IMD recently hosted a group of top marketing executives from leading companies. Over 30 executives ranging from CEOs to Chief Marketing Officers and Directors gathered at IMD for an event that spanned the course of two days and covered the latest trends in digital marketing.
The event was led by Dominique Turpin, Dentsu Chair and Professor of Marketing at IMD, and was organized by IMD’s Corporate Learning Network.
Other presenters at the event included IMD Professor Goutam Challagalla who discussed the five dominant digital business models and their implications for marketing. Sebastien Szczepaniak, Group Vice President, Global Head of Digital Media & eCommerce at Nestlé, talked about scaling personalization and Sucheta Govil, Chief Marketing Officer at Royal DSM, gave insights into her company’s digital marketing activities. Finally, Tom Voskes, Managing Partner at SparkOptimus, looked at how digital marketing is transforming the customer experience at Heineken.
On Twitter, participants were talking about what an insightful event it was:
Abhinav Kumar @AbKumar1 CMO – Global Markets, Tata Consultancy
Thanks @IMD_Bschool @DominiqueTurpin @gchallagalla for inviting me to your CMO Roundtable. A very insightful set of discussions with 30 CMOs on how #digital has transformed & revitalized the role of #Marketing as a strategic enabler.
Ine Stultjens @inestultjens, heading up Brand & Comms at Auping, Netherlands
Attended the CMO Roundtable @IMD_Bschool. A wonderful experience and great learning opportunity. Insightful, inspiring and high-impact. Lausanne is a very pretty place. #marketing #digitalmarketing #learning
Dominique Turpin said that these roundtables are excellent opportunities to learn about the latest trends from IMD faculty and other participants as well as to be exposed to a wide network of specialists.
“Executives can benchmark themselves with people and companies from other industries (not just FMCGs or B2B but across a large spectrum of industries). This is particularly important as most disruptors tend to come from ‘outside industries,’ said Dominique. “The wide mix of industries, nationalities and experiences broadens executives’ benchmark potential.”
Dominique moderated the event and highlighted how marketing is becoming ever more characterized by personalization, data analytics and mobile devices.
Here are the seven key learning points from the event gathered by Dominique:
- Use digital marketing to spot opportunities to improve the customer journey
- Keep your eyes open for “customer headaches” to solve pains and add value (the original mission of marketing!)
- Experiment with curiosity: Digital marketing allows for experimentation as on-line feedback is faster than traditional marketing technique
- It’s OK to test new concepts and ideas as consumer are remarkably open to your “on line experimentations”
- Dare to launch new value propositions that solve one single problem (not 3, 5 10 or 20)
- Harness the power of big data and artificial intelligence to gather your customer insights
- Be careful about how corporate culture may slow down or sabotage your digital initiatives
Read more by Dominique Turpin on LinkedIn.
IMD hosts regular roundtables for top executives including Roundtables for CEOs, CDOs, CFOs and more.
