With digitisation gaining momentum,

marketers are playing catch-up with

consumers instead of the other way
round. Surely not an easy scenario?
Digital is spurring a consumer revolution;
it has put the power in the hands of the
consumer and has levelled the playing
field. Consumers have access to as much
information as brands; they have great
power because they can compare prices
and shop at many different channels. They
also have great amplification of their voice
because they can be publishers almost
instantaneously with tools provided by a
variety of companies. In a nutshell, we are
operating in a world where rules have com-
pletely changed and digital has been the
driver of the change.
Having said that, it is not digital versus
and its not digital only either. Digital has
influenced, and is infused into, every
channel, every interaction and every
touch-point that a consumer has with a
brand. This forces brands to up their game
at each of the touch points. They need to
know their consumer as a person, and
should be able to personalise and deliver
high value messages to her at each of these
touch points and provide a seamless expe-
rience prior, during and post a sale.
If technology has touched every
aspect of consumers lives, how is it
transforming marketing?
Technology has changed consumers level
of expectation from brands. Therefore,
marketers and brands need to embrace
technology too if they want to survive. How
can it transform marketing? I think it is a
multi-layered opportunity. First, brands
can use technology to get to know the con-
sumer better. A brand has innumerable
touch points with its consumer they may
be through social, display, search, email,
contact centres, stores, call centre, mobile
apps etc. Every touch point is an opportu-
nity for a brand to understand the cus-
tomer better. Second, since the number of
touch points is numerous, it is almost
impossible for marketers to understand it
fully without technology. Third, with easi-
er access to technology, one no longer lives
in a world of limitations. There are digital
channels that have digital experiences and
offline channels with analogue experi-
ences, but now is the time to cross-pollinate
those experiences. Use technology for
offline experiences too store experience,
call centre experience etc to make the cus-
tomer feel that the brand is accessible.
Earlier, marketing would build a brand
plan, thinking about the brand only. It was
inside-out planning based on their busi-
ness goals. Now with technology, planning
is outside-in. For example, marketers plan
on the basis of questions such as what are
the experiences to be delivered to the cus-
tomer as a brand.
How does your job as a marketer
become tougher when your product
is, indeed, technology, the way it is at
Adobe?
The challenge in marketing a product that
is technology-based is that consumers care
about technology, but their objective on a
daily basis is solving a problem either
solving a creative problem or an imagina-
tion problem or a marketing
problem for brands. Technology
is just a means.
To market technology, we have to
be great storytellers. We have to be able
to show brands the way forward, how they
can re-imagine their lives in a world where
silos are broken down, in a world where they
have access to lots of data, in a world where
they can talk to consumer on a one-on-one
basis. We have to help marketers extend the
limits of their imagination.
We often hear jargon in marketing
corridors like conversational
marketing and channel marketing.
In todays context, what should a tech
marketer bear in mind before reaching
out to his multifarious, multi-device-
bred millennial consumer?
Marketing is always the discipline of
understanding what a consumer wants.
But marketing, for a very long time, came
from a product centric approach. Now
technology gives the power to the mar-
keter to hear consumers and use the infor-
mation to create her plans. What channels
the consumer uses for purchase, how the
channels are interacting with the brand
post purchase and so on. Marketing has to
internalise all this information. Millennial
consumers dont want a product message
to be pushed at them regardless of what
stage of the buying cycle they are in. For
brands, the cycle of emergence and death
is faster than ever before .
People speak of the emergence of
cloud and how it will transform
organisations. How far or near is India
from/to this revolution?
India is pretty far from this revolution. The
world has just started to
embrace cloud technologies.
The ability to consume technol-
ogy as a utility without large foot-
prints that enterprise or consumer
technologies used to have is a completely
different paradigm for marketers and con-
sumers. However this is natural in any
economy, not just in India, where con-
sumers have to try out such technologies to
understand how they work and marketers
have to try them out to understand new
ways of consuming them. Any paradigm
shift takes a little time.
Adobe has its hands in many pies,
from enterprise cloud solutions to
consumer software products to
servers, video publishing etc. What
does it best wish to be known for?
Adobe has always had the same vision
were changing the world through digital
experiences. We can impact how con-
sumer experiences a brand whether it
is the media, the channels marketers
choose to deliver their messages on,
measure and optimise what they are
doing. It is not about digital marketing,
it is about marketing in a world thats
digital. Thats a fundamental shift for
people to internalise.
We can talk about social, display,
search etc, but its really about how digital
is transforming consumer experience,
thereby forcing marketers to reinvent
themselves. Marketing is no longer about
4Ps. Marketing extends into experience
delivery, product development, customer
satisfaction, finance and profitability.
Marketers have to get new skills; con-
sumers demand real time experiences and
marketers can help drive this.
Its notdigital marketing; but
marketing in a world thats digital
SURESH VITTAL
I
V-P, MARKETING STRATEGY, DIGITAL MARKETING
I
ADOBE
Q&A
We can talk about
social, search etc but
its about how digital
is transforming
consumer experience,
forcing marketers to
reinvent themselves,
Mittal tells Devina Joshi
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THE LAST
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> Vittal joined Adobe through the
companys acquisition of Neolane in
2013 where he served as chief
product officer. Vittal played a key
role in rebranding Neolane to
Adobe Campaign
> Prior to Neolane, he was
instrumental in building and scaling
the Customer Intelligence practice at
Forrester Research, where his
research agenda focused on
enterprise marketing technologies
and customer analytics
> Vittal worked with SPSS and Net
Genesis for many years before
joining Forrester in 2006
TECH WIZARD