Ahead of the marcus evans CMO Summit 2022, read here an interview with Brad Meehan discussing how CMOs can improve the customer experience, delivering brand alignment and value creation.

1. Interview with: Brad Meehan,
Managing Director, Strativity Group
“To build the target experience, think
about the brand objective for every
interaction, and then focus on the target
memory and target emotion you are
trying to deliver for customers,” advises
Brad Meehan, Managing Director,
Strativity Group.
Strativity Group is a sponsor company
at the marcus evans CMO Summit
2022.
What is challenging CMOs today?
Many CMOs are struggling to deliver a
customer experience that is fully aligned
to the brand promise they are making in
the market. This is increasingly
challenging because of a rapid rise in
customer expectations. CMOs have to
ensure the marketing promises come to
life for customers when they are
engaging in a relationship or purchasing
a product or service. It is an increasing-
ly omnichannel environment where
customers are jumping between phone,
apps, websites and social tools, and
expecting the organisation to respond in
the same channel in an integrated way,
and track their engagement up until
that point.
We have found that taking a piecemeal
approach and delivering incremental
improvements does not really drive
significant value creation. It is better to
step back, consider the brand promise
and corporate strategy, develop a deep
understanding of customer motivations
and market competitors, and deliberate-
ly design an experience. And then work
out how to execute that experience
through different channels and the
enabling business functions.
When building a target experience,
what else should CMOs think about?
They should think about the brand
objective for every interaction. Then,
they need to focus on what memory or
emotion they are trying to create. We
would then suggest using a range of
human-centred design and innovation
tools to innovate and enhance key
aspects of the experience, to deliver
total alignment with the core value
proposition. It is critical to consider both
the importance and performance of a
range of interactions, so the organisa-
tion can invest in those that will deliver
the most impact. It is important not to
just design a branded experience and
communicate the design to the
business, but rather they should
realistically assess capabilities across
the business, and align those capabili-
ties and the operating model itself with
the target experience. If they do that,
they can build a roadmap that focuses
on improving the front-stage experience
for customers, while deliberately
uplifting the capabilities needed to
deliver differentiated experiences.
It is all about achieving a deeper level of
engagement with customers, and
delivering the brand in a unique way
across all the different touchpoints.
CMOs must continuously assess the
market and the customer, to understand
what motivates them at a deep level,
and identify new problems and
opportunities. The more customer-
centric their decision-making is, the
better they will be able to adjust their
offer, respond to competitors, deliver on
promises, and build long-lasting
relationships.
How can CMOs integrate the
different channels better?
The key to delivering a coordinated and
integrated experience is to really
understand why customers are
engaging through different channels,
and what they are looking to achieve. In
some parts of the experience, it is about
optimising things, in others parts, it’s
about delivering a memorable moment.
At Strativity, we would typically map the
entire customer experience, all the
journeys and critical pathways that play
out across a range of different channels,
to understand what customers are
trying to achieve and how the organisa-
tion is performing. We would then
consider specific improvements but
importantly, determine how they would
all operate together, to deliver a holistic
and on-brand targeted experience.
What insights do many CMOs lack
today?
Based on my experience, many
businesses do not lack the “what” but
do lack the “why”. They have data on
customer engagement, what they are
buying and where, their different
interactions, complaints and often
satisfaction level. They are data rich but
insight poor. They understand what is
happening but not why it is happening.
The key insight marketers need to
differentiate their brand, and contribute
more significantly to their competitive
strategy, is empathetic insight. A truly
deep understanding of the different
types of customers and their underlying
motivations. The deeper and richer their
connection with customers, and the
more complete their understanding of
how customers view their brand,
products, services, and how they fit into
the customer’s life, the more able they
are to use that insight to deliver the
right experiences and real innovation.
How can they collect more data on
experiences and “why”?
Speaking to their customers using a
combination of contextual enquiry and
ethnographic methods of research is a
great starting point. Building in a deep
understanding of human psychology and
behavioural economics is also recom-
mended. And adopting a data driven
approach to understand relative
importance, performance, volume and
value of key interactions helps too.
We generally use a systems design
approach to map out an ecosystem, to
understand actors, pathways, friction
points, and value creation opportunities.
From there we might drill into a sub-
section of that system, and literally
explore the relevant customer behav-
iours. We would then use a technique
like affinity mapping to identify all the
key themes, learnings and motivations,
and combine this with channel and
transactional data to ascertain the most
important themes and opportunity
areas. This gives a solid foundation for
real improvement.
It is critical to think
about the brand
objective and target
memory for every
interaction
How to Ensure your Brand Promise is
Delivered through Every Experience

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About Strativity Group
Strativity Group is the world’s leading boutique customer strategy consultancy (Forrester 2019). We partner with like-minded
organisations to deliver meaningful change and quantifiable results. Our team are passionate strategists with operational
experience, bringing a unique blend of research, analysis, commerciality, empathy, design and pragmatism.
www.strativity.com.au
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To view the web version of this interview, please click here:
https://events.marcusevans-events.com/cmo2022-brad-meehan