Marketing South Insights 2019 (1 of 2)

I had the privilege of being the MC for the second ever Marketing South held in Ōtautahi, Christchurch on 2 May 2019. Here’s a quick wrap up from the savvy speakers at Marketing South 2019 (Part 1 of 2) where these Kiwi marketing leaders shared their applied knowledge and key take-outs.

Purpose-driven advertising was the key sentiment from Dan West

Dan says to be successful now, brands need to focus on purpose + authenticity – there are examples at either end of the spectrum with Nike arguably getting it ‘right’ and H&M getting it wrong.

He alerted us to the research on the role women have when featured in ads:

• 60% of women featured are in a negative light
• only 4% show women in aspirational roles
• and around 3% portray women as being relatively intelligent.

Millennials and Centennials will be the world’s largest demographic by the year 2020. Centennials, Gen Z or post-millennials are born between 1995 and 2008. They are purpose-led, won’t tolerate brands hype, and they are change makers.  They won’t accept women being portrayed this way and Dan says Disney has had a role in that. Millennials were entertained by the age-old stereotype of a Princess that needed to be rescued, whereas Centennials have only known the independent, bold female leads such as those in Brave, Moana and Frozen.

Where Millenials can be stereotyped as valuing authorship, autonomy and authenticity, Centennials are open, realistic, and resilient. They’re also poly-cultural and gender is fluid. So you can see that these old ‘ad men’ approaches just don’t cut it anymore.

Generally speaking, Dan shows us that all marketers need to be thinking differently. We all consume more content than ever and many of us watch videos at 1.5 x speed, we give 15 seconds to reading articles and we switch off when companies ask us for too many details (hot tip for marketers: start with the essentials and build your user profiles over time).

Packaging has a new focus too – no longer is it necessary to stand out on the shelf, now it’s about standing out on Instagram. And of course, it should have a low carbon footprint.

Susanne Stevenson shone the light on Customer Experience (CX)

Opening with a great definition that anchored us all ….

In today’s commercial world, customers are hyper-informed, they’re asking for price transparency, physical location is irrelevant and they’re discerning and vocal.

CX isn’t ‘fluffy’ its purpose for the organisation is to increase revenue, increase the customer’s share of wallet – to attract and retain customers. 

To get it right, it’s essential to understand customer journeys end to end. Customer ‘key moments of truth’ are essential here, if you understand these and make them seamless, you’re ahead of the competition.

Susanne’s change leadership background is evident, as she reminds us that for customer experience to improve, everyone inside the organisation must be on the same journey. Company culture is critical, as is letting everyone know what happens next. Recognise those leading the way, embracing the change and streamlining things for customers. 

Matt and Nat chat about Spark and data

They shared their big, bold ambition - that Spark won’t need to do market research or customer research as they’ll be connected with powerful, relevant data in real time.

Amazon, Apple and Google ruthlessly use digital and data. They work hard to remove pain points and iterate rapidly, and their last resort is to talk to a human, which you’ll know if you’ve ever been the exception to one of their rules!

Matt shared the story of how Amazon now have physical stores too, but these stores only stock books that have a 4 star or higher rating from their customers. Data is driving their retail strategy.

The risk of data richness is what Nat calls ‘data exhaust’. Matt talks about the ‘data lake’ and they suggest that instead of ‘swimming in the data lake’ we ask ourselves: ‘what’s the minimum viable data needed to make this decision?’

To ensure digital and data are valued and invested in, leadership buy-in is essential. Nat shows us where to start:

• Create an internal PR plan to get buy-in
• Consider quick wins to prove the benefits
• Beg/steal/borrow other company’s business cases/justifications for how digital and data have improved their business

Part 2 to follow ...