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Editorial Board of “Holistic Marketing Management” (A refereed journal published four times annually by the School of Management-Marketing of the Romanian-American University) Editor-in-Chief Theodor Valentin PURCĂREA
Bernd HALLIER
John SAEE
John L. STANTON
Léon F. WEGNEZ
William PERTTULA Levent ALTINAY
Andrew KILNER Dana ZADRAZILOVA Riccardo BELTRAMO Sinisa ZARIC Gabriela SABĂU Hélène NIKOLOPOULOU Vasa LÁSZLÓ Peter STARCHON John MURRAY Kamil PÍCHA Irena JINDRICHOVSKA Holistic Marketing Management
President of European Retail Academy; President of EuCVoT, Member of the Astana Economic Scientists Club; Former Managing Director EHI Retail Institute, Germany, Chairman of the Advisory Board of EuroShop, Chairman of the Board of the Orgainvent, Trustee of EHI Retail Institute at GLOBALG.A.P. President - Association of Global Management Studies (USA); Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues & Former Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Management Systems, USA; Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship, the Faculty of Business and Enterprise, Swinburne University of Technology; Member of France’s National Academy of Scientific Research (CNRS); Director - ESB International Teaching and Research Exchanges, Reutlingen University, Germany Professor of Food Marketing, Erivan K. Haub School of Business, Saint Joseph’s University Philadelphia, USA; Director, Institute of Food Products Marketing, Editor, Journal of Food Products Marketing; Hall of Fame of the European Retail Academy, Honored Personality 2016 Secretary General, International Association of the Distributive Trade, AIDA Brussels; Member of France’s Academy of Commercial Sciences; Doctor Honoris Causa of NUPSPA (SNSPA) Bucharest; Hall of Fame of the European Retail Academy, Honored Personality 2015 Internet Marketing Professor, College of Business, San Francisco State University, USA Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, Research Area Leader, Oxford School of Hospitality Management, Faculty of Business, Oxford Brookes University, UK First MBA Director at the Rennes Graduate School of Business in France; Director of RAFME Research into Management Excellence; PhD (Cambridge), MBA (City, London) Faculty of International Economic Relations, University of Economics, Prague, Czech Republic University of Turin, Italy University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia Memorial University, Grenfell Campus, Corner Brook, Canada University of Lille 3, France Szent Istvan University, Hungary Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia Faculty of Business, Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland Faculty of Economics, University of South Bohemia in Ceske Budejovice Deputy Head of Department of Business Economics, University of Economics 1
Norbert HAYDAM Constantin ROŞCA Hans ZWAGA Roxana CODITA Dumitru MIRON Valeriu IOAN-FRANC Iacob CĂTOIU Virgil BALAURE Gheorghe ORZAN Luigi DUMITRESCU Marius D. POP Petru FILIP
Ion VOICU SUCALA Virgil POPA Alexandru NEDELEA Olguța Anca ORZAN Ana-Maria PREDA Ovidiu FOLCUȚ Doinița CIOCÎRLAN Marius Dan DALOTĂ Mihai PAPUC Gheorghe ILIESCU Costel NEGRICEA Alexandru IONESCU Tudor EDU Olga POTECEA Oana PREDA Nicoleta DUMITRU Monica Paula RAȚIU Elisabeta Andreea BUDACIA
and Management, Prague, Czech Republic Faculty of Business, Marketing Department, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa President of Romanian Scientific Society of Management - SSMAR Kemi-Tornio University of Applied Sciences, Finland Technische Universität München, TUM School of Management Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest National Institute for Economic Research, Romanian Academy; Romanian Marketing Association; Romanian Distribution Committee Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca Dimitrie Cantemir University, Bucharest Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Management and Economic Engineering Department; University of Glasgow, UK, College of Social Sciences, School of Social & Political Sciences; Managing Editor, Review of Management and Economic Engineering Valahia University of Târgovişte Ştefan cel Mare University of Suceava Carol Davila University of Medicine and Pharmacy Bucharest Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University
Associate Editors Diana SOCA Irina PURCĂREA Dan SMEDESCU Art Designer Director Alexandru BEJAN
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“Holistic Marketing Management” (A refereed journal published four times annually by the School of Management-Marketing of the Romanian-American University) Volume 8, Issue 2, Year 2018
Contents
Theodor Valentin PURCĂREA - Editorial: Re-engineering Marketing in the Digital Age..……………4
Costel Iliuță NEGRICEA - Digital Marketers Challenged to Create Excellence in Accordance with Ioan Matei PURCĂREA
the Expectations of Digitally Savvy Customers……….............................…7
Léon F. WEGNEZ (by courtesy of) – The Supply Chain, Lever of Profitability……………………….16
Theodor PURCĂREA - CMOs’ Strategic Empowerment by Effectively Managing Customer Feedback………………………………………………………………………17 Bernd HALLIER (by courtesy of) - Astana Forum, the Club of Eurasian Scientists, Silk Road India, and Retail India……………….…………………………………...26
Isabelle WEGNEZ (by courtesy of) - Wish for 2018: Establish a Deeper Connection with Consumers……………………………………………………….30
Theodor PURCĂREA - The Issue 1, Vol. XIII, 2018 of our Partner Journal, „Marketing Science and Inspirations”, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia..………………..31
The responsibility for the contents of the scientific and the authenticity of the published materials and opinions expressed rests with the author.
