20 CMO CLUB Dinners set for January and February 2010 Including Rollout in Europe - Come Join the Conversation

I am pleased to announce we are now hosting CMOs only dinners in 20 cities throughout the world. Details in the Calendar section on the site. Here is an overview of the cities and dates. Register for the dinners at: Click Here to Register for Dinners

Minneapolis, Jan 5th, 2010
Nashville, Jan 6th
Washington, DC, Jan 7th
San Francisco, Jan 11th
Orange County, Jan 12th
Los Angeles, Jan 13th
San Diego, Jan 14th
Boston, Jan 18th
New York City Area, Jan 19th
Philadelphia, Jan 20th
Chicago, Jan 21st
London, Jan 26th
Paris, Jan 27th
Geneva, Jan 28th
Atlanta, Feb 2nd
Denver, Feb 3rd
Dallas, Feb 8th
Houston, Feb 9th
Miami, Feb 10th
North Carolina (Research Triangle), Feb 11th

Register for the dinners at: Click Here to Register for Dinners . Please support your peers and bring a new CMO to your next dinner.

Demographic Segmentation is Dead - Have you thought about Political Segmentation?

Ever since my DoubleClick days I have been interested in new approaches to segmentation. The thought of softer demographic segmentation as yesterday's idea is coming up more frequently at CMO CLUB dinners. So what real thought leadership is out there? I heard about Tom Cotton and the crew at Protagonist some weeks back and the work they are doing based on their experience in the political arena so thought I would get more details and share with CMOs in the club. Here is highlights from my conversation with Tom.

1) One of the most important priorities for CMOs in the club is customer segmentation. How do you see the approach to segmentation changing from 5 years ago?
Back in 2004, segmentation was primarily demographic, not behavioral, and often hard to activate in the fast-changing media world. Consumer behavior now cuts across traditional demographic lines and gives us a very different opportunity to reach a richer, more focused target.
Today, every research and advertising dollar has to work harder to better identify, reach and persuade the right consumers to purchase. So we believe the days of “soft demographic segmentation” that’s hard to activate and doesn’t drive a higher ROI are over.

2) We all hear a lot about “behavioral marketing” these days...can you tell us a little more about how you use it in your segmentation work?
If this decade has taught us anything it’s that people from diverse socio-economic, life-stage and gender demographics now often share common interests and behaviors. This is clearly tied into the free flow of—and easier access to—information, the ever-lower barriers to “participation”, the explosion of media and information choices, and the world growing smaller as it gets bigger. And the web—and even cable TV—makes it much easier today to find people with like interests and behaviors and market to these niche interests.

To leverage all this, we use the behavioral techniques developed for political polling and segmentation to identify consumer behavior, focusing on moving consumers to “vote” for our clients’ products and services.


3) Can you tell me more about how the political segmentation approach can work for consumer products companies and retailers?
The political segmentation model identifies the “who and what” that really count for any marketer: Who are my most high-value and persuadable targets (“the swing”) and what can I say to them to move them into action? These “swing voters”, and the brand positioning and messaging that motivates them to purchase, deliver a rich vein of high-value customers who we then activate for our clients. And in the hypercompetitive world we’re now in, whether we’re speaking about politics or commerce, there’s no time to waste in reaching the swing: you need to reach, influence and move them before your opponent strikes a resonant chord.
In addition to the swing, we identify two other key groups: a brand’s “base,” who are the loyal customers we can retain through more efficient tactics than classic acquisition, and the “opposition” who will likely never purchase our clients’ products or services, no matter how much we spend to woo them.
With the swing, base and opposition identified, we can then minimize wasteful investment against the opposition, heavy-up against the swing, nurture the base, and deliver a higher ROI for our clients’ marketing efforts.

