Marriott International’s George Corbin Delivers Content as a Service, Sans Silver Platter

A 2017 PageFair report notes security is the number one reason consumers use ad blockers. CMO Insight Summit Keynote George Corbin, Senior Vice President of Digital at Marriott International, says relevancy—or lack thereof—is the real reason ads are being brushed aside. Corbin points a finger at an unprecedented level of content saturation, which has consequentially led to the demise of traditional marketing. His solution: move from a model of ‘how can I get you to buy this?’ to ‘how may I help you?’. Content as a service is a strategy many brands are adopting in response to consumers’ cries for more relevancy.

“Treat people like humans, not transactions”

Consumer data insights allow brands to maximise reach, precision, measurability and scale of advertising, however content saturation of equal proportion has launched many companies into a cycle of counter-productive campaigning. An ad that goes unseen—or worse, unengaged with—is a marketer’s new worst nightmare.

To stand out amidst copious impersonal, non-targeted and largely ignored advertisements, marketing executives like Corbin and Jennifer Kelly Dominiquini, CMO & Digital Sales Officer at BBVA Compass, are focusing their efforts on customer service. “Treat people like humans, not transactions” was the advice Dominiquini offered during her CMO Insight Summit workshop. Sharing company values (like Ford and PepsiCo) with community service-based content builds consumers’ trust in the brand. As she explained, purpose-driven brands are the ones customers actively choose to engage with. Bank it Forward and 100 Days of Brightness were two of BBVA’s most successful ‘feel-good’ customer (and employee) engagement campaigns with ROIs driven by service and engagement, not sales.

As digital transformation petitions brands to adhere to data-driven marketing, there is also pressure to be as agile as possible. Content strategies based on customer data bring forth a unique set of challenges. During his CMO Insight Summit keynote presentation, Rex Briggs, CEO of Marketing Evolution, delivered reassurance, “Do not be intimidated by the volume of data you have. Take a crawl-walk–run approach”. This is the most feasible strategy, as more companies realize a lack of data is not of concern.

If misattribution is the poison killing customer engagement, then predictive content is the antidote.

So how do other companies authentically communicate content as a service? Briggs’ first call-to-action for marketers is to limit—better yet, eliminate—misattribution. If misattribution is the poison killing customer engagement, then predictive content is the antidote. Meg Walsh, CEO of Wylei, says cloud-based machine learning allows brands to produce the most relevant content in real-time by adapting to customer data sets, identifying unique patterns that exist among them, with continuously learning. “This is as close to personalisation at scale that we as marketers have come to date.”

Wylei’s innovations demonstrate how content as a service can be viewed as a continual conversation with customers; one that depends upon the micro-segmentation of data to pick up on, and speak, the language of your audience. Similarly, Corbin advocates for the micro-casting, not broadcasting, content that is tailored to the individual, “We must give consumers back their right to choose what content they are exposed to.” Relevancy is a currency of its own that does a service to ROI as much as customer engagement.

“We must give consumers back their right to choose what content they are exposed to.”

Delivering content as a service comes in many forms. From machine-learning and automation, to community-led conversations & segmented personalisation—think customer service first, and the content will follow. Hear more from Corbin’s CMO Insight Summit keynote by watching this highlight video on the GDS Summits Youtube channel. Learn about GDS Group’s Insight Summits on gdssummits.com.