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MARTECH 2030 Five Trends in Marketing Technology for the Decade of the Augmented Marketer by Scott Brinker & Jason Baldwin
This report is a collaboration between chiefmartec.com and WPP to envision the decade ahead in marketing technology and its impact on strategy and operations for brands and agencies. ©Copyright – Marketing Technology Media LLC 1 Trend 01 “No Code” Citizen Creators
Introduction
The 2020s have had a tumultuous Previously, such significant changes would have been estimated to start. Yet for all the challenges of this take years.
year, it has taught us that people and A Twilio study of 2,569 companies organizations — even large organizations published this summer found that, on average, COVID-19 accelerated — can adapt quickly when we must. their digital communication strategy by six years1. An article by McKinsey shared data that showed that in three Many companies implemented new months of 2020, US ecommerce ways of engaging with their customers penetration grew as much as it had in the past ten years2. through digital channels and new ways In Microsoft’s Q3 2020 earnings call, of operating internally with a remote CEO Satya Nadella said, “We have workforce in a matter of weeks seen two years’ worth of digital this spring. transformation in two months.”3 This year has taught us how disruption can come at us quickly. It’s not just risk from start-ups or large, adjacent competitors Martec’s Law that might someday threaten our business. Disruption can happen Generally, technology changes quickly, instantaneously. The global pandemic while organizations change (relatively) slowly. But a cataclysmic event can shut down critical elements of trigger more rapid adaptation. marketing and sales, such as retail channels and in-person events, in a matter of days.
T
Cataclysmic event CHANGE Rapid adaptation
Organisational change
TIME
Technological change Organisational change
1 COVID-19 Digital Engagement Report, Twilio, August 2020. 2 McKinsey Quarterly Five Fifty: The Quickening, McKinsey & Company, Summer 2020. 3 https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2020/07/23/microsoft-msft-q4-2020-earnings-call-transcript.aspx
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While we hopefully won’t repeat this year’s challenges, imagination, resilience, and a sense of adventure, we can expect more and different kinds of marketers who are willing to lean into these disruptions ahead. changes will pioneer the future of marketing and lead a decade of incredible innovation. The big tech companies — Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft — that we rely on for many of our We must adapt quickly to harness these changes. digital go-to-market mechanisms can make sweeping But now, more than ever, we know we can. changes in a snap (e.g., goodbye third-party cookies and all the marketing plays built around them). Or they This report examines five major trends with can be forced into major overhauls by governments marketing technology poised to shape marketing (e.g., GDPR, CCPA, executive orders, antitrust actions). strategy and operations at agencies and brands Either way, we must be ready to adjust to an altered over the next 10 years. Instead of predicting the digital environment at any time. course of individual technologies — such as 5G or virtual reality interfaces — we’ll delve into Science-fiction-ish visions from the future will be second-order effects on marketing strategy and mainstream in this decade — several within the next operations derived from them. couple of years.
It can feel overwhelming to marketing professionals who must keep up. Yet it is also exhilarating. With
THE FIVE TRENDS WE’LL COVER
1 “No Code” Citizen Creators Each of these trends is already emerging in practice today. But we believe each of them will grow exponentially in the years ahead. Platforms, Networks & Marketplaces Collectively, they will reshape marketing 2 disciplines in profound and wondrous ways.
This report isn’t about martech as a category of 3 The Great App Explosion products. This is about martech as a strategic and management “operating system” by which brands and agencies will run marketing in an ever more 4 From Big Data to Big Ops digital and hyper-connected world.
It’s going to be an amazing decade in marketing: 5 Harmonizing Humans & Machine the Age of the Augmented Marketer.
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Trend 1. “No Code” Citizen Creators
Fifty years ago, if you wanted to deliver a slide presentation, you needed a specialized professional to create it for you.
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As described in Before PowerPoint: The Evolution of Presentations by Orana Velarde4: 1 2 3
Designs were first put together Each slide was designed as a When the large slide on white paper using rulers, standalone design on a large designs on paper Exacto knives, rubber cement, piece of paper. It had to be were ready, they were and typesetting sheets. proofread and checked for photographed. errors until it was just right.
Creating slide presentations, a This is the essence of the “no code” With “no code” laborious and skilled exercise, was trend: software that empowers tools, anyone out of reach for most people. general business users to create things that previously only can be a “citizen Today, Microsoft PowerPoint specialists could produce. has over 500 million users. More developer.” than 30 million presentations are We’re way beyond slides now. delivered every day.5 Anyone Today’s “no code” tools give non- can create a presentation. And technical professionals the power while the obvious joke is that not to create websites, databases, everyone should, we can’t deny the workflows, integrations, mobile massive democratization of visual apps, web apps, chatbots, voice communication that has resulted assistant skills, and more. This from this capability.6 category of products is called “no code” because previously you had to be a developer programming with code to build any of these.
4 https://visme.co/blog/evolution-of-presentations/ 5 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8207849.stm 6 Before throwing stones, pause to consider how many decks you’ve shared in the past year. 5 Trend 01 “No Code” Citizen Creators
MORE THAN CITIZEN DEVELOPERS This power to create isn’t limited to Common martech “jobs to be done” software development either. People who aren’t graphic designers use currently addressed with “no code” tools like Canva and Easil to produce their own creative assets. People tools and a representative sample of who aren’t data scientists use tools such as Tableau and Obviously.ai to specialized products serving those analyze large data sets and build use cases. predictive machine learning models. People without audio engineering skills use tools like Descript to produce podcasts, editing recordings like a wizard simply by Job Jobto Be to DoneBe Done SampleSample “No “No Code” Code” Tools Tools Job Jobto Be to DoneBe Done SampleSample “No “No Code” Code” Tools Tools typing some text. LandingLanding pages pages ChatbotsChatbots
In martech, many marketers have WebsiteWebsite forms forms VoiceVoice assistant assistant skills skills adopted marketing automation and customer journey orchestration WebsitesWebsites AppApp integration integration products without even realizing InteractiveInteractive content content WorkflowWorkflow processes processes that architecting such sophisticated WebWeb apps apps DataData analysis analysis customer experiences would have required a team of software MobileMobile apps apps MachineMachine learning learning engineers to implement not too DatabaseDatabase apps apps VideoVideo creation creation many years ago. Now it’s drag- and-drop.
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More and more specialist superpowers are being bottled into software that anyone can use. These products aren’t all called “no code” — a label generally applied to tools that substitute for common programming tasks. But they are all in the spirit of this citizen creator revolution.
It’s impressive what “no code” enables today. But in the decade ahead, advances in AI will put even more amazing capabilities at the fingertips — or voice command — of citizen creators of all kinds: citizen developers, citizen graphic designers, citizen data scientists, and so on.
For example, the GPT-3 API recently released by OpenAI is powering tools such as Snazzy.ai that generates Google Ads, Facebook Ads, landing pages, emails, blog posts, etc., as a remarkably proficient “robot copywriter” that anyone can direct on their behalf.
Imagine what will be possible in ten years’ time.
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NO CODE DOESN’T MEAN landing pages for each keyword in a As an example, building a registration NO EXPERTS search marketing campaign. They’re form on a landing page is a low-end quite happy to let a marketer use a use case. Building an interactive This raises the discomforting product such as Unbounce to build directory of partners on a website question of whether we will still out troves of pages and A/B test is more of a mid-range use case. need experts at all? them on their own. For the marketer, Building the entire online experience this costs them ~$2,500/year for the for a new direct-to-consumer (DTC) In short, yes. Most “no code” citizen “no code” tool instead of ~$100,000/ brand is a high-end use case. As you creator tools address needs that year for a dedicated web developer. tackle larger and more complicated are not being served by specialists, creations, the blueprint of what to because the time and cost such Specialists want to apply their skills build is often more valuable than the expert production required couldn’t to more interesting and challenging keyboard-clacking labor that goes be justified for relatively small or work. And indeed, more advanced into its construction. simple use cases. Such use cases or important projects still benefit would be overserved by such from their expertise. Going back to Specialist talent will continue to specialists — like firing a bazooka to slides, you’re not going to hire a firm be in demand for that higher-level rid a picnic of a mosquito. like Durate Design to craft a deck for expertise, empathy, and insight The disruptive innovation ofa “monthlyno cod emetrics” techn reviewologi ewiths. your that extends beyond the scope of In this way, the rise of “no code” team. But you would hire them to algorithms in even the best no code tools is a quintessential example craft a killer keynote presentation for tools. of Clayton Christensen’s theory of a major conference. ty ses high-end use ca However, over time, disruptive disruptivex i innovation. 7 At first, these e The value specialists bring to mid- technologies that start by addressing
toolsp l address needs that incumbents
— in m this case, professional software range and high-end use cases is unserved, low-end use cases steadily
c o less about the mechanicse of the improve. As they do, they serve more us developers, graphicnge designers, use cases data ol & mid-ra o scientists, etc. — consider too “low production, and more about the advanced use cases that people ode” t expert thinking,c deep experience, previously didn’t think were possible. end” nce to be a good use of their time. a and clever“no imagination they apply needs This is what makes such innovations m mostly se cases to the design and management of “disruptive from below.” An experiencedfo r lowebw-end developer u does unserved not want to spend their days building what’s being built. by expert Pe r in the solutions today future
Time The disruptive innovation of “no code” technologies.
High-end use cases
Mid-end use cases
Needs mostly unserved by Low-end use cases expert solutions PERFORMANCE AND COMPLEXITY Today In the future
TIME
No code tool use
7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_innovation 7 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_innovation 8 Trend 01 “No Code” Citizen Creators
DECENTRALIZED SELF-SERVICE No code tools enable decentralized self-service As “no code” tools become more suited to mid-range and high-end capabilities to marketing use cases, we’ll harness their power on both ends of the talent spectrum. teams — avoiding Non-specialist business users will use AI assistants embedded in the bottlenecks of a these tools to guide them through centralized bureau. the process of building ever more advanced creations. But specialists will also wield these tools as a way to accelerate production — making it easier, faster, and cheaper for them to implement their ideas.
