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Deloitte: Enterprises say 5G and Wi-Fi 6 will be ‘critical’ in 3 years

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It’s already well established that next-generation wireless technologies are going to become ubiquitous over the next few years, but just how important will 5G and Wi-Fi 6 be to enterprises? A new Deloitte study of advanced wireless adoption provides an unambiguous answer: “critical” within three years, according to strong majorities of executives responsible for enterprise networking infrastructure. Those executives expect not just an incremental upgrade, but a “significant opportunity to transform how their enterprises operate, as well as the products and services they offer.”

According to Deloitte, 86% of surveyed networking executives expect these technologies to transform their organizations within three years, and 79% expect the same transformations of their industries. Of the two technologies, 76% believe 5G cellular will be critical, while 70% said the same about Wi-Fi 6. A solid 57% majority are already adopting one if not both of the technologies, while another 37% plan to do so within a year.

Wi-Fi 6 and 5G are viewed as connectivity enablers — “force multipliers” — for cloud/edge computing, AI, and internet of things deployments. Ninety-five percent say that advanced wireless networking is either “very” or “extremely” important to their organization’s use of cloud technologies, with data analytics at 91%, AI at 84%, and an 83% tie for edge computing and IoT applications.

But concerns about the security and providers of next-generation networking solutions loom large for enterprises, as 56% of the surveyed executives called security their top challenge in adoption, and 75% said they would reconsider their service providers. Around 80% expect to primarily deploy their apps and services on either public (64%) or private (36%) clouds, with a majority trusting traditional cloud providers over their own enterprises to manage cloud data.

It’s worth noting that Deloitte’s survey took place in the first quarter of 2020, when COVID-19 infections were spreading but before the U.S. felt economic impacts from the pandemic — a factor that the firm says could accelerate or decelerate wireless deployments, depending on the company and industry. While 5G is expected to enable remote work through sharing of high-bandwidth images, videos, and 3D/XR content, Wi-Fi 6 could “free workers from wired connections and desktop phones,” as well as increasing the speed and quality of voice and video applications.

Deloitte’s survey canvassed 415 IT and line-of-business executives, with 48% at the C-level, 20% at VP or business unit head level, and 32% at director level, spread across companies with annual revenues ranging from $250 million to over $5 billion and across six industries. Interestingly, the effort to move towards 5G and Wi-Fi 6 isn’t just coming from IT chiefs: 48% of CEOs/presidents and 29% of other C-level executives ranked among the top three people at each organization leading the charge towards new wireless technologies, signaling the level of strong business-level interest in adoption.

Feature Image Credit: Deloitte

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Brands can turn the tide during coronavirus by building new consumer journeys

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By Shawn Lim

Brands need to focus on hyper-localisation by connecting with consumers where they are, as Covid-19 has dramatically changed consumer behaviour and altered the path-to-purchase, according to Facebook and Boston Consulting Group.

According to a new report called ‘Turn the Tide’, released by Facebook India and Boston Consulting Group, the use of micro-targeting can help brands get the first-mover advantage. This is because countries are being divided into different zones, with distinct restrictions due to the pandemic, so they need to build social connections despite social distancing, by engaging with consumers in their context

To cope with pandemic lockdown, which has caused significant disruption for communities and businesses, people are spending more time on social media platforms. This means brands have an opportunity to build stronger dialogues and deeper connections with users.

The aim of the guide, according to Facebook India and Boston Consulting Group, is to guide brands to adapt to the pandemic and ensure business continuity.

Nimisha Jain, the managing director and partner at Boston Consulting Group, says: “We are experiencing unprecedented shifts in consumer attitudes and behaviours as 80%+ consumers will continue to practice social distancing and are bringing the outside inside, over 40% of consumers are dialling up on health and wellness spends, e-commerce adoption has already advanced by two-three years, to name a few.”

“These aren’t just temporary surges, and many will last longer and become more defining traits. Our analysis reveals that only one in six companies emerged stronger in past crises. Players who show the agility to reinvent their value propositions, go-to-market plans and business models to address these demand shifts, will be the ones that set themselves apart from the pack.”

