John Hingley, CEO, Andiamo Systems

MM
Couldn’t agree more.

Here’s what I would suggest-they’ve personally overseen, managed or were part of a group that generated more than $200 million of revenue through mobile phones. So they understand the customer or user experience from a mobile device perspective.

They also will probably have their own blog. And have a fan club and following.

Another thing they’ll have, aside from all of the straightforward, direct-response database marketing analytics piece and its sister or adjacent category of, “Marketing Analytics,” which is surveys and all of that kind of standard stuff-focus groups and use of syndicated research… They will have a very deep grounding in web analytics. Specifically, what do traffic and hotspots and websites mean? How to listen with data. Then, to take that data-whether it’s traditional customer insight and marketing analytics-database marketing analytics or web analytics-and then convert that into creative briefs and content strategies.

Both content strategies on my side of the firewall as well as dynamic messaging in terms of push or things that are outside of the firewall.

It seems to me that this person should probably have not-if not a practitioner’s understanding-at least an adjacent one. “I’m really familiar with it, but I haven’t done it,” kind of understanding of content optimization.

That is, metadata, tagging, XML schemas and how we light stuff up not only for it to be found in search engines and be highly ranked, but how we create and engineer a page from a content-management, content-optimization page so that we’re cross-linking and cross-indexing and making that page super-sticky from assets that we own and control in our content-management or in our editorial operations system?

It seems to me that we’re talking about a fairly rare bird. Right?

JH
If I mined through all of my contacts there may be a small handful of qualified people.

MM
The last one-this is the one I think that will end up being the vice-president or executive vice-president of social media for the AmExs and the Toyotas of the world. It’ll be somebody who understands that analytics is no longer just advanced statistics, but it actually constitutes applied game theory.

They’ll probably have if not a Masters, a PhD in game theory. They’ll understand that brand interaction constitutes an application of game theory. That puts emphasis on eliciting truthful information at progressively deeper, more intimate levels. Then correlating that into almost a theatrical production. A brand theatre that allows a self-directed customer or a self-directed stakeholder to engage in and fulfill some sort of self-service.

JH
Ha. The list just got shorter!

MM
But the very short list becomes the CMO of AmEx. Right?

JH
Bingo.
MM
As we wrap up this interview-are there any kind of forward-looking things that you anticipate in the next 18 months or so?

JH
I think that the ability for consumers to actually-in addition to just commenting-give their opinions on things. Movies, books, food, wine. Where possible, smart companies and their agencies are going to involve the customer in the actual content. Write your own ending to a book or film or what have you. To really use consumers insights. Not just as an opinion panel, but actually as more active participants in content, product and ad creation.

Right now, you have things like the Heinz 57 ‘Top This’ campaign. I thought that was a great promo. I think that Pepto-Bismol TV commercials are just awful. They’ve got 5 or 6 people up there-1 person mimicking an upset stomach, one diarrhea. I have no problem with the content But that to me is not a creative or even an effective way in my opinion of using consumers in your media. It’s really involving them in ways that are engaging, and not scripted. I think that Heinz did a very good job. I think that our insurance company-unfortunately, I’m under NDA with them, so I can’t give you their name–there is doing a great job at least at this stage of just getting the feedback. It’s going to be involved more, going forward, with consumers.

This is something we didn’t touch on and we probably don’t have time to. But there’s the whole argument of the value of influentials. Right? In order to keep that buzz going-that market awareness-that positive word-of-mouth going. It’s engaging with the influencers in each little mini market niche. Sometimes they’re not mini market niches. Sometimes they’re large ones.

Really engaging with these people in transparent, mutually beneficial ways to harness the power of these folks to help build consumer opinion. That’s number one.

Secondly, from more of a tool and analysis perspective, I see a lot more of what we’re doing. A lot more flexibility in how you use the information and intelligence that we provide.

From either an agency workflow process of, “How do we get through APIs, through better understanding of each other’s needs, to allow our information to flow right into your existing reports that you put out?” If you’re Overture or WebTrends or someone who was already providing-as you mentioned-web analytics intelligence… How do we make it very easy for your customers to also access everything going on outside of the website that Overture or WebTrends is analyzing for you?

If you want to bring other data in to our application and have that be reported on side-by-side basis…if you want to overlay campaign data and budgets and happenings right on top of reports, so you get a real holistic understanding of cause-and-effect of ad dollars spent on word of mouth growth and increased brand perception. Those types of things.

I think there are more ways to make it easier. As this mountain of social media grows, there are more ways to allow companies and their agencies to effectively respond to and organize all of this content, to maximize the value of it.

We’re early on in this market. It’s just so powerful to companies that we’re able to find it all and analyze it all and give it to them in a nice suite of web-based reports. But it’s got to go beyond that. it’s got to solve a bigger issue. It’s got to be more manageable and more integrated in with other established or soon-to-be established marketing dashboards or campaign reporting.

MM
John, this will perhaps serve as the coda for our next interview. One of the things that we’ve begun applying is an information maturity model to marketing operations. It was initially pioneered, I think, by SAS. Now it’s beginning to take an open source life of its own.

The idea is that if you look at a maturity model like any maturity model, it goes from no structure, no management, to things that are dynamic and closed-loop. You go from just data to standard reports to descriptive modeling, predictive modeling, and then the nirvana-which would be real-time adapting.

As you start talking about how the social media data or the social media analysis becomes part of a larger set of metrics, almost inevitably what you run into is the relative immaturity of most marketing organizations as users and managers of data of information.

Fair enough?

JH
There are very few defined metrics right now, but it’s going to change quickly. The biggest challenge is to define and develop ‘standards’. We all know how long that can take. So we’ll start seeing companies such as Andiamo Systems and others - probably large agencies as well - develop their own metrics and marketing dashboards. Over time, these metrics will being to become more standard but it’ll take a while.

MM
I think in terms of an overall industry that calls attention to the fact that part of what vendors such as yourself-and think tanks such as us-really have to do is to start educating those that are on this fast track career path for becoming the CMO vis-à-vis the social media route. That they really start to understand the importance of managing information processes. Not just managing information, but managing information processes.

That takes real infrastructure, real investments, and a maturity that’s going to take some companies a long time to develop. Some, with the right mindset, will be, “Oh, yes! Fine! That’s what we need to do. Let’s go do it.”

JH
Yes.

MM
Again, I want to thank you for interacting here with us in the interviews and the points that you’ve developed.

JH
Outstanding. I appreciate your time.

MM
Absolutely. Thank you.