Category Archives: Digital Marketing

Business and Commerce, Digital Marketing, Leadership, Marketing Strategy, Strategy

CMOs lead Digital Transformation

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Research from Altimeter Group suggests that Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) are far more likely to lead digital transformation within their organisations than their IT Officer (CIO) colleagues.

The spin on CIO.com is that this is because “CIOs agendas are already full”, which I guess means that CMOs are off chasing butterflies.Chart- Drivers of Digital Leadership

To be fair, the writer also quotes analyst Brian Solis acknowledging that while CIOs tend to be tied down dealing with heritage infrastructure issues; CMOs “live  and die by  how successful they are in reaching new customers, driving sales and conversions.”

My own experience of working with senior IT and digital specialists is that they are very open to change. However, with a department swamped by day-to-day issues of hardware, software and user-generated faults; upgrading to the latest version of SAP (and back again); approving new vendors;  and keeping the system safe from Virus attack and Power-cuts: the challenge of a transformation project is daunting.

Being deliberately over-simplistic, the difference between the roles of CIO and CMO are their perspectives – Internal versus External perspective.

The CMO has to balance the speed-of-change in customer and consumer expectations, with the need to drive measurable growth in the business.  The “digital revolution” around marketing communications means that many businesses see “Digital Marketing”,  measured by CPC and “Last click attribution ” as the way forward. A good CMO  recognises that “Digital” is just one of the tools in the great marketing tool-box .

The world has moved on from companies deciding they need to develop “a digital strategy”, to a recognition that “digital” has to be integrated into every nook and cranny of the  business, from production and distribution, finance and HR, and (in this ever-more-connected  world) to customer and consumer relationship management.

McKinsey* analysis in 2015 identified  that 90 percent of top performers have fully integrated digital initiatives into their strategic-planning process.

.. and that’s the nub…   We shouldn’t be aiming to “become successful  Digital Businesses”, but instead be “successful businesses in a Digital age”

In the final analysis,  the answer is not who takes the lead, but how we all work together  …

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Chris Collis is Director of Marketing Walk,  an independent Marketing and Business Strategy house.

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*link to mckinsey.com/…/the-new-chief-digital-officer

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Digital Marketing, Marketing Strategy, Web

Where Digital meets Marketing

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Looking through recent articles, I’m always amazed how much emphasis is put on “the role of digital” in Marketing, So many arguments are rehearsed about SEO SEA CPC and CPA ; the value of a fan on facebook or of a pinterest page, and how to measure response on Social Media. Every company seems to jump on the latest “viral” bandwagon, like the recent spate of “Harlem Shakes” virals, and I have heard numerous “digital managers” admit, “we just try lots of different things and see what works”. (- dancing puppies apparently). In January 2013 there were 775,000 Apps in the i-store. Research by Analytical firm Avenden shows that 60% of these are never downloaded… not even once! Senior Business Directors bring in recent graduates who may be great at the technogeekery, but without clear direction, it’s like trying to herd cats.

So …      I have five simple questions for any managers out there commissioning and or reviewing new digital activations…

1.  Who is my target audience (and which segment of that audience will drive the most profit now and in the future)?

2.  Is this activation truly relevant and engaging to that target audience segment?
– (clue: if your target audience is young mums, then your new “star-trek-with-my-product-in-it” app may possibly be less engaging to your audience than to the digital team creating it)

3.  Does this activation give the same key message(s) as all of my other brand advertising and activations?

4.  What do I want the user to do once they have engaged with this activation and how will I measure this?

5.  How will I measure return on investment compared to other activations (- or compared to doing nothing at all)?

Now which bit of that isn’t “Marketing”?

Years ago I remember advocates of “direct marketing”, particularly list-brokers and the IDM claiming that “Marketing is dead, It’s all about DM now”, soon followed by the CRM brigade, and more recently the social media acolytes, “performance marketing” prophets and “big data” disciples . Of course, these are all merely tools within the great marketing toolkit, – all useful but none of them capable of doing the whole job on their own.

