Admittedly, the statistical validity of that headline is suspect. As a child of the 80’s, back when people actually watched commercials on our sole screen in the living room, such tag lines were embedded in my psyche and occasionally pop out. (I always wondered why the fifth dentist from those Trident commercials was such a killjoy.) But I digress… More and more people — even those with credentials primarily from IT — are reaching the …

4 out 5 analysts recommend a marketing technology office Continue Reading »

I’m giving a presentation today at the ITSMA‘s annual marketing conferencing on the topics of agile marketing and the rise of marketing technologists — two of my favorite subjects. I’ll be discussing them in the context of the 5 meta-trends in modern marketing that I wrote about earlier this year. Here’s the presentation, along with an essay version of my talk. It’s long — about 8,000 words — so if you want the Cliff Notes …

5 marketing meta-trends (the presentation) Continue Reading »

The reason why I like Google’s term “ZMOT” — the Zero Moment of Truth — is because I really do visualize that the distance of most prospect’s initial moment-of-truth with a company has collapsed to effectively zero. It’s the distance someone’s finger needs to travel to click (or tap) on a link that holds forth a promise, explicitly or implicitly. Does your brand live up to that promise? In all channels, digital and physical? The …

“Every customer experience is a brand moment of truth.” Continue Reading »

The Economist Intelligence Unit is on a roll with its marketing industry research. It just released another report, sponsored by SAS, titled Outside Looking In: The CMO Struggles to Get in Sync with the C-Suite. The gist of the report, a global survey of 389 executives, is that marketing is in a period of great change, it’s becoming more strategic, and many organizations are not yet in agreement on what that means for the CMO’s …

Technical expertise is more important than agency experience for CMOs Continue Reading »

You may have heard of the recent report by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Cultivating Business-Led Innovation. The big conversation nugget that has been appearing on a number of marketing industry sites is the survey result stating that more than twice as many executives cite marketing as involved in bringing innovative ideas to market than IT. Yes, 45% of senior executives say marketing is involved in birthing innovative ideas, but only 19% say their IT teams …

Why marketing may solve the innovator’s dilemma Continue Reading »

Ashley Friedlein, the CEO of Econsultancy, has a great op-ed in Marketing Week today, Why modern marketers need to be pi-people. That’s “pi” as in the capital Greek letter pi that looks like this: Π. It’s a riff on the label “T-shaped people” that has been popularized in digital marketing over the past few years. T-shaped people have a specific expertise where they go really deep (e.g., graphic design, software development, data analytics, etc.), but …

Econsultancy’s CEO: Marketing needs pi-shaped people Continue Reading »