Building connections across the customer journey

Speak­ers:

Mor­ag Cud­de­ford-Jones, mod­er­a­tor

Hugh Cull­man, direc­tor of con­nec­tions & draft­Line, AB InBev

Richard Jones, chief mar­ket­ing offi­cer, Chee­tah Dig­i­tal

Dan Rubel, brand & mar­ket­ing direc­tor, Dixons Car­phone

Rob Wor­thing­ton, cus­tomer direc­tor, Anthro­polo­gie

What insights are mar­keters using to improve the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence?

RW: The num­ber of sources has explod­ed. We’re using a com­bi­na­tion: bespoke mar­ket research to tech­ni­cal-dri­ven analy­sis and in-store behav­iour. Per­son­al­ly, talk­ing to cus­tomers direct­ly is huge­ly ben­e­fi­cial.

DR: We have lots of meth­ods to keep in touch and pore over our own data. And just stay­ing close to what peo­ple are say­ing on social helps you stay close to the under­bel­ly of what peo­ple are think­ing and feel­ing.

HC: It’s inter­est­ing that we’ve start­ed a bit old fash­ioned. You’d think we’d be talk­ing about cook­ies and data. Yet, it’s all about talk­ing to peo­ple. At AB InBev, we have a lot of sources, but some of the most pro­found cam­paigns we’ve worked on have come from under­stand­ing our con­sumers and cus­tomers.

RJ: We’ve gone ‘back to the future’ with a direct con­nec­tion to con­sumers. It’s impor­tant to think about the con­text of where we are in mar­ket­ing. Face­book and Google have a coterie of third-par­ty data that makes it very easy to hyper-per­son­alise. But we’ve almost gone in the oppo­site direc­tion [now] with pri­va­cy, and that’s a good thing for mar­ket­ing.

Where are you gath­er­ing the most valu­able insights from?

DR: We rely on auto­mat­ed per­son­al­i­sa­tion and rich data when we per­son­alise expe­ri­ences but that nudge mes­sag­ing. Ask­ing cus­tomers what they want is becom­ing very pow­er­ful.

HC: As spon­sors of the Pre­mier League, just ask­ing a sim­ple ques­tion – what team do you fol­low? – and giv­ing them the right con­tent is a very straight­for­ward, very trans­par­ent trans­ac­tion for the con­sumer.

RJ: Con­sumers [think] ads based on loca­tion data from com­pa­nies they did­n’t know is creepy, not cool. There’s def­i­nite­ly a change in con­sumer atti­tudes to some of the tac­tics we’ve been using in dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing over the last decade.

RW: It’s far more impor­tant to give [cus­tomers] expe­ri­ences that are rel­e­vant to them. We’re now quite dri­ven by under­stand­ing what the indi­vid­ual cus­tomer wants to see. There’s been a big shift.

Is there a ‘back to basics’ approach to tar­get­ing?

DR: We’ve had a pret­ty pro­found year on per­son­al­is­ing which will shape our busi­ness for a long time to come. We [now] offer cus­tomers a 24/7 video shop­ping expe­ri­ence, talk­ing to the same experts we’ve spent years train­ing [in-store]. We sell things peo­ple don’t buy that often and it’s nice to talk to some­one who knows what they’re talk­ing about.

HC: B2B does­n’t have to be emo­tion­less. It can have heart. ‘Save Pub Life’ was a deep emo­tion­al need. The cam­paign [came] because we under­stood that lock­downs would be a huge prob­lem for the indus­try. You did­n’t need deep data, but you did need deep empa­thy.

Could too much data sti­fle cre­ativ­i­ty?

DR: There’s a dan­ger that we con­vince our­selves that gran­u­lar­i­ty and ana­lyt­ics is not an essen­tial part of being a bril­liant mar­keter. It is. But it’s not the only part. The most impres­sive mar­keters like a bit of gran­u­lar­i­ty, but they don’t get lost in it, and they’re bold. I wish that our indus­try would encour­age those behav­iours.

RW: Gran­u­lar­i­ty has giv­en us the abil­i­ty to quick­ly see what’s going on. You can do that at the same time as brand-build­ing. React­ing to changes in the mar­ket and switch­ing to try­ing things on dig­i­tal; that becomes a learn­ing, anoth­er data point. It all points towards build­ing the brand.

HC: Mar­ket­ing is always about the art and the sci­ence and if the sci­ence can help you take smarter risks, that’s fan­tas­tic. But there is so much data. You can get lost in it and you can use it to obscure the absolute truth. You need to know the ‘why’ behind the data.

RJ: There are parts of the mar­ket­ing eco-sys­tem that are going to have to rely more on cre­ativ­i­ty than data than they have in the past. Pri­va­cy and the death of the cook­ie are hav­ing an impact on mul­ti-touch attri­bu­tion. But our abil­i­ty to take risks that aren’t nec­es­sar­i­ly jus­ti­fied by data, that’s 100% part of our job as CMOs.

Is there enough respect for the mar­keter’s judge­ment com­pared to the data?

RW: The real­ly stand­out cam­paigns are where some­one just has a fan­tas­tic idea. The brave com­pa­nies are the ones that imple­ment that idea, then they can mea­sure it through the data. That’s the joy­ous bit of mar­ket­ing, when all of that comes togeth­er.

HC: Data allows us to take more risks. Data after you’ve made a deci­sion is incred­i­bly impact­ful too. Data allows us, via our inter­nal agency – draft­Line Labs – to put ideas out into the mar­ket for a very small cost and see what’s work­ing.

DR: I’d dis­agree that there’s more data now than ever before. I remem­ber being just as data-focused at the start of my career as I am now. I often make this plea: let’s not be neg­a­tive about data. Embrace it; do it in the right way and cre­ate bet­ter mar­ket­ing that is bold and inno­v­a­tive.

How do mar­keters make data sources rel­e­vant for cus­tomer tar­get­ing?

RJ: The IAB said it’s not just about the direct-to-con­sumer rela­tion­ship. You now need to think of the val­ue exchange of free ser­vices, dis­counts or deliv­er­ing deep­er expe­ri­ences such as loy­al­ty pro­grammes.

RW: Cus­tomers are hap­py to gie us infor­ma­tion as long as it’s in return for some­thing of val­ue. We have a loy­al­ty pro­gramme, not based on points but on soft­er ben­e­fits such as ear­ly noti­fi­ca­tion of prod­uct or a birth­day treat. But the nub of the scheme is to grow that rela­tion­ship.

HC: If you can antic­i­pate their needs, that’s of real val­ue. Loy­al­ty pro­grammes are an area where we can con­tin­ue to have a rela­tion­ship with our con­sumers. We have amaz­ing spon­sor­ships, and we can offer exclu­sive access which is valu­able to the con­sumer. It’s impor­tant to fig­ure that out because we don’t have the more tra­di­tion­al ways of hav­ing that data exchange.

DR: We have an enor­mous loy­al­ty pro­gramme that isn’t points based. Of course we use the pro­gramme to com­mu­ni­cate deals, but we also use it to cre­ate a tur­bo-charged wel­come jour­ney. What we land are tips and hacks to look after the tech you’ve bought.

RJ: The one thing that loy­al­ty pro­grammes have always done is act as a bril­liant con­duit for data from con­sumers. There will be an expan­sion of mod­ern loy­al­ty pro­grammes that are the frame­works for bring­ing brands and con­sumers clos­er.

For more infor­ma­tion please vis­it cheetahdigital.com

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Pro­mot­ed by Chee­tah Dig­i­tal