The result will be exponential growth in creators and digital creations. For instance, AppSheet, a “no code” web app builder offered by Google, claimed on their website that 2,413,351 apps had been built with its platform as of August 30, 2020. Around one million of those were created in just the past year, since August 2019.
Rajeev Batra, a partner at the VC firm Mayfield, recently framed the scale of what’s possible by commenting how powerful it would be “to see not twenty million developers [building] really cool software — but two, three hundred million people developing really cool, interesting software.” 8
Centralized Service Bureau Decentralized Self-Service
speed wait in queue immediate self-service
bandwidth narrow & sequential wide & parallel
creativity limited to a few people many diverse ideas
learning limited to a few people widely distributed
8 https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/22/five-vcs-talk-about-how-no-code-is-going-horizontal-across-the-worlds-industries/ 9 Trend 01 “No Code” Citizen Creators
An orders-of-magnitude expansion “No code” tools will empower of things that can be created — and marketers to self-service many who can create them — will drive of these tasks instead. This will changes in the way marketing is accelerate the speed by which things organized and operates. are produced. They don’t have to wait in a queue for processing. In this past decade, many companies It will increase the bandwidth of implemented a centralized “service the number of things that can be bureau” model — often called a produced within a given timeframe, center of excellence — to handle as more marketers can be creating in most marketing creation and parallel, instead of waiting their turn deployment tasks. Create a web sequentially. page, assemble an email list for a special offer, analyze campaign Self-service “no code” tools will results from the previous month by a significantly reduce the cost of different segmentation, produce an experimentation, as marketers will animated explainer video to embed be able to try more ideas on their in a blog post, etc. Marketing teams own, quickly and cheaply. In turn, this had to route such requests through increased diversity of experimenters that center, which was often a will tap into greater creativity from bottleneck. across the organization. And the learning that results will be more widely distributed too.
Coding is a superpower that allows us to think bigger than we’ve thought before, but not all team members have the technical skills to help bring those visions to life. With a “no code” platform, all team members can assist in the software development process without the need for a computer science background.
“No code” will continue to bring increased power to marketers, allowing them to both access and adopt capabilities that were once solely the realm of developers and data engineers. This means greater efficiencies and the end to end management of connected digital experiences that are growing more intricate with every release.
Fred Brooks said, “‘No code’ abstracts away accidental Cleve Gibbon complexity.” Applying this to martech, where fragmentation has given us plenty of accidental complexity, we’ll see Chief Technology Officer North America, more marketing capabilities assembled through “no Wunderman Thompson code” platforms. “No code” provides a practical way for “ marketers to abstract away a lot of underlying complexity and concentrate on delivering better customer experiences for consumers.
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Content & UI Database & Design Creation Spreadsheet- But the “no code” movement isn’t programmatic access to their will still be need for centralizedDrive n Creation just about empowerment. It’s a huge software through APIs. While user expertise to provide the scaffolding lever for efficiency too. interfaces for humans will still be and governance in which all of this important for many apps, we will distributed creation is happening. “No code” tools for workflow expect the data and functionality of A common foundation and automation and integration will all apps and platforms in our business framework that balances diversity dramatically accelerate Rmarketingeprese ntativtoe be accessible via APIs — so that with consistency. processes across widelys distributedample o f 100+they “ ncano be orchestrated through teams and tools, even acrosscod e” tools “no code” automation and composed This leads to the next trend organizational boundaries between into virtual compound apps, of platforms, networks, and brands, agencies, and channelavaila ble today.configured and reconfigured on-the- marketplaces — and the partners. Manual steps will be fly for any operational need. opportunity for conceptually steadily replaced by scheduled “platforming” marketing. and triggered automations, freeing The 2020s will seeA theuto mariset iofo nthe & Workflow Creation marketers to focus on craft more “marketing maker” — non-technical than chores. marketers who are able to create the majority of digital experiences they Enabling such “no code” automation imagine with their own hands. will drive both commercial martech vendors and internal company Yet even in a more decentralized developers to provide greater marketing organization, there
A representative sample of “no code” tools available today.
Content & Databases & Spreadsheet- UI Design Creation Driven Creation
Automation & Workflow Creation. 11 Trend 01 “No Code” Citizen Creators
KEY TAKEAWAYS: 1. The proliferation of “no code” 4. Specialists will still be in high “NO CODE” CITIZEN tools will give non-specialist demand for applying their skills CREATORS business users the ability to to more advanced and complex self-serve more of their needs creative activities. They will immediately, instead of being leverage “no code” tools too, constrained by the cost or to accelerate their production availability of a specialist. process.
2. “No code” capabilities aren’t 5. Software, both commercial limited to building software. and custom, will increasingly All kinds of digital assets, apps, expose its capabilities through analyses, and workflows will be APIs for “no code” tools to be produced by non-specialists able tap into that functionality using tools designed to for any workflow or customer empower citizen creators. experience built by a citizen creator (in marketing, a 3. “No code” tools wil abstract “marketing maker”). complex operations for marketers delivering automation and efficiencies. However, they will also multiply the number of moving pieces in a firm’s digital environment, increasing the need for platforms and software- based governance.
KEY ACTIONS / QUESTIONS FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION AND “no code”
What tools or products are you using today that have “no 1 code” capabilities? Are they being used or maximized? What’s on the horizon for those products to take advantage of this trend?
Look for the complex or time consuming parts of your 2 marketing processes. What “no code” solutions are available to ease or solve these?
Consider the integration opportunities for the tools and data 3 you use today. What “no code” opportunities do you see? Put these in the plan.
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Trend 2. Platforms, Networks & Marketplaces
Our previous era of business thrived through chains. Value chains. Supply chains. Distribution chains. Linear flows that produced and delivered goods and services. Internal workflows often mirrored this assembly line mental model, managing knowledge work the same way as physical manufacturing. Project management Gantt charts epitomized this view.
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The advantage of such chains Yet while a highly connected, digital world was optimizing for efficiency, squeezing out waste from has generated these new challenges for even highly elaborate end- us, it has also given us new organizational to-end processes. As long as structures to overcome them. Three patterns we were operating in a stable environment, we could produce have emerged: relatively predictable outcomes with speed, scale, and precision.
But the digital world is eclipsing traditional chain-style thinking. Platforms There’s much less predictability in today’s business environment. Markets, competitors, and customer expectations can Software and hardware platforms have ushered in tremendous extensibility change swiftly. Every year, and remixability on top of standardized foundations — from early operating new technologies bring new systems, such as Windows, to modern device platforms, such as iOS, Android, Amazon Alexa, and Philips Hue, to current SaaS platforms such as capabilities, new channels, and HubSpot, Salesforce, Shopify, and Xero. new consumer experiences — in turn enabling new business Developers stand on the shoulders of giants to create specialized apps models and operating models that inherit the capabilities of the platform upon which they’re built. Users that harness them. The speed by of these platforms benefit from a spectacular variety of apps. They can which these changes are spread choose ones that best suit their needs and preferences — or even make and adopted continues their own — while being assured of their interoperability around shared data models, operating workflows, and user interface standards. to accelerate.
This platform pattern is also applied to content and campaigns, where In this environment, efficiency is foundational creative assets are designed to facilitate independent still valued. But we’ve come to production of variations and localizations within a common marketing appreciate agility, adaptability, framework. and resilience as even more valuable business characteristics. The biggest advantage of platforms is their adaptability. The ecosystem of things built around them can continually evolve, to rapidly address new use What good is a highly efficient cases and emerging innovations, without having to explicitly coordinate operational pipeline, if it’s their actions with a central authority. Platforms with a large ecosystem of eclipsed by an entirely different creators are extremely resilient.
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Networks
A network is a group or system of Companies get value by participating interconnected people or things.9 in relevant networks, as a source of The Internet itself is one giant customers, knowledge, and talent. But network, and by connecting over far greater value is achieved through 4.5 billion10 people on the planet, owning a network. It could be a it has facilitated trillions of dollars network of partners, a community of in measurable transactions — and customers, a portfolio of agencies (if trillions more in personal and you’re a holding company) or startups professional value-add. 11 (if you’re a VC), or a pool of vetted suppliers or freelancers available on- Within that mother-of-all-networks, demand. In the context of a platform, the Internet contains millions of you can have a network of users, other networks, from social media developers, or connected devices. juggernauts, such as Facebook, Twitter, and WeChat, to private Metcalfe’s Law claims the value of a collaborative networks inside network is proportional to the square of organizations, using tools such as the number of participants — assuming Slack and Microsoft Teams. Within compound benefit for each participant these networks, participants from everyone else in the network. can connect, communicate, But companies can also create value share content, and tap collective through the exclusivity of their own contributions of information. They “closed” networks and the specialized form digital communities and affinity context in which they operate. groups — and specialized subgroups within them. There’s often a fluidity to these networks that let them adapt and evolve.
Marketplace
Marketplaces provide a managed of data marketplaces have sprung up environment for buyers and sellers to for both businesses and consumers to get matched with each other, conduct monetize their data. transactions, and coordinate the delivery of their goods or services. Marketplaces are everywhere in the By validating sellers and buyers and digital world. enforcing rules for participation, marketplaces reduce risks for parties Buyers and sellers participating in a to do business without a direct marketplace are also a network. And relationship. many digital marketplaces are built around a platform, such as Apple’s Marketplaces have blossomed on the App Store for iOS, Google’s Play Store, Internet: Airbnb, Alibaba, Amazon (for HubSpot’s App Marketplace, and third-party sellers), eBay, Etsy, Fiverr, Salesforce’s AppExchange. Groupon, Houzz, Kickstarter, Uber, Upwork, Walmart, Wish, and many Well-run marketplaces are adept at more. There are B2B and industrial balancing supply and demand. They marketplaces, such as Cargo.one give sellers the ability to reach new for booking air cargo and Laserhub buyers and increase the liquidity of their for sheet metal orders. Facebook, inventory (which may be physical goods, Google, and other ad exchanges run digital assets, professional services time, marketplaces for advertising, matching etc.). They give buyers the benefit of advertisers with audiences in real-time more flexible purchasing, on-demand, bidding for placements. A number with greater competitive choice.