In addition, the report also shares actionable guidance for brands to build for the new consumer journeys in times of Covid-19 and beyond.

For example, brands can bring alive experiences through virtual launches and product demos as people turn to virtual experiences for every facet of their life. Facebook said it is already seeing more brands explore Facebook and Instagram ‘Live’ to connect with their followers and customers, with brands now thinking about using social media platforms for new product launches too.

Heeru Dingra, the chief executive officer at WATConsult tells The Drum the agency has modified its planning and strategy around the new consumer journeys, urging its clients to follow a simple mantra of ‘solve, serve and sell’.

She explains brands should focus on solving the problems their consumers face, serve their purpose and the result thereof could be the sale of services or products. She notes a lot of brands have understood this concept and have already started altering their approach to fit this mantra.

“We leveraged the power of gaming and re-created one of the most iconic games of all time, Ludo, for our client Tata Motors. Titled #SafetyFirst Ludo, this version aims to spread awareness about the importance of personal hygiene and social distancing amid the Covid-19 outbreak,” she says.

She also calls out work by Bajaj Allianz General Insurance called #CareWillOvercome, which salutes frontline workers, while a #ReconnectWithStarbucks campaign turned the act of baristas calling out people’s names into a digital phenomenon.

She adds: “These examples summarize how we integrated the need of the hour that is to maintain social distancing, continue to concentrate on personal hygiene and at the same time have our heartfelt appreciation for the ones who have been fighting for us day and night, into our brand approach in some way. This helps to amplify the brand message while being sensitive to the current situation, serving the purpose of extending the required communication and increasing as well as sustaining brand recall.”

The report also advised brands to look at their media mix models to drive growth by aligning to new media landscapes. According to the report, when brands, especially those with traditional product categories, start spending more online, they need to understand incremental outcomes, as well as cross-platform efficiency.

This would increase the need for digital measurement standards, such as custom mix modelling (CMM) by Nielsen, which Facebook said it had piloted last year.

Gautam Mehra, the chief data officer for South Asia and chief executive officer of programmatic at Dentsu Aegis Network observes the importance of moving away from traditional marketing metrics to real business metrics that can be measured and improved on an ongoing basis.

“With the impetus of commerce, CRM and digital transformation, I think, every company will now have a direct-to-consumer line of business and will want to bring themselves closer to the consumer, and rely less on the intermediaries,” he explains.

While most brands are dealing with huge change across many aspects of business, focusing on the changing customer journey is a good place for marketing to focus attention.

Feature Image Credit: the report also shares actionable guidance for brands to build for the new consumer journeys in times of Covid-19 and beyond.

By Shawn Lim

Sourced from The Drum

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How to Use Direct Sales to Re-Imagine Your Customer Acquisition Strategy

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By Benton Crane.

Four ways to rethink marketing right now.

So you’re an entrepreneur whose dream business was finally taking off, and then an economic shockwave hit. Like the rest of the world, you’re trying to not only survive yourself, but also to preserve your livelihood and that of your employees.

Now, although American is slowly rebounding, businesses are definitely not going back to the “normal” they once knew. In fact, for most industries, it’s unpredictable and about as easy to forecast as the wild swings in the stock market. A large part of that uncertainty lies in the mindset of consumers right now.

A recent Economist/YouGov poll found that 66 percent of Americans are worried about being impacted directly by this crisis, and 75 percent think there is some degree of likelihood that opening the economy will result in more illness. That means even with all the talk of reopening and restrictions being relaxed, your business is nowhere near the same level of sales that you were before the worldwide disaster struck, and you’re wondering if the rebound buzz is the light at the end of the tunnel or just a mirage in the desert.

That’s why a relationship with your customer is so critical at a time like this. I have always been a strong advocate for having a direct sales relationship with your customers built on trust, a solid product and in the case of marketing, humour. Now is the time to double down on that mindset, especially when social media and online platforms are the only ways you’re going to connect with potential new customers. Here are four ways to use a direct sales relationship to grow despite of the challenges.

