The Incite Summit

e-book
On November 12th & 13th, 2014, speakers from more
than thirty of the worlds largest brands gathered in
New York to speak candidly about their marketing.
No PowerPoints were used.
This book is the official curated collection
of insights they shared that day.

Gina Michnowicz
CEO and Co-Founder
Union+Webster
@ginamichnowicz

Cristol OLoughlin
Growth Officer and Co-Founder
Union+Webster
@theartofwoo

inciteMC.com/east @inciteMC

Mark Kersteen
Editor and Content Director
Incite Marketing and Communications
@mkersteen

#incitesummit

New York City

1213 November 2014

@inciteMC

Introduction
The best storytellers listen before they speak.
They take cues from their audience.
They improvise their message.
They connect.

Marketing and communications are transforming.

The depth, scale and pace of this transformation
is, frankly, terrifying.
The relationship (and power balance) between brand and

As marketers, it is our job to tell the story to get the right

consumer has shifted completely. Your customers now dictate

message, to the right person, at the right time, and prove it.

the conversation around your brand, and your potential customers

ascribe more weight to consumer reviews and word of mouth

Our brands expect us to innovate, every day. Thanks to social

than to your PR and marketing efforts. OK, so terrifying might

and Steve Jobs, we now have a canvas of devices to connect with

be rather a negative adjective. Exciting works, too. Being

our customers. These conversations are dynamic and we have to

an agile, customer-centric and responsive brand takes a

react immediately or risk losing our customers along the journey.

transformation of your internal organization, of your hierarchy,

and of your entire marketing and communications strategy.

We are storytellers. For two days we gathered at The

But its possible. Thats what Incite is all about. We find the

Incite Summit: East to improvise together. Enjoy the script.

best brands out there, and we share their expertise with you.

Gina Michnowicz

Cristol OLoughlin

Mark Kersteen

CEO and Co-Founder

Growth Officer and Co-Founder

Editor and Content Director

Union+Webster

Union+Webster

Incite Marketing and Communications

@ginamichnowicz

@theartofwoo

@mkersteen

New York City

1213 November 2014

@inciteMC

Track Empathy, not Ego

Use data to create simple, smart, connected
experiences with your customer.
Data makes your
storytelling
stronger. When

you match behavioral,

psychographic and
demographic data, you
get empathy. Only then
can you tell stories that
touch people.
Prudential Retirement
Kara Segreto
Chief Marketing Officer

Figure out how

data can be
isolated into
meaningful
metrics, not
vanity metrics.

For example, measuring

Likes is too shallow of a
measurement the real
insight is did they Like
and Bye, Like and Try or
Like and Buy?

AOL Platforms
Allie Kline
Chief Marketing Officer

Ask yourself, If there was

a customer in the room
sitting next to you, would
you make the decision you
are making right now? At
Verizon, we use Customer
Journey Analytics

looking at data
like connective
tissue to help us

understand the threading

that creates a customer
experience
Verizon
Ken Lain
VP of Sales and Service Operations

New York City

1213 November 2014

@inciteMC

Evangelizing
Internally
is Critical

To serve customers well, invite all groups

within your company to contribute to the
conversation financial and legal too.

There is one right time. Timing is everything.

Be patient. Ive waited three years to replace our logo, but

the right timing creates the right support. For example, the Postal
Service needed to change 230,000 vehiclesTHAT is the right time
for a new logoand the Brand Identity project was approved.
Never waste a good crisis. When crisis hits, it is a time for
incredible change, so take advantage of it
US Postal Service
Nagisa Manabe
Chief Marketing and Sales Officer

Heres an old question:

How do you move an
elephant? You cant

push it, you cant

scare it, you cant
reason with it.
If you want to move an
elephant, you need to
convince its rider to move
it for you. Its the same
at your organization.
Educating the executive
ranks is key to making
changes

Pet360
Rose Hamilton
Chief Marketing Officer

New York City

1213 November 2014

@inciteMC

The voice of the customer is

ever-changing. Only a third of your

teams are waiting for change, they are your

Evangelists. Pair Evangelists with the middle
third, they want change, so pull them onto a
Task Force. The last third are waiting for the
dust to settle (hint: it never will). If you want
to stay true to the voice of the customer,
you simply cant stay static.

