How to create genuinely customer-centric marketing

Round­table par­tic­i­pants

Jed Mole, CMO, Acx­iom
Johan Jer­voe, group CMO, UBS
Saman­tha Green­wood, CMO and com­mer­cial direc­tor, North­ern Europe, Kraft Heinz
Wal­ter Susi­ni, senior vice-pres­i­dent of mar­ket­ing Europe, Coca-Cola
Natal­ie Wills, direc­tor of social media and con­sumer PR, Zalan­do

To watch the full round­table on demand, vis­it raconteur.net/topic/sponsored/customer-centric-marketing

How has the role of brands changed in terms of what cus­tomers want from them?

WS The rela­tion­ship that peo­ple have with brands has become dif­fer­ent. Peo­ple wouldn’t be both­ered if 75% of brands dis­ap­peared overnight. We need to bring real val­ue and mem­o­rable expe­ri­ences that peo­ple can share, talk about and feel. That is the way for brands to be rel­e­vant.

JJ Brands and peo­ple are not that dif­fer­ent; we all know lots of peo­ple but not every­one is our best friend. Think care­ful­ly what insights you’re serv­ing when you com­mu­ni­cate. If you do that the right way, you stay top of mind.

NW We need to have made a pos­i­tive con­tri­bu­tion to soci­ety. Brands have to work very hard to show that they don’t just have val­ues, but that they’re actu­al­ly mak­ing an impact.

SG A basic lev­el of ser­vice isn’t enough and we’re real­ly push­ing our­selves to find ways to be rel­e­vant, even if it doesn’t ben­e­fit our brands in an obvi­ous way.

JM We only sus­tain rela­tion­ships with peo­ple when we share the same val­ues. If some­one treats you like a stranger when you feel you know them well, or treats you bad­ly, that rela­tion­ship is lost. We must use data and tech­nol­o­gy to under­stand each oth­er and so we can remem­ber peo­ple and com­mu­ni­cate with rel­e­vance and respect.

Can brands be pur­pose-led and avoid the trap of ‘wokev­er­tis­ing’?

WS In the dig­i­tal world today, weak­ness­es of any brand can be exposed quick­ly if you don’t do what you say. When Covid hit, we decid­ed to stop adver­tis­ing and use the mon­ey to help the peo­ple who make our busi­ness: bars, restau­rants. Some­times it’s bet­ter to stay silent and do.

JJ Dur­ing Covid a num­ber of com­pa­nies at the begin­ning of social dis­tanc­ing took their logos apart. That doesn’t help me under­stand the con­cept and it doesn’t build trust. We spent the first three months giv­ing cred­it. With­in 12 hours of sub­mit­ting, the mon­ey was in the customer’s account. That builds more trust than tak­ing our logo apart.

JM Con­sumers have that sixth sense for when some­thing is for show, ver­sus for real. We can affect change very quick­ly and while Covid wasn’t some­thing I’d want to live through again, it was a great shot in the arm for inno­va­tion and it’s shown us how peo­ple-cen­tric we can be. For exam­ple, with insur­ance pre­mi­ums being returned, that felt real and built brand trust.

SG We were con­cerned about chil­dren at risk of food pover­ty not hav­ing break­fast because they weren’t in school and we were able to help by pro­vid­ing actu­al food, part­ner­ing with peo­ple like [foot­baller] Mar­cus Rash­ford and the char­i­ty Mag­ic Break­fast. It’s focused on actu­al acts rather than how we can spin it for the busi­ness.

How do you approach the build­ing of a life-long rela­tion­ship?

SG Covid means peo­ple are re-eval­u­at­ing how they feel about their eat­ing habits, becom­ing more plant-based for exam­ple. We need to find new ways to rein­tro­duce our­selves to con­sumers to keep that rela­tion­ship going ver­sus just shout­ing for atten­tion.

JM Don’t get good at sell­ing; get good at help­ing. The num­bers will take care of them­selves. The true pur­pose of the brand is to pro­vide val­ue.

NW Cus­tomer life­time val­ue is our north star. Every mar­ket­ing ini­tia­tive is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to build a more engag­ing brand, and mar­ket­ing sto­ries are nev­er cre­at­ed in a vac­u­um. We need to under­stand what dri­ves our cus­tomers.

Where do we best use data to help brands get cre­ative with expe­ri­ence?

NW Data-dri­ven mar­ket­ing is a very pow­er­ful tool for mak­ing con­tent more inspir­ing and rel­e­vant. We obvi­ous­ly use it to make sure that the shop­ping expe­ri­ence for cus­tomers makes their life eas­i­er, and that we’re sell­ing prod­ucts they want to buy.

JJ Mon­ey is emo­tion­al but if bank­ing is any­thing, it’s a neg­a­tive emo­tion. Banks have got real­ly good at explain­ing why it’s com­pli­cat­ed. But it isn’t real­ly, it’s just cum­ber­some. If, as a bank, you can make it feel easy, that’s the first step. It feels like I’m help­ing you achieve your dream.

JM Data is a par­tial art – part art, part sci­ence. It’s unfor­tu­nate that along with a grow­ing aware­ness of data there is also sus­pi­cion and mis­un­der­stand­ing. Per­haps it would help to be able to explain why good things hap­pen – data helped us treat you as a val­ued cus­tomer.

Can you con­nect with cus­tomers with­out being intru­sive?

JJ As a mar­ket­ing team, you are respon­si­ble for look­ing at first-par­ty data and fig­ur­ing out what the best solu­tion might be. That’s why we often choose brand jour­nal­ism to tell our sto­ry.

WS It’s impor­tant to reas­sure peo­ple that they are in con­trol through trans­paren­cy. Peo­ple are will­ing to give you data, if you give back some­thing of val­ue, but they have to feel in con­trol. Things like pop-ups real­ly go against that feel­ing.

SG There’s a fine line between assum­ing you know exact­ly what peo­ple need to hear from you. I’ve wit­nessed the swing from being hyper-tar­get­ed and see­ing effec­tive­ness drop off a cliff where you got too nar­row.

NW It’s key for us to show that every piece of infor­ma­tion the cus­tomer shares with us will improve and enrich their expe­ri­ence. It’s a com­mit­ment root­ed in trust, but we also need to show we’re offer­ing util­i­ty.

Are we inclu­sive enough in our quest for data?

NW We have to make sure we are rep­re­sent­ing diverse back­grounds and expe­ri­ences. Embrac­ing diver­si­ty will allow us to under­stand and serve a more diverse set of audi­ences and it’s some­thing more busi­ness­es need to invest in.

WS Diver­si­ty and inclu­sion has to start from inside. We did a fan­tas­tic pro­gramme for Ramadan last year because the entire team that worked on the projects were either Mus­lim or from Mus­lim organ­i­sa­tions. The only way the pro­gramme was rel­e­vant was because the team knew what was and what wasn’t an issue.

JJ [There are bet­ter] sin­gle-dig­it top lines and bot­tom lines, as well as a bet­ter high sin­gle-dig­it stock per­for­mance, of those who have a more diverse set­up. So, it’s not only the moral­ly right thing to do but it’s also, num­bers-wise, the right thing to do.

SG We’ve got to force our­selves to ask the ques­tion about how rep­re­sen­ta­tive we are being, not just in our deci­sion-mak­ing, but also where we’re get­ting infor­ma­tion from.

To watch the full round­table on demand, vis­it raconteur.net/topic/sponsored/customer-centric-marketing

For more infor­ma­tion, please vis­it
acxiom.co.uk

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Pro­mot­ed by Acx­iom