9 Google English dictionary definition for “network” provided by Oxford Languages. 10 https://www.statista.com/statistics/617136/digital-population-worldwide/ 15 11 “Understanding the Value of the Internet”, Christopher Hooton, The Internet Association Trend 02 Platforms, Networks and Marketplaces
These three patterns are cropping up in nearly every corner of digital business. They thrive on the dynamics of the Internet the way manufacturing plants in the 19th century once thrived on the rivers that powered their machinery before electricity. In the decade ahead, these patterns will be an explicit and integral part of our strategy and operations.
Successful platforms, networks, and marketplaces — and the ecosystems of participants that flourish around them — will be some of the most valuable still working on this assets a company can own. still working on this still working on this
Platform PLATFORM NetworkNETWORK MarketplaceMARKETPLACE PLATFORM NETWORK MARKETPLACE PLATFORM NETWORK MARKETPLACE producers consumers producers consumers producers consumers
Platforms enablePlatforms specialization, enable specialization, Networks facilitateNetworks connections, facilitate connections,Marketplaces match Marketplacesproducers and match producers and innovation,Platforms and variationinnovation, enable of apps,and specialization, variation of apps, interactions, and assetinteractions,Networks sharing —con and facilitate asset- sharing connections, —conconsumers- in a particularconsumers market,Marketplaces in a particular match market, producers and Platformscampaigns, innovation, enablecreative,campaigns, workflow,specialization, and creative, variation etc., on workflow, ofinnovation, apps, etc., tent, on data, knowledge,Networksinteractions,tent, etc.data, —among knowledge,facilitate and asset connections,etc. sharing —amongbrokering —con - discovery, brokeringevaluation,Marketplacesconsumers discovery, in evaluation,match a particular producers market, and a coherent,campaigns, commona coherent, creative, foundation. common workflow, foundation. etc., on participants intent, a community.participants data, knowledge, in a community. etc. —amongtransactions, and servicetransactions, delivery.brokering and service discovery, delivery. evaluation, and variationa coherent, of apps, common campaigns, foundation. creative, interactions,participants and in asset a community. sharing — consumerstransactions, in aand particular service delivery. market, workflow, etc.,Examples: on a coherent,Examples: common Examples:content, data,Examples: knowledge, etc. — Examples: brokeringExamples: discovery, evaluation, iOS, HubSpot, Salesforce,iOS, HubSpot, Shopify, Salesforce, Xero Shopify, XeroFacebook, LinkedIn,Facebook, Slack, Twitter LinkedIn, Slack, TwitterAirbnb, AdWords, AppAirbnb, Store, AdWords, Etsy, Fiverr App Store, Etsy, Fiverr foundation. Examples: among participantsExamples: in a community. transactions, Examples:and service delivery. iOS, KeyHubSpot, dynamics: Salesforce,Key dynamics: Shopify, Xero Key dynamics:Facebook,Key LinkedIn, dynamics: Slack, Twitter Key dynamics:Airbnb,Key AdWords, dynamics: App Store, Etsy, Fiverr extensibility, remixability, governance network effects, Metcalfe’s Law supply & demand, “GDP” Examples: iOS,extensibility, HubSpot, remixability, Salesforce, governance Examples:network effects,Facebook, Metcalfe’s LinkedIn, Law Slack, Examples:supply & demand, Airbnb, “GDP” AdWords, App Key dynamics: Key dynamics: Key dynamics: Shopify,extensibility, Xero remixability, governance Twitternetwork Xero effects, Metcalfe’s Law Store, supplyEtsy, Fiverr & demand, “GDP”
Key dynamics: extensibility, remixability, Key dynamics: network effects, Key dynamics: supply & governance Metcalfe’s Law demand, “GDP”
BUSINESS MODELS & their own proprietary apps on top of Business models OPERATING MODELS their clients’ marketing platforms — as a way of efficiently collaborating and operating Platforms, networks, and and securely sharing data — source marketplaces can be business panel insights from a consumer models often models, where a company monetizes network owned by their holding combine these them directly. But they can also be company, and secure endorsements operating models, where a company for localized campaigns through three patterns leverages these digital structures to their own specialized influencer run their business more effectively. marketplace. in external and And they can be blended together, in short it also depends on the Because platforms, networks, internal — or viewpoint. and marketplaces are excellent open and closed ways to coordinate independent A brand can sell a hardware and widely distributed contributors, — ecosystems. platform, tap their user network they can also serve as effective for community-based support and organizational models for advocacy, and run a marketplace for empowering a more decentralized apps and services offered around workforce inside a business. its products. An agency can provide
16 Trend 02 Platforms, Networks and Marketplaces
still working on this
CENTRALIZE DECENTRALIZE
platform variations, extensions standards adaptations
governance network distributed contributors innovation low variance high variance global control marketplace supply/demand match local control
For instance, instead of an internal By establishing service bureau model for marketing centrally-managed services inside a brand, where requests from across the organization platforms, networks, are produced by a centralized team of specialists, a company may instead and marketplaces, establish more of a centralized organizations can enable “platform of excellence.” greater decentralized The difference? The platform is a collection of tools, assets, adaptations, innovations, enablement, and guardrails that and dynamic optimization enables people throughout the firm to self-serve many of their needs. of resources. The trend for “no code” solutions discussed in the previous section intersects with this.
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THE 8 PS OF PLATFORMING MARKETING
Organizing your internal marketing operations around a “platform” model 12 enables people throughout the broader marketing organization to self-service many of their most common requests. Here are the 8 Ps of successful platform marketing:
01 02 03 04 Platforms Partitions Permissions Perception open and extensible modular design of software-enforced automated monitoring software platforms at responsibility pods for governance of what and human review of the core of marketing distributing leadership distributed teams can do usage and results
05 06 07 08 Permission Preparation Principles Passion not technical training and enablement clear values and genuine enthusiasm for permissions, but for distributed/ guardrails for users to empowering the edge empowerment from decentralized users apply tools in good ways of the organization management
A centralized team of specialists design and manage that platform — the business operating system of that function — rather than doing the hands-on production work themselves. This increases responsiveness for most requests, as self-service fulfillment can happen immediately. The centralized team can then reserve bandwidth for a smaller number of advanced requests that require their expertise to produce.
12 https://chiefmartec.com/2019/09/platforming-marketing-8-ps-self-service-martech/ 18 Trend 02 Platforms, Networks and Marketplaces
Platforms have a significant impact on the marketing workforce. A core set of people are needed to maintain and operate the platform. But then additional people can participate more on a more dynamic basis to support increased demand or deliver a new capability or service.
From a business perspective, this drives the adoption of a skills on-demand model:
Teams are created to solve specific short term problems and then disbanded once the capability is established.
It can de-risk future business model changes by enabling more flexible staffing options to adapt and scale in response to new opportunities. Lindsay Shirley
Chief People Officer, As a result: To enable this: Wunderman Thompson Asia Pacific People will experience and expect a Marketing team collaboration will much more flexible way of working, be key, bringing people up to “ being able to apply their skills to a speed quickly and enabling efficient specific need within the context of execution as a dynamically configured a platform, build and automate their team. contributions, and then move to the next challenge. This will be an increasing area of investment in people management, Remote working will grow in to maintain connections and cohesion popularity, giving professionals the across more dynamic marketing option to adapt quickly to different teams, each with their own unique teams and projects, plugging voids workflows and requirements. with skills on-demand.
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Particularly interesting opportunities Martech will both define and will arise from platforms, networks, be defined by these patterns. and marketplaces that are shared Leading martech companies privately among a set of companies will be platforms, networks, and — blurring the line between internal marketplaces themselves. They operations and external ecosystems. will empower marketers to engage Partnerships for sharing second- in other platforms, networks, and party data are examples of such marketplaces. And they will give models today. marketers the ability to create their own.
Provide Engage Create
Martech companies provide their Martech products enable marketers to Martech products empower marketers to platforms, networks & marketplaces to engage in other platforms, networks & create their own platforms, networks & customers and partners. marketplaces. marketplaces.
Standards will help. In marketing, The marketing industry should there are relatively few standards stay ahead of this and advocate Martech vendors today — in contrast, say, to the for international standards. Or provide platforms, telecom industry. But regulation, face cross-platform inefficiencies, often the impetus for creating increased pressure from walled networks, and standards, is increasing in gardens, and complexity from local marketing’s domain. Standards for regulatory bodies implementing marketplaces,but the interconnection of marketing standards that vary significantly they also help platforms and ecosystems will — or outright conflict — across likely emerge in the years ahead, jurisdictions. Standards will fuel companies engage helping to break down silos that the next stage in the maturity of exist across platforms. marketing technology. with others — and create their own.
20 Trend 02 Platforms, Networks and Marketplaces
Connected TV is an example of a super fragmented environment in need of greater platform and marketplace cohesion. There are lots of local market alliances that have established themselves. All the way from the screen manufacturers, the content owners, and the streaming services, it hasn’t yet been dominated by a few large players, (e.g., YouTube, IMDB, Facebook Video) in the same way digital advertising has. They’re not in a position to aggregate in the same way.
