The Incite Summit 2013 eBook

The
Incite
Summit
e-Book
Rohit Bhargava
Founder
Influential Marketing Group
@rohitbhargava
Nick Johnson
Founder
Incite Marketing and Communications
@gnjohnson
inciteMC.com #incitesummit
The Incite Summit
September 18-19, New York

On september 18, 2013 speakers
from more than thirty of the
largest brands in the world
gathered In new york to
speak candidly about
their marketing and
communications.
No powerpoint was used.

This book is the
official curated
collection
of insights they
Shared That Day.

There are generally two kinds of business
conferences. The first kind is social – where the
networking trumps the content. The second is
the educational where learning is priority #1 ...
and Incite is that type of event.
I was luck to host the first one, and during our
two days together, we welcomed dozens of
brand leaders to share insights. Normally those
would remain behind locked conference room
doors. Thankfully, that’s not the case this time.
This book is a collection of what you might have
learned if you were in the room. It’s a real time
curation and the first time I’ve ever seen
conference insights packaged and shared in this
way.
So enjoy the insights, let us know what you think
… and hopefully we’ll see you next time.
Rohit bhargava, founder + CEO
Influential marketing group
Marketing and communications are transforming.
The depth, scale and pace of this transformation is,
frankly, terrifying.
The relationship (and power balance) between brand
and consumer has shifted completely. Your customers
now dictate the conversation around your brand, and
your potential customers ascribe more weight to
consumer reviews than to your PR and marketing
efforts.
OK, so ‘terrifying’ might be rather a negative
adjective. ‘Exciting’ works, too.
Being an agile, customer-centric and responsive brand
takes a transformation of your internal organisation,
of your hierarchy, and of your entire marketing and
communications strategy. But it’s possible.
That’s what Incite is all about. We find the best brands
out there, and we share their expertise with you.
Nick johnson, founder
Incite marketing + communications
Introduction from nick:Introduction from Rohit:

The Insights:
15 marketing lessons from
brand leaders shared from
the stage at #incitesummit

1. don’t ask customers what they
want. Ask them which they want.
The Chobani brand is well known for being customer centric, but in
a fascinating story CCO Nicki Briggs reminded the audience that
asking the right questions is more important that offering a blank
page. Recently, Chobani polled customers to ask whether
pomegranate should or should not be in their yoghurt. Posing an
either or option can be far more effective for getting useful
feedback from customers than open ended questions. The seeds,
by the way, will remain – thanks to customer demand.
Nicki briggs, Chief communications Officer
chobani

2. Want to be customer-centric?
Learn to actually care.
For the past two years, MetLife has embarked on an ambitious
project to redefine it’s entire brand and operation as more
customer centric. This has included everything from redesigning
forms to changing scripted customer interactions. Driven from the
top, Chief Customer Officer Claire Burns shared that the real key to
how Metlife manages to bring this transformation to life is with a
sometime forgotten truism – being customer centric starts with
truly caring about your customers and the experience they get.
Claire burns, Chief customer Officer
metlife

3. Everyone hates guidelines, but
being friendly helps.
Sometimes communications managers are tasked with leading
initiatives that hardly anyone is happy about. Professional
guidelines, for example, fit that category perfectly. No one wants
to hear what they can’t do, especially in a media organization like
Dow Jones where plenty of employees are actually professional
content creators themselves. Rather than launch guidelines as a
dictator, though, being kind and open and (yes) friendly can make a
big difference in how well and how rapidly they are adopted.
Paula keve, Chief communications Officer
Dow jones

4. Answer a bigger need.
If you are familiar with StubHub, you already know it’s a great place
to get tickets for shows. Especially if that show happens to be sold
out. What you may not know is that CMO Ray Elias has a much
bigger vision for StubHub. He wants to become the destination to
help you plan what you’re going to do next weekend. Or next
month. Most of us have heard that great brands find a need and
solve it. The problem is, in a world where new competitors are
entering your market daily – that may not be enough. The brands
that survive in the long term are the ones that go beyond solutions
to answer a bigger need. Like what you’re doing next weekend.
Ray elias, chief marketing officer
stubhub

5. They may buy the product, but they
stay for the story.
Of course you need a great product to sell, but is that enough? Not
remotely, according to Bill Tolany from Whole Foods Market. The
way that Whole Foods approaches marketing comes from
delivering great products and experiences first, and surrounding
those with powerful stories second. In this model, products drive
short term revenue – but it’s the attention to storytelling that
creates a deeper emotional connection which leads to unshakeable
and fanatical customer loyalty.
Bill tolany, senior director, marketing + integrated media
Whole foods market

