More inspiring content and ideas to take home from day 3 at the Masters of Marketing.

Delegates at the 2018 ANA Masters of Marketing were treated to yet another delicious dinner on Thursday night and a breath-taking performance by the ultra-talented Kelly Clarkson. It was an evening to remember and a feast for all the senses, while the sessions on Friday were a return to a more intellectual kind of feast.

Taking back control

Friday kicked off with a panel of top marketers from some of the world’s most recognisable brands – Jill Estorino from Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, American Express CMO Elizabeth Rutledge and Deloitte Digital’s Alicia Hatch, facilitated by P&G’s Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard. They discussed leading disruption as a way to drive growth and to ensure that marketing still matters into the future. A Cannes Lions CMO Growth Council has formed a movement that is ‘taking back control’ of marketing, with a focus on five core tenets to drive growth: data and technology; talent and capability; customer centricity, brand experience and innovation; and society and sustainability. Each panellist took the audience through an example of how their company is implementing initiatives in these five tenets. Jill Estorino explained how Disney has put the customer – and the future customer – right at the centre of their product innovation and experiences by harnessing data, while Marc Pritchard put forward the argument for increasing brands’ social and environmental responsibility – half of consumers take a more positive view of a company that takes a stand on an issue.Taking smart risks to drive growth

Staying relevant by focusing on your greatest asset

If attendees thought that the session following Jeff’s would be lower energy and they’d be able to relax a bit, they were mistaken. The WNBA’s equally charismatic Lisa Borders talked to us about how the WNBA grew to become a major entertainment – not just sports – brands in a little over 20 years. Their focus has always been to remain relevant by focusing on their greatest asset – their players, using their own authentic voice, embracing who they are and leveraging that in their communications and brand identity.

Earning loyalty to drive growth

Next up was Greg Revelle, CMO of iconic American retail brand Kohl’s, which is going from strength to strength despite the challenges faced by the retail sector. He explained how overhauling the cherished Kohls Cash rewards scheme allowed them to accelerate the rate of customer acquisition and retention, whilst deepening customer engagement and simplifying their value proposition. The key to the success of the new programme was asking the customers themselves – and not just researchers – what they wanted from the loyalty programme. Greg’s top tips to marketers were to start from your company’s roots and scale up from there; see industry challenges as opportunities; ask your customers what they want and measure everything you can.

Humanising personalisation

After Greg, American Express CMO Elizabeth Rutledge returned to the main stage to relay how she has driven a sea change – and global growth – at her organisation with a new brand platform – ‘American Express has your back as you do business and live life’. The entire strategy is rooted in humanity and the ‘humanisation of personalisation’: Elizabeth kicked off her presentation with Muhammad Ali’s moving short poem, ‘Me? We.’ She went onto explain how her ‘aha’ moment was realising that marketing is only a ‘sliver’ of the way that American Express engages with its customers – the real human connection is via the customer services team, so the new brand platform had to revolve around the entire company – who they are, what they do and what they say. There was a renewed focus on their employees, ensuring that they were satisfied because ‘a happy employee is a happy customer’. The new platform and approach has been a huge success for the brand so far, raising brand value by 8%. Elizabeth’s key takeaways for the audience? Data is critical but, on its own, not sufficient; we – marketers – are the stewards of ‘we’; and we must infuse the personal into personalisation.

Brand versus performance marketing

With that rallying cry we moved to the second stage to listen to last year’s top-rated speaker, Clorox’s Eric Reynolds, talk openly and honestly about Clorox’s journey towards achieving the right balance between performance marketing and brand marketing.

He shared lessons that they’ve learned along the way, using a gut health brand and an anti-ageing DTC acquisition as case studies. The critical lesson? Like so many others at the conference, it was to put the consumer as a person at the heart of what you are doing. Marketers from both the brand side and the performance side must consider the consumer’s personal goals and their unique path to purchase, and find the best way that the brand can be useful to them. For CPG brands like Clorox, that means going back to the industry’s roots – being useful to real people, every day.

An unconventional path to growth

From gut health to gut instinct: back at the main stage after lunch, the CMO of privately owned bread brand King’s Hawaiian, Erick Dickens gave an enjoyable, informative session about their unconventional path to growth. Always following his gut – his key piece of advice for the audience – he had to do things differently thanks to a limited marketing budget. That included bankrolling the best agency talent to start their own agency as he couldn’t afford to pay for them in their existing roles; working directly with media properties so he could cut out the middle men; thinking big (they even made a film with their limited budget!); and picking high impact placements – namely the Oscars and the Super Bowl – using existing creative. Not only did they spend a fraction of what the other brands spent on their creative, but their spots when straight into the top ranked ads at the Super Bowl! Erick’s bold and unconventional approach has earned him fantastic results across all key metrics, including uplifts in unaided brand awareness and household penetration.

Marketing’s time to shine

We finished the day with an inspiring and heart-felt presentation by Deloitte Digital CMO Alicia Hatch, who explained why this is marketing’s moment to shine. With so much disruption and transformation in the marketing industry, now is the time to use our brand’s purpose to create a force for good. Through the prism of Deloitte’s work with National Geographic to create the amazing Women of Impact campaign, Alicia described that the secret lies in brands really understanding where their consumers derive meaning and really understanding what matters to their brand. If they can create brand experiences where those two areas intersect, that’s where a brand has the power to elevate the human experience and become a powerful force for good – which in turn drives business growth. The Women of Impact campaign harnessed cutting-edge predictive AI technology which allowed the team to respond to the community they had created at the speed of culture – allowing National Geographic to move from earning a share of voice to earning a share of culture. In the end, it’s all about data

We ended day two with a session on how to turn your data into an emotional connection courtesy of Bank of America’s Lou Paskalis. He stressed how in the future, marketing will be data-driven, connections-based and customer-obsessed. plan xox black People buy with their hearts and then rationalise their purchases with their brains: if your brand can connect with their hearts, you win. Lou also made the pithy observation that data is the new oil: in its raw form it’s just a material, but if you refine it in the right way, it will inform your marketing vision.

Customer-centricity, brand purpose and using data well

As always, the Masters of Marketing was a festival of ideas, inspiration, food for thought and energy. The main themes that came out time and again were customer-centricity, brand purpose and how to use data as a means to create meaningful, authentic connections – not as as the end itself. It’s always inspiring to hear how talented and dedicated marketers are harnessing the rapid changes in the industry to make their discipline a driver of growth and a force for good. For those looking to drive growth for their brand, ECI Media Management has years of experience helping marketers do just that, and we’d be delighted to hear how we can support you. Feel free to contact us on value@ecimm.com

Thumbnail image: Alexandra Matthews