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Editorial: Re-engineering marketing in the digital age In our previous editorials, we underlined, among other aspects, within the framework of the fast-evolving world of digital marketing (digital culture becoming more integrated with marketing, and digital capability being considered critical for growth and competitiveness), how companies are under pressure of adequately navigating the current ever-evolving digital and mobile-focused business landscape, of effectively bridging the gap between the marketing and technology, connecting and delivering customer interactions across touchpoints and devices, focusing on maximizing data to provide insights that ultimately lead to increased customer conversion and retention, including by creating an emotionally intelligent connection. There is no doubt that as customers are overwhelmed by a lack of time and too much choice, marketers are struggling to continually updating a comprehensive view of the customer, building engaging brands and content, doing the right action in the right moment so as to ensure the right customer experience across all changing marketing channels. It was not by chance that at the Modern Marketing Summit New York 2018 on April 17 top trends and strategies to address the identified ongoing challenges were approached, such as capturing customer attention, personalizing content, and allocating marketing spend (being highlighted, for instance, that mobile ad spend has surpassed TV ad spend for the first time in the history of advertising).1 We find out that, in order to create more dynamic content, location data (and getting access to it by adequately communicating why brands are collecting data) is recognized as one of the main strategies used by brands challenged to better understand the right place and the right time to send their marketing messages to customers, offering them something specific of value. Three weeks later, Lineate (formerly Thumbtack Technology) added that the way companies interact with their customers is revolutionized by these customer data, marketers facing four main challenges: attribution (assigning a credit to the identified both multiple touchpoints at multiple stages of a customer’s journey, and user actions); getting leads (brands needing to go beyond the noise and to target the right audiences, which is a problem beyond GDPR); activating data (on the basis of the customers’ needs and behaviors in real-time, deciding which data is the most relevant); determining and measuring ROI (as marketing can be or can’t be directly tied to sales, this is considered the top challenge).2 Two weeks after this approach, the Managing Director at Econsultancy in New York demonstrated that modern marketing is as much about mindset (the core of modern marketing) as technical skills,3 the 1
*** The 3 Key Takeaways from Modern Marketing Summit NY, Lineate, April 18, 2018. Retrieved from https://lineate.com/the-3-key-takeaways-from-modern-marketing-summit-ny/ 2 *** The Top 4 Challenges Marketers Face (& How To Solve Them), Lineate, May 7, 2018. Retrieved from https://lineate.com/top-4-challenges-marketers-face/ 3 Miller, S. (2018). Why modern marketing is as much about mindset as technical skills, Econsultancy, 21 May. Retrieved from https://econsultancy.com/blog/70033-why-modern-marketing-is-as-much-about-mindset-astechnical-skills Holistic Marketing Management
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central tenet of every organizational function being customer value. The Modern Marketing Model (M3), launched by Econsultancy in November 2017, addresses the wide scope of skills and approaches essential for modern marketing, and defines marketing in the digital age. This model, derived from three core principles (customer centric, CX being putted at the core of all objectives and partnerships; integrated, as a blend of classic and digital disciplines; nimble & innovative, using strategically the mastering of technology and data insights), is shown in the figure below:
Figure 1: The Modern Marketing Model M3, Econsultancy in November 2017 Source: Miller, S. (2018). Why modern marketing is as much about mindset as technical skills, Econsultancy, 21 May (work cited)
As you may recall, four years ago Robert Rose & Carla Johnson showed in “Experiences: The 7 Era of Marketing,� published by Content Marketing Institute, that leading the transformation of how business is done must be helped by marketing, marketers’ thinking and acting being forced to change by the changes in buyer behavior, marketing being challenged to become a vital growth function and marketers becoming advocates of innovation and solving th
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customer problems through collaboration of non-traditional teams, generating revenue and creating improved CX, keeping up at the same speed as the tools they use and cultivating a proactive mindset, inspiring people to act.4 Coming back to this year, it is worth mentioning the opinion expressed recently by Jennifer Lund (Chief Marketing Officer at SuperOffice, preoccupied among other aspects, on elevating the overall CX by focusing on modern marketing trends), who argued that change is being driven by the customers expecting anytime and anywhere relevant content in the format and on the device of their choosing, companies being forced to change their business models and adapt to the new market reality within the context of a digital transformation offering an opportunity not only to understand the modern buyers, but also to engage with them and deliver on their expectations of a seamless CX, without consideration for channel or place.5 Within this general framework we have remarked the suggestive comments posted recently by Marc Brown on Gartner Blog Network and entitled: “CMOs In Transition: The Game Plan”.6 He referred finally to Gartner’s “Key Traits of Growth-Oriented CMOs”. And this made us recall a quote: “Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle” (Napoleon Hill).
Theodor Valentin Purcărea Editor-in-Chief
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Rose, R. & Johnson, C. (2015). Experiences: THE 7TH ERA OF MARKETING, Published by Content Marketing Institute, Cleveland, Ohio, 2014. Retrieved from http://typeacommunications.com/wpcontent/uploads/2015/02/Experiences_7th-Era_Excerpt.pdf 5 Lund, J. (2018). How Digital Transformation is Driving Customer Experience, SuperOffice, 7 June. Retrieved from https://www.superoffice.com/blog/digital-transformation/ 6 Brown, M. (2018). CMOs In Transition: The Game Plan, Gartner Blog, May 07, Retrieved from https://blogs.gartner.com/marc-brown/cmos-transition-game-plan/ Holistic Marketing Management
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Digital Marketers challenged to create excellence in accordance with the expectations of digitally savvy customers
Dr. Costel Iliuță NEGRICEA Ioan Matei PURCĂREA
Abstract Digital customer engagement remains a top strategic priority in the era of the Chief Executive Customer, mobile remains the most effective channel from the viewpoint of the critical conversion portion of the customer journey, there is an increasing need of critical digital workforce skills within the digital transformation process adequately enabled, of reconciling digital workplace with employee experience, and of better understanding and analyzing the customer journey. CMOs are under pressure of making better-informed decisions by gathering deep customer insights and valorizing the window of opportunity for engaging customers effectively at the key micro and macro moments, bridging the undesirable difference between customer insights and marketing insights, and confirming a better understanding of customers’ digital behavior and digital experience. There is also a real need for using a strong set of leadership tools and making difference between customer priorities and business priorities within the well-known dimensions of excellence framework. Keywords: Digital Marketers; Mobile; Digital Transformation Process; Digital Experience JEL Classification: L86; M15; M31; M37; O33
The challenge of effectively incorporating mobile into marketing strategies Within the context of the emergence of mobile as a dominant channel for multichannel marketers, Gartner Blog continued to showcase at the end of the last year the growth in the number of mobile marketing techniques, a growth explained by key factors such as expanding options available to marketers and marketers’ alignment with customer behavior, mobile being viewed as one of the most effective channels at each stage of the buying journey. (Elkin, 2017) As shown in the table below, mobile is the most effective channel from the viewpoint of the critical conversion portion of the customer journey:
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Table 1: Mobile deemed most effective
Source: Elkin, N. (2017). Mobile Marketing Means Serious Business, Gartner Blog, December 07 (work cited)
