Technological changes since the 1990s have disrupted the marketing function's role and diluted its value. With a 'tsunami' of changes based on 5G, AI, Blockchain technology and many others imminent, traditional marketers are in the serious danger of becoming irrelevant. In his compelling book 'Quantum Marketing' that releases this week, Raja Rajamannar charts out the near term disruptions and also talks about how marketers at a global scale are attempting to reset the equation with big tech companies that have come to dominate the media landscape.

The Chief Marketing and Communications Officer of Mastercard and President of the World Federation of Advertisers talks to Anuradha SenGupta about how marketers need to reinvent themselves.

Q: You have made quite a case for restoring the relevance and value of both the marketing function as well as the marketing team and marketers. Why do marketers need to market themselves? Why are marketers facing this dilemma of whether they are seen as relevant or not?

A: Historically marketers have been very qualitative, creative, intuitive and they used and exercised their judgement. That was the strength of their function and their ability to perform extremely well in their function. However, since the 1990s there have been some dramatic changes in the world of marketing. First and foremost – data and technology has entered the space of marketing. As marketers are more qualitative they really did not get their heads around the technology and data aspects and they started losing some of their relevance, grip and hold over the field. So, non-marketers started setting the agenda.

The ability for marketers to measure return on investment (RoI), has become possible and when CEOs and CFOs, who are coming under more and more pressure, when they are questioning marketers as to what the marketing activities are giving by way of business results, they are caught in headlights and they start giving answers which are marketing answers. You cannot give marketing answers to business questions and that immediately brings a credibility gap. If I was a CEO or a CFO I would say these guys seem to be a little fluffy and that starts eroding the trust and the credibility and that has been a downhill journey till now. So much so that a recent survey by McKinsey has said that more than 70 percent of all CEOs have indicated that they do not have confidence in their marketing teams to drive growth for their business. So that is one big crisis.

The second part of it is marketing as a function is getting fragmented. Historically Philip Kotler has said there are four Ps of marketing and that has stood to be the framework for marketing for decades. Now in the four Ps of marketing, product is not handled by marketing at many companies, pricing is not handled by them, distribution is not handled by them, so marketers are barely holding on to a part of promotions at the most and non-marketers are now running the show as far as those other three Ps are concerned.

Many companies have started replacing CMO roles with chief growth officers, chief revenue officers and chief customer officers and the likes and they are not marketing people. So there is a clear and present existential crisis for marketing. Some companies are lucky that it hasn’t yet hit them but it's just around the corner for them. In many companies which are hardcore, packaged goods companies have eliminated the roles of CMOs already.

So, this is the situation that we are in, unfortunately.

Q: This situation coincides with what you call the fifth paradigm of marketing, isn’t it? Are we already in the fifth paradigm? Or are we on the cusp of the fifth paradigm?

A: We are on the cusp of the fifth paradigm and the fifth paradigm is really imminent. If you look at each stage of evolution of marketing, it was driven by about a couple of technologies. From paradigm one to paradigm two, it was driven by radio and television. Paradigm two to paradigm three was internet and data analytics, paradigm four was social media and mobility which was mobile devices all over the place. Each one of those changes were driven by two technologies but now we are at the verge of seeing a tsunami of technologies – almost two dozen of them like Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Wearables, Drones, 3D printing, Autonomous cars, the list is crazy and these are very compelling and impactful technologies that are coming at us. So marketing is going to be disrupted in an unprecedented fashion because these technologies are going to give a different kind of an interaction model for the consumers to interact with an environment and that is also true for businesses. So marketers have to quickly get their heads around this new technologies and be able to leverage and deploy them in their own marketing scenario. If they don’t they will get obsolete very quickly.

Q: In the quantum marketer’s toolbox or toolkit, data analytics which had taken centre stage for the last two paradigms of marketing the way you see it, will continue to be important and perhaps become even more important, right? I want to delve a little bit into some of the challenges that that throws up and you talk about it at great length in your book. There are privacy concerns that all consumers, regulators, governments are beginning to put out there, front and centre and which now seems to be a business conflict between the large tech giants isn’t it? You have Apple and Facebook take each other on, on precisely this issue. So how should enlightened marketers who will be affected most by constraints on how data is mined deal with this? How should you be ready for what is going to come in terms of curbs and what should you do as an ethical marketer who wants to use data?