In part, this is due to the content owners managing the rights to their programs and open standards that allow OTT (over-the-top) delivery of TV — think HDMI, streaming video codecs, bandwidth quality control, etc. — and the low price of entry, through a simple app or hardware device. Stephan Pretorius
Chief Technology Officer, Marketers have had a difficult time providing a coherent WPP connected TV service for brands in the same way linear TV has been because they needed to work with so many “ different market-specific platforms. The opportunity here is when more programmatic connections can be made to simplify the planning, booking, scheduling, content management, and reporting processes for marketing. Agencies have a key role to play in this phase of platform and marketplace development, providing the aggregation necessary for critical mass. This would be too costly for a single brand to manage. It’s a symbiotic relationship.
At the same time, new creative technology tools are disrupting the workflow of traditional TV production: client meeting, brief, ideas, shoot ideas, plans, travel, all fly back, cut/recut, post production, transcreations — this has been expensive. Frame13, however, has disaggregated this entire flow. Only the camera person needs to be on location. A lo-fi version or live stream is uploaded for comment. Editing is done through remote collaboration. The cost base is fundamentally changed.
13 https://frame.io/ 21 Trend 02 Platforms, Networks and Marketplaces
Brands and agencies will Brands and agencies will compete compete within marketplaces within marketplaces and platform and platform ecosystems, ecosystems, strategically deciding strategically deciding which ones to participate in — and which ones to participate how to differentiate themselves within them. They will source in — and how to differentiate more services on-demand through themselves within them. They networks and marketplaces to will source more services on- increase speed or scale, decrease demand through networks costs, and provide more flexibility in and marketplaces to increase their operations. And they will build speed or scale, decrease their own platforms, networks, and costs, and provide more marketplaces as the architectural flexibility in their operations. structure of digital business. And they will build their own platforms, networks, Platform businesses have proven to and marketplaces as the be robust in turbulent times, being architectural structure of able to quickly adapt around their digital business. foundational core. Over the next ten years, brands will increasingly build customer engagement and business models around platform concepts.
In turn, agencies will need to help their clients to build out their business platforms, as all parts of the business become increasingly interconnected and interdependent. Particular attention in platform and network design will be on sharing data and resources and enabling increasing levels of automation. The objective will be to empower marketers to tap broad ecosystems — many with participants beyond the boundaries of the firm — to rapidly build deeper and more connected experiences and micro-experiences for customers.
Marketing in the 2020s will be driven by the Ecosystem Economy.14
14 In the Ecosystem Economy, What’s Your Strategy?, Michael G. Jacobides, Harvard Business Review, September-October 2019 issue 22 Trend 02 Platforms, Networks and Marketplaces
KEY TAKEAWAYS: 1. In a digital world, brands and innovation and experimentation PLATFORMS, NETWORKS agencies are shifting from static, to blossom on their foundations & MARKETPLACES linear, and hierarchical business independent of the core. models and operating models to more dynamic structures and 4. Marketplaces thrive when they processes organized around optimize matching of supply and platforms, networks, and demand and yet also provide marketplaces. trusted and reliable mechanisms to assure delivery and 2. Brands and agencies compliance in those transactions. will participate in many marketplaces, networks, and 5. The dynamics of the Ecosystem platform ecosystems, but Economy will shape marketing some of the most strategic strategy and operations, both opportunities will be in creating inside and outside the firm, their own. including collaborations between brands and agencies. 3. Platforms thrive when they provide a common underlying architecture and governing principles that standardize data and operations across a high volume and wide variety of digital elements and interactions. Good platforms enable greater
KEY ACTIONS / QUESTIONS FOR YOU
1 What are the platforms and ecosystems that you or your organization own or participate in? What’s at the core? How digitally enabled are they?
Where are the opportunities to develop integration 2 partnerships and open elements of the services you participate in?
Think through the collections of capabilities that you have 3 that aren’t linked yet — is there an opportunity to create a platform?
23 Trend 01 “No Code” Citizen Creators
Trend 3. The Great App Explosion
The annual marketing technology landscape, produced by chiefmartec.com since 2011, has been a source of heated debate. It’s a single slide with logos of the many different marketing technology products that Scott and his collaborators were able to find and organize into categories. It has grown exponentially over the past decade.
24 Trend 03 The Great App Explosion
The 2011 martech landscape had In truth, there has been significant around 150 solutions. By 2014, it consolidation in the martech space. had grown to nearly 1,000. The Hundreds of companies have been 8,000 next year: 2,000. Then 4,000. The acquired or driven out of business most recent edition released in the by their competitors. And the largest Solutions by the spring spring of 2020 had a whopping marketing technology vendors of 2020 8,000. That’s an eye-popping who have achieved scale as public 5,233% growth over the decade. companies — Adobe, HubSpot, Oracle, Salesforce, etc. — have Each year, the graphic would achieved dominant market share in trigger cries by industry analysts many martech categories. and overwhelmed marketers that 5,233% the martech industry was bound Yet still the total number of martech to consolidate. It was ridiculous solutions on the market grows. Growth over the decade to have thousands of vendors!15 Why? How? Yet every year, the landscape continued to grow. How was this even possible?
2011 2012
2014 2015 2016 2017 150 2018 300 2019 1000 2020 2000
3500
5000
6800
7000 8000
15 It’s worth noting that while thousands of martech vendors generated quite a stir in marketing circles, our industry has had tens of thousands of specialized services vendors — the quintessential boutique agency — without causing nearly as much consternation. 25 Trend 03 The Great App Explosion
THE NEW ECONOMICS OF service platforms, such as Twilio There are effectively zero barriers SOFTWARE and Stripe, which instantly give to entry to getting into the them state-of-the-art communications software business. features and a robust payments First, we must recognize that the engine. They can tap engineering It’s also easier than ever to buy apps. economics of launching a software expertise on-demand from Many apps can be purchased by product these days are a fraction developer communities, such as business users with a credit card and of what they once were. Cloud Github and Stack Overflow, and immediately used in a web browser. platforms such as Amazon AWS, freelance marketplaces, such Fiverr Freemium and free trial apps make it Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure and Upwork. even easier to get started: try an app let any entrepreneur working out out and see if you find it useful. More of their home spin up world-class, Most apps can be launched complex and expensive products global infrastructure for running a with very little capital today, take longer to buy and configure, software-as-a-service (SaaS) app in a which has resulted in a wave of but even those deployments have matter of minutes. They only pay for bootstrapped SaaS businesses. And far less friction today than previous what they use, at costs measured in when startup money is needed, on-premise solutions in the era that infinitesimal slivers of cents, which it is available from a plethora of preceded the cloud. scale smoothly with the growth of sources beyond traditional venture their business. capital: accelerators such as The demand for apps is nearly YCombinator, crowdfunding sites unlimited. Marketers are constantly Software entrepreneurs can leverage such as Kickstarter, new “alt VC” looking for innovations that will free open source frameworks. They organizations such as TinySeed and give them a competitive edge — a can add major swaths of functionality Earnest Capital, revenue-based new tactic, a new channel, a new to their products simply by inserting financing, and more. customer experience. They’re a few lines of code from API-based continually striving to optimize their operations with more specialized tools and digital services that are tailored to their needs. It’s a kind of digital arms race.
The biggest hurdle to app adoption in marketing has been integration. You could assemble a stack of “best-of-breed” apps — software passionately focused on serving one specific need better than anything else in the market — but getting them to interoperate was challenging.
However, that dynamic is changing rapidly thanks to the rise of app platforms in the cloud. As explained with the trend of platforms, networks, and marketplaces, software platforms provide a common foundation for apps that are integrated or built on top of them — to work together.
26 Trend 03 The Great App Explosion
MARKETERS WILL NEED TO ADOPT THE TECHNICAL AND CONSULTATIVE DEPTH OF SOFTWARE COMPANIES
Marketing as we know it today will have fundamentally changed by 2030. Digitalization of our environment will have progressed into every facet of people’s lives. Many devices available today and to come in the future will be connected, providing constant consumer engagement and response points that ideally take the consumer on a useful journey to meet their end goal.
A simple example today is a DIY hardware brand which offers an authenticated online and mobile user experience. Katherine Strieder The brand can enable the user online to suggest products of interest and guide the user to the nearest store with Chief Product Officer, GroupM Data product in stock. (And think of how helpful this can be and Technology at GroupM WPP when every store seems to be out of toilet paper!) The user can then use the brand’s mobile app (and it’s geo location “ data) to find the product in store down to the aisle and bay. This is possible today and can turbo-charged in the future, with more data points, more digital encounters with the user and more digital feedback from the user.
These types of enhanced experience require a network of platforms and applications to work cohesively at scale across markets. Successful execution includes data integration, architecture to support real-time decisioning and rendering of the digital experience and operational know-how for best in class implementation.
Marketers and supporting agencies need to think about the strategic vision driving their software development and ensure the north star is the consumer experiences they desire to deliver. They need to develop the same consultative operational support that any tech vendor provides. These practices are already mature in other industries so it’s about observing and acquitting talent.
It’s a pivotal time of reinvention in our industry as we support brands and consumers around the world. We have a lot to explore and create over the next decade.
