Martin Kihn is Salesforce’s SVP Strategy for Marketing Cloud and the co-author of “Customer Data Platforms”.
There’s a tug of war going on in the marketing world these days between two opposing schools of thought. On one side are the creatively minded brand marketers who remain convinced that the only sure way to achieve long-lasting market growth is through brand building. On the other side, just as adamant, are the data-driven performance marketers, preoccupied with converting clicks into sales.
The tension between these two tribes has escalated in recent years with the massive shift of media dollars from traditional broad-reach channels to digital advertising, much of that soaked up by Facebook, Google and Amazon. At stake is a larger claim to the marketing budget. And while brand marketers still insist that brand recognition and preference drives purchase behavior, the performance marketers argue that search intent trumps brand awareness. Google describes this as the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT), when in the buying process the connected consumer researches a product prior to purchase. Shoppers don’t start down the path to purchase with a specific brand name in mind, goes the argument, they start with a “a job to be done”. The brand consideration set may shrink or expand depending on what they learn.
For now, the performance marketers have the upper hand. It is a lot easier to prove marketing ROI through last touch attribution than to give credit to squishier measures like brand devotion. In a world where attention span is fleeting, people tend to skip, ignore or scroll past the ads, or worse, install ad blockers. And that means it is harder than ever for brands to win consideration early in the decision cycle, which is the role that traditional top-of-funnel advertising used to play.
With the demise of third-party cookies, programmatic advertising will be dealt a fatal blow. Brands will begin to covet first-party data collected through owned media and use that intelligence to drive more personalized and engaging experiences with customers. Brand marketers will have a new role to play: finding creative ways to engage in a deeper dialogue with customers about their needs, using quality content as the conversation starter. And performance marketers will worry less about generating fly-by traffic and more about the depth, quality, and continuity of digital engagement. In short, every marketer will become a full funnel marketer, organizing themselves around the customer journey, from initial discovery to repeat buyer.
Martin Kihn calls this omnichannel framework the “know, personalize, engage” (KPE) model. The right message, at the right time, in the exact right moment. Marketing must shift from a campaign orientation, he believes, to a real-time mindset where the goal is to deliver more dynamic experiences that build upon each other over time. To offer that type of rich, adaptive, contextual experience demands, of course, a single view of the customer, and a next-generation, zero-latency engagement platform that can fire like a neural synapse the moment someone interacts with the brand.
Marty started out his career as a writer on the award-winning MTV series “Pop-Up Video” but pivoted to the world of business with an initial foray into management consulting. He turned that traumatizing experience into a best-selling memoir called “House of Lies” which later became a hit TV series. From there he rose up through the ranks of data-driven marketing, with stints at Digitas, Fallon and Gartner, and today heads up strategy for Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud platform. I started out by asking him if he ever regretted switching careers after he had become a consultant.
Marty Kihn: Well, not really. It was a mercenary objective because that was… My first part of my career I came out of college, and I wanted to be a writer. And it was clear. So, then I got into publishing as many people did in those days. And publishing was already sort of on the downslope since the introduction of television and cable television. But it was still an okay career. Its best days were behind it, I think. But I worked at magazines. And then I got a job at MTV Networks on a show called “Pop-Up Video,” which, you know, was a successful show. It was a big hit. And we even did a Pop-Up Oprah episode, and we did a “Pop-Up News Radio,” which was a show on NBC at the time. So, we got some popular attention, which was very nice. And it was a lot of work and fun. And I realized, as a writer, I probably couldn’t get a better job than that. And I was getting paid $1,000 a week, but only when I worked. So, between the seasons, I was laid off, and then I went on unemployment, which was not $1,000 a week. So, my net take-home was something like $50,000. And this was the late ’90s and that was not a lot of money. And it’s still not a lot of money. It’s even less now. But I thought, “I will never own an apartment.” That was literally the thought that went through my head if I continue in this career. So, I go, “All right. I’m gonna just go to business school, because it’s two years and I guess I kind of like business.” But that wasn’t the important thing. So, that was the reason I went. And I ended up liking it more than I thought. I actually enjoyed accounting, I enjoyed learning about corporate finance. I thought I was learning about America, so the way America works, you know, capitalism. And then I got a job at a consulting firm right out of business school. So, they recruited there. And I picked the firm, and I picked the partner I wanted to work for. I was very clear in my objectives. And my salary doubled. So, I went from earning about $50,000, $55,000 a year to about $110,000. And so I thought, “That’s the reason I got this MBA.” I had a 100% jump in salary. And I’m kind of kidding but I’m kind of not kidding. And so then the job ended up being very difficult, the consulting job, and very stressful, and, you know, much harder than my previous work. But I was getting paid more and the upside was better because there was a career path. And I was learning a lot. So, I didn’t actually regret it. I did know pretty early on I wasn’t gonna be a consultant forever. That’s true.
Stephen Shaw: At what point along the way there did you decide, “This would make a good memoir?”.