Act, don’t react

Reacting is jumping at every little shiny object that looks like it might offer a shred of increased sales or a quick fix that keeps you afloat. But the mindset of action is having the focus to not only survive, but thrive, during a time of total upheaval and disruption in your industry. It allows you to make a plan and implement it.

Nail the message

Your message is your sales pitch, your 30-second elevator speech to the target audience that closes the deal and creates a new customer. Don’t confuse this with branding or slogans — those aren’t something you should be focusing on right now. Get sales coming in the door now, and you will have all sorts of opportunities in the future to build brand over time.

Think about how you sell your product face-to-face. What problem are you solving for the customer? How do you get and keep your customer’s attention? What questions do you ask? What stories do you tell? An important part of nailing your message, which many companies overlook, involves making sure your online message is cohesive with your normal sales pitch. That leads to the next step.

Build an effective online sales funnel

This is where your message is translated into an online sales funnel. I’m not talking about a generic website filled with products, slogans and cheesy photos of you and your team. I’m talking about an online experience that mimics real-life interactions. Walk your customer through the sale exactly like you would if you were standing face-to-face with them. Empathize with the problem your customer faces. Introduce a solution (your product) and demonstrate how it will help them overcome or avoid the problem. Build credibility and overcome concerns.

Your online sales funnel can also include a video. If you can’t sell face-to-face, video is the next best thing. Work with what you have. If you can afford a nice cinematic camera and lights, great! But don’t hesitate to shoot video on your phone if that is all you have access to. Sincerity almost always trumps polish, and introducing a little humor or light-heartedness can make a wonderful connection with your customers.

An effective online sales funnel is a crucial pivot that can not only be a lifeline but also take your business to the next level. You should always continue to refine your message and sales funnel through testing and customer feedback.

Develop your brand

Branding is what will set you apart in your niche market and create more customers who not only buy, but are also excited to be a part of your business. At this point I recommend developing your brand character. Donald Miller, author of How to Build a Storybrand, teaches that your brand character needs to show both empathy and authority. These are the attributes that win your customers’ trust.

Once your branding is established, you can make the move to marketing nirvana, branded advertising. This is where your brand and brand characters you’ve developed take on a life of their own, where people are entertained and identify with your brand and become loyal customers. They will even help you market by voluntarily sharing your content with an ever wider audience.

So why do I share all this now in the midst of this unprecedented time of upheaval and disruption? Because although I know we will sadly see businesses go under and fail, I believe that the American entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well. Your business might have the next product or service that’s ready to solve a problem, take the market by storm create jobs in your community and ultimately bring more hope — and a little humor — to a world very much in need of both.

Feature Image Credit:  Ellagrin | Getty Images

By Benton Crane

CEO of Harmon Brothers

Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe

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Branding and Visual Identity for Energy Company

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abduzeedo

Andstudio . shared a beautiful branding and visual design project for Ignitis, an international energy group, uniting over 20 companies and operating across the Baltics, Poland and Finland.  It turned to us for a brand identity that would stand the test of time and unite all of the company’s ventures under a cohesive brand.

Aiming to become the region’s main competence center for energy solutions, Ignitis needed its new brand to reflect its progressive agenda. For this, we created an identity system that consists of five building blocks, each representing a major business unit, with a foundational Holding symbol at the top. Put together, they form a human-like shape, embodying the company’s client-centric approach. Color coded modules visually highlight separate business units, which can be successfully used in classical and digital communication, both as a system as well as separate dynamic portals.

Branding and Visual Identity

Logotype

Our logotype represents a stylized human shape as a visual anchor. Shapes and colours express adaptability to customers needs and a consumer-centric approach. At the same time it aims to represent a spark – symbol of versatility and innovation.

Identity

To fully broadcast the message, the brand uses graphic element that supports the principles already established by the logo. The graphic components are embracing moments of both clear structure and visual impact, leading with a solid color palette, mixing headlines with color-blocked shapes and icons. The whole identity system is based on Ignitis’ expertise, trust, versatility and innovation.