27 Trend 03 The Great App Explosion
BUSINESSSPECIFIC LOGIC SPECTRUM OF SAAS PLATFORMS AND APPS
pulled toward diversification examples LOW
1,000,000’S apps built by an organization for websites, mobile apps Custom Apps its own operations/customer experience
PACKAGED PRODUCTS
app for a specialized domain/function Hotjar, InVision, Loom, Specialist Apps that may have APIs, but doesn’t have SEMrush, Unbounce an app ecosystem built around it
app/suite for a generalized domain or HubSpot, Salesforce, App Platforms function, where developer extensibility ServiceNow, Shopify and its own app ecosystem are central QUANTITY business services, such as payment Twilio, Stripe, Auth0 Service Platforms processing, primarily provided via API
Third-Party Extensibility Third-Party that developers embed in other apps
generalized infrastructure-as-a-service AWS, Azure, GCP Cloud Platforms (IaaS) or platform-as-a-service (PaaS) |that developers build apps/services on 10’S HIGH
pulled toward consolidation
general-purpose infrastructure
App platforms standardize data models, services, and user interfaces to create coherence and consistency across In May 2020, Pandium released a State of Product Integrations everything plugged into them. Think of at the SaaS 1000 report that examined integrations, public APIs, your iPhone or Android smartphone and and “app centers” offered by the 1,000 fastest growing SaaS companies from 2019. how effortless it is to add new apps. We’re not quite there with B2B app They found that nearly every SaaS company now integrates platforms, but in the decade ahead, with other SaaS companies in the cloud — the median was 15 we will be. integrations each. In the martech category, 61% had an “app center” (from a simple directory to a transactional marketplace) This gives businesses the best of both featuring available integrations. 89% of them provided APIs to worlds: unified digital infrastructure, their customers. anchored by stable app platforms, and All these elements combine to multiply the number of apps in the near infinite means of innovating and world. In fact, the larger and more consolidated cloud platforms, differentiating through specialist apps — service platforms, and app platforms become, the further they or custom apps they build themselves — accelerate development of more specialist apps and custom layered on top of that foundation. apps built on top of them.
28 WHAT IS A PLATFORM? A platform feeds the creation of more apps than it consolidates. 1,000,000’S
Custom Apps
Specialist Apps
App Platforms app platforms serve as a QUANTITY Service Platforms fulcrum by facilitating the APP discovery and integration of PLATFORMS specialist apps in their domain Trend Cloud03 Platforms The Great App Explosion 10’S
THE GREAT APP EXPLOSION By 2030, there will be billions and billions of apps in the world.
In a Worldwide IT Industry 2020 This is The Great App Explosion. Predictions report published a year ago, IDC estimated that “over 500 million digital apps and services will be developed and deployed using cloud native approaches” by 2023.
WHAT IS A PLATFORM? A platform feeds the creation of more apps than it consolidates. 1,000,000’S
Custom Apps
Specialist Apps
app platforms serve as a App Platforms
QUANTITY fulcrum by facilitating the Service Platforms discovery and integration of APP specialist apps in their domain Cloud Platforms PLATFORMS 10’S
To get a sense of the scale of The Great App Explosion already underway, consider that two years ago there were already over 100 million software project repositories in GitHub.16 By 2030, there will be an estimated 45 million developers in the world.17 If we count apps built by “no code” tools — and why shouldn’t we? — it’s easy to appreciate how billions of apps can be created.
16 https://venturebeat.com/2018/11/08/github-passes-100-million-repositories/ 17 https://www.slashdata.co/free-resources/global-developer-population-2019-community-edition 29 Trend 03 The Great App Explosion
Of course, most of these apps won’t on the “edge” of the cloud. Some are will power interactive content and be stand-alone software businesses. so tiny as to be considered not just visual commerce everywhere. The vast majority of them will be micro-apps but nano-apps. custom apps built by companies for More and more marketing assets their own internal needs. The next This atomization of apps will not will be software. As such, marketing largest set will be those built by only geometrically explode the operations and broader revenue businesses for their customers — not number of apps in the world. It will operations — RevOps — will take as stand-alone software businesses imbue everything in our lives with on more characteristics of DevOps,21 either, but as outward-facing, digital software intelligence. Asymptotically, the hybridized discipline of software facets of their products and services. everything will be an app. development and deployment in the cloud. Customer journey lifecycles For example, a direct-to-consumer 5G networks, with an order of and software development lifecycles (D2C) brand will build their own magnitude greater bandwidth, will will increasingly intersect and blend. custom web apps to serve customers make it feasible to deliver these on their site. But they will also apps instantaneously on-demand. develop custom mobile apps, App Clips in Apple’s recent iOS 14 chatbots for messenger platforms, release are an example of this kind One of the most voice assistant skills, widgets for of install-less software experience.19 affiliates to embed on other websites, As mobile bandwidth continues to important aspects of API services for partners in their increase — 6G networks later in the this hybrid RevOps/ supply chain, and so on. decade are predicted to have terabit- per-second speeds20 — the size of DevOps mission will More and more businesses will be apps and their media payloads (think be managing the “digital natives,” 100% powered augmented and virtual reality) that by a kaleidoscopic tapestry of can be instantly deployed will grow gargantuan volume apps built, bought, or rented, all by orders of magnitude. of data flowing in interconnected through APIs in public and private clouds. At the same For brands and agencies, this and out of all of time, the line between purely digital appification of the world represents these apps. businesses and those with some kind an unprecedented canvas for of presence in the physical world creativity. Customer experiences can will blur. Digital touchpoints will be crafted across a myriad of digital proliferate through physical spaces touchpoints, a suite of apps and and objects, and everything will be micro-apps all working in concert to orchestrated digitally. amaze and delight.
These richer brand experiences will THE ATOMIZATION OF APPS begin earlier in the customer journey, as even ads become micro-apps By 2025, IDC estimates there will that are capable of intelligence and be 41.6 billion Internet of Things interactivity. Indeed, the difference (IoT) devices connected in the between an “ad” and a free, just- world, including wearables, sensors, in-time digital service beamed appliances, vehicles, TVs, speakers, contextually to a device or media and more.18 Each of these hardware platform that a consumer is engaged devices runs its own software apps with will be hard to distinguish. They
19 https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/23/ios-14s-app-clips-will-save-you-from-always-needing-an-app-for-that/ 20 https://www.networkworld.com/article/3305359/6g-will-achieve-terabits-per-second-speeds.html 21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DevOps 30 Trend 03 The Great App Explosion
MARKETERS WILL NEED TO ADOPT THE TECHNICAL AND CONSULTATIVE DEPTH OF SOFTWARE COMPANIES
All digital marketing experiences will become micro applications and seamlessly scale to the types of applications we see today. Experiences that today allow you to play the first level or envisage an item of furniture in your living room, will become more lifelike, more relevant, more context aware and easier to interact with. It won’t even be noticeable that is happening.
AI will also be more prevalent in these experiences, either to tailor the delivery or enhance the experience in real Niel Bornman time, reading the environment in which it’s operating, or CTO Data and Product, WPP acting on behalf of the consumer to decide what’s needed and appropriate. “ Quoting Arthur C. Clarke, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” With AI at the edge, integrated into handheld devices, and taking part in every interaction we have, on our behalf, with our best interests at heart, it will feel like magic.
31 Trend 03 The Great App Explosion
KEY TAKEAWAYS: THE 1. Software will continue to 4. The proliferation of connected GREAT APP EXPLOSION become easier and cheaper to devices and exponential growth create, and there will be more in bandwidth will enable more and more digital touchpoints in marketing assets — including people’s lives where it can be previously static advertising deployed. Customers will expect formats — to have some level more app-like experiences from of software intelligence and brands, in both consumer and interactivity built in. This will B2B markets. inspire a whole new wave of advertising and marketing 2. The landscape of commercial creativity. martech tools will continue to grow, as major marketing 5. As marketing manages more platforms enable and expand and more software assets in their ecosystems of plug-and- its domain, orchestrating all play specialist apps. these elements will require the combination of DevOps and 3. Agencies will have increasing RevOps practices and thinking opportunities to build their in marketing operations, at both own martech apps for these agencies and brands. marketing platforms as a way to collaborate more deeply with clients through their martech stacks and differentiate with new software-powered service offerings.
KEY ACTIONS / QUESTIONS FOR YOU
1 At the creative ideation stage, include your software development team to take part in the art of the possible.
What skills do you need in the team to create and deliver intelligent app or micro-experiences at scale? Think through 2 the changes in people, process and tools needed to support the change. Plan for increasing demand for this type of creativity.
Where will the data needed to inform and drive 3 these experiences come from? How will that data be permissioned and managed?
32 Trend 01 “No Code” Citizen Creators
Trend 4. From Big Data to Big Ops
It’s been said that data is the new oil. A better analogy is that data is the new oil paint.
33 Trend 04 From Big Data to Big Ops
Oil paints range from $4 to $400 a tube, from common to rare oils and pigments. They’ve got inherent value. The effectiveness by which But it’s by applying those paints on canvas, in inspired companies orchestrate all acts of creation, that orders of magnitude greater value can be achieved, transforming matter into of this — the massive span 22 masterpieces. of their digital operations Data by itself has value too, which we can observe — will be a major axis of through prices in data marketplaces. But it’s by integrating that data into the design and delivery competitive advantage. of remarkable customer experiences that marketers create orders of magnitude greater value for their organizations.
Designing and delivering customer experiences in a digitally-native or digitally-transformed business is a function of an enormous number of apps, automations, bots, decision models, dynamic processes, workflows, skills, people and more — a myriad of human and software “actors” — that must all work in concert together.
Each of these actors operates on data, and their performance is influenced by which data they have access to and its quality. But by operating on data, they’re often altering it too — either updating existing data or contributing new data that they collect, derive and generate. Because so many software-automated or software-mediated processes are now running in parallel in a digital organization, (many with a certain degree of independence), yet all of them interacting with the firm’s collective universe of data, complex interaction effects emerge.
Based on the trends we’ve already examined — The Great App Explosion, which is being fed by more decentralized “no code” citizen creators leveraging platforms and networks — we can expect that complexity to grow exponentially in the decade ahead.
The effectiveness by which companies orchestrate all of this — the massive span of their digital operations — will be a major axis of competitive advantage.
