A presentation I gave to a C-Suite (CMO) audience at the Festival of Marketing, Oct 2016, about the biggest trends in digital/marketing. It focuses on customer experience and digital transformation.

1. Copyright © Econsultancy
Strategic Trends In Digital/Marketing
Ashley Friedlein
President, Centaur Marketing & Founder, Econsultancy
@AshleyFriedlein

2. 2
Strategic digital/marketing trends we’ll focus on
1. Customer Experience:
– Conversational marketing
– Omnichannel marketing
– (AI, VR, AR, Video, Messaging etc)
1. Digital Transformation
– Culture
– Organisational design
– (Strategy, Process, Tech stack)

3. 1. CUSTOMER
EXPERIENCE –
CONVERSATIONAL
MARKETING
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4. 4
"Conversations as a platform
[...] as profound an impact as
previous shifts we've had."
Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft
Microsoft – Cortana etc.

5. 5
Google – Allo, Duo Chat, Assistant

6. 6
Apple – Siri

7. 7
Facebook – Messenger, M etc.

8. 8
Amazon – Alexa, Echo

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“Siri is the most used virtual
assistant, Amazon Echo is the
most admired and Facebook M
is the most anticipated”
Adobe Digital Index, May 2016
Virtual Assistants’ popularity

10. 10
Conversational Commerce

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Conversational Content

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Conversational Service

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Conversational Productivity

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How should marketers approach chatbots?
• Beware ‘uncanny valley’
• Be careful of attempting ‘branded’ bots with
character, attitude, humour, feeling etc
• For most… stick to service/productivity bots to
start with
• Bot maturity framework:
– Level 1 = functional request/response
– Level 2 = scheduled tasks, assistive
– Level 3 = predictive, smart

15. 1. CUSTOMER
EXPERIENCE -
OMNICHANNEL
MARKETING
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16. ONLY 5% OF
MARKETERS HAVE
A SINGLE
PLATFORM THAT
MANAGES DATA
ACROSS
PLATFORMS
(down from 8% last year!)
Econsultancy / Adobe Quarterly Intelligence Briefing,
Sept 2016

17. Omnichannel marketing by sector

18. Why is this happening?
• The sheer complexity of the marketing technology
landscape
• Size of investment – it’s not cheap and can require
board approval.
• Expectations – generate an ROI from the get go.
• Needs to be accompanied by a process of digital
transformation.
• Skills – finding the full stack employee.

19. Just Eat – better engaging individuals
• Seamless customer experience a strategic
priority
• Targeting customers rather than devices
• Sequential messaging across device
– Frequency capping the users rather
than the channel
• Takeout:
– “Just because you’re trying to push
‘mobile’ conversions doesn’t mean you
can only spend money on mobile
inventory”.
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20. Selfridges view on mobile
“We should be using technology to ‘glue things
together’, as mobile is the glue between the
digital and in-store experience. We are working
on how to weave mobile into customer journeys
in ways that add value.”
Simon Forster, Selfridges’ Executive Director
for Multichannel, Marketing and Supply Chain

21. Mobile as an omnichannel device

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The future – smart notifications based on
context / location
Google Now Google Nearby

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Key points
• People-based marketing (as opposed to
channel, medium or device) aka customer-
centric approach
• Mobile not as a standalone
channel/device/medium but the ‘glue’ connecting
digital and physical and/or to manage the
customer journey irrespective of medium

24. 2. DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION -
CULTURE
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25. 25
Digital Transformation
• The journey towards being a
digital organisation
• “Digital” means:
– Focusing on the customer
experience irrespective of
channel
– Having a digital culture

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The 7 defining characteristics of a digital culture
1. Customer-centric
2. Data-driven
3. Makers & Doers
4. Transparent
5. Collaborative
6. Learning
7. Agile

27. Capital One - agile
• A bank creating differentiated
experience through digital
• “Digital is who we are and how
we do business.” Richard
Fairbank, CEO
• 100% agile adoption

28. House of Fraser – customer-centric
• CCO with digital / multichannel
expertise
• Head of “Find it”
• Head of “Research it”
• Head of “Buy it”

29. 2. DIGITAL
TRANSFORMATION –
ORGANISATIONAL
DESIGN
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“Organizations are structured
around control mechanisms and
reporting, not around capabilities
and outcomes."
“Organizing Marketing in the Digital Age”, Econsultancy, 2015

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How to organise?

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How to organise?

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How to organise?

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The rise of the Chief Digital Officer (CDO)…
Now 1,000+ CDOs globally and the number has
doubled every year for the last few years.
Gartner predicted 25% of businesses would have
a CDO by the end of this year.
According to the
CDO Club salaries
for a Chief Digital
Officer range from
$89,000 to
$600,000, with the
median falling
between $250,000
and $300,000.

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Bertrand Bodson
Chief Digital Officer
Home Retail Group plc
Mike Bracken
Chief Digital Officer
The Co-operative Group
Sean Cornwell
Chief Digital Officer
Travelex

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…and the Chief Customer Officer (CCO)
Source: The CCO Council 2014 CCO Study

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Robin Terrell
Chief Customer Officer
Tesco plc
Robert Bridge
Chief Customer Officer
Telegraph Media Group
Chris Duncan
Chief Customer Officer
News UK

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The five stage of evolution towards true multi-
channel customer-centricity / fully ‘transformed’
5
Job done
CEO
(and CMO,
CTO, CFO etc)
4
Business
Transformation
Chief Customer
Officer
3
Digital Leader
‘Transformer’
Chief Digital
Officer
1
Digital Team
Head of Digital
2
Digital
Figurehead
‘Ambassador’
Chief Digital
Officer

39. SUMMARY
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The future of digital customer experiences
1. Join up data and systems, then…
2. Deliver experiences that are consistent, synced
and responsive across devices/channels, then…
3. Make them personalised, proactive, contextual,
realtime, smart
“The era of living services”
Mark Curtis, Founder, FJORD

41. THANK YOU
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