Digital Identity System

Investing into a visual identity should have a return for years to come. That’s why we create identity systems that can be adapted to different formats and marketing materials or even extended to cover new business ventures or side projects when a brand expands.

Abduzeedo

I’m a Brazilian product designer based in Oakland, California currently working for Google as a Staff Designer. I am also the founder of Abduzeedo, an award-winning digital publication about design and a personal project that has become the source of inspiration for millions of designers and enthusiasts.

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Nestle to appeal ban on ‘Incredible Burger’ branding in Europe

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(Reuters) – Nestle (NESN.S) said on Monday it would appeal a Dutch court’s ruling that prohibits the Swiss food giant from selling its plant-based burgers in Europe under the “Incredible Burger” name after a challenge from U.S.-based Impossible Foods.

Last week, the District Court in The Hague granted an injunction filed by Impossible Foods to prevent Nestle from marketing its burgers as “Incredible” after arguing that the signage bore a strong visual, phonetic and conceptual resemblance to the U.S. company’s EU trademark and could confuse consumers.

In its ruling, the court agreed that Nestle had infringed Impossible Foods’ trademarks and prohibited the KitKat-maker from using the “Incredible” name throughout Europe, giving it four weeks to withdraw its products from shelves or face 25,000 euros ($27,772.50) a day in fines.

“We are disappointed by this provisional ruling as it is our belief that anyone should be able to use descriptive terms such as ‘incredible’ that explain the qualities of a product. We will of course abide by this decision, but in parallel, we will file an appeal,” Nestle wrote in an email.

The company said it would now re-brand its plant-based burgers to “Sensational Burgers”, saying the new name evoked “the senses that are stimulated by our burger.”

The ruling comes at a time when Impossible Foods is working hard to enter into Europe.

In October, the company filed with the European Food Safety Authority to market soy leghemoglobin, a genetically modified ingredient, that is key in making its Impossible burgers bleed like their animal counterparts.

But the process for approval has taken long as the EU has a comprehensive and a strict legal regime on genetically modified food, with each product undergoing strict evaluation and safety assessment tests that usually take months.

Feature Image Credit: The “Incredibly Veggie” plant based vegetarian burger of Garden Gourmet is pictured during a media presentation at Nestle in Vevey, Switzerland. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

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How To Market ‘Unsexy’ Products: 15 Effective Methods

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Sourced from Forbes

The holy grail of the agency world is finding a product that “sells itself.” Unfortunately, even the most amazing products in the world don’t sell themselves. The ones that are decidedly “unsexy” by comparison might prove an even more difficult challenge.

Necessary products don’t have the same appeal as sleek, well-crafted and innovative products. So how does an agency market a less-than-exciting product? Fifteen industry leaders from Forbes Agency Council give their own opinions on the methods that an agency can adopt to market even the most “unsexy” items and make them worthy of an audience’s purchase.

1. Make It Simple And Helpful

Those “unsexy” products and services are likely necessary and often confusing. If you can make it simple and be helpful for your audience, they’ll remember you. Answer their questions without selling. Have robust, easy-to-use troubleshooting and Q&As. – Donna Robinson, Nina Hale – Digital Marketing Agency

2. Use Clever Positioning

I love when someone creates a brand from a commodity. Cutie mandarins and Yeti coolers are two great examples of genius branders transforming the ordinary into extraordinary with clever positioning and creative execution! – Daniel O’Connell, Brand Definition

3. Showcase Uses To Intended Audience

“Unsexy” products are only unsexy if you don’t need them. If you are a business owner whose livelihood depends on an unsexy product like accounting software, well, it seems pretty darn sexy to you. The best way to get this business owner’s attention is to know more than anyone else about the unsexy product they need and show them how to make better use of it. – Jeff Bradford, the Bradford Group

4. Create A Brand Story And Personality

You need to create a brand story and personality for the firm. For example, instead of defining your accounting firm as “Boston Business Tax Accountants,” you can identify a core value or differentiating edge and use that to rebrand or recreate messaging. An example outcome could be “Boston Tax Samurais” with an entire theme related to slicing down costs and taxes through wording and imagery. – Zamir Javer, Jumpfactor

