A Tale of Two CMO's: Awareness (Part I)

Last week, I kicked off a blog series titled, A Tale of Two CMO's: A Study in Contrasts. The goal of the series is to contrast the styles of an old school and new school CMO whose personas I've fleshed out in my original post. Over the next five weeks, the series will focus on a different aspect of the marketing funnel (awareness, interest, desire and action) in order to get a perspective from each CMO.

Before I start asking our two CMOs questions about this week's topic, I am going to take a question from Steve Poppe who was kind enough to ask a simple yet profound question in the comments' section of last week's post.

Here goes:

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Who owns the brand?

James: I know that the answer that everyone wants me to give is, the customer. And believe it or not, I do believe that our customers share in the ownership of our company's brand. However, at the end of the day, our management team is responsible to our shareholders. Occasionally, what our stakeholders (customers, prospects, employees and partners) want and what we are financially required to do on behalf of our shareholders are mutually exclusive. Whenever possible though, we do everything in our power to steer the brand in the direction that all of our stakeholders desire.

Tessa: Based on what you read in today's press and in the blogosphere, companies have little to no ownership of their brands. To me, that is a load of horse crap because without our products, employees, website, press relations, advertising and yes, social presence, brands wouldn't exist. With that said, I am a firm believer in the fact that the old "command and control" style aka "we'll tell you what our brand is and you'll like it" days are over. Smart companies -- I'd like to put ours in that bucket -- are realizing that we live in a world of customer co-creation and that customers are sharing what they think of "us" every day. We may not like what our customers are saying about us, but shame on any CMO that isn't paying attention to their customers' feedback.

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If you could only spend money on facet of marketing to generate brand awareness, what would it be and why?

James: I've never been a fan of answering questions like this because it forces me to respond in a way that makes me sound like the stereotypical brand marketer. In the spirit of being a cooperative interviewee, I'll indulge you. Despite the fragmented nature of television, it's still the best vehicle (for us anyway) for creating brand awareness. With that said, there a dozen other ways to generate awareness that complement what we do on television and believe it or not, I'm vying to do less television advertising than more these days. As you know, tv is expensive as hell and getting harder and harder to get in front of live audiences.

Tessa: A couple of years ago, I would have answered print or tv advertising. That has obviously shifted over the last few years with interactive playing a much greater roll and now social -- Facebook in particular -- having a bigger impact. I guess if you held a gun to my head and forced me to answer this question, the biggest driver of awareness for us these days are online ads on the major networks. The key, however, is driving them to our social presences like our branded online community and our Facebook Fanpage (from ads on Facebook). The nice thing is that it serves two goals -- we create awareness with our customers and then allow the 99%+ that are not in the buy cycle to more deeply engage with us and other customers in a less obtrusive way.

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How is earned media contributing to brand awareness?

James: We've been very pleased with the some of the press our new PR firm has landed for us over the last six months. Our green initiatives are getting some much deserved attention -- so much so that our CEO is being interview on 60 Minutes next month. We've also gotten great press (Business section above the fold) in the Journal and AdAge did a feature on our new website last month. You'll be surprised to hear me say this but I'd like to think that our biggest win to date is a five part series in USA Today about ways that our products are changing the way consumers think about our space. Talk about a great driver of awareness!

Tessa: Over the last year or so, we've been working hard to find a balance between our traditional PR efforts and our social initiatives which include a heavy dose of influencer outreach. While any company is a fool to ignore traditional PR in spite of the fact that traditional media readership continues to decline at alarming rates, we've seen a groundswell of activity coming from our grass roots blogger relations and our newly formed ambassador program. In both cases, we've spent a lot of time identifying who are net promoters and detractors are (especially the ones with big megaphones) and have invited them to special events to talk to myself, our CEO, our product leads and even some of the folks in our research department. The biggest challenge is scaling these efforts but what we're starting to see is that after about six months, the momentum behind some of these word of mouth efforts really starts to kick in.

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What roll will "social" play in your future brand awareness efforts?

James: I know they say that you can't teach an old dog new tricks but I have been keeping a close eye on social tools like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. While I don't have the time to personally participate in these channels, a few of the younger folks in our marketing department along with a few folks in our agency have been pushing me to get our brand more involved in social. For right now, I feel like it's all just too new and very few companies have figured out how to monetize these emerging channels. It seems like if anything, Twitter and corporate blogs will likely just end up being another customer service vehicle. I don't ever see social being a driver of brand awareness save maybe the occasional viral Youtube video.

Tessa: While I personally love social networks like Twitter and Facebook, I don't necessarily see them as something that will help with our overall brand awareness. Yes, our brand has a presence on both and we will continue to invest in both, but I see the roll of social being much better at creating customer engagement and customer retention than I do for awareness. As I mentioned in my answer to the last question, I think earned media probably has the best shot from a social perspective of creating awareness.

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So there you have it. Thank you to our two fictional CMOs for taking the time to answer questions about brand and brand awareness this week. Next week, we'll have them tackle another question or two from the comments section as well as fielding some queries on preference and consideration. interest.

The big question is, were you surprised by the answers that either of our two CMOs gave? Any advice for either of them? Your comments and recommendations will drive the direction of this series so please don't be shy about weighing in.

