CIO’s are motivated to minimize risk, and CMOs are rewarded for big campaigns that land. These differing incentives make it difficult for a brand to bridge the gap and achieve a collaborative relationship between the two - and a good agency is responsible for mediating this relationship. Hear Isobar's co-CEO Geoff Cubitt discuss how an agency should approach the CIO/CMO relationship.

1. Bridging the CIO/CMO Divide
Geoff Cubitt
Co-CEO, Isobar U.S.
geoff.cubitt@ us-isobar.com
@ IsobarUS
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Property of Isobar. Privileged & Confidential.

2. By 2017, CMOs will spend more on IT than CIOs.
– Gartner, 2012
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Property of Isobar. Privileged & Confidential.

3. Share of Media consumption
Mobile is already a dominant media channel and its Pace of change requires you to rethink your
offering
•
Digital has surpassed TV as the top
media consumption channel
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Yes you know mobile is important but
its skyrocketing rate of change means
it’s much more important than you
think
− This year, mobile has overtaken desktop
internet as the leading digital media
channel
− Mobile has grown more than 4X in the
past two years yet was practically
irrelevant a couple years prior
− It’s steep growth curve indicates it may be
set to challenge TV’s long-held
dominance within 3-4 years
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Source: eMarketer July 2013

4. Forrester refers to “The Ultimate Customer Relationship” where the
role of the brand relationship is superseded by a stickier Digital
Customer Relationship
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5. Omni-Channel World
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Mobile is changing your business not just your digital business
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Creating a compelling and consistent customer experience across all customer interaction channels is
critical and in many ways, this is the new marketing
− And there is digital component to every channel
− If your employees need to leverage poor and inconsistent tools to interact with customers, the customer experience is
degraded
•
Leveraging analytics to engage consumers in their “mobile moments”
− According to Forrester only 49% of interactive marketing professionals use mobile analytics
•
Leverage mobile data to better understand physical spaces based on actual people movement and
behavior
•
Need to understand the convergence of social and mobile (more than half of Facebook’s revenue comes
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from mobile) Privileged & Confidential.

6. Energizing fan support for a top athlete’s recovery – Social and Mobile
adidas | All In For D Rose
Convergence
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•
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When Derrick Rose—the NBA’s youngest MVP—suffered a
devastating knee injury, adidas faced a challenge in releasing
his new shoe, the D Rose 3. We worked with adidas to create
an interactive social media campaign that shared Rose’s
rehab journey with his fans, giving an authentic behind-thescenes look at his recovery. Using a responsive website,
Facebook application, episodic videos, texts, recorded phone
messages from Rose and more, we kept Rose top-of-mind
while increasing sales of the D Rose 3.
Property of Isobar. Privileged & Confidential.
Over 15% of Derrick Rose mentions in social media also
mention the brand (up from 0%), driving significant awareness
of the link between Rose, adidas and the D Rose 3
•
Over 15 million mentions in all social channels (both passively
and actively supported by the campaign)
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7 million+ views on YouTube (up 800%)
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Facebook application created 100 impressions for every piece
of content generated, with a click-through rate to the site of
2%.
http://thereturn.adidas.com/

7. The Digital Product Revolution
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8. Consumerization of the Enterprise
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9. Leverage Analytics and Big Data to Learn and Optimize
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It is truly possible to
understand what’s working
and what isn’t
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It is now possible to really
understand customer
journey’s and optimize
across channels
considering geography,
personas and context
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10. U.S. digital ad spending to reach $50.6 billion in 2014, up 14% over
2013.
– Winterberry Group
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11. “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it
has taken place.”
– George Bernard Shaw
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12. The Disconnect
According to a 2013 Forrester/Forbes survey of IT and Marketing leaders
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IT thinks it understands Marketing way more than it does
− Priority Alignment - IT is more confident that it understands marketing’s priorities (68%), whereas marketing is less
confident (49%) in its ability to communicate IT’s priorities
− IT’s Marketing Expertise - Close to half of IT leaders (49%) believe that “the CIO hires staff with marketing expertise,” but
only 19% of marketing leaders believe such
•
Since 2011 there has been an 11% improvement between IT and Marketing on process alignment but it’s
still bleak
− Leadership Focus - Only 62% of IT and 45% of Marketers feel that that adequate leadership is in place to support
marketing technology investments
− Ownership - 70% of IT and more than half (51%) of marketing agreeing that “marketing and IT have shared
ownership/responsibility for marketing technology projects”
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Lack of Marketing Technology Direction
− Strategy – 61% of IT and 45% of Marketing believe their company has a strategy for Marketing Technology
− View of the Customer - Businesses may be collecting data on all of the customer touchpoints, but only 50% of IT and
38% of marketers leaders believe that their company has a single view of customer interactions across touchpoints and
over time
− Insights – 57% of IT and 42% of Marketing believe their company can create actionable insights from a customer data
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Misaligned incentives
− Bonus Drivers - Only 48% of IT and 37% of marketers leaders agree that they share mutually dependent bonus drivers,
Property of Isobar. agreement between marketers and IT has increased by 14% since the 2011 survey
this level of Privileged & Confidential.
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13. When it Works
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Companies such as Uber and Jawbone have transcended the gap between Marketing and Technology
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Property of Isobar. Privileged & Confidential.

