The role of the CMO and marketing in general is changing rapidly in the digital world. We are fast becoming a data-driven society. Emotional appeals in marketing are becoming less effective and even less trusted. “Trust is the new black,” says Craig Newmark of Craigslist at today’s TWTRCON 09 conference in Washington D.C. Without trust, a brand will not have value in the new economy, and trust must be built on transparency. The new CMO will need to be transparent every step of the way, according to Interval’s white paper on measuring marketing performance for hospitals and health systems, “Share the good, the bad, the ugly.”
Monitoring a brand’s trust equity requires an understanding of social media monitoring tools like Radian6. In order to get a “pulse” of the marketplace, the new CMO will need to know how to use the tools, measure the data, and then, have a strategy in place to proactively manage a brand’s reputation. However, Pete Blackshaw, VP of Online Digital Strategic Services for Nielsen, says he is very surprised by how many brand marketers still have no coherent strategy in dealing with negative commentary on blogs and other social networks. This is especially precarious with the advent of Google Sidewiki. The RosettaHC team has published an excellent white paper on Google Sidewiki, especially for pharma, but it is also useful for any marketer.
Marketers also need to be aware that data from real-time search heats up today as Google and Microsoft’s Bing announced deals to add Twitter’s fire hose to their search capability. The value of Twitter has always been in the data (financial details of the deals were not disclosed.) Google will also soon be adding “Social Search” to its arsenal as announced today by Google’s Marissa Mayer at the Web 2.0 Summit 09 in San Francisco.
The most statistics-driven brand in the industry, the MLB, is leading a Twitter experiment with its transparent “Pulse of the Postseason” monitoring. According to @mashable, MLB.com is now tracking post season game action by compiling all the twitter chatter in an interactive inning-by-inning timeline of each game. Twitter buzz is compiled alongside video highlights. Although the data is now only available after the game, research is underway to make it real-time for next season.
Statistics and data in real-time will drive business decisions in the digital age, and that is why “Marketing is the new finance, “ according to Ann Lewnes, Chief Marketing Officer for Adobe. As such, Adobe merged with Omniture with the goal of creating a holistic way in which to develop creative content and measure the value of that content, according to Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen.
The creativity of the CMO now comes down to analyzing the content of a brand’s digital footprint and driving innovation based on those shared results and learnings. Are you ready?