22 The most expensive painting sold to date was Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, bought at an auction in November 2017 for $450.6 million. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvator_Mundi_(Leonardo) 34 knowledge & insight
data intelligence information
augmented data
data value data reflexes processed data DATA DISTILLATION DATA
raw data stored reported analyzed decisioned automated
DATA ACTIVATION
Data Value Trend 04 From Big Data to Big Ops
THE DECADE OF BIG OPS
BIG DATA BIG OPS
scale & complexity of scale & complexity of apps data collected, stored, and automations interacting and analyzed with data
The scale of data in business will continue to grow too, but the mechanics of piping and storing it will be relatively easy and commoditized with cloud platforms. Data competitiveness will be a function of two things:
The 2010s were about big data, wrangling the enormous 01 02 scale and complexity of data flowing into organizations at an accelerating velocity. The 2020s The source of your data: How effectively you distill will be more about “big ops” — the its accuracy and freshness; and activate that data in orchestration layer on top of that its provenance and legal your business operations universe of data and its growing permissions; and its exclusivity and customer experiences scale and complexity. and its exclusivity
Just as big data described an exponential growth in the volume, velocity, and variety of data being piped in and out of organizations, It’s the 21st century philosophy Research this year by IDC and big ops describes a similar scaling riddle: if data is generated, but Seagate23 estimated that 44% of all of the volume, velocity, and variety nobody ever does anything with it, data available to enterprises goes of automated or software-mediated did it even exist? (The answer: we’d uncaptured, and out of the data that is processes rippling across marketing be better off if it didn’t. Data that is captured, 43% remains unused. Barely operations, sales operations, service collected but never used has less one third of the total is put to work operations, and overarching revenue than zero value. It’s a liability, with today. The rest is “dark data.” The first operations. costs of storage and risks of theft.) mission of big ops is bringing all the relevant data into the light.
23 The Seagate Rethink Data Survey 35 Trend 04 From Big Data to Big Ops
DATA INTELLIGENCE & DATA REFLEXES knowledge & insight Capturing available data and putting it to some use is a start, but the data intelligence information “putting it to use” part has a wide range of possibilities that affect its impact. Data grows in value in augmented data two dimensions: (1) the degree to which it is distilled into information, data value data reflexes knowledge, and insight; and (2) the processed data degree to which it is activated in DATA DISTILLATION DATA the organization, from reporting to decision-making and, in a big ops raw data environment, driving automated
reactions. stored reported analyzed decisioned automated
DATA ACTIVATION
Data Value
The first dimension is your data Across the myriad of data sources Which ops actors get the first pass intelligence. The second is your in our organization, are the right at new data? As they validate and data reflexes. data sets connected to an ops process it — format, clean, and process? Can it access relevant data augment it — are subsequent actors These two dimensions intersect in a timely manner? And with data operating on it properly sequenced? to determine how valuable data compliance and data ethics growing With many actors working with the ultimately becomes. Data may be in importance, are the “wrong” data same data sets, how are conflicting distilled to insights, but are they fed sets — those for which a particular data updates resolved? As other into the right decisions at the right ops process should not have actors continue to enrich and distill time? Data can be merely processed, access — properly restricted (data that data into higher level insights, yet can it immediately trigger a governance)? are processes upstream iteratively helpful automated response for a rerun to refresh their models and customer? Such data connectivity is the outputs? backbone of big ops. Harnessing data in big ops — developing your data reflexes — But the real complexity is in data relies on data connectivity and data coordination,BIG DATA managing the BIG OPS coordination, wrapped by data interdependenciesscale & complexity of and parallel scale & complexity of apps management and data governance; activitydata collected, among opsstored, processes and and automations interacting and analyzed with data capabilities that are still in the early the data they’re working with. stages of maturity for most firms.
36 Trend 04 From Big Data to Big Ops
COMPETING ON EFFECTIVE about themselves and share with DATA USE companies in a more controlled As organizations build big ops fashion. Acquiring this data at the competencies, they will be in a right time, for the right purpose, better position to extract value and at the right cost — and adhering from additional sources of data that to the contracts by which it is originate beyond the walls of the provided — will be a key facet of firm. Marketing organizations will big ops ahead. Just as distributed databases are need to invest in the data skills (data Since the same set data will vary often “eventually consistent” — with literacy) of their people to ensure significantly in value depending caveats and constraints that must the skills of the few are second on how effectively a firm is able be considered in application logic nature to the wider organization to operationalize it, there will be — big ops environments will face over this timeframe, “no code” and increasing opportunities for data a meta version of this challenge as platforms strategies will accelerate arbitrage around these exchanges. they strive for eventually consistent this understanding. Agencies will operations across all internal continue to plug skill gaps with For agencies, there are opportunities decisions and customer-facing data literate experts and areas of to both connect clients with the experiences. Centralized software increasing investment for the industry right second-party and third-party platforms, as well as blockchain as a whole. data providers, as an integral and ledger databases, will help element of marketing campaigns and orchestrate this complexity. But The decade ahead will see significant programs, but to also create their governance provided by big growth in data alliances between own specialized data networks and ops leadership will be crucial to companies — sharing second-party marketplaces. designing and running this digital data — securely brokered by trusted operations layer effectively. ecosystem data platforms such as Crossbeam and InfoSum. Bigs ops will make big data more powerful than ever. However, while These are ops challenges more that holds tremendous upside for than data challenges. Data marketplaces for third- party data will also grow. Gartner businesses and customers, it will also predicts that by 2022, 35% of large amplify problems with bias in data organizations will be either sellers sets. Data that misrepresents people, or buyers of data via formal online either through its incompleteness or data marketplaces up from 25% in inaccuracy, will ripple across digital 2020. From now through to 2025, the operations faster and with more number of market providers and data significant consequences. products within data marketplaces and exchanges are expected to A crucial element of big ops will be grow by 25% a year.24 Although implementing checks and balances with increased regulatory pressure, to guard against data discrimination the governance and permission and enforcing policies of good management surrounding the data data ethics. While technology will will be a further complexity for big help with this mission, leveraging ops to manage. AI to detect operational patterns and anomalies that may indicate An emerging source of data is data bias or misuse, the weight of “zero-party data” that prospects good judgment will rest on human and customers directly manage shoulders.
24 Gartner, Top 10 Trends in Data and Analytics, May 2020 37 Trend 04 From Big Data to Big Ops
KEY TAKEAWAYS: FROM 1. Big Data was a revolution for personal information available; BIG DATA TO BIG OPS handling the enormous volume, marketers will have to find variety, and velocity of data creative ways to target and flowing through organizations personalize. today. Big Ops will be about managing the growing volume 4. Data alliances and trusted and variety of apps, automations, data ecosystems will play an processes, and workflows ever larger role in marketing operating in brands and agencies operations — and will require on top of that universe of data. greater governance for data regulation and compliance. 2. Organizations that excel at distilling data into insights (data 5. Given the amplifying effects intelligence) and activating it Big Ops with have on the data in real-time in their operations it processes, the challenges (data reflexes) will achieve a of identifying and resolving competitive advantage. issues with data discrimination, data bias, and data ethics will 3. Marketers will need to become become increasingly important more data and ops literate as for agencies and brands. New an integral part of designing and AI-based tools will emerge to managing marketing campaigns address these concerns. and programs. Regulations and ethics will limit how much
KEY ACTIONS / QUESTIONS FOR YOU
1 What is your business data strategy? What is your marketing data strategy? Are they aligned? How do you plan to manage the data needed to deliver the insights and activations for the experiences needed by your brand?
2 How is data governed and managed in your organization? Do those managers understand the future needs of marketing? Put the changes needed on the strategic plan.
3 Review the models you’re using, both internal and vendor supplied, creating a catalog to track their use cases and assess the risks of automating their results.
38 Trend 01 “No Code” Citizen Creators
Trend 5. Harmonizing Humans + Machines
It’sA survey been ofsaid marketers that data conducted isin theMay new 2020 oil. found A better that 59% analogywere concerned is that data that is AI and themachine new oillearning paint. would limit their personal growth — up from only 14% in 2019.25 Will AI lead us into a dystopian future where machines take over marketing, with few roles left for us humans to play?
25 The Pivot Report, R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company, 2020 39 Trend 05 Harmonizing Humans + Machines
The fear of a dystopian scenario Greater automation and AI isn’t totally unfounded. We are approaching a tipping point where a assistance will give marketers large number of jobs in the economy as a whole will be displaced by more time and new tools to focus AI and automation. The effects of on customers, creativity autonomous vehicles on employment in the transportation industry, for & innovation instance, will be hugely disruptive. But rapidly advancing machine learning will steadily encroach on many “knowledge worker” tasks as well, across every industry and discipline, including marketing.
To riff on Warren Bennis’s quote about the factory of the future: the marketing department of the future might have only two employees, a human and a dog. The human will growth of human be there to feed the dog. The dog potential work humans do will be there to keep the human from fiddling with the marketing automation software.
work machines do MARKETING CAPABILITIES However, we don’t believe that scenario will happen in this decade. On the contrary, we think AI will give marketers the time and the tools to reach new heights in their profession. TIME
greater automation and AI assistance will give marketers more time and new tools to focus on customers, creativity & innovation MODEL MAKERS & MODEL or revised models. Humans think tactical automations in the service BREAKERS outside the box (the model). of a larger strategy. For instance, aligning the automation for ad spend While machine learning is advancing Two skills that marketers will optimization for a campaign with the quickly, its applications still tend develop in this decade: model automation for multivariate testing to be narrowly defined. For certain making and model breaking. optimization on the landing pages marketing tasks, such as optimizing for that campaign. The Great App multivariate testing of content or Humans also decide when and where Explosion will grow the total number optimizing ad spend, machine to deploy these models, setting of such tactical automations under learning powered software can do the context in which they run. For the umbrella of ops, raising the a much better job than a human multivariate testing of content, for importance of orchestration. marketer at analyzing all the data in instance, a human decides what its model to determine the optimal content is going to be optimized and Software will coordinate some of decision. the parameters of variations, either these tactical automations by using providing explicit alternatives or other automations at the next level But the big caveat is “in its model.” setting boundaries on automatically up. However, as you go higher up, Humans still largely determine the generated ones. The human sets you encounter greater abstraction models and what data sources are the goals for the optimization — a and ambiguity. Humans are much fed into them. Humans also retain hierarchy of preferred actions and better at dealing with that than the unique advantage of being able the characteristics of ideal customer machines. This will limit how far to consider what is not in the model conversions on them. automation goes before human that should override the conclusions perspective and judgment take over of the algorithm, finding solutions Many of these human-led decisions higher order challenges. when models break, and recognizing are about connecting the dots outliers as potential seeds for new across a number of different
40 Trend 05 Harmonizing Humans + Machines
One of the biggest challenges that marketers will face in the next ten years is the battle against bias in the datasets they’re using. There are numerous recent examples of an AI/ML model being used and producing unintended consequences. This is a situation that will get worse before it gets better as marketers use off-the-shelf models without truly understanding their sources.