4) Give us a little personal history on all this, if you would, and how it become what you now call ExactCast…

Our political work goes back to the mid-90’s when we led the FCB/Penn & Schoen teams that AT&T hired to take on MCI. AT&T ultimately prevailed in that fight, and we’ve built on that pioneering work ever since. (Also note that Bernard Whitman, Protagonist’s political partner and guru who runs Whitman Insight Strategies, just ran the successful Bloomberg mayoral campaign.)
ExactCast fully bloomed a few years ago when Unilever asked us to help them “narrowcast” a brand’s communications that were not breaking through via traditional mass marketing. To accomplish this, we added the “where” into our all-behavioral quantitative practice: Determining through our custom research where—that is, through which channel—the swing can be reached most productively and persuasively. Now, through our proprietary LivePlan media service, led by Jim Geoghegan of MediaHead, we can plan (and re-plan and optimize “live,” on the fly) the highest-ROI media channels that stimulate actual purchase behavior, all tied into available syndicated media databases (e.g., Simmons, MRI) as needed.
In addition, we’ve now added a highly-disruptive “how” to the mix: We’ve always been a full-service ad agency; but in addition to creating strong creative, we are now able to tailor and “version” messaging in any medium (from TV to print to digital to collateral) through LiveCast, our “online production studio” that enables us to produce and distribute swing-optimized messaging through the optimal channels to reach our clients’ high-value consumers. We’ve built this system with LiveTechnology, the global leader in desktop production and distribution, and it takes political segmentation end-to-end for the first time: From swing target, messaging and media planning right through creative development, execution and distribution while keeping our quant-based focus on reaching the right consumer with the right message through the right channel at the right time.
We think this is a true game-changer for clients who are willing to step up and strip away the waste in the traditional marketing communications process, front to back.

5) Where do you see the biggest opportunities for applying this new approach to segmentation? And can you share examples of what companies are doing today, and key lessons learned?
The biggest opportunities may lie in industries under the most pressure to drive a higher marketing communications ROI. Candidates might include automotive, retailing, financial services or technology. Other candidates are mass marketers who know they are wasting dollars “broadcasting” to consumers when “narrowcasting” is the way to go, but they don’t know how to go about it.
Our current assignments include multiple brands at Unilever, as well as a major start-up in the personal care business. We’ve also executed ExactCasts over the last two years in the U.S., France, Germany, the Netherlands and Greece.
No matter what the product or service, or the country in which we’ve delivered ExactCasts, a few lessons continue to emerge:
• The “swing” is almost always “demographically flat.” When you’re looking for actual behavior that moves markets, and the stimulus that can put that behavior into motion, it’s remarkable how the most important business-building behaviors can cut across classic demographic lines. This can pose a challenge for old-school media practices, by the way, since after discovering exciting “behavioral truths” that can change the game for a brand, it can be “a great leap backward” to then purchase media demographically to stimulate these consumers. This is why we built a full media practice into our model.

• There’s a huge amount of waste in the traditional marketing communications process. Whether it’s spillover spending against consumers who’ll never purchase a brand, or expensive segmentation that isn’t actionable, or messaging that doesn’t move the swing, or needless “versioning expense” using old-school production techniques, a third of most budgets are wasted. We can either help cut that spending for clients, or put that “found money” to work far more productively.

• The messaging that moves the swing always presents a surprise or two. We are able to “surround” the messaging candidates in workshops with our clients, but it’s rare that we’re not surprised with what floats to the top in our quant work, or how the consumer helps us optimize the messaging architecture through our factor and cluster analyses. As IBM used to say in an early 1980s ad campaign, “it’s how we put it all together that sets us apart,” and it’s always a thrill to see it come together.


6) What advice would you give the CMOs in the club when thinking about their segmentation and differentiation approaches?
We’d serve up advice to your members in the form of three questions:
• Do you have a “behavioral X-ray” of your highest-value customers and prospects?

• Do you know how to activate behavioral marketing?

• Do you think you might be wasting precious marketing dollars, but you’re not sure where that waste is?


You can get more details on Protagonist and ExactCast at www.beaprotagonist.com

The CMO CLUB Weekly Poll Question: How is your marketing budget changing in 2010 vs. 2009?

146 CMOs responded:
32.9% - Increasing more than 10%
24.6% - Increasing 1-10%
23.3% - Same
13.7% - Decreasing more than 10%
5.5% - Decreasing 1-10%

A few Quotes from CMOs in the club who responded:
“Although not all the way back to 2008 budget levels I am gaining approval for increased budgets in 2010 to focus on re-hiring social media experts for the organization.”

“Given our profit numbers are back in line, slight increase in 2010 to focus on additional search and demand generation programs.”
“We had 25% reductions in marketing spend in 2009 vs. 2008. 15% increase in 2010 vs. 2009.”