The above table (reflecting Gartner “Multichannel Marketing Effectiveness Survey 2017: Marketers Are on a Mission to Advance Multichannel Marketing Results�) also showed how mobile is ranked 2nd most effective channel at each stage of the buying journey by the marketers respondents, after social marketing, ranked 1st. (Brown, 2018) Gartner Blog also approached the hot topic of optimizing company’s ROI by adequately managing the forms of content (varying content across the buyer journey, by choosing the best aligned for each persona - stage pair; the content formats are presented in alphabetical order, from Animations, Blog Posts, Case Studies, EBooks, Images, Infographics etc. till Reports, Video, Video Podcasts, Webinars, and Whitepapers), and associating content distribution channels to each stage) and channels (digital: website, mobile, email, social, digital ads, paid search etc.; media: TV, print, radio, in-store, outof-home; event: conferences, tradeshows, meet-ups). Sustaining change and digital transformation process At the end of 2014 we showed that digital customer engagement is a top strategic priority in the era of the Chief Executive Customer, and as the mobile screen targets to be the primary screen it is increasingly critical to understand what really matters in mobile. (Negricea & Purcarea, 2014) Two months later, in February 2015, we remarked that an internationally recognized digital thought leader, Dion Hinchcliffe, analyzed how internal and external digital change impacts organization, underlining the critical digital workforce skills: (Hinchcliffe, 2015) Holistic Marketing Management
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Figure 1: Today’s Critical Digital Workforce Skills Source: Hinchcliffe, D. (2015). What Are the Required Skills for Today’s Digital Workforce? February 17 (work cited)
In June 2015, same Dion Hinchcliffe synthesized a model for sustaining change and digital transformation process involving all the key stakeholders in the entire organization (as shown in the table 2 below), while in January 2016 he (Hinchcliffe, 2016) demonstrated that the hardest lesson of digital transformation is designing for loss of control (as shown in the figure 2 below): Table 2: Initiating Digital Transformation: The Journey
Source: Hinchcliffe, D. (2015). How Should Organizations Actually Go About Digital Transformation? June 10 (work cited)
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Figure 2: The Lesson of the Digital Age Source: Hinchcliffe, D. (2016). The Hardest Lesson of Digital Transformation: Designing for Loss of Control, January 4 (work cited)
In August 2017, Gartner highlighted the eight critical components of a digital workplace (as shown in the figure 3 below) required for a successful implementation. And this year, in May 2018, Dion Hinchcliffe approached the end-to-end digital employee experience (as shown in the figure 4 below), recommending to reconcile digital workplace with employee experience: (Hinchcliffe, 2018)
Figure 3: The Eight Building Blocks of a Digital Workplace Source: Gartner Highlights Eight Critical Components of a Digital Workplace, Press Release, Egham, U.K., August 22, 2017
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Figure 4: Today’s End-to-End Digital Employee Experience Source: Hinchcliffe, D. (2018). Designing the Digital Workplace for the End-to-End Employee Experience, May 10 (work cited)
Digital marketing and better understanding and improving digital experiences The way marketing is done today is fundamentally changed shaped by the digital marketing which presents an enormous opportunity to engage customers. (Schuuring et all, 2017) The enablers of the digital transformation process are already known (technology, leveraging digital tools and trends, breaking the departmental silos with cross-functional teams, lean management, design thinking, value creating mindset etc.), but before using this enablers there is a real need of understanding and analyzing the customer journey in order to re-imagine the desired future-state of CX, making better-informed decisions by gathering deep customer insights (optimally using digital data and translating these data into insights), evaluating the strategic insight on the basis of clear criteria (novelty, credibility, actionable), and engaging this way customers effectively at the key micro and macro moments. (Rao, 2018) Marketers know today that: analytics exist in customer analytics and marketing analytics; marketing scorecard (the control of the marketing scorecard is considered a CMO challenge) should be seen by everybody else in the same necessary time. (Esber et all., 2018) Within this context of the digital era, in order to target the right customers across the right channels and content CMOs must bridge the undesirable difference between customer insights and marketing insights, combining these marketing insights (ROI performance etc.) with customer analytics approaches (customer segmentation, churn analytics etc.) increasing the speed of insights with the help of artificial intelligence. (Moffett , 2018) Holistic Marketing Management
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An eBook launched recently by digital experience analytics platform Decibel Insight invited businesses to discover their Digital Experience Score (DXS) which enables them to benchmark and report on CX at every digital touchpoint. (Decibel Insight, 2018) Decibel is recognized as the leader in digital experience intelligence innovation for enterprise businesses, the key assets of its platform including: Collect (website and native app experience data; modern, flexible, fast Application Programming Interface/API data); Enrich (comprehensive set of smarter experience metrics); Measure (experience score for each interaction type); Analyze (automatic surfacing of specific user behavior and unusual experiences); Activate (API for fast integration with other technologies and external sources). (Saville, 2018) The DXS is a complement to traditional Net Promotor Score (NPS) methodologies, building on what NPS offers, and allowing brands to understand the digital behavior and experience of every customer. As shown in the above mentioned eBook: with the DXS (which is based on five pillars of digital CX: navigation, engagement, frustration, technical and form experience) companies have an universal metric ensuring immediate insight without having to questioning customers, capturing every moment of interaction within a session (these events being associating with the underlying context of the content being viewed by the customers), and processing all this experience data into smart experience metrics based on different categories (distance, velocity, movement, focus, and hesitation); the most effective way to improve experiences on websites and apps overall is to focus on improving the scores of each experience pillar mentioned above within this Digital Experience Framework (see the figure 5 below).
Figure 5: The Digital Experience Framework Source: The Digital Experience Score (DXS): the Revolutionary New Metric for Measuring Experiences Online, Decibel Insight 2018 (work cited)
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There is no doubt that the role of CMO is transformed by technology, because in order to successfully market goods or services to today’s digitally savvy customers involves for marketers to be skilled at using the latest technologies and most adequate channels to create strong meaningful captivating and inspiring messages for these customers. (Gianatasio, 2018) From the viewpoint of the leadership, it is worth also underlining the necessary efforts to achieve sustainable enterprise-wide customer focus and organization success by using a strong set of leadership tools (aligned language, values, measures, power, assumptions and modeling), and separating customer priorities from the enterprise’s within the well-known eight dimensions of excellence framework (as shown in the figure 6 below): (Lawton, 2018)
Figure 5: The 8 Dimensions of Excellence Source: Lawton, R. (2018). Six Leadership Levers to Create the Customer-Centered Culture, CustomerThink, March 7 (work cited)
It is also worth highlighting among other aspects that only if all the above mentioned eight dimensions are well measured can a balanced scorecard (BSC) be considered as being balanced. (C3 Excellence, n.d.) And as shown by the Balanced Scorecard Institute, the editors of the reputed Harvard Business Review selected BSC as one of the most influential business ideas of the past 75 years. Conclusions We have shown before, in other issues, looking through the window of the digital age, at the confluence between humans and technology, at the new environments created by the virtual and real worlds coming together, seeing the new digital tools and new ways to drive change, better Holistic Marketing Management
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understanding the difference between change and transformation, integrating people, technology and best practices, how important are the efforts made by marketers to enhance the customer journey, to achieve a complete customer view and better customer engagement, to encourage feedback from users and to take customers’ insights and develop and deliver an improved CX and a seamless Omni channel CX. We also underlined the real need of talent and leadership to approach digital marketing challenges, integrating digital and traditional marketing, considering the social interaction accelerated by social media, and the already set triggers of the digital transformation, better understanding the significant role of digital intelligence as a continuous initiative transforming businesses and CX. Today we can say that there is no doubt that Digital Marketers are really challenged to create excellence in accordance with the expectations of digitally savvy customers.