McGraw- Hill Educational

Victoria Burwell
Chief Marketing Officer

New York City

1213 November 2014

@inciteMC

People are
not Cookies

Attribution based on meaningful KPIs that

map to business objectives is the key.

Start with
customer data, run
the programs, and
see who converts.
There will be variables
that pop. At Metlife our
customers like NASCAR,
jazz, and parenting, so we
focus on areas like these
to expand our campaigns

Metlife
Melissa Grady
Vice-President, eBusiness

Marketing is a mix of art

& science. As we collect
more data, we move
towards making it more
of a science. However,

if you leave the

art out, your
marketing is never
going to work
OneSpot
Adam Weinroth
Chief Marketing Officer

Data is the only real source

of competitive advantage.
At Kraft, we see 100 million
uniques per year. We use

first-party data,
tracking 34,000
different attributes
to inform our
campaigns. Philadelphia

Cream Cheese lovers were

adding fruits and vegetables.
The data revealed an
interesting pattern: you
either like savory or sweet.
Using those two distinctions
provides context to
messaging and engagement
Kraft
Julie Fleischer
Leader of Data, Content and Media

New York City

1213 November 2014

@inciteMC

Everyone is Driven
by Emotion
Telling stories and using content is the best way
to tap into your customers deepest desires.
Our content
is already
about telling
great stories.
Storytelling is
a weapon that
elicits emotion,
decisions are
driven by emotion
PBS
Lesli Rotenberg
Senior Vice-President,
Marketing and Communications

The best campaigns trigger

your senses: Sight, taste,

sound, touch, mood.

For example, Coronataste the

salt air, feel the sun on your
skin, the sand in your toes,
the relaxation setting in. To
find out what will resonate,
you need to listen to your
customers. We need feedback
from consumers to create the
mystery middle in a story.
Thats where you really connect
Sony Music
Bill Richards
Vice-President of Marketing

The most reliable and

scalable way to get your
message heard is through
storytelling. But, your

model is flawed
if you have to
name a Director
of Storytelling.

Storytelling is a horizontal
value, versus an individual
contribution. It informs
everything you do. For
example, our product
is not our content.
Storytelling allows us
to surround our product
with content, content
designed to get people
to experience our product
HubSpot
Joe Chernov
Vice-President of Content

New York City

1213 November 2014

@inciteMC

Content that influences

and entertains is of
increasing valueand thats
something thats very
different from advertising,
and different from
marketing. You need

to be thinking
in terms of
marketing content
optimization
and thats what
storytelling is. Its

a high-value investment,
but its absolutely worth it
Forbes
Bruce Rogers
Chief Insights Officer

Theres a real
temptation to do
content the way
everyone else does.
However, its good
to keep in mind
that fun and

quirky things
are more
interesting
never take
yourself too
seriously

Heinz
Jason West
Chief Marketing Officer (Former)

An authentic
voice makes the
difference with
our customers,

and its crucial. Ive found

having an earned media
background gives you the
ability to smell test the
stories youre marketing
and the content youre
developing. You have to
make sure what youre
making is 100 percent
genuine before you send
it out, because even if
you cant tell, your
customers can

The Wharton School

Jerry Steinbrink
Chief Marketing Officer

New York City

1213 November 2014

@inciteMC

Your Brand is Social

Whether you like it or not, customers are talking about your

brand online: you choose whether to join them, or ignore them.

Going viral is not

a goal in and of
itself anymore.
Increased cultural
relevance is what really
matters. Anything else
is noise.
OneSpot
Adam Weinroth
Chief Marketing Officer

We are building brands traditionally

or non-traditionally, online and offline,
and customers want to partner with
us. Your customers want to
partner with you. We need to
meet them where they want to be met.
For us, social is the next phase of our
evolution.

Wyndham Hotel Group

Christine Da Silva
Vice-President, Marketing
and Communications

New York City

1213 November 2014

@inciteMC

Ive had people ask me,

Do we really need to
monitor the brand at all?
YES! We had a blogger

in the Chinese market launch an

anti-Siemens social campaign that
still upsets me three years later.
You have to measure and review
the sentiment details around your
brand in order to reduce the
social anxiety inside the
organization, as well as address
issues outside the organization
Siemens
Michael Stenberg
Vice-President, Digital and Infrastructure

It is worse to ignore
negative comments
on social than
to be authentic
and transparent.

