How to Survive, Adapt and Thrive in tough times

‘Survive, Adapt, Thrive’ was the theme of the CIM’s Annual National Conference on the 25th October in London.  Speakers from companies such as Thomson Reuters, Everything Everywhere, Heathrow and IBM discussed how their marketing strategies and projects had been able to add value to their respective businesses over the last few months.

Common themes to emerge from the conference included:

– The importance of marketers acting as the champions of customer centricity within businesses.

–  Marketers having the knowledge and skills to act as credible agents of change within companies.

–  The need to demonstrate ROI for marketing activity.

–  The importance of delivering a consistent customer experience.

–  The need to integrate new data sources into existing data to give a comprehensive insight into markets and customers.

ABCG Managing Director Mike Ashton, who moderated the afternoon session, said:

“The key word is change.  Unless we change things along with our behaviours, the customer never sees any difference.  And if there is no difference, there is no commercial advantage.”

Iglo Group’s CEO Martin Glenn, effectively summarised the tone of the conference when he stated:

“Only truly marketing-led companies will survive in the next 30 years and the ones that consign marketing to the fringes won’t”.