5. Get Your Timing Right

The marketer’s challenge is to be the ultimate matchmaker by discovering the audience who will find the product or service alluring. That’s where intent data comes into play. Intent data can be your marketing team’s best friend and help them create information and messages that are highly personalized and delivered to the right prospects at the right time — when they need your unsexy product. – Melissa Chang, PureB2B

6. Advertise It Through Sexy People

Most of the time, you need a certain image for people to stop scrolling through their feeds and wait to see the content. Make use of influencer marketing and roll in some good looking people to promote your services and use those pictures on your ad and email campaigns, as well. A sexy campaign can make a lot of difference in your leads campaign. – Vishal Jain, Sunshy Group Of Companies

7. Challenge The Obvious

Everyone needs “unsexy” products in their life to satisfy a need, so it’s imperative to identify an insight about the target audience that your product is uniquely able to satisfy. A compelling insight enables your product to connect with customers in a meaningful, even emotional, way. Spend the time and challenge the obvious to stand out from the competition. What could be sexier than that? – Edward Hoffman, Padilla

8. Bring Back The Soaps

Bring back the soap opera. Cliffhangers, great characters, mystery and intrigue were all used to sell soap. People are looking for brands to entertain them, especially now. – Kaaren Whitney-Vernon, Shaftesbury

9. Humanize Your Brand

Humanize your product by giving it a personality. Focus on being playful and relatable on your social media channels. Give your product a personality that is fun to engage with. Share authentic stories that let your audience experience the personality behind the brand. Your consumers will associate the emotions they feel when engaging with your content with the value they receive from your product. – Benjamin Collins, Laughing Samurai

10. Bring The Laughs

Find a common everyday life problem and offer a solution via your product in a funny way, and people will gravitate toward your product. It’s a flawless plan. Think of the best-selling toilet spray who made jokes about having to use the bathroom at your new partner’s house or in the office — everyone can relate, and they’ve sold millions of bottles. Voila! – Sophie Bowman, Brand Branding PR

11. Utilize Client Testimonials

Instead of focusing on the product or service itself, revolve your campaign around the benefits that the product or service brings to the end user. For example, utilize client testimonials. Focus on highlighting the benefits, and create clean and concise creatives and copy for your campaign. The product or service most likely solves an important problem and should be positioned in that way. – Jonathan Durante, Expandify Marketing Inc

12. Make It Unique, Compelling And Believable

Campaigns are successful if they can position a brand as unique (from competitors), compelling (tap into emotion, solve a problem) and believable (faith it will deliver). It might be through humor, empathy, pride, fear or any other human emotion, but it must check all three boxes to truly succeed. – Sara Steever, Paulsen

13. Tap Into The Behavior Of Your Audience

Certain brands scream, “Creativity, start your engine!” However, many others can’t seem to get to the starting line. When faced with the challenge of creating success for a brand that seems to lack anything to latch onto, examine the behaviors of the people that use the product and why. Then, increase the ability of new audiences to adopt those same behaviors. – Roger Hurni, Off Madison Ave

14. Understand Your Clients’ Psychology

Subjective labels like “unsexy” can be challenging to any marketer. Putting the user first and understanding their psychology can reveal the attributes of a product or service that might appeal to those users and lead to effective results. Looking outside the competition and removing those industry-specific blinders can generate a lot of creative ideas on how to bring those attributes to life. – Tripp Donnelly, REQ

15. Focus On Attainable Results

In the end, we all want to see results. When creating campaigns for “unsexy” topics, we focus on the most important result that the product or service delivers, whether it’s revenue, new customers or ROI. In our experience, results get attention. It’s that simple. – Paula Chiocchi, Outward Media, Inc.

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Fairprice ad suggests the end of lockdown is a new beginning for values

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By Shawn Lim

Singapore supermarket chain NTUC FairPrice has launched a campaign to encourage people in the country to carry on the values they discovered during the two-month partial lockdown because of the Covid-19 pandemic

As Singapore prepares to exit the partial lockdown, which the government called ‘circuit breaker’, FairPrice is calling on all Singaporeans to make a ‘Fresh Start’ in its campaign, created by Iris.