References Brown, M. (2018). Exploring New Marketing Mediums To Drive Better Engagement, Gartner Blog, May 29. Retrieved from https://blogs.gartner.com/marc-brown/exploring-new-marketing-mediums-drive-better-engagement/ Elkin, N. (2017). Mobile Marketing Means Serious Business, Gartner Blog, December 07. Retrieved from https://blogs.gartner.com/noah-elkin/mobile-marketing-means-serious-business/ Esber, D., Goffman, B. and Gregg, B. (2018). Discussions in digital: What’s a marketing ecosystem and what does it mean for marketers? McKinsey Podcast March 2018. Retrieved from https://www.mckinsey.com/businessfunctions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/discussions-in-digital-whats-a-marketing-ecosystem? Gianatasio, D. (2018). Tech Is Transforming the Role of CMO. Here Are 20 Execs Driving the Innovation, ADWEEK, March 11. Retrieved from http://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/tech-is-transforming-the-role-ofcmo-here-are-20-execs-driving-the-innovation/? Hinchcliffe, D. (2015). What Are the Required Skills for Today’s Digital Workforce? February 17, Retrieved from https://dionhinchcliffe.com/2015/02/17/what-are-the-required-skills-for-todays-digital-workforce/ Hinchcliffe, D. (2015). How Should Organizations Actually Go About Digital Transformation? June 10. Retrieved from https://dionhinchcliffe.com/2015/06/10/how-should-organizations-actually-go-about-digital-transformation/ Hinchcliffe, D. (2016). The Hardest Lesson of Digital Transformation: Designing for Loss of Control, January 4. Retrieved from https://dionhinchcliffe.com/2016/01/04/the-hardest-lesson-of-digital-transformation-designing-forloss-of-control/ Hinchcliffe, D. (2018). Designing the Digital Workplace for the End-to-End Employee Experience, May 10. Retrieved from https://dionhinchcliffe.com/2018/05/10/designing-the-digital-workplace-for-the-end-to-endemployee-experience/ Lawton, R. (2018). Six Leadership Levers to Create the Customer-Centered Culture, CustomerThink, March 7. Retrieved from http://customerthink.com/six-leadership-levers-to-create-the-customer-centered-culture/?
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Moffett , T. (2018). Revolutionize Your Marketing Insights, Forrester Blogs, March 1. Retrieved from https://go.forrester.com/blogs/revolutionize-marketing-insights/ Negricea, C.I. & Purcarea, I.M. (2014). Digital Marketing and a Better Understanding of the Consumer Mobile Journey, Holistic Marketing Management, Volume 4, Issue 4, pp. 15-21 Rao, V.P. (2018). Reshape Customer Experience by Leveraging Digital Trends and Design Thinking, CustomeThink, April 4. Retrieved from http://customerthink.com/reshape-customer-experience-by-leveragingdigital-trends-and-design-thinking/? Saville, A. (2018). Decibel Launches New Digital Experience Intelligence Scoring Capability, Decibel, London and Boston – March 27, 2018. Retrieved from https://www.decibelinsight.com/news/decibel-launches-digitalexperience-score Schuuring, M., Vismans, D.,De Bellefonds, N., Knox, S., Visser, J. and Marty Smits (2017). The Digital Marketing Revolution Has Only Just Begun, BCG in collaboration with Facebook, May 2017. Retrieved from BCG-TheDigital-Marketing-Revolution-Has-Only-Just-Begun-May-2017_tcm9-155449 *** Gartner Highlights Eight Critical Components of a Digital Workplace, Press Release, Egham, U.K., August 22, 2017. Retrieved from https://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3788863 *** The Digital Experience Score (DXS): the Revolutionary New Metric for Measuring Experiences Online, Decibel Insight 2018. Retrieved from DigitalExperienceScore_Decibel *** 8 Dimensions of Excellence (8DX) Framework Creating the Customer-Centered Culture. Retrieved from https://www.c3excellence.com/methodology/8-dimensions-of-excellence/ *** Balanced Scorecard Basics. Retrieved from http://www.balancedscorecard.org/BSC-Basics/About-theBalanced-Scorecard
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Prof. Dr. h. c. Léon F. WEGNEZ (by courtesy of) - The supply chain, lever of profitability, “Distribution d’aujourd’hui”, 58ème année, Décembre 2017, Brussels (Léon F. WEGNEZ is a distinguished Member of the Editorial Board of our “Holistic Marketing Management” Journal).
