Kimberly-Clark Seeks Data Behavior Mix from Marketing Technology

I recently had a dialogue with the eMarketer team on the evolution and future possibilities of Marketing Technology, you can view the original interview “Kimberly Clark Seeks Data Behavior Mix from Marketing Technology”:

While one marketing technology partner might seem like a no-brainer, most major brands are challenged with integrating various technologies that they adopted over time. Mayur Gupta, global head of marketing technology and innovation at Kimberly-Clark, spoke with eMarketer’s Danielle Drolet about the maturation of marketing technology at the consumer packaged goods (CPG) giant, and theories on how marketers and technologists can work together to effectively use these methods.

eMarketer: How has the role of marketing technology evolved at Kimberly-Clark?

Mayur Gupta: We’ve come a long way. About three years ago, we started defining what marketing technology meant for a CPG giant and differentiating it from initial technology in terms of mindset, culture, behavior and, of course, all the nuances around the change in the pace of disruption.

Now, we have a global marketing organization within the CMO’s role. We also have a very strategic part of our IT organization that supports marketing, which came about when we started building core capabilities from ecommerce to data and analytics. We have a level of maturity where we’ve applied emerging and innovative technologies to change consumer behaviors [across the enterprise]. And that’s been an evolution for us at the most fundamental level—a shift of our focus from just building capabilities to actually changing consumer behaviors that will drive top-line growth.

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

Gupta: We’re not even close to where we would like to be, but we are far ahead in terms of the world of CPG. On one hand, we are bringing new capabilities and innovative technologies in three big buckets: content, data and commerce. On the other hand, we’re also focusing our attention on bringing fundamental changes to how we apply data and technology to changing consumer behaviors.

eMarketer: What’s your biggest challenge today?

Gupta: The big question is, “Are we really being consumer-focused?” How do we translate that world of 2,000-plus marketing technologies? Take a look at Scott Brinker’s Landscape of ChiefMarTec.com. How do we use that to solve behavioral issues of trust, perception, stigma and ultimately change behavior? We challenge ourselves to apply these technologies to deliver those seamless and frictionless consumer experiences. Ultimately, that’s what matters.

eMarketer: Is it better to have a varied stack of tools from multiple providers vs. one full-suite partner?

Gupta: The theoretical answer is marketing needs a connected ecosystem where all these pieces of the puzzle work together. They complement each other, and they don’t stack up, because everyone’s trying to bring the pieces of the puzzle together to make a picture that makes sense.

And that’s where this notion of marketing cloud comes in—the notion of marketing cloud where the IBMs, the Adobes, the Salesforce, the SAPs and the Oracles have invested billions in the last three years to stitch those isolated pieces together.

eMarketer: What’s the reality?

Gupta: The reality is brands started the journey before that, and we’ve incrementally built pieces. If you look at our role in any other world of the CPG, we already have pieces of the puzzle on the table scattered around. When we are looking at these new capabilities, we ask ourselves how those additional pieces fit in our existing landscape, where I can take it away and bring something new in very quickly. How do they work together? How do they talk to each other? And that, unfortunately, now is an incremental pathway, but that’s where data plays a massive role.

eMarketer: What do you think of the concept the marketing cloud?

Gupta: I like to think of it as a marketing operating system. We, as an industry, have to learn from what Steve Jobs did to the mobile world by creating an iOS. He created an open framework where everybody else could focus on creativity and application of their operating system to solve consumer needs. These four or five big players should try to ultimately create a marketing operating system, where marketers can focus more on application of that technology to solve and meet consumer needs, both rational and emotional.

eMarketer: How do you anticipate the role of marketing technology changing in the next 12 to 24 months?

Gupta: Every brand marketer will be the marketing technologist, and every technology will be the marketer. And that’s the DNA that we at Kimberly-Clark are trying to establish. Everybody who’s working of building brands, whether you’re a planner, brand strategist or a technologist, our goal is to bring you at a converging point where all these things intersect.

– See more at the eMarketer Site