If you want someone to work on your new house, you wouldn’t employ a man with just two tools, – a hammer and a screwdriver, – He’ll tell you everything can be done with those two tools. Everyone needs a hammer and a screwdriver sometimes, but they won’t be much good if it’s your gas that needs fixing or a wall that needs painting. Better to get in an expert project manager who will bring in the right specialists, when and where they’re needed, and deliver a complete and professional job that’s right for you.

A good place to start? –  Chris Collis is a CIM Chartered Marketer and Director of Marketing Walk Ltd.

Digital Marketing, Strategy, Web

Nice Lactose Free resource, Segmented Gateway

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One issue companies face is to communicate with specific groups of consumers, but to keep this discrete from other groups who may view the information as  confusing or even as a negative positioning for the brand.

A good example of this is Alpro,  who has created a good on-line resource for  people who think they might need to avoid lactose or go dairy free, without presenting the brand as medicinal or pseudo-medicinal to the general public- who are only just coming to terms with Alpro as a mainstream choice.

By using a “segmented gateway” to the Alpro Lactose free pages, http://www.alpro.com/uk/lactose-dairy-free  only those vistors who have specifically searched for lactose or dairy free, (or been directed from a relevant site) will see the resource. Visitors who enter via the home page or recipe pages will not normally see this content (unless they have previously visited it).

Chris

Digital Marketing, News

Share of Evil Spoils?

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Google Chrome browser market share in May 2010 was over 7.0% for the first time – up from 4.6% in December 2009. [source: Net Applications]  Clearly, something they’ve been doing has led to an increase in awareness and trial… Perhaps congratulations are in order.chrome logo
(Update on previous Blog: “Don’t be evil”)

Chris Collis
June 2010

Chris Collis is a Chartered Marketer and Director of Marketing Walk, an independent Marketing Strategy and outsourcing house.

Digital Marketing, Marketing Strategy, News

Don’t be Evil

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There’s been lots in the news this week about attacks on Google accounts by unknown hackers somehow linked to Chinese Authorities.

Now I may just be constructing conspiracy theories here, but then again …
chrome logo
Some Facts:

December 2008: Google Chrome web browser launched to general public.

3rd December 2009: Google appoints glue London and BBH Labs to handle global communications strategy and advertising for its Chrome browser. (source: Marketing Week)

16th December: Billboard poster campaign for Google Chrome extended from UK to include other European countries (source: TechCrunch Europe)

December 2009. Google Chrome achieves No3 spot in the market with just 4.63% market share (source: NetApplications)

13th January 2010: Google complains that [Chinese Government or its agents] have hacked into Google accounts of dozens of Chinese Human Rights activists and it is considering withdrawal from China. It made a Global public statement before even discussing this with the Chinese authorities.

14th January: Microsoft accepts that the hackers used a weakness identified in Microsoft’s browser Internet Explorer 6
Microsoft confirms these were “highly targeted and sophisticated attacks … by highly motivated people”. It is working on a security patch, and does not believe this will have major implications for the vast majority of its users.

15th January: McAfee chief technology officer George Kurtz explains that the code required for other hackers to target the vulnerability has been published on the web.

15th January: German Federal Office for Information Security advises its citizens to try another browser until the flaw is patched. This information circulated globally by news organisations.

Some key questions:

How does Google know these people are Chinese human rights advocates? – Has it been reading their G-Mails?

Would it be easy to predict that The Chinese Government would not comment on the hacking allegations, and that (based on prior experience) Western opinion will automatically assume that they are the guilty party.

Who advised the German Government to intervene with a statement advising consumers to trial another web browser, at a time when Google was advertising heavily across Europe?

Would Google have been aware of (or been looking for) vulnerabilities in their competitor Internet Explorer before this attack?

Would Google be capable of a “highly targeted and sophisticated attack by highly motivated people” on its number 1 competitor?

Would Google risk its position in China to generate huge trial of its new Browser in the rest of the world?

Conclusions

It must be very difficult for Google to persuade consumers to switch from their usual browser.
One of the best ways to effect change is to make the Status Quo look like the scarier option.
I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions and point the finger where you will, but this all seems to have fallen into place very neatly for Google doesn’t it?.

Or am I just being Evil ?

Chris Collis
18th January 2010

Chris Collis is a Chartered Marketer and Director of Marketing Walk, an independent Marketing Strategy and outsourcing house.