CUSTOMER FOCUS
Brightsource describes itself as amarketing service and technology company. What types of projects inspire the Brightsource team?
These challenges will start to lessen as clients embrace technology at a more strategic level, and CTO roles become more established and effective. We see our role as helping clients overcome these transformation barriers, whether that’s by taking on some of the heavy lifting ourselves, or providing the technology to integrate legacy systems. There are also challenges in the approach to measurement – on one hand we see a shift towards customer- centric strategy, whilst on the other there remains a relentless focus on short termROI. The challenge is to find ways tomeasure customer engagement in different ways, and over longer periods of time. Then of course there’s the data regulation area – this is worrying lots of people in the industry but I’m relaxed: if we are serious about moving the bar when its comes tomore customer- centric 1-2-1 marketing, then we shouldn’t be sweating about the change: in the long term it will encourage the industry to do things in the right way.
We’re happiest when we are entrusted with our clients most challenging problems. Often the strategic challenge is tomove fromproduct-centric, to customer-centric 121 marketing. To tackle this, we are often challenged with automating the delivery of direct mail, SMS and email, according to individual customer triggers. For many of our clients this represents a whole change in approach away from generic, channel-siloed campaigns. Ultimately it’s the projects that ignite our – and our clients - desire to keep on learning that are the projects we findmost inspiring.
You’ve been with Brightsource for over 12 years now. What changes inmarketing trends and strategies have you witnessed/embraced during that time?
Cross-channel marketing is a popular approach inmarketing plans right now but it can be a difficult strategy tomaster. How have you approached this?
The way people engage with brands has changed enormously. To help clients adapt we’ve become masters of the technologies that drive 121 engagement. We use a combination of best-in- class platforms fromAdobe and GMC, supported by a specialist in-house development team. Brightsource Labs is our marketing automation team, where we help our clients to connect with their customers in a more relevant and personal way. Things are changing faster than ever – we focus on developing a culture that remains agile and embraces change.
We’ve seen ourselves how efficient use of multiple channels can get results for clients. For Christian Aid, we developed
an automated platform to deliver timely and relevant responses at critical touch-points in the charity/ supporter relationship. Key to the strong results was the blend between email and direct mail – allowing Christian Aid to use each channel to support the other.
Asmasters in print production, what role do you think printed collateral plays in the marketingmix?
At the end of the day ‘the power of the thing’ is something that print has, that can’t be replicated in the digital channel. The question is what does this look like? In terms of data-driven printed communications we’ll continue to see digital printing technology and data insights being levered to create more individualised communications. Alongside this we’ll continue to see a move away from generic direct mail campaigns, towards rolling streams of customer-triggeredmailings, managed in an integrated way alongside e-mail and SMS activity.
What is your vision for Brightsource in the next 12months?
To have developed something new and of strategic significance with every one of our major clients.
As a fellowmarketer youmust have been working late tomeet a tight deadline. Do you have anymemorablemoments of working late on a campaign?
You recently won an award for ‘Best Innovation in Data Marketing’. What do you think are some of the big challenges in data-drivenmarketing right now?
There are quite a few… luckily I’mpart of a very committed teamwho do whatever it takes. Normally we have bowls of fruit for staff to tuck into but when we’re on a late one that goes out the window and the Pizza comes out! The scariest moments are often when you’re working on a print or fulfilment campaign that ties in with a big TV campaign – we’ve had one or two of those that have run very close to the wire.
In 121 marketing, brand promises are often compromised by legacy systems and processes. There’s no quick fix for this. Creating a single customer view often remains a challenge. For clients it’s about marketing, data and IT teams working more holistically.
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Whistl Magazine • Winter 2015
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