Architecting the future of marketing is no easy task, but this year’s CEO & CMO Summit made bold attempts to solve problems that keep marketing leaders up at night. Attendees learned the importance of different marketing growth frameworks, got inside the heads of high-performing chief digital officers, gained insights into the power of diversity, and were inspired to improve the core discipline of marketing to add greater value to their organizations.
Twitter’s Jack Dorsey kicked off the event with a discussion of innovation and corporate responsibility. He explained that Twitter has become a lot more agile lately and is paying attention to trends like AI, decentralization and a universal native currency for the Internet. Through Twitter Blue, the company is exploring subscriptions, tipping and audio chats in exciting new ways to help more creators earn money worldwide.
“The faster we are to embrace trends and take a little bit of risk, the sooner we’ll be able to create additional value,” Dorsey advised. He told attendees that building agility and observational capacity around trends is the way to make anything possible.
In a separate panel, Chipotle CMO Chris Brandt echoed Dorsey’s view: “I don’t have to predict the future,” he said. “I just have to be aware of what’s coming down the pike.”
Much of the two-day event was focused on helping CMOs become more essential to their businesses. On a panel dedicated to discussing the changing role of the CMO, marketing leaders from Hyundai, Uber and Peloton agreed that being a CMO is both exhausting and exhilarating.
Peloton SVP, Head of Global Marketing & Communications Dara Treseder said that the key to her success involves constantly “answering who we are and making sure our customers know it.” She noted that marketing is both an art and a science, and that the trick is coming up with ideas that combine authenticity with an element of surprise, like the brand’s first-ever music festival, All for One.
“Customer insights need to shape what we do,” Treseder explained, as she talked about her focus on elevating and celebrating all Peloton members “from Beyonce to Mom19240.” In addition, activities must have a positive bottom-line impact. “Show me the ROMI, I keep telling my team. Show me the return on marketing investment.”
On another panel, Walmart’s CMO William White agreed that “experience is the brand” today and advised all marketers to work hard to create meaningful experiences. During the pandemic, Walmart delivered “generous brand gestures,” like turning parking lots into drive-in movie theaters and using drones to put on holiday light shows and deliver COVID-19 test kits.
Several of the panels at this year’s CCS discussed the kind of talent needed to create a winning marketing organization.
Thomas Ranese, VP, Global Marketing at Uber said that marketing teams “need integrators, people who can connect the dots and make sure that stories get told in the right ways.”
Chipotle’s Brandt said that “the beauty of marketing today is that it’s both left and right brain,” suggesting that marketing teams should have a mix of people with diverse backgrounds, not just technology. “I look for people with a lot of ideas,” he said. “And when I interview people I ask myself if I’d be happy or sad to see them in a conference room during a meeting called on Friday at 5 p.m.”
In a panel focused on the rise of the chief digital officer (CDO), leaders from Nike, Colgate-Palmolive, Estée Lauder and Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts discussed the kind of mindset it takes to take on one of the hottest jobs in marketing today.
Because digital has disrupted traditional business models, the ideal candidates for CDO tend to be disrupters themselves. Sol Rashidi, Chief Analytics Officer at Estée Lauder, embraces the challenge of “flying the plane while building it at the same time” and noted that “no one chooses to be a CDO; it chooses you.”
Brigitte King from Colgate-Palmolive agreed that “you need a pioneering spirit and a lot of stamina” to thrive in the role, while Marc Speichert, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer Four Seasons said what he likes best about the position is the ambiguity of it.
A central theme of the conference was how the pandemic forced companies to reflect on their purpose and use technology to reach consumers who were mostly homebound, confused, and even scared.
Pam Griffin, Associate Director at The Clorox Company, said that while her company has always been customer centric, her team had to “lean in on that skillset in ways we never imagined.” She said that her marketing efforts moved from “why consumers should buy Clorox products to why they can trust Clorox in a time of anxiety and uncertainty.” With the help of IBM Watson Conversation Technology, Clorox offered a convenient, AI-powered chatbot that consumers could use to get answers about cleaning, disinfecting and sanitation.