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CMOs’ strategic empowerment by effectively managing customer feedback Theodor Purcărea
Abstract CMOs are facing change driven by revenue and customer feedback, focusing on critical areas and on key business performance indicators, breaking down silos and aligning internal teams and external partners. They also need to align the customer-centric marketing’s layers of meaning and brand authenticity with a continually improved CX, building trust and mutual value by using the best customer engagement strategies, decoding connectivity. Keywords: Marketing’s knowledge; Real-time customer feedback; NPS; CES; CMR; CCO JEL Classification: L81; L86; M31; M37; O33
A current pledge for marketing’s unique knowledge and business value As to inform sales and marketing changes data and analytics are important, change (which is inevitable in business, digital transformation being considered for example a necessary change in order to innovate and compete) is driven by revenue and customer feedback, companies are trying to acquire and maintain customers by providing relevant experiences and meeting elevated customer expectations. (Calabrio, 2018) According to Gartner Blog, if for a CMO the pressing requirements to reach rapidly the exact ROI can be inhibiting (because, for example, the company doesn’t have access to the necessary sales data or for the right time periods or its products have very long sales cycles), the “hack” can be “to find something you can measure that is a reasonable proxy for sales impact,” which can involve “measuring engagement with a particular part of your website or mobile app, or tracking actions on social media” etc. (Kihn, 2018) With regard to a new CMO’s challenge to improve his probability of success, the same Gartner Blog underlined the need to focus on critical areas: stakeholder relationships (connecting priorities so as to understand their influence and support of his overall goals and priorities), his team (finding the right talent to support the above mentioned goals and priorities, and making this talent move quickly), and his time management strategy (making steady progress on his goals). (Brown, 2018) Gartner Blog also recently highlighted the current need of CMOs to reimagine their role in relation with company’s growth and business impact, by focusing on customer experience (CX), engagement, and readiness (as key business performance indicators), being more energetic in their partnering efforts, and proving their natural tendency in data analytics, CX, sales comprehension and long-established brand-building skills. (Brown, 2018) Holistic Marketing Management
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And as marketing departments are considered to be on the most important position of digital transformation of a company (as revealed by the new eMarketer report entitled “The Modern Marketing Department 2018: Evolution Through Digital Transformation”), it is CMOs duty to break down silos and align internal teams and external partners, considering the current top 15 marketing functions, and balancing in-house and outsourced marketing services accordingly (as shown in the table below): (Ryan, 2018) Tabel 1: In-house vs. outsourced marketing services according to CMOs, Worldwide, Jan 2018
Source: Ryan, J. (2018). How to Transform into a Modern Marketing Department, eMarketer, May 24
On the other hand, it is also CMOs’ duty to track customer churn and associated revenue loss, and driving change in approaching managing company’s customers accordingly; (Sarfraz, 2018) to build trust and mutual value by using the best customer engagement strategies, strengthening the relationship between the company’s brand and its customers, centering on maximizing customers’ immediate and long-term rewards. (Hunsaker, 2018)
Disputing organizational silos about what the brand is and does As it is only through customer interaction that the brand comes alive, a better strategy for the company involves the more closely alignment of: • Brand authenticity (the expectations build by the brand proposition) with CX (the reality of the brand delivered by it in its interaction with the customer) as a source of competitive differentiation by becoming unique and easy recognizable; (Forshew, 2018)
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• Marketing (managing company’s external brand, its reputation with external stakeholders; supported by the Human Resources Department which identifies the best talent to represent the brand) and Human Resources (managing the internal brand, its reputation with internal stakeholders, mainly employees; supported by the Marketing Department which clearly articulates the brand purpose to employees, including transforming former employees into brand advocates) Departments, and creating better synergy between. (Almeida & Molloy, 2018) This alignment approach presupposes adequately using insight and data from inside and outside the company’s business to develop an inspiring and engaging vision, and to deliver a more competitive brand through an improved CX across the whole physical and digital journey, by mapping the existing customers’ journey and looking at the company’s brand through the customers’ eyes, by continually aligning their needs with the needs of the company’s business and measuring: what the customers, prospects and marketing team think about the brand’s alignment to its vision and values; if the company is delivering what is crucial to its business vision; whether company’s action is meeting the expected results. (Andrew, 2017) But as team performance depends on structure and shared norms of behavior, agility, clear direction, time management, talent management and cohesiveness within the holding environment, reviewing and improving processes and so on, it is important to consider some lessons to learn as those offered by the 2018 Widen Connectivity Report and entitled “Decoding connectivity for marketing and creative professionals” and showing how: (while looking at the way Maribeth used internal personas in order to support teams within Pampered Chef to work together to both drive collaborative conversations and improve cross-functional team processes) to create four internal personas (as representational roles making the process understandable and adoptable: business partner, marketing manager, marketing execution team, marketing operations) for the marketing team (one for each of the key team roles) so as to better work for customers’ needs; to personalize CX (including avoiding being trapped in the so-called echo chamber, with regard to an isolated environment where existing views and beliefs are reinforced by repeated conversations, listening to positive and negative feedback), and reviewing analytics (on the basis
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multiple data sources, types, and channels) and encourage cross-collaboration from many company’s teams. (Widen, 2018) A more holistic understanding of CX improvement initiatives, ensuring people are connected to the purpose CX is seen as the new battleground for business and CRM (which is not focused on solving customers’ problems) needs to struggle to improve CX (as shown recently by Paul Selby), while CX effectiveness has to be considered as an enterprise-wide understanding of customers’ needs and behavior (combined with cultural and operational unceasingly intense focus on emotional and functional value delivery, according to Michael Lowenstein). As customers assess their options to meet their needs and expectations in the marketplace by making comparisons of what they like or not, it is useful for companies: to better understand the overall customer journey including by making a competitive measurement of CX (compared to other Holistic Marketing Management
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businesses interacting with those customers) and receiving insights about customers’ exposure to different experiences and their expectations for future experiences: to determine new strategies and plans accordingly and maintaining their position or gaining a better position in the marketplace. (Whitaker, 2018) It is well-known that different customers perceive differently the same experience, their perceptions being influenced including by personality, demographics, individual needs, relevant past experiences and how they align their expectations to certain frame of reference. That is why it is necessary for companies to have a more holistic understanding. The creator of the 2003 Net Promoter Score (NPS) concept, the reputed Fred Reichheld (a partner at Bain & Company), highlighted over a year ago (Reichheld, 2017) companies’ need of: working harder to earn their customers’ loyalty and advocacy when the experience matters as much as the core product; doing that by delivering great episodes (as new key units of management reflecting what a customer wants to do and consisting of processes to redesign and improve, starting from considering their level of emotional impact, frequency and economics), reducing costs in the bargain. The Book of NPS 2018 – launched recently by AskNicely (a fastgrowing SaaS company which is rated #1 by G2Crowd, and empowers entire organization with insights and understanding to reduce churn, increase customer retention and automate advocacy) – underlined from the very beginning that the real-time customer feedback is not just for the C suite, it is for everyone and everywhere within the organization, the Net Promoter framework being used by the loyalty economics to put an actual number to the lifetime value of detractors (the unhappy customers, and vocal about it, spreading the anti-gospel of company’s brand), passives (the relatively neutral about company’s brand) and promoters (the most satisfied company’s customers, having a much longer lifespan and costing less time and financial investment). This Book of NPS 2018 also made: a comparison between CX Surveys: NPS (a simple 1-2 question survey to gauge customer happiness and brand sentiment), CSAT (a customer satisfaction survey; a multiple-question survey asking a customer to rate a recent experience), and CES (a customer effort score survey, on a 7-point scale, calculating how much effort a customer had to put forward to complete a specific request and sent immediately after a brand-customer interaction); a recommendation to HR teams to use NPS for driving a customer obsessed culture, by identifying strong and weak points cross organizationally and moving the company in the direction of customer-centric operations; a significant remark on the real need of studying, learning and embracing NPS to ensure company’s rapid-growth and business transformation. On the other hand, it is worth mentioning that a company like NGDATA – which is partnering with companies around the world to drive digital transformations (with the help of AIpowered Customer Data Platform - CDP and its Customer DNA, and Digital Transformation services and solutions) – enables its customers to deliver relevant, connected and timely customer experiences, considering among other aspects that: the best way to retain customers is to deliver excellent customer experiences and personalized services; a natural side effect of