14. When it Doesn’t
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Healthcare.gov is a fantastic example of how wrong things can go when technology and marketing are not
aligned
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Property of Isobar. Privileged & Confidential.

15. Differences in Mind Set are Part of the Equation
Risk Taker versus Risk Manager
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CMO’s are Risk Takers
− Make their mark with big, well known, breakthrough campaigns
− Not innovating enough can cost them their jobs
− It’s about the ideas
•
CIO’s are Risk Managers
−
−
−
−
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Focused on critical systems not going down, sensitive data not getting compromised
Try to avoid failed projects or budget over-runs
Tend to be deliberate and plodding
Its about meeting commitments
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16. Don’t Kid Yourself – Cheap Resources aren’t Necessarily Cheaper
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If there is a business case for your initiative than getting it done faster, with a higher degree of confidence
brings the value of that business case to bear sooner
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In the case of marketing initiatives, being 3 months late to support a product launch, just isn’t an option
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In some companies, IT procurement have become enamored with the cheapest “commodity” resources
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The problem is that good technology resources are not a commodity
− Numerous studies have shown that most work on an technical project gets done by 20-30% of the team
− If you’re not careful you’ll end up with a team full or people that can’t get anything done
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An IT project staffed with mediocre to poor resources will almost certainly suffer from delays, budget
overruns, poor quality, and poor adherence to user experience design
− The cumulative affect of all these can be devastating to a marketing initiative
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17. Sophisticated Solutions Take Time – Plan Accordingly
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Marketing can have a tendency to under appreciate how long it takes to build a robust solution
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Time is required to design and build sophisticated and value added customer solutions
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There is a difference between what is in effect an animated brochure and a differentiating technical offering
that is tied into CRM, ERP and other backend systems
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Marketing calendars don’t often focus out across multiple years and sometimes not beyond seasons
•
Marketers need to engage their technology partners early in the process to provide more planning lead
team
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Additionally marketers need to plan earlier for initiatives which are foreseeable, considering more than just
the marketing focused tasks
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18. Bridging the CIO – CMO Divide
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19. Re-think Infrastructure Role
Cloud computing is a game changer
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− It’s possible to move faster with no capital infrastructure investment
− Environments can be ramped up and scale elastically to support a campaign spike then ramped down or shut down
going forward
− IT needs to embrace this change and support Marketing’s use of the cloud
Separate out the core support functions from customer facing solutions and marketing
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a) Desk-top support, network, email, etc. are core support functions for the organization and deserve their own focus
b) Customer facing applications and marketing solutions require a different expertize and focus
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20. Align Incentives
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Tie both CMO’s and CIO’s to tangible business results if input from both sides is necessary for success
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For example, If your goal is to increase the average size of purchase and the answer is heavily
technology-enabled, then make this metric jointly owned
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If both sides have common incentives than both have motivation to move at the pace of customer
opportunities and demands
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21. Build Cross Functional Teams
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Technology resources should be involved early on in Marketing initiatives and both sides should work
collaboratively throughout the life cycle of an initiative
− Getting everyone excited about something that’s never going to happen due to technical limitations is frustrating and time
consuming
− Technology resources can be more than a wet blanket on great ideas the can help to open up a world of technology
enable capabilities that marketing might never have thought of
− Likewise Marketing should continue to be engaged through delivery to help with resolving things that don’t go according
to plan and ensure that the solution delivered aligns with what was desired
•
If it’s the CIO’s responsibility to support the CMO then it’s the CMO’s responsibility to involve them in their
plans
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22. Communicate and Empathize
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Too often CIOs and CMOs talk past each other
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Align objectives carefully so that each side has common goals and language
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Long term culture is key to ensuring a successful relationship
− Both sides must truly respect and appreciate what the other does
− This starts with spending time working together and trying to truly understand the value the other provides
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23. Define a Strategic Plan
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Its hard to get where you want to go if you don’t know where you’re going
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As noted, some things take longer than a campaign season to put in place so having a strategic plan to
define those longer term investments is critical
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Develop a capability roadmap to guide you along the way and manage organizational expectations
•
Stay agile
− Keep major initiatives in manageable phases like 6-9 months versus 18-36 months; this helps to demonstrate progress
and validate further investment
− No plan survives contact with the enemy so be prepared to adjust as changes in the marketplace require
− Leverage agile development based approaches to align effort around the highest business priorities as things evolve and
ensure buy-in along the way
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24. The Hack
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Understand the current client incentives and motivations and try to work in ways that don’t cut across the
grain
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Influence them toward changes listed above
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Be the bridge
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25. Any questions?
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