© Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 Yes, it´s time again for some insightful marketing predictions for 2016 With my related articles for both 2015 and 2014 I was (fortunately ) pretty close to what has happened in many areas at the end In summary, I believe that in 2016 we will move more than ever from a “Mad Men creativity-driven marketing era“ to an age of "Predictive analytics and holistic software platforms.“ This will enable to create compelling new content being engineered by data and focusing on building huge distribution in a scalable manner With many opportunities coming from big data, VR, AI, video streaming, etc we must be careful not to over-complicate marketing and not to neglect who really matters: Our customers and audience Let´s jointly look into the marketing future to ensure that you and your brands will take advantage of the relevant trends in order to build and keep strong brands Senior Executive, Marketing Expert, Leadership & Executive Coach, LinkedIN Influencer © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 Customer Know-how and Simplicity are the Basis Big Data and Analytics are at the Heart of Modern Marketing Social Media Sells Meet and target Generation Z Mobile and Location-based Marketing will make Fixed Thinking redundant Messaging will take off Artificial Intelligence, Wearables, Virtual Reality, and Robots are here to stay Moving Images and Video become the ultimate King of the Content Jungle Data Security 10 Communication needs to matter and to be real time 11 Employee Advocacy as a major Social Currency 12 Customer and Content-centric Organizations 13 Final Thoughts © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 People have more choices than ever and are overwhelmed by information and data (same is true for any marketer) In parallel, they want to spend as little time as possible on having to choose what´s right for them Instead, they want to receive personalized and smart recommendations which suit their needs and wants at any given moment in time © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 Photo source: Daniel Lee via Flickr of marketers have been implementing lead nurturing tactics for more than two years* Top brands have developed lead nurturing programs which are personalized, as they send prospects on different nurture paths depending on their actions and interests This is a significant indicator that predictive marketing is having an impact on how lead nurturing programs are executed (see also below section on big data and analytics) *Source: 2015 Lead Nurturing Benchmark Study © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 One customized approach which smart marketers are taking in this context is the application of dynamic pricing Models such as subscription (e.g for digital content providers like Spotify, Amazon Prime Video, and Kindle Unlimited) or "Pay What you Want (PWYW)“ strategies Pricing determined by customers rather than by firms An interesting PWYW example is Humble Bundle Careful, however, dynamic pricing must not result in a negative customer experience as it was the case for some people who booked a car ride via Uber or Lyft at New Year´s Eve; a mistake often also made by airlines and hotels when using outdated yield management pricing tactics © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 * Photo by NEC Corporation of America with Creative Commons license © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 The ability to develop an integrated, analytical view of customer activities and business operations will enable brands to design personalized and still "simple“ marketing strategies and tactics Big Data and analytics assist to uncover new insights and deliver a sharper competitive edge Especially more advanced cognitive technologies will enable marketers to better comprehend and predict customer wants and needs © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 * Photo by NEC Corporation of America with Creative Commons license 10 With the help of highly sophisticated CRM tools such as Insightly, Zoho, Hubspot, or Nimble even small and mid-sized companies will be able taking advantage of the wealth of data which are out there in this beautiful data universe Those data-driven and holistic software tools and management systems collect, combine, structure, and analyze relevant data sets, generate insights, match them with existing or new target groups, integrate them into your sales and marketing strategy, and make precise recommendations for future actions And, of course, bigger companies can always go with the more complex CRM solutions of Salesforce Pardot, Microsoft Dynamics, or Oracle CRM © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 * Photo by NEC Corporation of America with Creative Commons license Photo source: Didriks via Flickr © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 50 Digital marketing silos that segment various marketing efforts into stand alone functions are a remnant of the past Most importantly, digital strategy isn’t just concerning digital marketing Instead, digital transformation encompasses all facets of business - From R&D, sales, finance, legal, HR to strategic business planning © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 51 One way of doing that in a more comprehensive manner is to introduce the role of a Chief Digital Officer (CDO) which is also postulated by various consultancies A CDO is someone who understands the relevance and functioning of digital media and is able to lead the respective transformation of the organization A rather demanding role which spans a broad set of hard and soft skills, which encompasses the entire organization, as well as working with outside partners such as designers and developers (and not tipping on the toes of the CIO and CTO) Photo source: Siemens PLM Software via Flickr © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 52 Personally, I favor more an approach as outlined by G Westermann and D Bonnet in their excellent book Leading Digital by developing the whole organization to digital masters from the very beginning versus installing a sole "Digital Messiah.“ Westermann and Bonnet argue that for marketers and executives to become truly outstanding in today´s and tomorrow´s digital age they need to become "Digital Masters“ who excel at two essential dimensions: First, they build digital capabilities by rethinking and improving their business processes, their customer engagements, and their business models Second, they build strong leadership capabilities to envision and drive transformation Each dimension of capability is important on its own Together, they make you a Digital (Marketing) Master In this respect successful brands will have to consolidate all of their marketing efforts into a unified strategy and organization © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 53 In addition, top companies will lay out their key departments around the main axes “customer experience” and “continuous innovation.” They use less, but more holistically operating tools with more functionality As marketers spend a lot of their time on content, top companies will come up with innovative automate marketing and CRM solutions © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 Photo source: Poptech via Flickr 54 In regards of content they are going to establish what I call "Social Media Buddy Teams (SMBT).