The just-wrapped Experiential Marketing Summit gathered more than 1,000 members of the event marketing community in Las Vegas last week to share insights, marketing tactics and community-building strategies amid a post-pandemic climate. Event Marketer has the story.

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As the industry prepares to meet potential economic headwinds, 66 percent of marketing leaders are just moderately confident or worse in their ability to achieve their goals amid economic adversity and uncertainty, according to CMO Council’s latest report. Moreover, 78 percent of marketers surveyed expressed concerns about the lack of investment or budget cuts. The report, dubbed “Outsmart Adversity: How CMOs Can Weather Economic Headwinds and Emerge Poised for Growth,” surveyed approximately 500 global marketing leaders.

When considering proactive solutions, the majority of them—68 percent—agree that it’s critical for CMOs to collaborate with CIOs to develop competitive customer experiences. That includes leveraging AI and data to become more predictive, articulating marketing’s value to impact revenue, and growing loyalty, retention and customer lifetime value through social and personalization.

Budgets

Though some marketing leaders lack confidence in dealing with economic uncertainty, deep budgets cuts are less of a concern, according to the report. Thirty-six percent of marketing budgets are increasing, compared to 33 percent decreasing and 31 percent staying the same. Similarly, martech investments are increasing for 36 percent of respondents.

Martech Investments

The report found that the top three marketing initiatives in the next 12 months entail orchestrating customer journeys to drive omnichannel experience (21 percent), drive customer acquisition and growth (20 percent) and leverage AI and data to scale analytics (17 percent). In terms of martech investments, these top four themes emerged: campaign execution and management platform, marketing automation platform, digital experience platform and customer data platforms.

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The results of our AI in Marketing Pulse Survey are in: 51 percent of marketers surveyed are using generative AI tools to drive the business, and 23 percent use them frequently. Moreover, 65 percent of respondents believe that these tools will supplement—rather than replace—human work.

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The results of Chief Marketer’s latest Pulse survey on staffing are in: Twenty-seven percent of marketing departments surveyed were impacted by recent layoffs. And the areas of marketing that experienced the most cuts were events, followed by data and analytics. Here’s our infographic featuring the results of the survey. And look out for our next survey topic—AI in marketing—arriving in your inboxes next week.

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Many CMOs—59 percent, according to the Harvard Business Review—are experiencing increased pressure from CEOs to prove the ROI of marketing investments. But there are steps CMOs can take to optimize their marketing spend, according to a column in AdExchanger, from assessing the impact of vendors, agencies and martech tools to building collaborative teams to revitalizing great content.

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Now one of the largest auto shows in the world, CES saw several automotive brands—including BMW, Caterpillar and Volkswagen—leverage gamification, augmented reality and cutting-edge lighting techniques to highlighting the future of mobility. Event Marketer has the story.

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If there’s one part of the business that’s connected to the consumer, it’s the marketing department. Closely monitoring shifting consumer behaviors, eyeing critical trends in the marketplace and the culture in general, and deftly communicating the value of your brand to potential customers are all table stakes for any modern marketer with C-suite aspirations.

Indeed, according to a recent PwC survey, meeting customer expectations for their brands, products and services is the biggest concern for CMOs, with 37 percent listing it as one of their top three issues. So in recent conversations with some of the best and brightest in the industry, we inquired about what it takes to land that coveted role, and how to turn those aspirations into reality.

Brad Hiranaga, Chief Brand Officer, Cotopaxi: I think for marketers that are coming up, if there’s a way to have experiences on both types of brands, legacy nostalgic brands that you learn a ton of stuff on in addition to smaller, digitally-native brands that are built that way, it’s important to have both those types of experiences. Because otherwise, you can eventually pigeonhole yourself into being just a performance-based marketer, or just a big brand marketer.

When you step up into CMO roles and C-suite roles, you don’t have to be necessarily an expert on every single thing, but you have to understand how all of those parts fit together for the bigger picture of what you’re trying to drive. You have to understand the consumer and where technology’s going. So being curious and constantly reinventing yourself and your skills is crucial. [Read more from Hiranaga here.]

Ana Andjelic, Global Chief Brand Officer, Esprit: I would recommend a strategic and holistic approach, which means looking at where the marketing connects with merchandising, where merchandise connects with design, where brand connects with the product, and where all of the above connects with physical retail and the experience. Look at the entire brand experience. That’s your job. Sure, you can use data, but why? To connect better with merchandising, to give direction to design the product better, to set the price. I recommend a holistic view in this role. [Read more from Andjelic here.]

Kristen D’Arcy, CMO of Homedics: The conversation that I’m hearing in the industry is about the cookie-less world and how do you build up your first-party data so that you can learn a lot about your consumers’ market in a personalized way. That’s number one. Number two is social shopping. That’s something that a lot of people are discussing right now. And then three is, what is the role of influencers more broadly? Going back to our strategy, which was mass diversification in terms of where we put our media, what role do influencers play in terms of helping drive sales online? [Read more from D’Arcy here.]

Tyrrell Schmidt, Chief Marketing Officer, TD Bank: Sometimes people think about their career in linear ways, like “I need to move to the next level.” It’s also about understanding what experiences you need to get to the C-suite. Be open, be willing to try new things. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to stay in that role forever.

I urge people to think about “the what and the how.” What you deliver is important. Taking accountability for your area is critical, but it’s also the “how.” I’m a big believer in building relationships. As companies look to build more agile structures, being able to work with different groups of people on aligned goals and aligned KPIs and outcomes is important. [Read more from Schmidt here.]

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The results of Chief Marketer’s B2B marketing survey are in—and here’s what we’ve learned: There is a greater need for B2B marketers to measure ROI in marketing attribution. And projecting that ROI is a top barrier to gaining approval for marketing investments. The majority of respondents also confirmed that content marketing produces the greatest ROI, with articles and blog posts proving the most effective.

This year’s survey provides marketing data points surrounding which channels produce leads with the highest ROI; how budgets are faring this year; where marketers are making martech investments; how the industry is addressing consent and preference management—and much more. Enjoy our 2023 B2B Marketing Outlook Survey, co-produced with OneTrust.

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Reddit’s interactive “Future Tellers” house of clairvoyance impressed B2B audiences at CES earlier this month. Event Marketer looks at how its first activation at the Las Vegas-based tech bonanza married the platform’s digital product with physical experiences to pitch its “early adopter” status and future-forward expertise.

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