We really are still at the beginning of our journey towards using data creatively and currently have a heavy reliance on a few models built by a few large organizations. The use cases that marketers apply to these models have not previously been tested, and as such, are often supplied without warranty or liability for the consequences. This will Di Mayze fall to the marketer and the brand. Global Head of Data, WPP As a result, the next ten years will see an increasing focus on the sources of data, the models created around it, and the ethics surrounding the use of that data. Further “ regulation, beyond GDPR and CCPA, will extend into the use of these models. National governance often lags the capabilities of the technology.
Brands and marketers will be held responsible for the models being used and any bias within them. As a result, we need to increase the levels of data literacy and education in our teams — and be vigilant for the consequences.
There is a happier note though as we pass through these challenges: we are at the beginning of getting creative with data. There is so much to explore. Curious data people will drive new kinds of innovation and creativity that we’ve never seen before.
41 Improvements in AI Harmonizing Humans + Machines will automateTrend more HIGH decisions – and05 recommend options for high stakes and/or high complexity decisions best left AI-powered under human control supporting roles AI-AUGMENTED STRATEGY increasing scope of software-based decisions AI-powered Translating marketing strategy into Machine learning tools willrecommendations
automated big ops “programs”STAKES in increasingly suggest insights, Improvements in AI such an environment will require interpret context, and apply will automate more expert human skill. And at the highest meaning,AI-powered putting more information level, humans will continue to set at a marketer’sautomation fingertips with which decisions — and overarching marketing strategy, to inform strategy and decisions. synthesizing the myriad of the diverserules-based The sophistication of these tools on recommend options inputs that go into its formation. automationtop of AI-based models will continue for high stakes and to widen in scope, giving marketers LOW Marketers will complement the raw greater understanding of larger and /or high complexity algorithmic horsepower of machine more diverse sets of data. SIMPLE COMPLEXITY COMPLEX learning with strategic, contextual, decisions best and integrative thinking. Learning left under human how to apply those talents effectively with a continuous wave of new control technologies in the mix will be an important part of marketing career development moving forward.
Increasing scope of software-based decisions HIGH
AI-powered supporting roles AI-powered recommendations STAKES
AI-powered automation
rules-based automation LOW
SIMPLE COMPLEXITY COMPLEX
42 Trend 05 Harmonizing Humans + Machines
Simulation will become increasingly CREATIVITY & AI common as a strategy tool, with marketers looking to understand There are other human talents different scenarios and gain insight that will continue to be central to into future actions. Presently marketing’s success beyond the marketers use variations of A/B realm of our machines. Broad-based testing and machine learning to creativity and imagination. Empathy experiment and optimize with real with other humans for understanding people (at some risk to an individual and persuasion. Intuition from customer’s experience). In future experience. Collaboration within we’ll use simulations with synthetic the organization and across the agents first, to test drive our brand boundaries of the firm with agencies, and marketing creative, content, and clients, and partners. The pursuit of communications. meaning and purpose and effectively communicating it to others. Moral Simulations are more than predicting and ethical leadership. trend lines or goal oriented machine learning. With the increase in The challenge for AI is that great computing power, millions of marketing resonates with culture at scenarios can be simulated to a point in time. This isn’t something provide directional insight into what AI is good at, as culture is entangled might happen in the real world with with a lot of complex dynamics in increasing levels of granularity. psychology, society, and contextual human experience that are hard to represent holistically in data. It’s even hard for humans to do this!
Marketing as a craft and an art will continue, certainly throughout the 2020s, continually evolving based on culture and communication mediums available. At the same time, however, AI will increase in its abilities to assist humans in the creative process, using machines as force multipliers for human talent.
43 Trend 05 Harmonizing Humans + Machines
Creativity can fall into two categories: information-based and expression-based.
Information-based creativity uses an existing corpus of information to draw new results, drawing value from doing something in a new way. For example, using electricity to close a car window, rather than a handle. This is also known as “design.” The animal kingdom is readily able to do this, e.g., using a tool in a new way.
It’s this form of creativity for which machines are best suited: given a starting point, test and learn — e.g., rearrange items on a web page — and draw a new conclusion.
Perry Nightingale Expression-based creativity is being able to think of SVP Creative AI, WPP something entirely new. This often stems from our lived experience, our culture and upbringing, influencing what and how we think about the world. This is also “ known as “art.” These are the elements that go into great marketing: having cultural context, having a viewpoint, smart observations, and being able to think freely. Further examples here are the next hit song, a smash TV series, the desire to go to Mars.
Machines struggle with this form of creativity. Perhaps one day they will achieve it, but not likely in the next ten years! So we’ll see lots of advancement on the design side of creativity, helping people to solve for the next iteration, based on large amounts of existing information, but relying on the human brain to provide the final spark.
44 knowledge & insight
Trend 05 Harmonizing Humans + Machines information
augmented data
Creative applications use AI today to perform basic tasks that would traditionally take time and skill for a processed data human to execute, such as precisely DATA DISTILLATION DATA cropping people and objects in Mechanical Magical photographs. AI doesn’t choose the Example Example raw data subject or what to crop — or, more Rules-based AI detects a customer is having importantly, why. But AI makes the automation replies to a a problem and alerts a marketer selection accurately, deftly blending customer chat request who intervenes personally and interpolating at the boundaries, and it does it near instantaneously. While this is a simple example, there will be hundreds of more AI use cases Manual Meaningful like this within the decade that every MORE AUTOMATED MORE marketer will have at their fingertips. Example Example Marketer cuts-and-pastes a Marketer has a reply to a customer email one-to-one video chat “Compose an original uptempo with a customer music track for my 30-second commericial in a New York City techo MORE HUMAN style.”26 Or, “Turn this doodle into an Impressionist-style painting as a background for a poster graphic.” 27 The prototypes of these capabilities are already available today. to be conducted on-the-fly. Further, Different activities AI computer vision will automatically It’s the creative arts parallel to “no confirm brand compliance as these harness strengths code” development. assets are deployed in context in the wild. of automation or AI will also support the creative our humanity — process with increasingly powerful So many marketing activities that search and analysis tools. “Show me have been expensive, inefficient, experiences that all assets where Brand X appeared or impractical for humans to do leverage both can with a mountainous landscape and a manually will be made cheap, fast, lake in the foreground” is something and easy with AI-powered software seem “magical” a creative director might want to — but still applied at the direction know. Yesterday, that was a difficult of marketers. Marketers will take question to answer, requiring staff advantage of these capabilities to to laboriously hunt through files and free up more time to focus on their directories. Today, search engines uniquely human contributions and to on DAM platforms make this much render ideas that were previously out simpler, as AI automatically classifies of reach due to a lack of time, skill, or objects and people in all creative budget. assets. Tomorrow, image and video classification engines will enable even It will be the age of “augmented more novel and complex searches marketers.”
26 Jukebox from OpenAI, https://openai.com/blog/jukebox/ 27 Neural Doodle, https://github.com/alexjc/neural-doodle 45 Trend 05 Harmonizing Humans + Machines
AUGMENTED CUSTOMERS Yet even brands with the best deals and the best reviews can have their But it’s not just marketers who will be marketing deflected by consumer- augmented by machines. We believe side software. One example of this this decade will see a significant has been ad blocking software, explosion in software being used where hundreds of millions of by consumers and B2B customers users installed blockers on their to give them greater control and computers and mobile devices28 that leverage over their relationships with short-circuit even highly-targeted brands and vendors. marketing campaigns.
Price comparison apps such as Marketers will need to understand Honey and coupon finders such as the technologies their customers are Shopular reduce the search costs for wielding so that they can successfully consumers to find the best deals. engage with them through their Crowdsourced review sites such as software-based assistants and Yelp, Tripadvisor, and Angie’s List gatekeepers. Marketing will be as help them evaluate who they will buy much about “customer tech” as it is from — not based on what marketers martech, as the interactions between at those businesses say, but what companies and customers will be other customers report. Such augmented by machines on both review sites are becoming a part of sides. Interplay between buyers’ and B2B buying as well, such as G2 for sellers’ software will be a source of comparing software and services. new, complex risks and opportunities.
28 Growth of the Blocked Web: 2020 PageFair Adblock Report, PageFair and Blockthrough 46 Trend 05 Harmonizing Humans + Machines
Three modes of buyer/seller interactions that will need to be architected in marketing and sales operations of digital business are:
Human-to-human: Human-to-machine: Machine-to-machine: phone calls and video calls, one- ecommerce and AI chatbots, where buyers will delegate purchasing to to-one emails and videos, in-store human buyers primarily interact with their own AI-powered agents at a or at-event meetings, on-location software on the seller’s side — the high level, which will “negotiate” visits, and live discussions via chat online store or bot conversation with software agents on the seller’s and messaging platforms (often experience. Humans on the seller’s side through APIs or with an AI as a hand-off from a bot). These side play a supporting role in that scrapes and automates the modes of interaction between those interactions, by designing seller’s human-facing interface. brands and customers will remain and managing these experiences We can call this “bot commerce.” important, especially in services and intervening when customers This will require a different kind of and relationship-driven businesses. need assistance. But in this mode “experience” design and optimization But while humans will play the too, buyers will lean on their own by marketers. Instead of just UX (user leading roles on both sides, software software to optimize their purchases experience) design for humans, it’s will play a significant supporting and increasingly oversee fulfillment BX (bot experience) design for the role too — orchestrating these and ongoing vendor relationship variety of software agents interacting interactions and providing decision management. with a brand. Search engine support to both buyers and sellers. optimization (SEO) is an example of Sales representatives will be this kind of marketing that plays to coached in real-time by AI-powered an audience of machines, as a way of software making personalized reaching customers. recommendations and offering tailored sales enablement content. Meanwhile, customers will have their own AI-powered “advisors” helping them evaluate their options and negotiate for the best deal.
