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This week on Marketing Smarts, I interview Tim Suther, chief marketing and strategy officer for Acxiom, a firm that Tim referred to as “the original Big Data company”; FRONTLINE called it “one of the biggest companies you’ve never heard of.”
You’ll have some great things to listen to in this episode…
On content marketing (6:08): “Before you sell a product, you have to sell your perspective.”
On cultivating customer advocacy (7:02): “We really believe that our clients are the heroes and we spend an enormous amount of time helping to publicize their success, their innovation. And Acxiom kind of glows in the halo of their success.”
On customer-centricity and relative customer value (9:51): “What we mean by customer-centricity is that while everyone deserves awesome customer service there are some that deserve more awesome customer service.”
On bad advertising and bad data (10:48): “Most advertising, sadly, remains misplaced, mistimed and mis-messaged. The reason for that is the data for most advertising is awful; it’s just awful.”
On the power of data (12:56): “I look at the power of data and say, ‘My Lord.’ If we’re just using it to target and measure better, if we’re seduced by the billions of dollars that can be had there, and that’s all we do, we’re still missing an opportunity to do something meaningful for humanity and meaningful for brands: to reinvent the experience, to actually make the lives of customers better.”
On why “Groundhog Day” is the best marketing movie ever (27:04): “He (Bill Murray) is constantly testing and learning, and that is in fact what a good marketer will do. You have an idea that you want to put into the marketplace and then you try and watch what customers do or don’t do.” (Tim also points out that Murray’s research and testing “ends in a conversion.”)
If you would like to hear my entire conversation with Tim, you may listen or download this week’s episode above. Of course, you can also subscribe to the Marketing Smarts podcast in iTunes or via RSS and never miss an episode!
This marketing podcast was created and published by MarketingProfs.
This episode features:
Tim Suther, chief marketing and strategy officer at Acxiom. Tim joined Acxiom in 2005, where he is responsible for global marketing, strategy, and business development activities. Previously, he led the companys worldwide digital, agency, and multichannel marketing services business.
Matthew T. Grant, PhD is Director of Content Strategy at Aberdeen Group. You can find him on Twitter (@MatttGrant) or his personal blog.