The 2004 ANA Masters of Marketing Conference signaled a turning point for marketing in several ways. One of them was when Kimberly-Clark's Jane Boulware unveiled a powerful new approach to technology for the marketing department.
 The breakthrough in technology that Jane and her team (a combined marketing and IT task force) has achieved comes as a bit of a surprise, however. Traditionally, neither the marketing department nor the science of marketing has been well supported by technology. There have been many little gadgets and point solutions. There have also been some instances of technology which have warped the purpose of marketing.
CRM falls into this category. Marketing is about knowledge, intelligence and interpretation: we develop knowledge of our customers, use the intelligence we have developed over time to process that knowledge, and then use the interpretation in strategy, positioning, communications and execution. CRM warps this process because it is content-free. It records interactions with consumers but is unable to enhance the interaction using knowledge, or to interpret the interaction and make it better. CRM is a process of throwing things at the customer as if they are a wall and not even waiting around to see if it sticks.
Of course there have been some successful applications of technology to marketing. Our capability to data-mine is a great leap forward. Our ability to conduct research over the internet is one of the few areas in which the promise of that tool is truly realized -- better data, developed faster so that we can react faster, all at a lower cost than traditional research. Our ability to replace brick-and-mortar test markets with virtual test markets gives us both a superior technique and a competitive advantage by not signaling our intentions. Collaborative software helps global teams work together and with their agencies in a more productive fashion. Digital asset management saves a fortune in redundant reproduction.
But there is no end-to-end technology infrastructure that supports marketing the way that ERP supports the supply chain or SAP R3 supports global finance. That is, until now.
In her presentation before the ANA, Jane Boulware showed an intriguing glimpse of a new marketing technology system that Kimberly-Clark is developing under the title of Brand Builder.
Jane has been known for a long time as a leader and innovator in marketing, in areas such as global brand building and integrated marketing strategies and planning. She was careful in her presentation to strike a balance between announcing leadership and preserving confidentiality, so we'll try to preserve that same balance here. Reviewing the presentation that Jane made in front of a diverse audience, we can identify at least seven elements of breakthrough thinking and execution.
Jane Boulware showed an intriguing glimpse of a new marketing technology system.
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Enterprise solution with a limited-risk expansion plan. The vision for the Brand Builder system that Jane exposed is enterprise-wide -- global, all brands, not limited to the marketing department, and capable of integration into finance, supply chain and the other branches of the corporation influenced or led by marketing. This is the first step towards enabling a marketing capability that is more of a general management competency than a specialist function -- a big breakthrough.
Single-entry portal for marketing. It appeared that every marketing practitioner and every individual seeking or contributing information in the marketing value chain would enter through a common portal. The marketing repository becomes the "one truth" -- the single, impeccable source of the latest and most accurate knowledge, content, best practices and data.
Process enablement. Kimberly-Clark's system is more than a knowledge repository, however. It includes content and software that enables marketing processes and ensures that they are executed at best practice levels throughout the corporation. Each process is broken down into its component steps, with the appropriate actions, responsibilities, partners and supportive data identified.
So, whatever brand a team of marketers might be working on, and whatever process they are undertaking -- from strategic planning to tactical execution -- they know that they can have the current best practice available to follow on their desktops. There are no delays in identifying the right process or finding the appropriate information, and productivity and morale escalates.
And because plans are built and tracked within Brand Builder, the system eliminates redundant/multiple offline files and spreadsheets. There is no need for someone to "enter" data because Brand Builder is where plans/data are created … not re-created. There's the potential for a massive amount of time saving and productivity in this attribute alone.
Guidance and tips. One of the secrets to this best practice implementation seemed to be the availability of guidance and tips to the process user -- a combination of expert "how to's" and on-the-job training. These guidance and tips become a corporate asset, the heart and soul of corporate knowledge disseminated to marketers and their teammates. And marketers, in their turn, contribute to the corporate knowledge base by updating and improving the guidance and tips by applying the learning that comes with use.
Templates and tools. Some elements of the system are designed to go beyond guidance to actual tools -- i.e., software and data elements that do work rather than guide it. These templates and tools ranged from approvals engines to self-populating data templates that can draw data from corporate databases to formulate model solutions, or to monitor the execution of specific initiatives.
The joyful news is that marketing can look forward to robust enterprise systems.
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Dynamic database of what works and what doesn't. The system appeared to advance beyond providing content, data, templates and guidance in a "top down" fashion. It actually enables users to update the data base in a dynamic fashion.
Any marketer the world over, trying to build a plan to, say, achieve trial of "X -percent" of a specified target audience, can go to the database and review the most effective marketing plans ever used by the company in this regard: the specific results, the cost per trial, the retention of triers and all the other data relevant to the effort. The quality of the database rests with the execution teams, thus making them critical partners in the quality of the corporate knowledge base.
Heavy focus on metrics for continuous improvement. A subsidiary point that emerged about the database of what works and what doesn't is the fact that everything deemed worthy of spending marketing dollars is required to be measured. By focusing the system on metrics, the quality of the corporate knowledge base is judged objectively rather than subjectively, and expertise resides in the organization and not in the heads of individuals.
The system will be linked to information sources both internal and external. So, for the first time, marketing has one place for strategy, planning, execution, and tracking. Analysis is systematic and comprehensive, rather than ad hoc and fragmented. Another leap forward.
Jane stressed that this enterprise solution was at an early stage of development, but definitely in implementation mode rather than planning mode. The joyful news is that marketing as a function can now look forward to robust enterprise systems, combining knowledge, best practices, collaboration, process enablement, on-the-job training and metrics for continuous improvement.
This is a huge step out of the dark clouds of isolationism that all too often obstruct marketing's view. We look forward to continued progress in the knowledge that the base camp has been moved way up the mountain by Kimberly-Clark.
Jane Boulware's presentation deck may be downloaded from the ANA website: http://ana.net/irc/BoulwareOct16.pdf
Hunter Hastings is the managing partner of EMM Group, an enterprise marketing management company that transforms clients for growth through the application of best practice-based marketing processes and marketing technology. He can be reached at hunterhastings@emmgroup.net
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