28 Growth of the Blocked Web: 2020 PageFair Adblock Report, PageFair and Blockthrough 47 Trend 05 Harmonizing Humans + Machines
Buyer Human Buyer Machine Seller Machine Seller Human
HUMAN-TO- LEADING ROLE SUPPORTING ROLE SUPPORTING ROLE LEADING ROLE HUMAN Enjoy the experiential Research purchases: Leverage martech for Earn trust through help- Sales & Service and social dimensions specs, prices, reviews, personalized engage- ful, personal engage- of buying process. availability. Schedule ment, recommenda- ments with individual Collaborate with mul- appointments and en- tions, and revenue customers with empa- tiple participants in gage with human sellers optimization. Use thy and humor. Develop the buying decision. via digital channels. experiential technol- and nurture relation- Tune in to subtle trust Augmented memory. ogy to deliver “wow” ships. signals. moments.
HUMAN-TO- LEADING ROLE SUPPORTING ROLE LEADING ROLE SUPPORTING ROLE MACHINE Explore products, Serve as buyer’s digital Online store experi- Design differentiated Ecommerce services, and sellers advisor: evaluate sellers, ences and commerce and highly usable/ through digital find alternative sellers services via multiple accessible digital channels and and substitute channels (mobile, web, buying experiences. experiences. Engage in products, track deals, chat, voice assistant, Monitor buyer activity social networks (public monitor seller delivery in-app, TV, kiosks, for signs of difficulty and private) as part of and service perfor- etc.), personalized to and be ready to step the buying experience. mance. buyers in to help.
MACHINE-TO- SUPPORTING ROLE LEADING ROLE LEADING ROLE SUPPORTING ROLE MACHINE Configure buyer bots Find and evaluate Be discoverable by Configure seller bots Bot Commerce with parameters for sellers electronically, buyer bots (SEO with parameters for pricing and prefer- searching for best to BBO). Win bids competitive bidding. ences. Establish rules purchase options — through highly tuned Monitor sales and per- for “ethical buying” — on price, availability, data operations that formance. Establish seller characteristics reviews — and ethical calculate best compet- rules for “ethnical sell- that override price and buying rules. Computa- itive offers. Computa- ing” to avoid algorith- availability. tional buying tional selling. mic biases.
DATA = MACHINE-TO- Harmonizing the collaboration MACHINE MARKETING between humans and machines will be one of the most exciting and Whether serving in leading or innovative aspects of marketing over supporting roles, software on the these next ten years. It will introduce buyer’s side will grow to wield new complexity to marketing’s enormous influence over business environment, but martech software outcomes. Marketing to machines will evolve to help manage that will be a key dimension of marketing complexity. This period of constant operations in this decade. And how innovation will also ensure there is do you best market to machines? no lack of opportunity for humans to Through data. Publishing the right add value in the continually shifting data, the richest and most useful discipline of marketing. data, that’s discoverable, timely, accurate, and available in the The way machines will take your job channels and formats they prefer. in marketing is if you fail to keep up in This is one of the missions of big ops. learning how to use them.
48 Trend 05 Harmonizing Humans + Machines
KEY TAKEAWAYS: 1. AI will not eliminate the need of human strengths and talents HARMONIZING HUMANS for humans in marketing in with sophisticated software + MACHINES this decade. However, AI tools will usher in the era of the will shift the allocation of “augmented marketer.” marketers’ time to higher-level work on strategy, innovation, 4. Marketers won’t be the only creativity, collaboration, and ones leveraging AI. The age of deeper customer empathy and the “augmented customer” will understanding. change marketing dynamics, as consumers and business buyers 2. Most AI applications in marketing adopt more and more advanced will leverage machine learning software to optimize their with relatively narrowly purchases and engagements defined models that are highly with brands. dependent on the data fed into them. It will be a human 5. Increasingly, brands and responsibility to oversee those agencies will implement models and the data sources strategies for marketing to they rely on. machines — engaging with autonomous software agents 3. Marketers will have to continually operating on behalf of customers embrace and learn new AI- through data and APIs — to powered tools that expand their support “bot commerce.” capabilities. This harmonization
KEY ACTIONS / QUESTIONS FOR YOU
1 What data do you have in the organization that could benefit or gain insight from applying machine learning? Where can AI services be applied to gain further insights (e.g., vision, language, reasoning)?
2 Are you aware of where AI is already being used, either directly or in the tools you have? Where can you take advantage of the advances in the tools and models?
3 How are you educating your organization in the use and application of AI to support and enhance marketing? How are your people thinking creatively about the application of AI?
28 Growth of the Blocked Web: 2020 PageFair Adblock 49 Report, PageFair and Blockthrough Trend 01 “No Code” Citizen Creators
Conclusion The Age of the Augmented Marketer
28 Growth of the Blocked Web: 2020 PageFair Adblock Report, PageFair and Blockthrough 50 Conclusion Martech 2020
Marketer
M A R T E C H 2 0 3 0
OPS
Each of these five trends in marketing technology and operations on their own It is the dawn of The Age of the will have a significant impact on the practice and profession of marketing. But Augmented Marketer. combined, they will transform our industry. Early in the previous decade, Internet The common axis of that transformation will be the astounding power that pioneer Marc Andressen wrote an individual marketers will have at their fingertips to create, experiment, analyze, op-ed for The Wall Street Journal and innovate like never before. claiming that software was eating the world. 29 Indeed, software has “No code” tools to build experiences and orchestrate front-stage/back-stage permeated nearly every aspect of our workflows. Platforms, networks, and marketplaces to harness incredible lives and businesses. diversity of software and talent. Expanding ecosystems of integrated martech products and the ability to embed intelligence and interactivity into nearly The Age of the Augmented Marketer MARTECH 2030 every asset that marketing creates via The Great App Explosion. Exponential will see that software-eats-the- BIG OPS growth in digitalAugmented reflexes, Marketer empowered by the shift from big data to big ops. world phenomenon grow by orders And harmonizing humans and machines with ever more advanced AI assistants. of magnitude. The total number of “apps” in the world — any digital product or capability, from giant platforms to tiny micro-apps and It’s going to be an amazing decade in microservices — will grow by 1,000X or more. marketing: The Age of the Augmented Software won’t just assist marketers. Marketer. Software will be the clay from which marketing is created.
Marketer
M A R T E C H 2 0 3 0
OPS
Augmented Marketer MARTECH 2030 BIG OPS
29 The Wall Street Journal, “Why Software is Eating the World”, Marc Andreessen, August 20, 2011 51 Trend 01 “No Code” Citizen Creators
AGENCY BRAND CUSTOMER
AUGMENTED MARKETER MAGICAL MOMENTS 5 Harmonizing Human + Machine
AI TOOLS + MORE TIME = MARKETING INNOVATION AUGMENTED CUSTOMER 3 The Great App Explosion
ENHANCED EXPERIENCES
EXTENSIBLE 1 PLATFORM “No Code” Citizen Creators MARTECH STACKS
SELFSERVICE MARTECH
4 DEVOPS MEETS From Big Data to Big Ops REVOPS
FLEXIBLE OPERATING MODELS 2 ENHANCED EXPERIENCES Platforms, Networks & Marketplaces
Five martech trends that will shape marketing in the 2020’s, each feeding into the others and amplifying them
Software is the “star stuff” 30 within all five of these martech trends. And it’s It’s going to be an through the fluidityAGENCY of software connected in the cloudBRAND that they feed into CUSTOMER one another, amplifying their effects. Yet above this panoply of software, amazing decade in marketers will remain firmly in control of their destiny and the outcomes of their work. marketing: The Age AUGMENTED MARKETER MAGICAL MOMENTS 5 of the Augmented While rapidly advancing AI will accelerateHarmonizing or automate many Human tasks that+ Machine marketers spend their time on today, we believe marketers will apply the Marketer. time they recover toward more valuable pursuits — more meaningful time AUGMENTED CUSTOMER AI TOOLS + MORE TIME = MARKETING INNOVATION spent with customers, more3 creative experimentation, and more energy directed into business innovation. The Great App Explosion
ENHANCED EXPERIENCES By leveraging ever more sophisticated, AI-powered tools, augmented marketers will achieve new levels of creativity and productivity in craftingEXTENSIBLE 1 PLATFORM magical moments for“No customers. Code” Citizen Creators MARTECH STACKS
SELFSERVICE MARTECH
4 DEVOPS MEETS From Big Data to Big Ops REVOPS
FLEXIBLE OPERATING MODELS 30 “The nitrogen2 in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies ENHANCED EXPERIENCES were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. WePlatforms, are made of star Networks stuff.”, Carl Sagan, & Marketplaces Cosmos 52
Five martech trends that will shape marketing in the 2020’s, each feeding into the others and amplifying them Trend 01 “No Code” Citizen Creators
About the Authors
Scott Brinker is the editor of the chiefmartec.com blog, the founding program chair of the MarTech conference, and the VP of platform ecosystem at HubSpot. His book Hacking Marketing is an international bestseller.
Jason Baldwin is the global head of product management at WPP.
About the Sponsor WPP sponsored the development of this paper.
Copyright This paper and its illustrations are copyright 2020 by Marketing Technology Media, LLC. The opinions of the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the sponsor or any of the organizations with which they are affiliated. 53