According to FairPrice, the circuit breaker period has made all Singaporeans reflect on what is important to them and their families; it has forced everyone to adapt and become more resilient.

It believes, based on the cultural insight, that people want to see this time as not just the new normal but a new beginning. FairPrice hopes the campaign will create an optimistic future by building on the positive behaviours that have emerged from these difficult times.

“In every crisis, there is an opportunity. The circuit breaker has given us all a unique chance to connect and spend time with our loved ones,” said Alvin Neo, chief customer and marketing officer at FairPrice Group.

“Fresh Start is a reminder to each family and individual not to lose the precious lessons learned and recalibrate our lives; at the same time, give Singaporeans the assurance that they can always depend on us for their daily essentials as the country prepares for its Phase 1 return.”

Feature Image Credit: It believes that based on the cultural insight that it is not just the new normal but a new beginning.

By Shawn Lim

Sourced from The Drum

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How To Position Your Brand On Instagram

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By Mirko Scarcella

As the president of an industrial and internet marketing firm, I believe learning how to position your brand on Instagram is essential. This helps ensure you’re sharing high-quality content that is most appropriate for your specific Instagram account, based on the image you want to give yourself and the message you want to convey.

Your brand shouldn’t be posting a messy jumble of senseless shots that tackle the most disparate themes on your profile. Instead, I’ve outlined a few suggestions for how you can better position your brand on Instagram.

But first, what does ‘positioning’ mean?

Let’s begin by clarifying the definition. What do I mean by “positioning?” I’m referring to the whole process that is used to create your brand’s image within the minds of your followers. It is very important that your position is competitive, relevant to your target audience and absolutely distinctive from other profiles or competitors.

Before going to post in a niche or sector as an influencer or as an expert, you need to be clear about your position within the mind of our target or, in the case of social media, your followers.

Want an example? Think of Rolex. What comes to mind? Surely you thought of a watch, but you probably also thought of a luxurious lifestyle. This is what is meant by brand positioning: the perception people have of a brand or a product.

What if you have nothing to sell?

It is not said that you have an Instagram profile with which you promote a product or a service. But if you have a personal profile, you’re still promoting something: yourself and your image. This is called personal branding.

Brand positioning or personal branding, therefore, means being able to create in your followers’ minds a precise image of your product, service, what you do and the values you speak of.

Let’s explore in detail what you will have to do in practice to achieve brand positioning and to better set up your communication.

Brand Positioning: What It Is And How To Build It

Here, I’ll outline how to position your brand, though what I’m about to tell you is fundamental even in the case of personal branding.

Brand positioning means being able to occupy a very precise and structured position of your product or service (or you, in the case of personal branding) within the minds of your followers. Translated into practice, brand positioning means being able to sell the image of oneself or that of your brand and communicating your company’s values and belief system in order to attract an audience that shares those same values.

Something of fundamental importance when building your brand is to find distinctive and differentiating characteristics from all the other internal profiles of your sector or niche. What makes your brand distinctive? What differentiates your business from other similar companies? Why should people choose to follow you?

The answers to these questions will be the foundation for effectively building your brand and for engaging your audience.

But how do you build your personal branding on Instagram?

Seneca said, “There is no favourable wind for the sailor who does not know where to go.” This will have to become your mantra in the construction of effective communication and strong brand positioning. Now, it’s time to get started:

1. Know the image you want to portray and be authentic. Before testing any strategy, you must have in your mind a clear image of the message and values you want to convey. Remember, the keyword to build an effective brand on Instagram is authenticity. What you need to do is always stay true to your company’s vision.

Find your brand’s style, and always follow it. If your brand portrays an image on Instagram that’s very different from reality and far from your values, your followers could feel deceived and will likely stop following you.

And to maintain an image of authenticity, do not use excessive filters for your photos. (Personally, I always prefer editing programs compared to the pre-set filters of Instagram.)

