The old Münchenbryggeriet (The Munich Brewery), a massive red-brick palace of building, situated on the water of Söder Mälarstrand with an unbeatable view of Stockholm City Hall, doubled in the blank reflector pool of the narrow coastal inlet of Riddarfjärden. A pretty decent setting for this year’s Adobe Symposium in Stockholm.
New discussions in old settings
Football superstar Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s clothing line, interacting with millennials and creating engaging online videos. These were some of the topics addressed by 400 of the Nordic region’s top creatives and marketers as they got together to dissect and reconstruct the future of the customer experience, cross-channel marketing and of course, data-driven marketing.
World Class customer experiences for Zlatan Ibrahimović’s A-Z.com
As one of the world’s premier footballers is branching out with his own line of fitness clothes and accessories, it is it obvious that his A-Z.com brand has to provide the customer experience matched by his football prowess. A great session on how to build a brand from scratch and how to really leverage real-time online marketing to drive success.
One fun anecdote from the brand building process was when Zlatan reflected on the name A-Z.com: “I like it. It communicates that there is something for everyone, from Amateur all the way to Zlatan”
Pandora’s no to the Expensive Old Organization
Customer Development Manager Heidi Mejlby Hem from the Danish jewellery company Pandora, talked about the challenges on communicating in a unique way to every customer when you have millions of them and your products are sold in thousands of shops all over the World.
One of the key learning from Pandora was “New Technology + Old Organization = Expensive Old Organisation” – you have to rethink the organization in a new way when dealing with digital transformation.
Sarah Örhwall on digital trends
Someone had to take the lead within AI and Big Data during the day and keynote Sarah Örhwall, one of Sweden’s digitalisation experts, was the most evident advocate. After Sarah’s session there was no doubt that we will all be affected by artificial intelligence, both professionally and privately, very soon.
Scania towards social engagement
Erica Zandelin from Scania explained the strategy behind the development of the recently-launched Scania website to build an outstanding new customer experience. Erica also detailed how new data on customer interactions led Scania to transform its media strategy, shifting focus towards social engagement and away from traditional channels.
“Leftover women” of China – engaging video key for brand success
Swedish advertising powerhouse Forsman & Bodenfors led the audience in a discussion on how to create engaging online videos today. Unfortunately we did not get the magic recipe for success, because there is not one. It is all about hard collaborative work and using the data available to make the best possible choices.
“Dig deep and be one team”, said Johan Olivero, copywriter at Forsman & Bodenfors after walking us through the global hits of Volvo Trucks’ “Jean Claude van Damme’s epic split” and the gripping “Leftover Women of China” campaign for a Japanese cosmetics company aiming for the Chinese market.
The four elements of experience business
Throughout every session it was clear how new technology is changing the marketing industry and that we now really are in an experience business economy. However, if you were to breakdown what experience business actually is, as Adobe’s John Watton did, you could find all four part to the concept.
So what is the first step in becoming an Experience Business according to John Watton? You have to start by getting a “single view of the customer”. This was something that clearly was put into practice by Jonas Nyström, CRM Operations at retailer Clas Ohlson, who spoke about how the company started all of its campaigns with one clear question: “Who is our customer? – That’s where we need to start”.
The second step is to analyze and get insights into key audiences, a statement evidently supported by creative copywriter Johan Olivero from Forsman & Bodenfors. Who pinpointed the fact that the first thing you need to do is “dig deep” and get insight in to your target audience, not just in the planning phase, but in all instances of the creative process.
The third step in becoming an experience business is to “deliver the right content seamlessly across channels”, something definitely adopted by the Varner Group when launching A-Z.com with only one objective in mind – to provide a world class customer experience across all channels.
The fourth and last part of the experience business is to “make the experience consistent, compelling and continuous”. This was something every speaker addressed in many different examples and scenarios, however Axel Schäfer put it all into one pot during his keynote where he led the audience on the whole customer journey – from anonymous prospect to loyal advocate.
Signing off
All in all, a truly inspiring day, really touching the heart of the challenges and possibilities of online marketing, both today and tomorrow. See you next year!
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