Who wouldn’t want a bigger budget? At a recent roundtable at Dubai Lynx of agency CEOs and leaders, Kristine Lasam, Accenture Song’s Managing Director – Lead of Creative Business, Middle East, led a discussion on tapping into bigger budgets, using her agency’s experience in delivering recent large-scale transformation projects.
She explained that the bulk of the spending in the region is coming from the big transformation projects, a playing field led by and dominated by the chief digital officers (CDOs).
They play a crucial role in the arena of marketing and advertising as they drive the digital strategies, customer experience and growth initiatives within an organisation.
But how exactly do you tap into these budgets? “I think there is an opportunity for us to embrace the greater C-suite where the conversations are fired up with chief digital officers, not just the CMOs, because they are the ones who have access to larger funding resources to drive scale and growth.”
She referenced last year’s Cannes Lions, where the promenades were filled not just with CMOs, but CDOs and their teams. “They’re looking to deliver the best experience for their consumers.
“So what you will see is a congruence between CDOs and CMOs that are going to be banding together to say, ‘how can I deliver not only the experience but the brand promise?’”
She suggested future CMO roundtables at events such as Dubai Lynx and Cannes Lions should start embracing chief digital officers.
Rally the C-Suite
Lasam says experience and story go hand-in-hand, offering the opportunity for marketing to become involved in major transformation projects.
“It’s just how you table it. Because you say, ‘okay, I’m delivering the experience, but you cannot deliver the experience without the story’. It then becomes a story of growth, innovation and transformation.”
It can actually be viewed as a three-party dialogue, with experience, stories and technology working together.
“You have data-driven decision-making, tech adoption, customer focus, brand stewardship working in concert, a poster child of true collaboration amongst the C-Suites to achieve traction and growth,” Lasam added.