2. Be consistent in your messaging. Make sure your photos have a single thematic fulcrum that’s always in line with the image you want to transmit. Inserting photos of kittens on a fitness profile, for example, will likely confuse those who follow you and weaken your brand’s positioning.

3. Humanize your brand. Consistency is an excellent method to offer a unique and genuine image of yourself, but remember that coherent does not mean trivial. Show off your best weapons, your sympathy and your self-irony. This will break the coldness of the images to show your brand’s most human and warm side.

Your photos and videos should show a “special moment” related to your company. Ensure what you share contains a small story in which the protagonist is your brand’s identity. Your images must, therefore, not be mere representations of a space; they must live and tell a story and arouse emotion.

I’ve found that sharing a behind-the-scenes look at your work is also usually much appreciated because this reveals to your audience something they might not have otherwise known. This helps earn trust from your followers. Alternate professional, backstage, and personal images and you will be able to arouse interest.

4. Respond to comments with kindness. Always reply to comments followers leave. This will show you care about your followers and will strengthen your image as an influencer.

Also, always be kind, even with those who leave constructive criticism. Never forget that humility is always appreciated and reinforces the esteem of those who follow you. Being available and grateful will consolidate your personal branding.

Remember to show your value and your skills and always help others achieve similar results. This will really help your followers see you in a positive light, so you can become a brand that’s recognized and appreciated by your audience.

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By Mirko Scarcella

President at Lion ADV, Inc, social media marketing and brand positioning. Read Mirko Scarcella’s full executive profile here.

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ActionIQ: ‘Marketing Clouds Thrive On Noise In The CDP Space’

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This is the fifth in AdExchanger’s “Meet the CDPs” series. Read previous interviews with mParticle, Acquia-owned AgilOne, Amperity and Segment.

COVID-19 threw a wrench into best-laid marketing plans. But marketers are learning to adapt, said Tasso Argyros, CEO and co-founder of customer data platform ActionIQ.

“All of our clients have been forced to rethink their entire marketing and customer experience strategy,” Argyros said. “And they all need new data, analytics and orchestration capabilities to enable these strategies.”

Still, it’s a bit like  building railroad tracks while the train is coming. Clients are trying to acclimate while determining which changes to their business could be permanent.

Despite the question marks, brands can use this unanticipated disruption “as an opportunity to position themselves to come out of this stronger,” said Argyros, who founded ActionIQ in 2014 after selling his previous company, Aster Data, to Teradata.

ActionIQ’s clients include Gap Inc., Saks Fifth Avenue, Michael Kors, Pandora, Verizon and The New York Times. The company raised a $32 million Series C in January, and more than $80 million total. Around half of ActionIQ’s roughly 100 employees are focused either on engineering or R&D.

Argyros spoke with AdExchanger.

AdExchanger: What does it mean to be a CDP in the age of coronavirus?

TASSO ARGYROS: Companies are now trying to execute new campaigns and use cases with limited budgets and resources. For example, if you are a multichannel retailer, you need to migrate your store-only shoppers to ecom, or else you could lose that cohort for good.

I expect coronavirus to accelerate a lot of the business transformation initiatives that were leading people to work with CDPs in the first place.

Did you start out as a CDP from Day One?

It’s a tricky question, because you have to rewrite history a bit in order to answer it. The vision was always to do something really interesting and cool around customer data, and we were doing it before the term existed. But if you were to ask me about how we differentiate, I’d say the main way is in how we’re able to invest data with more scale and complexity than other vendors out there.

Can you elaborate on that?

You don’t have to transform your data or build customer or profile attributes beforehand. You just load in whatever data you want and we build profiles on the fly. Other CDPs have tables with key customer attributes, but we hold every customer interaction. It sounds like an esoteric point, but it makes a huge difference, because it allows you to be agile. Business teams can be completely self-sufficient and iterate in a matter of days rather than a matter of months.

How long does it take to onboard a new customer?

We promise to have the system up and running in three months and that the customer will see strong ROI in six months. We try to come in with strategic solutions and services to help identify low-hanging fruit, use cases and channels that could be incremental. When we push those out, it provides early value and derisks the deployment in a short period of time.