Because marketers must respond to changes as quickly as possible, Walmart’s White noted that his team has done away with annual plans in favor of quarterly increments. “The pace of retail keeps you on your toes,” agreed Brandt from Chipotle. “If you’re going to do your job the same way this year as you did last year then you’re falling behind.”
In a separate presentation, Neil Morgan, Professor of Marketing, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University presented MMA research on how marketing organizations can better drive growth. The importance of this topic can’t be overstated, as 70–80% of businesses are unhappy with the effectiveness of their marketing organizations.
Morgan revealed that the key factor distinguishing winning marketing organizations from lagging marketing organizations is marketing-capability fit, or the distance between the capabilities a marketing organization has and the capabilities it really needs for growth.
The MMA’s annual CCS event has always been designed to inspire marketing leaders to push the envelope when it comes to adding value to their organizations. Deborah Wahl, Global Chief Marketing Officer at General Motors and the current Global Chair of the MMA, said that the event is so powerful because it helps marketers “learn from the brands that are transforming their industries.”
Representatives of the most influential brands in the world are members of the MMA, and their willingness to share their techniques and best practices makes CCS the marketing event of the year. To learn more about what this year’s speakers had to say, view select sessions from this year’s event on demand now.
A conversation with Twitter's Jack Dorsey
Join Linda Yaccarino, Chairman, Global Advertising & Client Partnerships of NBCUniversal and Twitter CEO and Co-Founder Jack Dorsey, for an insightful conversation on the current confluence of tech, humanity and philanthropy, as well as to hear their thoughts on what’s driving innovation today.
Moderator:
Reinventing the CMO Role for Today’s World
Today’s CMOs are at an inflection point. The role and stature of the CMO has dramatically expanded within the organization, moving from a purely advertising function to a growth driver. The past year has also proven how external forces have prompted leaders to be empathetic while guiding a brand’s purpose and being agents of change. This panel discussion brings together CMOs from Hyundai, Peloton and Uber to discuss how they are reinventing the role, managing diverse and remote workforces and leading with agility.
Moderator:
Driven by Purpose; Fueled by Tech
Today more than ever, brands must act with purpose to make meaningful connections, and technology can serve as a critical enabler for brands striving to make an impact. This session will explore the relationship between technology and brand purpose and how each can accelerate the other, enabling brands to address pressing societal needs in ways that change the world, transform industries, and accelerate business impact.
Trends Shaping the Consumer Experience
The global consumer landscape has dramatically changed, raising the question– what happens next? Qualtric’s 2021 Global Consumer Trends Report, a study of 18,000+ people from around the world, will reveal insights across a wide range of industries and how experiences drive satisfaction, trust and advocacy. Join Bruce Temkin, Head of the XM Institute and Josh Lee Head of Digital CX at FASHIONPHILE for a guided discussion on how organizations can design experiences that will meet the new and evolving needs of consumers and reveal predictions for the consumer landscape of the future across different verticals.
Leverage your First Party Data by Revolutionizing your Martech Stack
Brands looking for new ways to leverage first-party data are finding SaaS solutions too rigid and disconnected. With privacy regulations becoming more stringent, and the currency of identity quickly evolving, the promise of personalized 1:1 marketing is fading away. In this deep dive, Cuebiq’s Chief Product Officer, Francesco Guglielmino will facilitate a lively discussion on how brands can revolutionize their martech stack by moving towards a cloud-based, platform-as-a-service (PaaS). He will also share examples of how brands adopting PaaS have been able to centralize data sources into a single ecosystem, allowing them to drive innovation and accelerate business growth.
