eMarketer recently conducted a series of interviews with a number of CMOs, Chief Marketing Technologists, CTOs and CIOs as part of a conscious focus on the intersection of Marketing, Technology and Innovation; an attempt to guide marketing leaders on the challenges and nuances of both ignoring this intersection as well as being able to successfully accept and adopt it. While the former path is a road to disaster and extinction; the latter is a rough, bumpy and ever changing road to success.

I had the pleasure of interviewing with eMarketer’s Danielle Drolet on the topic; here is a sneak peak of our discussion but you can read the entire discussion and download additional whitepapers off the eMarketer’s site or by clicking here.

On the evolution of Marketing Technology at Kimberly Clark?

The evolution has been easy because it never existed until I had joined as the Global Head. On a serious note though, we have come a LONG way as an organization. Three years back we started with defining what Marketing Technology really meant for a CPG giant, how was it different from traditional technologies in terms of the mindset, culture, behaviors and of course all the nuance around the change and the pace of disruption. We literally started there to now where we have a Global Marketing Technology Organization within the CMO’s world but at the same time we have a very strategic part of our IT organization that supports the marketing world. We started the journey with a focus on building key capabilities from eCommerce to data & analytics but have matured now where we re applying enterprise, emerging and innovative technologies to ultimately change consumer behaviors; build legendary brands as well as drive top line growth.

 To what extent do you believe your company is using marketing technology to its fullest capabilities?

We are not even close to where we would like to be but we are far ahead within the world of CPG. While on one side we are bringing in new capabilities and innovative technologies across Content, Data and Commerce but at the same time our focus is on bringing fundamental changes to how we think about applying data and technology. Are we really being consumer focused or are we still channel obsessed? How do we translate the 2000 plus marketing technology vendor landscape to solve behavioral issues of trust, perception, penetration, stigma and ultimately change lives. That is the journey we are on. The number of technologies will only increase and the pace at which it will change is only bound to exponentially increase year over year, it’s just so easy to build technology solutions now (relatively speaking).

You can view and download the entire interview and rest of the series from eMarketer’s site or by clicking here.