6. Use what people have told the
world to personalize your message.
Personalization gets a mixed reputation from consumers.
Consumers see plenty of value from the “you might also like” type
of functionality, but the horror stories of marketers learning a
woman might be pregnant before her father do cause consumers
to pause. Is all this big data really a good thing for customers? In
her comments, Nora Denzel shared an important reminder that the
things people tell the world (eg – “I’m getting married!”) are far
different than those we can guess at by their behavior. And
perhaps one way to draw the line is to focus on personalizing based
on those things consumers share with the world, and not on those
that predictive algorithms uncover for us.
Nora denzel, non-executive director
Ericsson/coinstar/saba

7. Stories need to be inspired, not
collected.
Pfizer has more individuals dedicated to saving lives than most other
large companies. Yet they, along with other Pharmaceutical brands
are often misunderstood. Stories could clearly be a great way to
bringing more visibility to the truth about Pfizer, but they are not
always easy to get. One technique AnnaMaria DeSalva shared which
worked for Pfizer came when a senior researcher shared a powerful
story at an employee gathering of a girl he had been trying to save.
She was the reason he came to work, he noted. And his challenge to
colleagues was to answer the same question for themselves. That
speech inspired others to share their stories as well – because they
realized how powerful they could be.
Annamaria desalva, vice president
Pfizer

8. Understand the story that matters.
In a company with a directive to launch dozens of products a year,
keeping stories straight matters. More importantly, knowing that not
every story matters to every customer is key. In his comments during
a panel on storytelling, Jeff Shafer shared an insight about storytelling
that is often forgotten – that different stories work at different
moments. The ThinkPad design was inspired by a bento box. It’s a
great story – but it’s only relevant in a particular moment. When you
know the right timing to share your stories, and have you an arsenal
of them to pull from, you can really use storytelling to drive the things
a technology brand cares most about … loyalty and sales.
Jeff shafer, vice president global communications
lenovo

9. Use every chance you get for
authenticity.
Across many vertical industries and lines of business, the Siemens
story seems like a hard one to tell. Of course they could focus on
innovation, or efficiency, or any other overarching human value. Yet
the way that comes to life is through a single deliberate choice that
Jim Whaley shared on stage. For Siemens, it is important that the
people the brand features in advertising are actually real patients, and
real professionals. It is a small choice in the span of everything a
global brand marketing team does – yet that one choice offers so
many more moments for behind the scenes footage and powerful
stories. All because something a bit artificial (a TV spot) is done based
on something genuine and authentic (real people instead of actors).
Jim whaley, svp communications + marketing
Siemens

10. don’t blindly follow channels.
In the realm of loyalty marketing, one of the most common truths
that many retail brands have uncovered is the value and importance
of fostering an email list. It has almost become a hard rule that
brands find value in email marketing. As Michelle Klein shared in her
remarks, that may not be as hard and fast of a rule as we tend to
think. In fact, the results for her brands on using email as a form of
communication to their audiences have been disappointing – so they
stopped. Instead, many Smirnoff brands now focus on using social
media and experiential events as far more powerful methods of
engagement. The lesson is clear – beware of a one-size-fits-all
approach, and don’t blindly follow channels.
Michelle klein, vp, global marketing
smirnoff

11. Offer something no one else can.
Anyone in marketing has heard plenty of times about the importance
of having a unique selling proposition. What is it that sets you apart?
The problem is, many don’t have a great answer to that question. For
The Weather Company, the answer comes from understanding the
value of the data they are collecting. We all check the weather – and
The Weather Channel’s app is one of the most frequently downloaded
and used in America. As a result, The Weather Company has
extremely rich data around weather and behavior. This data forms
the foundation for a unique product they sell to advertisers – which
takes this data and offers better targeting as a result.
Eric Hadley, svp marketing and sales
The weather company

12. Know the odds before you bet.
In an engaging session on real time marketing, AFLAC CMO Michael
Zuna shared some insights from his approach to making decisions on
real time marketing choices. One particularly powerful story involved
the tip of knowing the odds before you take a risk – and how
sometimes that may inspire you to choose silence. For Aflac, this was
an element in deciding to either engage a celebrity with a related
name via social media (Ben Affleck) in one case during the Academy
Awards, but choose not to engage in another case (his being chosen
as the lead for the new Batman film). Ultimately, the lesson was to
know where you may have low risk, and where you don’t so you can
make better choices.
Michael zuna, evp and chief marketing officer
aflac

13. Break the boundaries, not the rules.
Most large organizations have policies and part of the challenge when
it comes to big tasks like breaking down silos and inspiring more
collaboration is to choose the right battles to fight. One of the tips
that Robin Rotenberg shared from the stage to help with this was to
learn which rules are unbreakable, and which are actually just
boundaries waiting to be challenged. It was an important distinction
that she raised which many of us forget to make. Only by
understanding where the rules really are can you effectively challenge
them and inspire change as a result.
Robin rotenberg, chief communications officer
BASF