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improving CX is brand loyalty; happy customers can directly influence business growth by acting as advocates on company’s behalf. (NGDATA, 2018) Companies need to engage people in the innovation required by the improvement initiatives, ensuring people are connected to the purpose by adequate measures and plans communicating what is important and what is not. In order to measure effectiveness companies must understand the relative context of the function being measured, taking into account that effectiveness measures are a combination of leading (which predict performance) and lagging (which confirm performance or lack of, measuring the result of past actions) indicators relevant to the scope of an entire company, or a department, or a team member. (Harpst, 2018) And the last but not the least, the way employees make company’s customers feel (the emotional component of their experiences) is what these customers are most likely to remember about their interaction with the company’s employees breathing the values of the company’s brand, and focusing on continually delivering a CX to be remembered, beyond resolving customers’ issues at the point-of-engagement. (Golding, 2018) Real-time company’s action triggered by real-time customer feedback We have seen above the real need for a company to map the existing customers’ journey and to look at the company’s brand through the customers’ eyes, receiving the real-time customer feedback which is necessary for everyone and everywhere within the company. As recently was concluded by Local Measure, while approaching the 5 key principles to real-time feedback (put CX first; collect feedback in real-time; know when to ask for customer feedback; have a plan for responding to and managing feedback; make feedback visible across the enterprise) and strategies for implementation, (Local Measure, 2018) each company’s employee needs using feedback analysis as a starting point in understanding the value of their actions and the results to company’s customers. Local Measure showcased, among other aspects: the importance of having one-on-one interactions with company’s customers (within the different forms of feedback: surveys, social media, online reviews etc.), real-time feedback triggering real-time action, and company’s transformation occurring when it truly cares about its customers’ needs and desires; the need of outlining the most important moments of the customer journey in order to receive the best possible feedback; how to empower company’s employee to became a differentiator by making him feel sure about the right type of response to customers. On the other hand, it is necessary to note that to capture feedback in real-time in a brickand-mortar context, for instance, is not so easy to achieve as in an online environment given the fact that: survey timing affects CX, customer advocacy, and company’s ability to react; the shop assistant can be or not empowered to do something about the verbal feedback (made on an adhoc basis); customers can feel either reluctant (the majority) or comfortable to provide negative feedback on a face-to-face basis; web forms and kiosks rely on secondary communication Holistic Marketing Management
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channels, the feedback and the follow-up being disconnected; mobile first channels (notifications by messaging apps, for example) facilitate not only the capture of feedback, but also the followup, being considered the optimum solution. (Ryan, 2018) In other words, effectively managing customer feedback (shared with a company using different channels and platforms) allows the company to better understand its customers and measure the CX delivered, doing the right balance between solicited versus unsolicited customer feedback, making difference between structured data (which are clearly defined and easy to report on, collected, analyzed, and organized accordingly) versus unstructured data (which are more difficult to define, analyze, and report on; 80% of all data today is unstructured, according to IBM). (Bassig, 2018) In order to make the unstructured data more practicable, companies accepting this challenge are using natural language processing applications and analytical methods (such as text analytics and sentiment analysis), advancing on the way of exploring deeper into an improved CX. That is why effectively managing customer feedback in the current digital era involves mapping a strategy with the help of an adequate cheat sheet (shown in the table below): Table 2: A 2018 Customer Feedback Cheat Sheet
Source: Bassig, M. (2018). Your 2018 Customer Feedback Cheat Sheet, Customer Think, May 2
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Instead of conclusions: Coming back to Customer Managed Relationships (CMR) and Chief Customer Officer (CCO) It is well-known the pertinent pledge highlighted in December 2016 by the European Business Review – excerpted and adapted with permission from Beyond Advertising: Creating Value Through All Customer Touchpoints, by Yoram (Jerry) Wind, Catharine Findiesen Hays, and the Wharton Future of Advertising Innovation Network, New Jersey, John Wiley & Sons, 2016 – for brands to view people as participants in a mutually beneficial symbiosis (within the context of the fundamental relationships among brands, media, and people), considering every point of interaction between them (online, real-time, in a store, on the street, in groups or in the privacy of people homes) and orchestrating value creation across all touchpoints in a beneficial way to all parties involved. The so-called “All Touchpoint Value Creation Model” (ATVC) is a model developed by the Wharton Future of Advertising Program (WFoA) within the framework of the Wharton Future of Advertising Program’s Advertising 2020 project, the elements of this model being: aligned objectives among the key players; a brand purpose defined and supported by the entire organization; a brand purpose orchestrated across all touchpoints; each touchpoint is designed for both content and context following the “R.A.V.E.S.” (Relevant and Respectful; Actionable; Valuable and Value-generating; Exceptional Experience; Shareworthy Story) and “M.A.D.E. to the power of S” (Multisensory Aesthetic; Audience Frame of Mind; Delivery Mechanism, Interface, and Platform/Medium; Environment and Location; Synergy). After initiating this ATVC innovation the next important step is to start adaptive experimentation with the different aspects of the model, giving people permission to try truly innovative initiatives (embracing creativity). Going on this way of customer managed relationship, brands’ and people’s relationship is becoming tailored to the distinctive nature of individuals, relying on individuals’ choice of having a relationship with a brand and to what extent. We see here a strong link with: ▪ the big picture on why improving CX is good for business, offered in March 2018 by a long standing CRM practitioner – Thomas Wieberneit – explaining today’s importance of Customer Experience Management (see the figure below):
Figure 1: Improving CX is good for business Source: Wieberneit, T. (2018). Rethink CRM to be CEM, CustomerThink, March 16 Holistic Marketing Management
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▪ what a board member of CXPA and ClearAction Continuum where she is also Chief Customer Officer (CCO), Lynn Hunsaker (CCXP), showed also in March this year, (Hunsaker, 2018) respectively that customer-centric marketing has four layers of meaning (All Customer TouchPoints; Consistency; Serving Customers; Managerial Rituals) which have to be aligned in order to more confidently predict growth; ▪ what a distinguished Friend of the Romanian-American University, Mohamed Latib (Ph.D. CEO of CX University), underlined in the same Month of March 2018: (Latib, 2018) the need of carrying customer centricity by a representative of the customer and this is the Chief Customer Officer (CCO), who requires clear capabilities and characteristics (“capacity to interpret streams of data; characteristics of empathy and compassion; understands and can communicate strategic position; ability to build teams focused on sharing insights to influence customer and internal stakeholder behaviors at every level in the organization; ability to collaborate across functional borders; innovative thinker who focuses on creating, not fixing”), and once entered the strategic conversation builds a “cascading collaboration” by partnering with all functions. All this above highlighted arguments confirm what we showcased in the previous issue of our journal with regard to the need of consolidating the customer culture and integrating customer thinking across the business performance and customer perception, of using customer intelligence tools to create a better CX, taking into account both the customer journey and the employer journey.