It’s Not All About the Benjamins: Using Data and Analytics to Build Customer Relationships
Today’s CMO is hyper focused on the numbers. Is my marketing investment delivering a return for the business? Do we see both short-term and long-term impact? These questions occupy our time and energy, but how do we build powerful, authentic relationships with customers? Join Michael Schoen, GM Marketing Solutions at Neustar and Lou Paskalis, a titan in the marketing industry, as they talk about how data and analytics can go beyond quantifying the impact of marketing and identify ways to build customer lifetime value.
MMA MOSTT Research Study: How Marketing Organizations Can Better Drive Growth
The MMA MOSTT initiative findings, recently published in the Harvard Business Review, show how modern marketing organizations create value. While there are many opportunities to create value, most organizations struggle to effectively realize their growth potential via planning and executing the required capability agenda. In this session, Neil Morgan, Professor of Marketing, Kelley School of Business, Indiana University will use benchmarking data to show how alignment between the chosen value configuration and capabilities required to enable this is a strong growth driver, and discuss key barriers and solutions to achieving this in practice.
The Rise of the CDO: Leading Digital Transformation and Culture
Rapidly evolving technologies, the proliferation of new social platforms and shifts in consumer behaviors has made the role of the chief digital officer pivotal to an organization’s ability to stay competitive. In this panel discussion, you’ll hear from C-level executives from MMA's CDO board share how they are driving digital innovation and transformation to create a better future for consumers built on trust, transparency and impact, and to unlock the potential in our societies.
Moderator:
Welcome from Global Chair
MMA The Great Debates: Academics Perspective
This this debate will include a panel of academics who will share their perspective and research on various marketing growth frameworks. Attendees will walk away with an understanding of the merits and disadvantages of various marketing growth frameworks from an academic perspective.
Moderator:
The New Era of Human Connection
Tech advancements like Virtual, Augmented, and Extended Realities have completely revolutionized storytelling and is powering the next generation of human connection. Sports is at the forefront of this revolution and brands like Formula 1 are leveraging technology to bring fans closer than ever to the game. As technology advances, so do the opportunities for brands. With 83% of advertisers looking for new ways to storytell, this session explores how Alpine Formula 1 pushed the boundaries of storytelling and leveraged technology to truly connect with their audiences.
How To Drive Superior Mobile Engagement With Messaging In The Post Application Era
For the last decade, American enterprise has invested heavily in mobile applications, achieving excellent engagement but limited reach. Today the top 10 applications are dominated by social media and email apps. Mobile is the ever-present, truly personalized dominant digital channel and the priority centerpiece of UX. Welcome to the new messaging paradigm where app-like, interactive fully immersive high functioning experiences are possible. Join Sinch’s President, Matt Ramerman for a guided discussion on how to transition or augment your app while not sacrificing functionality or user experience.
The New Marketer's Landscape
This past year was anything but ‘normal’, forcing marketers to adapt and thrive amidst the chaos. Join Michael Della Penna, InMarket’s Chief Strategy Officer, for a facilitated conversation on how to navigate some of the biggest challenges facing marketers today, including major industry changes like the iOS 14 update, the loss of third-party cookies, and the rapidly changing consumer behaviors in the post-pandemic world.
How to Improve your DE&I Efforts in Content Creation
Brands are beginning to foster diversity and inclusion in their overall creative supply chain, and their dedication and action to their DE&I goals will have a profound impact on the communities they serve. Please join this deep dive to discuss ways you can improve your DE&I efforts in content creation and impact your creative supply chain. You will walk away with ideas on how to intentionally, and deliberately implement a DE&I program to help meet your organization’s goals.
Architecting the Future of Marketing
Today’s disruptive marketing ecosystem and accelerated pace of change is forcing CMOs to come up with new and authentic ways to connect with their consumers. What will the future of marketing look like? Find out during this session that brings together CMOs from leading brands for an engaging discussion on how they are rethinking the customer experience, driving innovation, and preparing for disruptions shaping the future such as 5G, AI, NFTs, and other emerging trends.
Moderator:
Cindy Grospitch
VP Global Event Partnerships
MMA Global
M: 860 519 8248
E: [email protected]