A: The last point you mentioned is actually the starting point – being an ethical marketer. First, as a marketer we need to put ourselves in the shoes of consumers because we are consumers and people before we are marketers. So as an individual how would I want my data to be used? What part of my daily lifestyle and daily activities do I want somebody to track and monitor? If they monitor, how are they using it? Do I know how they are using it? Have I given them permission to do that? Where all my data is floating around without my permission, I don’t want that to happen. Do I have a right to be forgotten, meaning my data has to be completely eliminated? So as a person, as an individual, I want all those for sure. Now if I want that way for myself as an individual, then when I put on my marketers hat, I better act with responsibility as far as my consumers and my customers are concerned. So the rules have to exactly be the same.

If you look at the principles outlined for example by Tim Cook, privacy is a basic human right and I completely agree and subscribe to it. So we have on the one hand access to data which gives us a lot of power in many ways of insights but on the other hand it also comes with responsibility both to respect and protect the privacy of the individuals on one hand and also the security of the data against breaches and so on. As many things in life it is easier said than done. The key thing is how do you make it happen?

I am totally supportive of some of the strategies that are being outlined by the likes of Apple and Google. It makes life difficult for marketers in the short term, there is no question about it but the current way of how we are treating data has to alter. Even with all the best intentions if there is a data breach and the consumer is completely compromised that is something which is not good. The key thing is are there new methodologies which are coming where the data is completely anonymised upfront, where it is converted into cohorts like what Google is saying. In Asia there is a alliance called MyID alliance that has come about where you actually put the data together in a green room kind of thing and where you try to totally anonymise and be able to understand because as marketers you need to know who you are targeting, who you are retargeting, what your returns are because you also have the responsibility to advertise in a relevant fashion to the consumer so that it is non-annoying and non-intrusive to them. So that comes with data analytics. So you need data and data analytics but the form in which it is available and the safeguards with which it comes they have to totally alter.

Q: You also talk about how apps which we download and rely on so much for our transactions and our consumption of media, you see the design of apps also having to change and to incorporate data privacy layers at every stage of the transaction and interaction isn’t it?

A: If you look at many of the apps, they actually have so much of data about you even in categories that they have nothing to do with, you wonder why? Are they in the business of providing these services or are they in the business of just harvesting data and then monetising the data on the backend? That is not how it has to be.

If you look at somebody like a General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of European Union, the principles they have outlined are absolutely right. Now what we need is a via media between the principles and the pragmatism. Because if the principles are so lofty that you cannot then do anything at all at the backend as well as marketing is concerned that is pointless because marketing actually is a huge economic activity that sustains and helps communities in a big way.

Now the key thing is today the solutions that are available are very rudimentary, but there is a beginning of this movement that is happening, and the movement is getting accelerated particularly with the declarations of whether it is Apple or a Goggle and I think it is a good thing.

Q: Last year, the World Federation of Advertisers, many of the companies that are part of this federation actually paused, or reduced their spending on Facebook and other social media platforms and some of it hasn’t come back. Now this happened in the backdrop of the fact that last year we saw the US Presidential elections and a very polarised political social, racially charged climate in the US and we saw what happened right up to January 6th and the insurrection at the US Capitol. My question to you is, that pause that was hit by advertisers, did you see results?

A: The pause that some brands have hit upon, they were driven by two fundamental reasons. The first one is the brand safety - so is my brand appearing in a place that is not safe or appropriate for my brand. On the other hand because marketers actually fund all the social media platforms big time, does it come with a responsibility that you hold that social media platforms accountable for societal safety as well. Like for example when there was the Christ Church shooting and it was literally broadcast live that is horrific. Now the key thing is, irrespective of the technological constraints or the big good intentions, the fact is should the social media companies be held accountable to it? The answer is yes. These are the two things which are driven last year for some amount of pause to be taken by some brands.