References Almeida, L., Molloy, M. (2018). Aligning Human Resources and Marketing to Strengthen Brand Experience, Aberdeen Essentials, Sep 5, 2014. Retrieved from http://www.aberdeenessentials.com/cmo-essentials/aligninghuman-resources-and-marketing-to-strengthen-brand-experience/ Andrew, S. (2017). Customer Experience: The Brand Alignment Approach, Brand Vista, 16th May. Retrieved from http://brand-vista.com/posts/view/customer-experience-the-brand-alignment-approach Bassig, M. (2018). Your 2018 Customer Feedback Cheat Sheet, Customer Think, May 2. Retrieved from http://customerthink.com/your-2018-customer-feedback-cheat-sheet/ Brown, M. (2018). CMOs In Transition: The Game Plan, Gartner Blog, May 07. Retrieved from https://blogs.gartner.com/marc-brown/cmos-transition-game-plan/ Brown, M. (2018). CMOs must adapt to modern business (and marketing), Gartner Blog, April 24, 2018. Retrieved from https://blogs.gartner.com/marc-brown/cmos-must-adapt/ Forshew, A. (2018). The Customers’ Experience now defines the Brand, Customer Think, May 26. Retrieved from http://customerthink.com/the-customers-experience-now-defines-the-brand/? Golding, I. (2018). Thinking and acting in the interests of the customer. Have you enabled your people to do it? Customer Think, May 14. Retrieved from http://customerthink.com/thinking-and-acting-in-the-interests-of-thecustomer-have-you-enabled-your-people-to-do-it/? Harpst, G. (2018). Is your Organization Effective? Customer Think, May 19. Retrieved from http://customerthink.com/is-your-organization-effective/ Hunsaker, L. (2018). Is Your Customer Engagement Really Customer-Centric? CustomerThink, May 30. Retrieved from http://customerthink.com/is-your-customer-engagement-really-customer-centric/? Holistic Marketing Management
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Hunsaker, L. (2018). Customer-Centric Marketing: Align for Growth, CustomerThink, March 28. Retrieved from http://customerthink.com/customer-centric-marketing-align-for-growth/? Kihn, M. (2018). 3 Hacks for Marketing Measurement Problems, Gartner Blog, April 26. Retrieved from https://blogs.gartner.com/martin-kihn/3-hacks-for-marketing-measurement-problems/ Latib, M. (2018). Bad News for CEOs: You can’t compete your way to superior customer experience, CustomerThink, March 27. Retrieved from http://customerthink.com/bad-news-for-ceos-you-cant-compete-yourway-to-superior-customer-experience/? Reichheld, F. (2017). Want Loyal Customers? Understand the Episodes That Matter, Linkedin, March 30. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/want-loyal-customers-think-episodes-product-features-fred-reichheld Ryan, J. (2018). How to Transform into a Modern Marketing Department, eMarketer, May 24. Retrieved from https://www.emarketer.com/content/how-to-transform-into-a-modern-marketing-department? Ryan, O. (2018). Why You Need to Capture Customer Feedback in Real-Time (and how to do it in brick-and-mortar businesses), Customer Think, June 8. Retrieved from http://customerthink.com/why-you-need-to-capture-customerfeedback-in-real-time-and-how-to-do-it-in-brick-and-mortar-businesses/? Sarfraz, A. (2018). [Infographic] Signs You've Entered The Retention + Growth Phase, Customer Experience Update, June 4. Retrieved from http://www.customerexperienceupdate.com/edition/daily-customer-connectednesscustomer-insights-2018-06-04? Selby, P. (2018). Why CRM Struggles To Improve The Customer Experience, Customer Think, May 9. Retrieved from http://customerthink.com/why-crm-struggles-to-improve-the-customer-experience/ Whitaker, F. (2018). Are My Scores Good?” Well, Compared to What? Customer Think, May 16. Retrieved from http://customerthink.com/are-my-scores-good-well-compared-to-what/? Wieberneit, T. (2018). Rethink CRM to be CEM, CustomerThink, March 16. Retrieved from http://customerthink.com/rethink-crm-to-be-cem/? Wind, (J) Y. and Hays, C. with de los Reyes, A. (2016). A New Model for the Future of Customer Relationships, European Business Review, December 1. Retrieved from http://www.europeanbusinessreview.com/a-new-modelfor-the-future-of-customer-relationships/ *** Business Transformation and Analytics: Driving Change in a Customer-Centric World, Calabrio Inc. Retrieved from Calabrio_2018_Analytics_Business_Change_Report_Demand_US *** 2018 Widen Connectivity Report, Decoding connectivity for marketing and creative professionals, Retrieved from 2018-Widen-Connectivity-Report-single-pages *** The Book of NPS 2018. The simple, straight-talking guide to evolving your business by collecting and acting on customer feedback with Net Promoter Score®. Retrieved from AskNicely_The_Book_of_NPS *** The NGDATA CDP throughout the customer journey. Retrieved from Infographic-NGDATA-CDPThroughout-the-Customer-Journey-2018F *** Local Measure (2018). The Customer-Centric Guide to Feedback. 5 Principles for Real-Time Feedback, May 15. Retrieved from http://get.localmeasure.com/the-customer-centric-guide-to-feedback
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Astana Forum, the Club of Eurasian Scientists, Silk Road India, and Retail India Bernd HALLIER (by courtesy of)
Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier and RAU Rector Ovidiu Folcuţ Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier, President of the European Retail Academy (ERA) is a distinguished Member of the Editorial Board of our “Holistic Marketing Management” Journal (he is also an Honorary Member of the Romanian Scientific Society of Management - SSMAR). Professor Bernd Hallier has participated to a series of Round Tables and Public Lectures (The intertwine of Culture and Trade; Introduction of the European Retail Academy; Branding: the successful example of EuroShop; Evolution Tornado Retail; the Global House of Harmony; Lifelong-Learning; Environmental Retail Management) organized at the Romanian-American University. Professor Bernd Hallier began many years ago a fruitful collaboration with the prestigious Professor Klaus Toepfer (former Federal German Minister for Environment, former director of the United Nations Environment Program UNEP and initiator of the Kyoto Protocol), and with Dr. Angela Merkel (today Chancellor of the Federal Republic, and who pushed “environment” to become a high political issue during the EU-Presidency of Germany, in 2007). The agenda of the productive meeting between Professor Ovidiu Folcuţ, Rector of the Romanian-American University (RAU) and Professor Bernd Hallier, on the occasion of his last visit in Romania, included significant items of discussion, such as: the international transfer of know-how between business and universities, bringing more transparency on retail-research and retail-education; the actual need of anticipating skill needs in the commerce sector, taking into account the attention to be paid to the evaluation of philosophies offered by the steady upgrade of retail-technologies; the developing cooperation between Germany and Eastern markets.