“ One part of the SMBT will be responsible for strategy, analytics, and insights The other one will look after content and social Please also note that content marketers will need to develop their skills in order to become savvy directors of (short) videos and collaborate with hosts of live broadcasts, etc © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 55 Forward-thinking top brands will work hard and smart to recruit and retain so-called hybrid marketers, i.e tech-savvy and analytical minds which at the same time have a strong passion and aptitude for marketing These next-generation professionals will establish new border- and silo-less organizations and will make traditional-minded marketers irrelevant © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 57 Top brands and marketers should focus their resources and efforts, i.e generating results with a few channels as opposed of wanting to be everywhere This is especially true for social media which has gone mainstream in the past few years Sometimes to the detriment of building and maintaining lasting and personal relationships The more exposure social media is getting, the bigger its wear-out-effect will be, if not managed properly Brands should not forget about applying the basics, i.e having an excellent email list with thousands of engaged existing and potential customers might be worth more than implementing the latest predictive analytics tools An allencompassing style of Digital Leadership is to be applied and executed by top-notch leaders © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 58 Last but not least, marketers should better wake up and start comprehending that Millennials, Gen Z, etc are not so different from everyone else – They´re looking for trustworthy brands they can relate with and which offer them added-values to satisfy their needs and wants © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 59 The best brands in 2016 will focus on Customer Knowhow and Simplicity Moving Images and Video Data Security Big Data and Analytics Artificial Intelligence, Wearables, Virtual Reality, and Robots Relevant and real time Communication Social Media Selling Messaging, as it will take off Employee Advocacy as a major Social Currency Meeting and targeting Generation Z Mobile and Location-based Marketing Becoming a Customer and Content-centric Organizations © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 60 avonderheydt@ consumergoodsclub.com linkedin.com/in/avonderheydt facebook.com/ConsumerGoodsClub Senior Executive, Marketing Expert, Leadership & Executive Coach, LinkedIN Influencer twitter.com/ConsumGoodsClub © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 61 Find out more in my new book Check out my previous predictions © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 62 http://www.demandgenreport.com/resources/reports/2015-lead-nurturing-benchmark-study-aligning-nurture-programsto-the-buyer-s-journey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_what_you_want http://www.geekwire.com/2016/customers-complain-uber-prices-surge-near-10x-new-years-eve/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yield_management http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/08/19/mobile-messaging-and-social-media-2015/ https://klout.com/home http://www.northeastern.edu/news/2014/11/generation-z-survey/ http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/millennials-on-steroids-is-your-brand-ready-for-generation-z/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhusXg3dDwk 10 http://adwords.blogspot.de/2015/05/building-for-next-moment.html 11 http://www.313somerset.com.sg/General/Tring-313-FAQs 12 http://yourstory.com/2015/06/location-based-marketing/ 13 http://www.amazon.com/The-Mobile-Mind-Shift-Engineer/dp/0991361008 14 http://a16z.com/2015/08/06/wechat-china-mobile-first/ 15 http://blog.snapchat.com/post/109302961090/introducing-discover 16 http://blog.appannie.com/messaging-apps-where-theyre-popular-and-major-revenue-opportunities/ 17 https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insight-living-services-from-accenture-digital © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 63 18 http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/215296-did-googles-quantum-computer-just-get-the-biggest-processor-upgradein-history 19 http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service-provider/ip-ngn-ip-next-generation-network/white_paper_c11481360.html 20 http://advertising.microsoft.com/en/cl/31966/how-does-digital-affect-canadian-attention-spans 21 http://www.aolplatforms.com/ussoi2015 22 http://digiday.com/brands/5-ways-brands-using-periscope/ 23 http://www.brafton.com/blog/social-media/5-brands-using-meerkat-for-marketing/ 24 http://www.inc.com/michael-dell/why-data-security-is-the-most-important-issue-you-face.html 25 http://www.edelman.com/insights/intellectual-property/2015-edelman-trust-barometer/ 26 http://www.gallup.com/poll/187865/engaged-employees-less-likely-health-problems.aspx?g_source=WellBeing&g_medium=newsfeed&g_campaign=tiles 27 http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/organization/transformer_in_chief_the_new_chief_digital_officer 28 http://www.amazon.com/Leading-Digital-Technology-BusinessTransformation/dp/1625272472/ref=sr_1_1_twi_har_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1451815518&sr=8-1&keywords=leading+digital 29 http://www.pr2020.com/blog/evolution-prototype-hybrid-marketer-ebook 30 http://www.amazon.com/Qualities-Tomorrows-Top-LeadersSuccessful/dp/3000496181/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1432543987&sr=8-1&keywords=the+7+qualities+of © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 ... Content-centric Organizations 13 Final Thoughts © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 People have more choices... Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 Photo source: Davity Dave via Flickr © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 19 20 In May 2015, Google announced... and treat them with respect Top brands will have implemented best- in- class “social listening” tools and fully embedded processes © Andreas von der Heydt – What The Best Brands Will Do In 2016 Photo