Who is your typical customer?

We focus on the enterprise level, including both B2B and B2C. Our typical customer has revenues of around $1 billion and up. We mostly sell to the CMO, although IT is often closely involved.

What data sources do you most commonly connect?

It’s mainly very large-scale data lakes, such as Google BigQuery and Amazon Redshift, and data warehouses, such as Teradata and Oracle. We can plug into any internal data source and pull in massive amounts of data which allows us to deploy quickly without having to rely on consulting or IT resources. We’re also connected to ad systems – Segment, for example, or a tag manager such as Tealium, are sources of clickstream data for us – and to ESP sources of email response data.

Will the marketing clouds deliver on their promise of providing CDPs?

The marketing clouds announcing CDP capabilities last year was the best marketing we could not afford to have done ourselves. But the marketing clouds are mostly trying to sell legacy software and present it as a CDP. Sometimes they try to sell email software as a CDP or their DMP as a CDP.

Once you’re in an RFP scenario, though, it’s easy to tell the difference. They don’t really have a product. The question then becomes, when will they have one? They say they’re building it, but when was the last time either Adobe or Salesforce built a successful product in house? Everything has been done through acquisition.

But marketers are still attracted to the marketing clouds, because they’re used to working with them.

The marketing clouds thrive on noise in the CDP space. It’s strategic for them to create more confusion, and they have the marketing dollars to do it. One of the values we offer is that we don’t force customers to be locked into any one specific marketing cloud vendor. We give them the channel freedom to plug and play the solutions they choose to work with.

Does the eventual loss of third-party cookies impact the CDP space?

The role of the DMP will be reduced to the point where we can implement almost all of the functionality of a DMP without much additional cost. The consolidation of the DMP inside of a CDP is an opportunity to simplify the marketing stack and save customers some budget.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

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Windows 10 search bar is broken again: Here’s a fix

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‘This is taking too long to load’

The Windows 10 search bar is broken again, but this time, there is a fix.

As reported by Windows Latest, several Windows 10 users have reported seeing concerning prompts when attempting to search using Windows Search. The most common error message is “This is taking too long to load,” which appears with a reload button.

The problem remains for some even after they reload search and restart their Windows 10 PCs. Some folks are understandably spooked by the strange behavior and have theorized that their laptops might be hacked. Fortunately, that isn’t the case. The culprit is another botched Windows 10 update, specifically, version KB4550945.

“The last update that I installed was the optional update KB4550945 and I’m having this exact problem, hopefully, it gets fixed soon,” one user wrote.

The problem isn’t affecting everyone (the staff at Laptop Mag hasn’t run into any issues) and there is no evidence that this is a widespread bug. Still, not having the ability to search is an incredibly frustrating limitation, as we found out earlier this year.

How to fix the Windows 10 search bug

As with any botched update, the easiest solution is to roll back your PC to an earlier, more reliable version of Windows 10.

However, in this case, not everyone experiencing the search issue is on version KB4550945, which suggests the update is only partially, if at all, responsible. If you already installed that update and are fed up, you can try uninstalling it (some have reported success using this method). If this doesn’t help, you can always reinstall it at a later time.

Conversely, you can try updating your laptop to the latest version of Windows 10, a practice we often recommend as it ensures you have the latest security patches and features.

If that fails, Windows Latest has you covered. The site noticed that the issue was getting fixed when people repaired their Windows 10 system image. We’ll walk you through repairing a system image but you should be warned that the process requires you to run the Command Prompt. It’s not difficult, but if you shy away at any mention of code, you might want to wait for Microsoft to release an official patch.

With that in mind, here are the steps to fix the search bug by repairing your Windows 10 system image.

  • Press the Windows key + R to open Windows Run.
  • When the window opens, type “cmd.”
  • Press Ctrl+Shift+Enter to open the command prompt “cmd” as an admin.
  • In Command Prompt, type the following: “DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth and press enter.”

Feature Image Credit: Laptop Mag

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