Source: http://www.european-retail-academy.org/AEUC/
Astana & Almaty The European Retail Academy participates at the Astana Forum for many years; Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier is a member of the Club of Eurasian Scientists. He was speaker in 2017 at the EXPOHolistic Marketing Management
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event at the Nazarbayev University, together with the Korean Nobel Laureate Prof. Raekwon Chung. Prof. Dr. Bernd Hallier appreciates the high-speed international education programs in Kazakhstan like the Master Program for International Relations (MAPSIR).
Launched in the Fall 2014, MAPSIR is the first world-class, graduate level political science and international relations program taught in English in Kazakhstan. A wide range of courses is offered by an internationally recognized faculty drawn from North America and Europe. The 21month-long program is structured similar to top-rated Master’s programs in the universities in North America. However, unlike most top-rated MA programs, MAPSIR is fully funded; its students receive monthly scholarships of 100,000 tenge plus room on campus.
Silk Road India In India, twenty places across seven states are linked to the history of the ancient Silk Road. Those states are: Bihar, Jummu and Kashmir, Maharashtra, Puduccherry, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. Excavations go back to the periods of Maurya-dynasty (3rd century BC) and to the Gupta-dynasty (7th century AC).
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The remains of the Vikramshila Ancient University in Bihar are also famous. They are a part of a monastery that is 330 meters in length to each side, of a square hosting 208 rooms. The library building was air conditioned by cooled water.
Retail India According to Retail Planet the growth of turnover in retail up till 2021 will be led by India with 76 percent, followed by China with 52 percent. In online-retail India is expected to grow by 407 percent in front of Turkey with 198 percent, Russia by 176 percent, being followed by China with 153 percent.
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In organized retail, according to the magazine Retail Asia in India, the Future Group (Big Bazaar) leads with a turnover of 3.1 billion US $ and 1.146 outlets, being followed by the Tata Group (2.4 billion/1.352 outlets), Reliance Retail (1.9/ 3.500 outlets) and Godrej & Boyce (1.3 million/ 733 outlets).
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Isabelle Wegnez (by courtesy of) - Wish for 2018: Establish a deeper connection with consumers (We offer you, by courtesy of the Director of Editorial, the above mentioned article published in the prestigious “Distribution d’aujourd’hui”, 58ème année, Décembre 2017, Brussels)
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The Issue 1, Vol. XIII, 2018 of our Partner Journal „Marketing Science and Inspirations”, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia Theodor PURCĂREA
JEL Classification: Y30
We were happy to receive by post the Issue 1, Vol. XIII, 2018 of our Partner Journal „Marketing Science and Inspirations”, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. This issue of the well-known academic journal addressed to academics and practitioners covered a wide range of topics in the marketing research field: “Green solutions in automotive industry” (the authors Eva Jaderna and Jana Prikrylova showed the importance of green solutions in company practices in order to achieve the position of the “green corporation” practicing green marketing, the discussion being supported by examples of green solutions in selected global players in the above mentioned industry, and also providing an analysis of sustainability reports, green Holistic Marketing Management
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strategies and web sites of selected companies); “Comparison of Slovak and Arabic cultures II. Happiness, freedom, trust, religion” (the authors Dana Vokounova and Silvia Hankova underlined the important social transformations in society and their focus on values; their survey revealed that work, family, friends and acquaintance are equally important for both cultures; the authors also highlighted the identified differences); “Everyday internet use. How do end users use the mobile internet?” (the author Marcus Diedrich showed today’s relevance of the smartphone and of the mobile moments, underlining the role of apps within this framework); “Interpretation of marketing theory in Islamic context” (the authors Veronika Ferenczova and Laszlo Jozsa focused on a comparative analysis of the traditional marketing mix and the Islamic marketing); “Marketing behind ICO. Part II” (the author Josef Metke explained how the Crypto World is working today).
The „Marketing Science and Inspirations” Journal also includes other sections such as: “Marketing Briefs” (Pavel Strach – “Salesforce: The automated and digitalized frontend of marketing”); “Captured us” (“Czechs and advertising 2018”); “Reviews” (Dusan Pavlu – Jesensky, Daniel et all., “POP, POS, In-store, Shopper marketing”, Prague: Grada Publishing, Holistic Marketing Management
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2018; Magdalena Samuhelova – “Manipulation and propaganda on the background of the current information war”, Prague: Grada Publishing, 2017); “Dictionary of Useful Marketing Terms” (Dagmar Weberova).
Allow us to also remember that the Editor-in Chief of the „Marketing Science and Inspirations” Journal is Professor Peter Starchon, Faculty of Management, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia, who is also a Member of the Editorial Board of the “Holistic Marketing Management” Journal and of the “Romanian Distribution Committee Magazine”.
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And it is always our honor and pleasure to remember our meeting in Koln, Germany, in 2011, on the occasion of the working meeting of the European Retail Academy (ERA).
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