Dennis Pannuto, CEO Aha! Insight Technology

MM
We’re here with Dennis Pannuto of Aha! Insight Technology.

Dennis, please give us some background in terms of your career and current focus.

DP
Sure. I started my own company in 2006: Aha! Insight Technology. The focus of this firm is to basically work with Fortune 1000s and entrepreneurs, to develop business strategies and technology roadmaps focused on innovative digital media solutions and interactive technologies. We also provide Fortune 1000 companies and entrepreneurs with C-level strategic guidance across their technology enterprise to achieve measurable results.

Prior to that, I was CIO for BBDO Worldwide-the third-largest global advertising network. I was there for five years and had a good amount of success.

Before that, I was the CIO for Golden Books Family Entertainment, which was at one time the largest North American children’s publishing company. We also had a very large, extensive library of films and video -3,000 films and videos that we distributed.

I spent a lot of time-about 18 years-in corporate technology and multi-media publishing. I’ve done it all. I came up the hard way. I’ve pretty much done everything from implementing financial systems, data warehouses, warehouse management systems, manufacturing systems, building out data centers to managing and supporting multi-media publishing; a big part of supply chain has been in my path. So I’m very much aware of the principles of good supply-chain management. I’ve adapted that to how I develop and implement most of my digital solutions. The digital asset supply chain is at the center of every company and group that is involved in the production and distribution of digital content whether or not they are a traditional supply chain company.
MM
You might be what would be classed as a master-class practitioner for digital supply chains.

Let me start with a story. I have a good friend and business partner in another firm that has a 12-year old daughter. Her name’s Shannon. A year ago, Gary and Shannon were going to Comp USA or Best Buy or whatever it was to get their mom, Anne, an iPod.

As they were driving down the road, Gary turns to Shannon and says, “Hey. Do you suppose Mom would like an MP3 player?” Because it’s got more features.

Shannon, being 12 years old and somewhat precocious, said, “No, Dad. Mom wants an iPod.”

Gary says, “Well, how do you know?” Shannon said, “Well, she’s always borrowing mine.”

Gary thought, “That’s not a bad answer.” He said, “What do you think about this new Microsoft Zoom?” That was being touted a lot in advertising.

Shannon said, “Dad-you don’t know anything about brands.”

Now Gary’s a PhD. Organizational development. Harvard Business School. Serial entrepreneur. Started 5 or 6 companies. He was a president and CEO of a division of Phillips.

Gary turns to his daughter and says, “What about brands don’t I know?” She said, “Dad-everyone knows that if you have to advertise it, something’s wrong with it.”

Gary goes, “Hmm. Well, how do you find out about stuff?” She said, “Well, I go online and check out some forums and blogs. If they speak about it being good, then I talk to my girlfriends. If they’ve heard about it, I know it’s good.”

He goes, “Hmm.” Then Gary adds to this anecdote or story that it’s the moral obligation-in his opinion-for every teenage daughter to have at least two annoying hobbies.

It turns out that Shannon’s hobbies are fencing and drumming. So there’s a drum set downstairs next to the bedroom and the media room. Gary says that every day, he has to go downstairs when she’s drumming away and say, “Hey. Knock it off! Quiet!”

So it came that time of day and Gary goes downstairs. There’s Shannon on her drum set. She’s got her little iPod and speakers. Through the speakerphone is coming guitar music.

Gary says, “Hey! Whatcha doin’? Shannon says, “I’m playing with Nicole!” Gary, being the concerned father that he is, says, “Do we know Nicole from school?” “Oh, no!” Shannon says. “She lives in Oregon.”

“Well, how did we find Nicole?” “Oh, I found her on the web. We’re starting a band.”

I used these vignettes about Shannon to describe something that has fundamentally changed in consumer markets. And to a lesser but a meaningful extent in B2B markets.

You and I have two hands. We log on, go to the web, do whatever we’re going to do and log off. Shannon never logs off. She’s on 24/7 with her mobile connection and Twitter and all that kind of stuff. She has completely internalized the web as part of her social network.

In addition to that, she doesn’t have two hands. She has three. Her third one is all digital. Quite literally, that’s how she navigates and touches and manipulates that digital world that is always with her wherever she goes.

The question I put to you, Dennis, is this: what constitutes a digital third hand strategy for marketers today?

DP
Well, that’s a reality that is at the forefront right now of a cultural change. It’s shifting all demographics. It’s changing all age groups. It’s not just limited to the “Y” generation, but is pushing its way through all of the demographics and market categories today.

The reality is that marketers today-whether you’re a Fortune 100 company or a consumer products goods company or an Internet startup…you have to have an attuned sensitivity to the reality that there is a digital space out there that’s all about engaging a self-directed buyer and a self-directed individual.

Your brand has to operate effectively in that space. That breaks down barriers and walls that just did not exist in the past.

Much of the work I do today is addressing these dynamics. Whether they’re a Fortune 100 or whether they’re a startup Internet company, they’ve got to have an Internet marketing strategy that has a very smart and well-balanced social-media, social-networking component to it. Otherwise there brand will suffer.

MM
Have I shared with you our brand-interaction and engagement model?

In this particular model, I start to frame three or four issues as they relate to this strategy. For the most part, most customers or consumers or people in the web sphere or cloud basically fall into a category called, “Unknown,” to a seller. These would be the anonymous visitors of a website.

The “Knowns” convert into a “Known,” where I’ve dropped a cookie on the web visitor. I’ve now gotten some behavioral activity data associated with him-maybe even an e-mail address and some basic things. I begin to interact and provision various interactions with this consumer.

The next major conversion in an engagement strategy is going from “known” to “profile.” That’s when I’ve gotten some information from them to then start to correlate with these compiled databases from Axiom or Epsilon or Merkle. I can start to develop a richer demographic and psychographic profile of this visitor, who’s now profiled.

As I start to engage you in personal interactions, the next major conversion is when they move into being a subscriber. At that point, a marketer can start creating highly personalized, customized web interactions as a function of wrapping fluid web properties and brand interactions around a highly personalized digital persona.

Finally, the last conversion often entails becoming a member of a loyalty program. Oftentimes, this entails a much higher level of collaboration than just a message board or a web board and stuff. Does that progression make sense? If so, what are some of the challenges in thinking through a strategy for that?

DP
I think that progression makes sense in many business models. I think there are obvious deviations from that in some cases. But yes, as far as developing the strategy, it’s taking all of those interactions from start-to-finish, and being very sensitive to how people in the digital space will react to those.

Today, it’s all about conversation. Really, it’s about creating or engaging in those conversations on the web. Depending on whatever segment of that lifecycle you’re going through, it’s all about participating in some type of conversation that will take that consumer or that person and make them part of your community-and then keep them there.