Ignoring people
just fuels
negativity,
rather than
neutralizing it
Union and Webster
Gina Michnowicz
Chief Executive Officer

New York City

1213 November 2014

@inciteMC

Tomorrow, Today

Marketing isnt changing quickly, it has changed.

Its time for everyone to start catching up.

People go from
wonderment to annoyance
in record time with a
new technology. As a
marketer today, you

have to be so much
more mindful of
the customer
experience, because

Its more important than

ever to nail your KPIs.
If they arent relevant, you are
wasting your time. Maybe even
all of your time

with new technology,

its the decisive factor

Gogo
Ash ElDifrawi
Chief Commercial Officer

YP
Alex Kaminsky
Vice-President of Brand and Advertising

New York City

1213 November 2014

@inciteMC

The best of the

tweets
Emily Barlean

@ebarlean
Its less about the rational and more about the
emotive side. Great point by Kara from Prudential.
#customercentricity #incitesummit

Pearlfisher

@pearlfisherlive
Telling engaging stories can be uncomfortable;
you must be willing to take risks to stay relevant.
#incitesummit @InciteMC

Michele Weisman

@ottogrl
Customer service via social is content.
Create a whole content strategy on
making people happy. Well said
@KristinFernholz! #incitesummit

New York City

1213 November 2014

@inciteMC

AOL Platforms

@AOLPlatforms
Attribution is a decoder of
the consumer based on what
theyre actually doing, as
opposed to what it looks like.
#incitesummit
Kelly Hur

@kellyhur
#Lesson: how Kraft segment its target market?
Sweet vs. Savory. Non-traditional segmt can lead
u 2 unexpected success. #InciteSummit

Stephen Halsey

@halseyhoff
Huge difference between data and insights. Data is
nothing without insight - Mei Lee, VP of Marketing,
Digital of Conde Nast #incitesummit

Dennis Jolley

@dsjutah
Data is there to assist storytelling. Its not an end in itself.
#contentmarketing #incitesummit
Siemens

@Siemens
Giving social media guidance to our employees
is one of the first steps to prevent crisis. @stenmic
#incitesummit #siemens

New York City

1213 November 2014

@inciteMC

Gully Flowers

@gul_ly
We dont need more data, we need more
connective tissue for the data Ken Lain of
@VerizonFiOS customer service #incitesummit #data

Dennis Jolley

@dsjutah
What is our dramatic disruption? @Pet360 tried
proj that failed, held Irish wake to celebrate what
they learned, move on. #incitesummit

Jason West

Kelly Hur

@kellyhur
LESSON: Creating Sequential
Content is absolutely critical
in #Storytelling. -@aweinroth
@onespot #InciteSummit

@jasonscottwest
Big learning for me at #InciteSummit: optimizing
and measuring path-to-purchase is essential for user
experiences driven online or phone.

Stephen Halsey

@halseyhoff
Digital is driving the convergence of marketing,
communications & PR in organizations - Adrienne
Hayes, Motorola Mobility #incitesummit

New York City

1213 November 2014

@inciteMC

Michael Stenberg

@stenmic
A shift from making a
good product to creating an
outstanding customer experience
is happening @victoriaburwell
CMO #incitesummit

Erik Ford

@erikford
Its constantly a balancing act of profitability
and customer experience. Be customer-centric.
#incitesummit

MetiaUSA

@metiaUSA
RT @cmswire: The most important question a
marketer has to ask himself each day is: Am I still
relevant. Ash EIDfrawi, Gogo #incitesummit

Michele Weisman

@ottogrl
Whatever story you tell it must be authentic.
Otherwise your customers will tell the story their way.
- Leslil Rotenberg @PBS #incitesummit

Dave Frankland

@dfrankland
Julie Fleischer, Leader of Data, Content, and Media
at Kraft: We had to build data literacy across the
organization #InciteSummit

Kahlila

@Kahlila
Its easy enough to say that you care; its much
more important to show it. - Nagisa Manabe
#incitesummit #nyc

New York City

1213 November 2014

@inciteMC

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and huge brands at
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