Marketers can now use data to shape how brands interact with customers and what products and services are offered. By understanding customers as individuals and using predictive analytics, marketers can get ahead of customer demands and design social businesses. Only 48% of CMOs surveyed felt prepared for today's complexity, but a new kind of CMO is adapting by bringing more rigor to marketing investments and proving marketing can be more personal and a service than a sales pitch.

1. WELCOME TO Marketers can now use data to
shape everything from how
THE ERA OF THE
brands interact with customers
to the products and services
they offer to the structure and
culture of the company itself.
By radically rethinking their
On a smarter planet, we’ve seen THE DATA OF DESIRE. THE BRANDING OF profession, marketers today are
how predictive analytics can CMOs used to try to shape CULTURE. able to understand customers
help transform everything from customers’ desires; now they’re But the transparency that as individuals, use predictive
how we fight crime to how we actually learning how to predict companies have into consumer
improve things like healthcare, them. Sophisticated analytics patterns is, conversely, met by
food safety and utility grids. help them take a holistic view increased consumer transparency
For companies, this has raised of the customer experience into companies’ actual behavior
interesting questions about and create new methods of and performance. Social media
By 2017, CMOs will spend more
how to take advantage of the
on IT than CIOs.
unprecedented streams of
information generated by today’s tools to get ahead of demand
customers. These questions and design truly social
are increasingly falling on the businesses. These CMOs are
shoulders of the chief marketing bringing more rigor to the
officer. Our study of 1,700 ROI of their marketing
CMOs worldwide confirmed investments and are ultimately
that marketers believe their proving that marketing can
profession is being transformed be less obtrusive and more
by “big data,” the proliferation personal, less of a pitch and
of new mobile devices and the more of a service to people
emergence of social media. than ever before.
And only 48 percent of those
IBM is convening leading
we spoke with said they felt
CMOs and CIOs in an
prepared for today’s complexity.
ongoing discussion on their
However, a new kind of CMO
ideas about how marketing
is adapting to these changes and
and technology can come
is reinventing the notion of what
together to make both stronger.
marketing can do.
To join the discussion, visit
ibm.com/smartermarketing
or #CMO #CIO on Twitter.
FROM MILLIONS TO ONE.
Today, the vast amount of data
that customers are generating
lets marketers understand them
not just as segments or targets,
but as actual individuals. CHIEF EXECUTIVE
CUSTOMER.
engagement, using data to only serves to amplify those
LET’S BUILD A
create not just a snapshot of a moments in which company
First Tennessee Bank achieved an ROI SMARTER PL ANET.
of more than 600% using predictive customer, but a lifetime view promises fall short (or exceed
analytics to more intelligently target
offers to customers.
that can improve with every expectations). The CMO
interaction. Predictive analytics now plays an essential role in
And those individuals expect brings science to the art of aligning the company’s values
more from the brands they do customer engagement, helping and beliefs with its brand
business with—not just service, create a seamless experience promise. They are spending
but hyperpersonalized service. that can give customers what more and more time on “who
Forward-thinking marketers are they want, when they want it. we are” and not just “what we
connecting the universe of sell,” giving their firms a new
transactional, social, service and degree of social intelligence
search data to build new levels and self-awareness—essential
of customer visibility and for any long-term relationship
understanding—and are then with customers.
making more precise decisions
about whom to reach.
A leading apparel company is using
analytics to drive sales by optimizing
product placements on their website, based
on social media and product availability.
2012 Gartner Report: “By 2017, the CMO will spend more on IT than the CIO.”
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