“Given the price of print and online advertising is way down, we plan on increasing dollars in 2010 to increase our participation at improved ROI but with a focus on more precise customer segments for print and online spend.”

“No budget increases planned in 2010 but a move of resources from higher cost traditional items to lower cost, higher engagement programs in social networks – result – improved ROI.”

The CMO CLUB Weekly Poll Question: What best practices insights from 50 CMOs would be of most interest to you as CMO in the club?

104 CMOs were asked this question between Nov 10 and Nov 18, 2010. Here are there responses:

34.7% - Improving ROI on marketing spend
30.8% - Improving demand generation
25.0% - New customer engagement ideas
9.5% - Building credibility with you CFO


A few Quotes from CMOs in the club who responded:

“Always interested in learning how my peers are improving the return on the marketing investments.”

“I don’t need theories or sales pitches. I need proven techniques for moving prospect through the sales cycle from leads to deals. I’m especially interested in nurturing ideas and programs.”

“My boss is all about ROI, if I improve ROI I will improve my credibility with my CFO.”

“Engaging customers and new ways for servicing current customers through marketing is top of mind to me. I’m looking for proven approaches from my peers.”

CMO CLUB Participation Marketing Survey Results - CMOs Need Greater Engagement Internally and Through Social Networks for Their Brands to Thrive

More than four out of five (84 percent) chief marketing officers (CMOs) allocate less than ten percent of their budgets to experimenting through social media and non-traditional communications channels, with more than half (55 percent) allocating just five percent, according to a study by The CMO Club and Hill & Knowlton released today. By contrast, according to a recent study1, the number of adult Internet users who have profiles on social networks quadrupled to 35 percent in 2008, from eight percent in 2005.

Our research shows that seven out of ten CMOs say they have medium or high levels of comfort in dealing with non-traditional media, yet few are adopting these strategies for their own brands, missing out on learning from and contributing to the conversations that are taking place online.

“Marketing used to be a linear process, with a discussion flowing from the CMO to the target audience. In today’s digital age, communication has evolved into a new model that requires active listening and engaging in numerous conversations,” said Pete Krainik, CEO, The CMO Club. “CMOs are finding the additions to the job more challenging and the need to lead beyond the marketing department is critical for their success.”

Adopting social media policies
According to a survey of its members, three out of ten (29 percent) of CMOs report having a social media policy that is widely adhered to within their company and a further 31 percent are currently developing a policy. Implementing these policies is proving to be a challenge, with just over a quarter (26 percent) of CMOs stating they have a policy but it is not complied with within their companies.

"Bloggers are the new media trendsetters/reviewers for products and services, a trusted voice by those who follow their posts," said CMO Club member Ted Rubin, chief marketing officer, e.l.f. Cosmetics. "If you empower these consumers to evangelize your brand, establish yourself as a trusted source and give them the tools, they will run with it and lend you their credibility."

Added member Erin Hintz, vice president, worldwide consumer marketing, Symantec Corporation, "While the social media world is new territory for all companies, we already have some best practices with our Norton brand that many CMOs can glean from. Our company has striven to deliver transparency in this space and we work hard to ensure employees understand their role and responsibility."

Lack of integration
CMOs report a lack of managing or interacting closely with departments within their businesses and, more importantly, with those responsible for communicating with key stakeholders. Nearly half of all CMOs questioned (48 percent) said they have no formal interaction with the department responsible for NGOs. More than a third (39 percent) do not formally liaise with their investor relations departments, and just over a fifth (22 percent) do collaborate with those responsible for liaising with financial analysts.

“I have found that in the past several years, my job has required greater collaboration with colleagues running other departments to create a more unified brand message to all of our audiences, both external and internal,” said member Kent Huffman, chief marketing officer, BearCom Wireless. ”Today, brand and reputation go hand-in-hand, and no company can afford not to work seamlessly as a team.”

Gauging stakeholder sentiment
The majority of CMOs (95 percent) formally track the attitudes or opinions of their customers to their brands, falling to seven out of ten (69 percent) among potential customers. Other non-revenue generating stakeholders take second priority: four out of five CMOs (84 percent) do not gauge the opinions of NGOs; 59 percent do not gauge the general public, and less than a third (32 percent) do not formally gauge sentiment among their employees.