But what we did is it is not just taking a temporary pause, the key thing is we need to work together with the social media platforms and with the brands to come together and with the tech companies as well to come together to really evolve solutions. So we have formed at the World Federation of Advertisers a task force called Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), and the whole idea for this is about brand safety and also about societal safety and how do you make sure that the internet is a safe place for everyone.

It is gaining momentum, all the social media platforms have joined hands, and they have joined the partnership. Many of the brands have joined, in fact most of the brands have joined and lot of MarTech companies, the marketing technology companies they have joined. So there is a good amount of momentum already.

You will be surprised to actually know the basic thing is how do you define what is hateful speech.

Q: How do you standardise that definition?

A: So that is a first thing we have been able to agree on so far which is a huge accomplishment in itself, because when you get into it, you realize what you think is hateful is not hateful for somebody, they think it is perfectly fine and there are cultural difference and there are different levels of tolerances for all. So getting all of them to agree to a common definition, to a common standard in itself is a big deal and that is exactly the first step we have taken which is a good big step.

Q: What about the others like, to collect the data in a unified way, third party verification, and tools that will operate in a way across the entire ecosystem and not be sort of proprietary to each of these tech giants? What is the progress on that, what's the assessment on how that is going

A: It is moving, I would not say that we are already declaring victory, but it is moving in the right direction. The pace could be much better, but it is democratic process in a sense because you need all the brands and all the players who have to really come to the table and agree to move along the recommended direction. So the progress is slower than what we would like to, but it is definitely moving in the right direction.

Some of the things that looks so common-sensical when you look at it, you say I am paying money - as an industry I am saying, I am paying money to the social medias, 95 percent of all the revenues of the social media platforms which are multibillion dollar companies are actually funded by the marketing dollars that the marketers are actually giving. So the key thing is you would say if I am paying so much of money I need to know that am I getting what I should be getting or what I think I am getting and should it not be audited as opposed to self-reported. It looks very evident and simple from a marketer’s point of view but it is not so simple if you have to actually look at the mechanics of how you audit those data.

Do you have the talent to even understand the level of depth and the technology in the entire ecosystem that they are able to audit effectively and so on, so some of these solutions might look very obvious, but they are not so obvious. When you start getting into the details and peeling the onion there are more and more layers of complexity that to get to the bottom of the truth is very difficult, but we are making progress.

Q: I am going to go out in a limb and say that in the past few years marketers have sort of had to play catch up with the tech companies and today whether it is because of brand safety, societal safety, there is also a little bit of trying to change the balance of power in this equation, because at the end of day you are the guys with the money who the tech giants and the media they control, want to woo, but on the other hand you seem to be in the weaker position or have been in the weaker position in the past few years, am I right to see it that way?

A: I would hate to agree with you, but I have to agree. This is exactly what I mean that marketers have not kept up pace with technology and with data. When that didn’t happen somebody else has started driving their bus and we have become passengers. And because we did not educate ourselves as a community, we are not able to ask the right questions and if a question is given to us, even if we come up with a right question we are not able to understand those answers, to separate the signal from the noise, what is the wheat and what is chaff we don’t know, so that is a sad state. That is when I say that the marketers purely or mostly from the creative side of the house and not on the quantitative technology side, this is the culmination of that problem.

Now that's exactly what has brought us to the current scenario. The key thing is, at this point in time we have started getting together as a community instead of each marketer trying to solve the problem for his or her company. We are saying let us come together as a community. Now there are two CMOs myself and the CMO of IBM, we got together and we are leading a task force for the entire industry on data and technology and we are looking at everything - right from educating our people, which means our community across all the companies and providing them with the details about the companies which we find are very good in terms of marketing technology. What should be kind of contracts that you should have, how do you measure ROI, how do you decide how your data architecture should be, so we are demystifying the whole thing and trying to put together a playbook and this is being done under the auspices of the ANA which is the Association of National Advertisers which is the equivalent of World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), but based in the United States and we are making very good progress on this.

(Edited by : Abhishek Jha)

First Published:Feb 10, 2021 2:12 PM IST