Scott Brinker

What do you mean by marketing as a science?

March 5, 2013 / Marketing Management / By Scott Brinker / 9 Comments

I’m fascinated by this chart that was included in a recent report by Eloqua and BtoB Magazine, Defining the Modern Marketer: From Ideal to Real. Based on a survey of 556 B2B marketing professionals from companies of all sizes and industries, the report reveals current perceptions about what “modern marketing” is today — and should be tomorrow. At first glance, the tall blue and red peaks in the middle pop out, showing that the largest percentage …

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“Brand debt” and a gap in the agile marketing manifesto

March 3, 2013 / Agile Marketing / By Scott Brinker / 8 Comments

Agile marketing is often celebrated for speed — empowering marketing teams to get more ideas out into the market faster. But while that is often a valuable side benefit, it’s not one of the key principles behind agile marketing. In fact, putting too much emphasis on speed can be detrimental to marketing’s larger mission. The heart of agile marketing is really its adaptability. By breaking ideas into small pieces and using short work cycles to …

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How formal should your marketing experiments be?

February 28, 2013 / Marketing Management / By Scott Brinker / 1 Comment

How formal should your marketing experimentation programs be? That was the question I was asking myself looking at the above “test definition brief” that was included in a report jointly produced by Google and the Marketing Leadership Council: The Digital Evolution in B2B Marketing. The report — which I think is terrific overall for a behind-the-scenes look at how several larger enterprises are integrating digital marketing more holistically into their organizations — raises the concern …

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Marketing data: exploration vs. confirmation

February 24, 2013 / Marketing Data / By Scott Brinker / 3 Comments

There is tremendous excitement around data-driven marketing. A whole catalog of data-related phrases are echoing throughout the marketing world: big data, data mining, data science, data exchanges, data management platforms, controlled experiments (“big testing“), analytics, metrics, dashboards, etc. But the data driving all these different activities isn’t quite the same. Or, more accurately, the contexts in which marketers use that data aren’t the same. Different data-driven activities change how you should think about data, manage it, …

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The blurring of agencies, software vendors, and IT shops

February 14, 2013 / Marketing Software / By Scott Brinker / 11 Comments

The Jordan Edmiston Group, Inc. (JEGI), a leading investment bank in the marketing and media space, recently released a new report on the enterprise marketing management (EMM) stack. They start by noting that from 2010-2012, four companies (“The Big Four”) have invested over $20 billion in marketing technology M&A: Adobe, IBM, Oracle, and Salesforce. But they quickly point out that some of the biggest disruption resulting from these acquisitions hasn’t been in the enterprise software …

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Data is marketing’s gateway drug to software fluency

February 13, 2013 / Marketing Data / By Scott Brinker / 2 Comments

In observing the language that CIOs and CMOs alike keep using around the big data bubble — where both parties seem ready to acknowledge that marketing is in the hot seat for making productive use of data — I’m starting to conclude one of two things: “Data” is a euphemism for all application-level marketing technology. There’s an illusion that data-driven marketing can thrive independent of any deeper engagement with the technology that generates or harnesses …

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Moving a blog is quintessential marketing technologist work

February 4, 2013 / Marketing Tactics / By Scott Brinker / 3 Comments

Migrating a blog from one platform to another reminds me of the saying: “In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice, they’re different.” In the process of moving this blog from Typepad to WordPress — on the occasion of our 5th anniversary — I was struck by how this is exactly the sort of work for which marketing technologists are ideally suited. The blog itself is a marketing mission. There are all kinds …

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5 years worth of marketing technology geekery

February 1, 2013 / Other / By Scott Brinker / 10 Comments

This month marks the 5th anniversary of the launch of this blog. The momentum that has grown around these topics of marketing technology management, marketing technologists, marketing software, marketing data, agile marketing, etc., has been incredibly exciting. Thank you for reading, sharing, and contributing. On the occasion of this 5th anniversary, I decided to invest in fixing up the place a little. First, a fresh coat of paint. I commissioned a logo to give the …

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Balancing marketing technology and IT at a Fortune 500 firm

January 30, 2013 / Interviews / By Scott Brinker / 3 Comments

Marketing technology management can look straightforward on paper, when analysts and pundit-bloggers such as myself draw simplified diagrams of new organizational structures with a few quick brushstrokes. But the real work of implementing these organizational changes for “the new marketing” — and the cultural shifts entangled in that mission — especially at a major Fortune 500 company is considerably more complicated. I have tremendous respect for the people tackling that. Therefore, it was my pleasure …

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3 epicenters of innovation in modern marketing

January 28, 2013 / Marketing Software / By Scott Brinker / 3 Comments

Here’s another way to visualize the relationship between big data and the other innovations happening in the marketing department. I propose that there are three epicenters of innovation in modern marketing: The first is customer communications and the revolution brought about by social media. Marketing communications has, rather quickly, moved from being a one-way broadcast to a more personal, two-way interaction with customers, prospects, and influencers, all interconnected together. Organizations have had to embrace operational …

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