A Tale of Two CMO's: A Study in Contrasts

As someone that's spent the last 16 years of his life doing some form of advertising or marketing, I've been thinking a lot about what an exciting, yet anxious time this must be for most chief marketing officers (CMOs). To that end, there are still a number of CMOs and marketers that have chosen to ignore or hide from recent trends like social media and its ability to help brands -- big and small -- retain, engage and ultimately grow their current customer base.

While there is nothing to say that the strategies and tools that marketers have used for decades can't still be effective, there are also a number of new tools that could greatly benefit their efforts. To help illustrate this point, I've decided to create a five part blog series titled, A Tale of Two CMO's. The series will juxtapose the approaches of two marketing leaders with different backgrounds and viewpoints by asking them to answer questions -- some that I will ask, others that I hope the readers of this blog will contribute. Each post will focus on a different marketing goal such as:

• Awareness
• Interest
• Desire
• Action

post script: I've updated items 2-4 based on my colleague, Joe Jaffe's, AIDA version of the marketing funnel in his new book, Flip the Funnel.

To help bring the series to life, I've fleshed out the personas for Mr. "old school" CMO and Ms. "I'm okay with change" CMO. My goal is to post a new installment every week for the next five weeks -- in a perfect world, this will be every Wednesday morning -- but please know that I live in a far from perfect world.

Meet Our Two CMOs

Who: James Hossenpfeifer, CMO of a large consumer package goods company

Age: 61
Education: BA from Notre Dame, MBA from University of Michigan

Likes: Single malt scotch, World War II movies, Frank Sinatra and weekends at the country house

Favorite publications: The Financial Times, AdAge, Businessweek and the Wall Street Journal

Tools of choice: Direct mail, inserts, primetime television ads, print ads, the occasional outdoor ad to mix things up and recently, takeover ads on some of the larger networks like Yahoo.

Experience: During his first 12 years, James worked as an account exec on Madison Avenue for two well-known ad agencies. Feeling stuck in his career, he took two years off for B-school and then jumped to the client side at age 36. Since then, he's held senior level marketing positions at three Fortune500 companies, the latest being the title of chief marketing officer at his current company (current tenure, 14 years).

Experts in the Industry: Mike Lewis (44 of 45)

And today's special guest is friend, and CMO of Awareness, Mike Lewis (not to be confused with Tim Walker's idol, Michael Lewis). I first met Mike on Twitter but then got to know him through his involvement in Chris Brogan's New Marketing Summit in Boston last year. Mike came to our offices along with David Scott and Paul Gillin to do a podcast for the event. Mike and I then sat down for a video interview at Gillette Stadium to talk about the meaning of "new marketing."

Since then, Mike has taken over as the head of marketing at Awareness. I've been impressed with some of the programs he's put together including a kick ass webinar series featuring folks like Sony, Brogan and other folks moving the bar in the social media space. Mike and I are hoping that sometime soon, Awarenss and Powered can do a joint webinar that's double the fun!

Okay Mike, let's see how you answered the five questions from the Experts in the Industry series:

In one sentence, please describe what you do and why you’re good at it.

I am an entrepreneurial marketer that helps companies build brand and revenue through traditional and social marketing initiatives. The most successful marketing programs include a significant amount of risk and I help companies take strategic risks and uncover innovative ways of bringing products and services to market. 

  

How did you get into the world of online community, social media or social marketing?

I have always been passionate about Internet technologies that help improve how we conduct business.  I initially got involved in social media a few years back when I was the VP of Marketing at Salesnet by launching a customer focused blog and a blog focused on improving sales processes.  Since then I have been an early adopter of social technologies and have tried to include them in every marketing program I run.

  

If you had $10 million to invest in one company and one company only based on their use of “social,” which company would it be and why?

For me it’s a toss-up between Zappos and Jet Blue.  Zappos is because they are passionate about using social media, they are very successful and they have fun doing it. I would invest in Jet Blue because their use of social clearly aligns with their overall business objective of delivering a superior customer experience.  From the top down they are passionate about serving their customers and they adopted social media as a way to support that goal.   In my opinion that is something many companies who are adopting social media are missing – aligning social media marketing to real business objectives.

Which business leader, politician or public figure do you most respect?

I know you asked for 1, but here are 3… 1 for each category:

• Political figure: Mitt Romney.  I have a lot of respect for him both as a businessman and as a politician.  From a political standpoint he turned a $3B deficit in Mass to a $700M surplus and had to make a lot of tough decisions along the way that didn’t align with many of the other politicians in Massachusetts.
• Business leader: Steve Jobs.  His track record speaks for it itself.  I have a lot of respect for his innovation, creativity and drive.
• Public Figure: Howard Stern.  OK... this is the outlier, right?  Here’s why I respect Howard.  He’s a guy that never lost sight of his dream to be a radio star and worked his butt off to get there.  You may not like what he says but you have to respect his work ethic and determination.

Would you join a toothpaste community? Why?

No… simply because I have no interest in toothpaste.  That said, I am likely to sign up for a community if it’s a product or subject I am interested in and passionate about. 

 

Freeform – here’s where you can riff on anyone or anything – good or bad. Or just share a pearl of wisdom.

I spend a lot of time speaking with marketing execs at companies who are talking an awful lot about social media, but aren’t actually doing anything yet.  In the words of Nike, my advice is: Just do it.  It’s easy to get started in social media, test the waters, listen to what people are saying and use that as a way to formulate a more complex plan that aligns with your business objectives.