Keeping up and thriving in a world where “marketing” has become the catch-all for everything related to a brand's forward motion.
The relationship between brand leaders and technology is not just growing, it's in a constant state of revolution. Marketers aren't just expected to be savvy in traditional marketing strategies, they're increasingly taking on roles that blend behavioural psychology, technical engineering, and data analysis. The fusion of these domains has created a new landscape, where understanding consumer behaviour, managing complex technological tools, and interpreting vast data sets are all part of the daily grind.
The Rise of Marketer-Technologists
Gone are the days when marketing was all about creative campaigns and catchy taglines. In the digital era, marketing professionals are diving deep into the world of advanced software engineering and data analytics. This shift is driven by the need to navigate a world awash with digital channels and data overload.
Scott Brinker, VP of Platform Ecosystem at HubSpot and the editor of the Chief Marketing Technologist blog, highlights this transition. "Marketing has evolved from an art to a blend of art and science," he says. "Today's marketers need to be comfortable with technology that enables data-driven decisions and personalized customer experiences." Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman of Ogilvy UK, sagely reflects on it by saying, "The traditional 'big idea' in advertising needs rethinking in a world where your audience is scattered across a hundred different media channels." In any organization, it’s evident that this fragmentation is felt most deeply amongst brand and marketing leaders.
Navigating Digital Transformation
Digital transformation in marketing isn't just about adopting new technologies, it's about changing the way organizations think and operate — it’s culture as much as tech. Marketers play a crucial role in guiding this transformation, often acting as liaisons between the technical world and the realm of business strategy.
Ann Lewnes, past Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Adobe, points out, "The role of the marketer is more complex and critical than ever. We are the orchestrators of digital transformation, driving change across organizations by leveraging technology to gain deeper customer insights and deliver engaging experiences."
One of the biggest challenges for brand leaders today is keeping up with the rapid pace of technological change. The landscape is constantly shifting, with new tools and platforms emerging regularly. Staying ahead requires not just technical knowledge, but also a mindset of continuous learning and adaptability.
Unfortunately, technology implementation and planning is treated less like an architectural activity and more like adhoc plumbing. Tools and services are added and removed to suit ephemeral campaigns and temporary requirements, often creating silos of data, zombie implementations, and tensions between marketing and in-house IT leaders that have typically been the masters of the information systems. Many enterprises keep adding new software to solve compounding challenges, and are eventually hobbled under the weight of their own systems. For marketing, digital transformation is a balance of investing enough time and engineering into developing the necessary solutions, while keeping systems and integrations nimble enough that they can respond to inevitable change or be continually replaced.
Drilling for Data
Data has been referred to as the new oil. The explosion of data has been a game-changer in marketing as brand leaders are increasingly reaching for analytics to make informed decisions. However, dealing with “data lakes” and warehouses is just as daunting and overwhelming as it is empowering. The ability to analyze consumer behavior, market trends, and campaign performance is a fundamental skill in a marketer's arsenal, but many still struggle to identify metrics and systems of measurement that will enable this capability in a manner that is repeatable, scalable and variable enough to support experimentation.
Keith Weed, former Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Unilever, emphasizes the importance of this skill: "Data is the lifeblood of modern marketing. It informs everything we do, from strategy development to execution. As marketers, our ability to harness and interpret data is critical to success."
A persistent challenge for many marketing departments is the ability to wire together disparate systems so that they are able to filter and segment realtime data for insights necessary to drive decisions. Data collection, analysis and reporting still exist as batch processes that introduce lag and inconsistency, disconnecting marketing activities from revenue operations and slowing down an organization's ability to establish its flywheel for growth. And these are just the basics — increasingly seamless data ingestion is necessary to train AI and systems of the future that will be delivering these insights and recommendations.
Integrating Technology with Creativity
While technology has become a critical component of marketing, it's vital not to lose sight of the creativity that drives human emotion and engagement. The most successful marketing strategies blend technological prowess with creative thinking.
Jonathan Mildenhall, former CMO of Airbnb, sums up this balance: "Technology enables us to reach our audiences in incredibly sophisticated ways. But at the end of the day, it's the creativity in our messaging and storytelling that truly resonates with people." So, there's a delicate dance between relying on data and nurturing creativity. While data informs decisions and drives strategies, it can't replace the emotional intelligence and cultural navigation required of creativity. Sutherland warns, "We risk becoming too dependent on data, forgetting that it's a tool for enhancement, not a replacement for creativity." In the digital realm especially, the art of moving and impactful ad creative can be entirely lost in the race for data collection and ROAS calculations.
After all, 5% of our motivations are rational, the other 95% are the hardwired emotional brain. For brand leaders this really is an alchemy of art and science and, when brought together in the right mix, the results are nothing short of magical.
Becoming the Chief Marketing Technologist
As technology continues to reshape the marketing landscape, brand leaders must evolve — not just to stay competitive, but even just for basic survival. This involves embracing a multi-faceted role that combines technical know-how with creative flair and as deep an understanding of human behavior as statistical analysis. The best leaders are always looking for something actionable to leverage for growth and performance. Well, there’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that there’s no quick recommendations for the hot new AI tool or a top-ten checklist that will get the job done. Instead, we’re providing some evergreen principles and helpful frameworks to ensure you’re cultivating the right habits for competency and becoming antifragile along the way.
Embrace Continuous Learning: By constantly evolving, you can continue to drive personal, professional, and brand growth in an increasingly complex and technology-driven world. But, don't just leave this to good intentions — operationalize learning. Schedule courses for yourself and your team through online platforms. Someone wise once said “What you hear, you forget; what you see, you remember; what you do, you understand.” So, schedule recurring lunch and learn events and make curiosity, exploration and peer-to-peer teaching a core part of the roles in your team — this will lock in the learnings.
Action: you'll benefit from multiple crash courses, but check out offerings from Coursera.
Build Live Data Views: Use data analytics not just to gather insights but to drive meaningful customer engagement. To do this at scale your systems of data collection and reporting must be an always-on, totally automated, real-time view. Gone are the days of quarterly, monthly or even weekly reports. Customize your live dashboards like the cockpit of a data-fueled supercar. If it’s difficult for your team to do this or they don’t know how — good. That’s weakness leaving the body. Keep going, figure it out.
Action: Get started with Databox. It's consumer-friendly, connects with everything and gives you sexy-looking dashboards that your leadership team will love.
Foster a Culture of Innovation: Encourage experimentation and risk-taking to discover new approaches. Not every digital experiment should require you to bet the farm. So, establish reasonable time and resource budgets for making small bets on new ideas, invest in the ones that show promise, and ruthlessly discard anything that doesn't. Work with your team members to evaluate the performance of innovation projects — this is about getting everybody used to fearlessly generating new ideas and being highly disloyal to anything that doesn’t work.
Action: look at the McKinsey & Company 3 Horizons Model and determine your ratios for each of the three horizons. For most orgs it can be 70-20-10.
Develop Cross-Functional Skills: Create a nexus of the business, technical and human aspects of marketing. Pull in competencies from other parts of the organization through a matrix-style organizational structure that formalizes interdisciplinary relationships. Otherwise, convene temporary, mission-driven taskforces that draw on talent from disparate departments — these working groups can maximize skills development through outcome-focused, transformational projects. If there are any egos or territorialism preventing growth, these structures will expose them rapidly.
Action: look at resources from Project Management Institute to research matrix or other organizational styles and experiment with them.
For brand and marketing leaders, these approaches and resources offer pathways to maintain an edge in a constantly evolving field. By embracing continuous learning and adapting to new technologies and trends, they can ensure personal, professional, and brand growth in the dynamic world of digital marketing.