“The marketers’ job is increasingly challenging and many CMOs still are learning how to engage audiences beyond their customers. Everyone is an influencer in today’s marketplace,” said MaryLee Sachs, US chairman and worldwide director, marketing communications, Hill & Knowlton. “Building advocacy by engaging all audiences can lend a tremendous amount of credibility to any marketing program. A holistic approach helps forge new paths to customers, generating brand loyalty and building critical relationships.”

Brand alignment
Currently, only one out of ten CMOs utilize a digital dashboard to disseminate branding or customer data internally through a “real-time” delivery method, while 44 percent of CMOs report using and sharing this data formally on a quarterly or semi-annual basis.

“As we experience this business transformation, CMOs are seeing that they need to focus on three key areas in order to maintain relevancy with their customers and consumers,” said Krainik. “First, expanding internal collaboration is essential; second, timeliness of monitoring and sharing customer data is critical – they must move quicker; and finally broadening their perspectives and formally engaging new external stakeholders is imperative.

These results initiated conversations at last week’s CMO Club summit on new ways to lead brands beyond the marketing department with internal colleagues and external audiences,” added Krainik.

About the Survey
The survey was conducted online with 124 chief marketing officers in the Club responding between September 15, 2009, and October 15, 2009.


Click Here for Survey Results Release

The CMO CLUB Thought Leadership Summit, Nov 2009

Here's a summary of all the coverage from this year's CMO Club Summit in San Francisco. Thanks to all the CMOs that attended and engaged in the conversation. Already working on April 20-21, 2010 Summit in NYC

• Success of UGC videos: Users want to hear from users


• Photos from The CMO Club Summit San Francisco 2009


• Marketing 2.0: Harnessing the Cloud to Build a Sustainable Brand


• First step for CMOs, harness the power of the real-time web


• Engaging customers to create customer generated content for your company


• Best in class social media ideas for CMOs


• New customer engagement platforms


• CMOs as leaders for the company's growth agenda


• David Scott of MarketFish on lead generation


• Filmmaker Jon Landau on film bloggers


• 'Tune into your innovation team'


• Advantages of virtual events


• Social content marketing: The real stories of ROI


• On becoming customer centric


• How to make a virtual booth successful


• Amy Grant on maintaining her public persona over time


• Amy Grant builds houses with her "House of Love" tour


• Guy Kawasaki's Twitter tips for businesses


• Amy Grant on turning down a sponsorship offer from Cheerios


• Keynote: Guy Kawasaki "How to kick ass on Twitter"


• Virgin America on company wide customer engagement


• Moving from Physical to Virtual Events: Lessons Learned


• What are the challenges CMOs are wrestling with?


• Leveraging advanced technology to redefine marketing

Thanks to David Spark and Scott Plamondon of Spark Media Solutions for all their coverage of the event.

Leveraging advanced technology to redefine marketing

The last panel of The CMO Club Summit in San Francisco was a panel discussion about how marketers are harnessing advanced technology to enhance their marketing efforts. In particular, the discussion was about the product Autonomy and how their clients are using their product to find trends and patterns in their respective markets.

• Moderator: Nicole Egan, CMO of Autonomy
• David Churbuck, VP Global Digital Marketing for Lenovo
• Michael Glovia, VP Marketing at VMS
• Suranga Chandratillake, CEO of Blinkx

Here's a summary of some of the ideas and thoughts that came up in the discussion:

• Patterns are leading indicators of change rather than lagging signs of performance.
• Patterns allow businesses to uncover the unknown, spot trends, and identify opportunities
• Patterns is about finding new opportunities in areas you didn't expect.
• Uncover the philosophy of inexactness. Get away from the "exact match" mold.
• Seeing a rapid shift to imprecise analysis, even though there's still value in traditional analysis.
• Most companies start social monitoring looking for negativity. Among the negativity they saw the detection of desire. They slid into a conversation by offering coupons to try to close deals. And according to Lenovo, they were close to 100% successful with that tactic.
• Look at the more humane side of marketing metrics. Not all items that can be counted have value.
• Google has proven that effective advertising is targeted. Blinkx's CEO argues that its product can offer a combination of traditional commercial advertising and targeted Google ads.