said
our anonymous CIO. “I allow it to thrive and allow seedlings to hatch
out in the business units. It’s an effective backdoor way for me to fund
and create innovation. I don’t blow the whistle, or stomp my feet. I
nurture it and advocate for it. Ultimately that's going to come back to
me. It will come under my ownership. I’m better served in leading from
behind.”
13

15. Ben Galbraith laughed lightly as he states his position on our CMO-CIO
question.
“I'm an engineer by background, so my response is predictable,” said
the VP-global products at Walmart.com. “I struggle to see why giving a
marketing guy control over a software product makes any sense at
all.”
After dismantling our entire thesis, Galbraith was kind enough to walk
through the logic with us. It kind of felt like making a guy used to
driving a Porsche take your pre-owned Hyundai out for a test spin. You
see, Walmart does things differently than most Fortune 100 whose
roots aren’t in technology. A company that began in the final year of
the Second World War has made itself into a tech player, establishing
Walmart Global eCommerce, which in the company’s own words
“combines the small structure and nimble nature of a startup with the
resources of the world’s largest retailer.” In short, Global eCommerce
supplies the ginormous retailer’s business units with software
solutions. You’ve probably read about Walmart Labs, the incubator
14

16. behind innovations like Polaris, the company’s own search engine.
“We’re very much a software technology operation,” Galbraith said,
making a crucial observation. Fashioning yourself a software company
means you’re relentlessly focused on innovation and, rather than
worry about old organizational silos,
you’re keeping the consumer at the
center of things. It also means that
discussion around how legacy roles
Acme can be updated doesn’t much apply.
C “For us,” Galbraith said, “the notion
of marketing people owning the
software is ridiculous but it's as
BEFORE AFTER ridiculous as the IT people owning
the software.”
So the CMO or CIO question is no longer really a relevant one, though
as recently as two years ago it might have been because Walmart.com
had fewer product people in its ranks. Now, he said, “the answer to
the question on both sides is no. We need someone who's focused on
end-to-end customer experience. For us it's actually two people. One
who's focused on it from a business perspective and one who's
focused on it from a product perspective.”
Asked whether this sort of thing is feasible for companies smaller than
Walmart–which is to say almost every company in the world–Galbraith
acknowledged the efficiencies that Walmart gets from its
global girth. It’s easier to amortize the R&D when you’re a global
player. Before you sniff that what’s good for Bentonville can’t help
your own 25-person shop, remember that there are still lessons here
that are universally applicable. The first is that laser focus on the
customer and her needs and desires. The second is putting software
people in charge of software development. This is what is really
behind those calls for more a technologically-savvy marketing depart-
ment.
15

17. In the final analysis, it may end up that Walmart’s experience is more
widely applicable than you might think. That’s not to say your small or
medium enterprise is going to find a pot of gold that will allow you to
plow untold millions into proprietary software development. Even if
you’re still buying off-the-shelf—something Galbraith said Walmart
would do more of if only off-the-shelf was better—there’s a point to be
made here. In the end, neither marketing nor tech has to end up
owning mobile. It is not preordained. And a lot of companies are
talking about cross-functional constructions that include not only the
marketing and tech but also legal, HR and other functions where need
be.
“The CIO and the CMO are in the best case ceding their power in equal
amounts to a center of excellence that is comprised of resources from
both shops, ideally, that is leading mobile throughout the organiza-
tion,” said Altimeter’s Chris Silva. “They’re doing the work and acting as
a tiger team, asking how do we make sure we're doing it right and how
are we cross-pollinating what we're doing on the inside? They've
realized building the wheel five times doesn't help anybody.”
Perhaps the CIO vs. CMO smackdown shouldn’t be a smackdown at all.
“You’ve got to take the versus out,” said Taco Bell’s Kavanaugh, speak-
ing like a true purveyor of Doritos-Taco Bell mash-ups. “Nothing works
in isolation anymore.”
16

18. Written by:
Matt Creamer is a writer and editor
based in New York City. He has
written for Ad Age, where he is
editor at large, The Awl, The Atlantic,
the New York Daily News, The New
York Observer and other publica-
tions. He tweets at @matt_creamer.
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