What marketing has to deliver
The future of marketing: from storytelling to truth-sharing. Expert interviews reveal how technology is blurring lines between B2B, B2C, and more.
It used to be said that marketing was about making a myth and telling it. Now it's about telling a truth and sharing it.
So in an age increasingly being shaped by technology and the expectations of the emerging Generation Z, how is the very meaning and purpose of marketing changing?
Key questions we're exploring:
- How is technology reshaping the meaning of marketing?
- What's the new dynamic between marketing, customer experience, sales, and e-commerce?
- Are the lines between B2B, B2C, D2B, and D2C strategies blurring?
To gain insights into the future of marketing, we're interviewing industry experts and thought leaders, compiling their perspectives into a book.
You can read these interviews as they are published below.
Interview 1: Understanding - the starting point
Mathilde Rineau, Marketing Manager | VOLT Bikes
“Marketing starts by understanding your audience’s values, their passions, having that picture of their identity, and what they are looking for.” The company learned the importance of that from a very early experience.
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Interview 2: Being in position at the right time
Jonty Shipley, Marketing Director | Content Guru
"Telling the story has always been a big part of marketing, but what has changed is that with digital, the format also has to be of interest and attractive to the recipient, not just the content."
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Interview 3: Looking long term will build trust
Nick Haughton, Global Marketing Director | Sapphire Balconies
"Marketing also has to change habits, a requirement which is often forgotten when there is a combined sales and marketing role, resulting in the focus being on the here and now, with all the attention on getting the leads in at the expense of long-term brand building."
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Interview 4: Building on seven pillars
Patrick Pearson, Head of Marketing and Communications | Lucy Group
“Promotion is the last pillar after all the other ducks are in a row. The premise has to be to get the rudiments of marketing right first before publicising. Then sales will come,”
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Interview 5: Having a completely different perception
Jeremy Curnow, Finance Director | Elemental Cars
“When I look at TV adverts for shampoo saying it will improve your life, promoting hypersensitive this and that, it's entirely different from our perception of marketing. It's almost confusing to call it the same thing.”
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Interview 6: Why perceived wisdom might have to change
Alan Trojanowski, Head of Marketing | Cambridge Pixel
“I remember writing a piece on historic radar processing failures and asking AI to provide me with some examples. Three of the five that it came up weren’t even radar related. Now it's a much better marketing and research tool, but at the end of the day, that's what it should be, a tool.”
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Interview 7: How to start that all important conversation
Isabelle Duarté, Chief Marketing Officer | Soldo
“Marketing has so many moving parts now because of technology, but in essence, it's still about being able to start a ‘conversation’ and to enthuse and excite whoever you are talking to,”
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Interview 8: A different approach is a necessity
Dr Zlatka Stoeva, Managing Director | DZP Technologies
“Engineers and scientists want information, they want the detail. It's a balance to provide enough to satisfy that trait and then be able to prompt them to contact you,"
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Interview 9: The first step is knowing where to focus
Jimmy Phillips, Marketing & Sales Manager | Powdertech Surface Science
“Really in essence, the thinking behind the messaging should be straightforward. Just make sure it is in the language of the customer, how they would frame the problem or requirement, so you can demonstrate you are on their wavelength,”
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Interview 10: Having to address audiences sequentially
Michael Goulden, Co-Founder | Kerbo Charge
What happens when a new product needs to be marketed to not just one but two distinctly different audiences which will be interested for completely different reasons?
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Interview 11: A blueprint for building brand value through innovation
Chris Horton, Managing Director | Performance Projects / OxDrive
“Our objective, which we have to achieve with marketing, is to position OxDrive as the ‘Intel Inside’ of the off-highway propulsion sector. We need to get the brand to the position where a multi-national sees the potential in what we are creating and will want to acquire the company rather than attempt to develop its own product.”
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Interview 12: Emotional response to communication
Kendra Rogers-Kelly, Chief Communications & Marketing Officer | Featurespace
“Emotion, according to the dictionary definition is ‘a conscious reaction experienced as a strong feeling directed toward a specific third party’. So why wouldn’t that be applicable to b2b marketing?”
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Interview 13: What’s in a name is a searching question
Chris Walker, Chief Executive | Diamond Hard Surfaces
“Marketing becomes a collective noun for communication channels, not as a strategic tool which dictates the direction of the business, guiding it to develop USPs. And if marketing is simply seen as ‘communication', it tends to be applied much like a tap which can be turned on or off.”
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Interview 14: When familiarity breeds confidence
Cosima Wagner, Head of Marketing | Altitude Angel
“I talk about the need with a prospective customer to take into account the factor of the power of three, that someone needs to see or hear your message three times before it sinks in. Which is where a company needs to have brand consistency so when they make that breakthrough, there's brand recognition.”
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Interview 15: When a proposition is completely different
John Tinson, VP Sales & Marketing | Ilika
“A technical person will have AI as well as the internet at their disposal so you can't over-embellish to get their attention. Keep it real or lose authenticity, because fact checking is easier for people to do."
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Interview 16: Basic principles have to stay the same
Helen Eaton, Marketing Director | Evolito
“Look at a company’s website and see how thin or ‘me too’ its content can be. A serious prospect will see right through that. And don’t feel compelled to try and follow what another companies are doing simply because they seem to be appearing everywhere."
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More interviews coming soon!
In the meantime, you might like to explore our other eBooks.