14. Drink the other team’s beer.
You would expect one of the more entertaining takeaways from the
day to come from a communicator at a beer maker … but the insight
he shared about the symbolism of something as simple as the beer
you choose was powerful. In a company after a merger, there is
always a challenge to inspire true collaboration from people who
were previously on different teams. One method used at Molson
Coors and at the US arm of Miller Coors is to remind team members
that they need to drink each other’s beers. Everyone from the CEO to
the lower ranks knows that this sends a powerful message that they
are willing to collaborate – and see things from another point of view.
Dan lewis,chief public affairs officer
Molson coors

15. Let ideas evolve and grow.
Sometimes the best ideas come from unexpected places. For
Mastercard, digital marketing VP Elaine Lawson told a story of how a
single office wanted to support a gay pride parade in San Francisco.
That simple request turned into a larger campaign, which then also
influenced the brand to make a public statement of support for the
Proposition 8 measure in California. As a result of that passing and
the issue of gay marriage taking a national stage, Mastercard was
featured as one of the forward looking brands who supported it. And
the entire campaign was seen as a big public relations success. All of
it started with just a simple request to sponsor a parade.
Elaine lawson,vp us digital marketing
mastercard

The Top five tweets:
A collection of observations from
attendees of #incitesummit

More thoughts:
A collection of additional
quotes and observations
from speakers of
#incitesummit

Written by Rohit Bhargava with Incite
www.rohitbhargava.com
The Incite Summit
FOCUS ON YOUR BRAND AND REPUTATION
LENOVO
Jeff Shafer
Vice-President, Global
Communications
If you’ve got a strong, positive,
respected, credible global
reputation, then
all of the other
things you do are
better and easier

The Incite Summit
CHANGE THE CHANNEL
We’ve spent so much of our history doing print, & media,
and television. One of the things I’ve noticed is that
people simply aren’t looking
at that stuff any more
In this environment, what has really begun to make
a difference in resonating with consumers are stories,
word of mouth stories that then become viral. If we
can get people talking about ...our company in a
different way, that’s going to be tremendously more
powerful than any kind of advertising we could do
MetLife
Claire Burns
Chief Customer Officer

The Incite Summit
Fix the basics & experiment
Everything seems to be transforming and rapidly
changing in this space. Therefore, it’s important to
be very focused on what
your key priorities are,
d not to get distracted by the shiny objects that
are appearing left and right. How do you best
marry the very disciplined approach to where
you’re putting your investments and your dollars,
while at the same time, giving yourself the room
and opportunity to experiment in new areas?
L’Oreal USA
Marc Speichert
Chief Marketing Officer

The Incite Summit
FIND THE RIGHT BLEND
Marketing has always been a blend of art
and science. Today the science end has
to do with the ability to measure almost
everything, in real time - so in some sense
the science is being
used to inform the
art in places that
were unheard of
just 5 years ago
Ericsson/Coinstar/Saba
Nora Denzel
Non-Executive Director

The Incite Summit
BLURRED LINES
The lines are certainly
blurring between
departments now.
Between PR, Marketing, Communications
and more. We’ve really got to ensure that
these more traditional departments are
closely aligned with the new social and
digital functions.
Sears / K-Mart
Jennifer Dominiquini
Chief Marketing Officer, Fitness,
Sporting Goods and Toys

The Incite Summit
SOCIAL’S NOT ABOUT THE MONEY
Those that
see social as
primarily a
revenue channel
have struggled,
because the monetization
opportunities within social
media tend to be fairly indirect.
Restaurant.com
Christopher Krohn
President and Chief
Marketing Officer

The Incite Summit
THE RULES REMAIN THE SAME
There are now far more ‘advocates’
than there used to be, with individual
consumers taking on powerful voices
through social channels. But
the general principles
of relationships with
established advocates
still apply
PFIZER
Sherry Pudloski
Vice-President, External
Communications

The Incite Summit
DRIVE DEEP ENGAGEMENT
Allow your consumer to truly believe
in your brand, get behind it, and
identify with it
at a deeper level
than simply buying
products.
It’s enormously powerful.
Chobani
Nicki Briggs
Chief Communications
Officer

The Incite Summit
CHANGE HAPPENS FAST
LENOVO
Jeff Shafer
Vice-President, Global
Communications
Change in the media landscape - through the
rapid evolution of social media and the diverse
new ways people can connect. The pace of
change...is obviously an overwhelming influence
on everything that we do.
We are already behind
- everything that I think I know about social
media is something that my 15 year old knew
a while ago, and has already moved past

The Incite Summit
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Start Learning inciteMC.com #incitesummit

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