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CMOs discuss effective marketing strategies and ‘striking the right balance’

Bloomberg Media hosted a CMO roundtable at Athar Festival to discuss insights, best practices and top strategies defining the current brand and marketing landscape.

CMOs Roundtable Bloomberg Athar Festival
A room full of CMOs and marketers attend the Bloomberg CMO Roundtable at Athar Festival in Riyadh.

The role of a CMO is constantly evolving in response to dynamic shifts in consumer behaviour, technology, market complexities, and the constant push and pull between short-term business goals and long-term brand-building, even as time and attention have become the currency of our age.

As stewards of brand equity and growth, modern CMOs must now equip their quiver with a broad spectrum of arrows, including a deep understanding of digital technologies, data analytics, artificial intelligence, customer experience, revenue generation, and cross-departmental KPIs, while crafting hyper-personalised and impactful marketing strategies.

They are also expected to champion innovation, solve real-world problems strategically, drive purpose, spur creativity, resonate cultural nuances, embrace agile methodologies, and drive sustainability efforts as they strive to meet ever-increasing consumer demands for trust, transparency, and responsible business practices. They are also tasked with finding smarter and more meaningful ways to connect with audiences to build loyal communities that drive lasting financial outcomes.

To discuss the latest insights, best practices, and the most effective marketing strategies, Bloomberg Media powered a CMO roundtable discussion, titled ‘Rethinking the Modern Marketing Playbook’, bringing together CMOs from Saudi’s top brands, as part of the fringe programme at Athar Festival in Saudi Arabia.

Bloomberg’s Global Head of Creative and Bloomberg Media Studios, Ashish Verma began proceedings discussing how the marketing playbook is being reinvented.

“There are four key tenets that we are looking at. One, of course, is data-driven insights that lead to breakthroughs, which are ultimately the Holy Grail for marketers. No one’s going to argue with that. This includes breakthrough creatives as well as breakthrough ways of engaging our audiences while learning about them in a holistic way. Secondly, we’re all facing this pressure to keep moving at the speed of culture, not just in terms of brand but also in terms of demand generation and business goals,” Verma said.

He added, “Apart from connecting meaningfully with external audiences, it’s also become equally important for marketers to bring internal audiences – including various stakeholders from employees to management – along for the ride. So, this goal of internalising the brand message and the brand campaigns that we’re working on for internal stakeholders is becoming critical. And lastly, there would be no CMO panel without the mention of Gen AI, how it’s really helping us think about different marketing strategies and tactics that can enhance all the previous tenets that we’ve mentioned.”

Reflecting on how data-driven insights are integral to creative strategies, Gilbert Rustom, Marketing Director at Saudi Arabia’s New Murabba Development Company, said, “There are two key points: The first is relevance, and this includes ways of talking to global audiences in various places such as Singapore, China, US, and Europe and speak to them in a way that’s relevant to each of them so that we can convince them to come to Saudi Arabia to visit, live, work, and even invest in an apartment here in the Kingdom. The second important point where data is essential to creative strategies is budget optimisation.”

The discussion then delved into going beyond just collating and accessing data to the effective use of data. The marketers discussed ways to develop data strategies to inform brand strategies, to use data to create buying intent, improve brand perception, increase customer acquisition, ensure customer retention, and above all enhance customer experience – which lies at the heart of every CMOs role.

CMOs Roundtable Bloomberg Athar Festival

They agreed that the aim of data-driven decisions is to create emotional connections with audiences, and reach into the hearts and minds of people, convincing them to not just ‘view’ or ‘engage’ with award-winning creative content about Saudi Arabia, but actually spur them to book a flight to come to Saudi Arabia and experience it for themselves.

Eyad Zarea, Media Senior Advisor at the Saudi Tourism Authority, explained how data helps differentiate segments of global audiences that are in various stages of the marketing funnel and need to be approached as such – whether it’s in terms of creating awareness about Saudi Arabia, creating consideration for the Kingdom, or to drive conversions for people to come and visit.

However, he also echoed industry concerns about the integrity of data sources such as surveys, the levels of trust associated with mixed marketing models, and the increasing focus on return on investment (ROI), and return on advertising spend (ROAS).

The increasing focus on KPIs amidst tighter deadlines also brought up the question: how can we ‘strike the right balance’ in an era where creativity is taking a hit?

CMOs at the roundtable agreed that consumers are only one segment of stakeholders to consider while building brand equity and business outcomes. They agreed that it’s equally important to focus on employees, the ExCo, the brand’s management and other internal stakeholders.

They also discussed the ‘elephant in the room’: Artificial intelligence (AI). The leaders discussed the need to go beyond reactively designing and adjusting touchpoints to proactively anticipating what customers are going to want and how they’re going to react.

The data is important as it can help marketers change their way of thinking and their creative strategies, the leaders at the roundtable agreed. However, marketers also need to find the right balance between when to follow the data and when to ignore it. They shared that experience has taught them that the train will go on even if they’re not making the most of the tools that they have at thier disposal.

They concurred that while data is important, what’s more important is staying in step with the ever-changing demands of customers and the evolving culture.

Yet, in order to do this, there’s also a growing need to set clear brand philosophy values, which act as a North Star and a compass in murky waters. This approach allows for better collective and collaborative decision-making internally and results in a more cohesive brand approach and better customer experience, the leaders concluded.