The “arts and crafts” era of marketing is over. When it comes to driving demand, marketers and communicators can no longer rely on clever creative campaigns or snappy press releases. In fact, customer expectations are changing so rapidly some experts believe that only “experience-led” brands will survive. To help organizations stay ahead of the competition, the brand and culture design agency Cravety has created Futurefy Marketing, a series of intense, one-day learning labs for creative professionals to learn new ways to achieve a competitive advantage.
“Last month 11,000 people from the world’s leading brands met at the 2019 Qualtrics X4 Summit,” said Cravety founder Ed Bodensiek and an X4 Summit speaker. “We saw best-in-class marketers, product managers, customer experience professionals, neuroscientists, and even HR executives all together in one place, intentionally aligning what they do so organizations can deliver a purposeful, signature experience across the board. It’s a potent business strategy to further differentiate brands in what’s become a hyper-competitive marketplace. By presenting a new set of thinking and tools, we’ll offer a glimpse into every marketer’s future.”
Companies engineered to deliver consistently great experiences continue to dominate much of the market. Across one 10-year period (2004-2014), the Design Management Institute found that, in the United States, design-led companies outperformed the S&P 500 index by more than 219 percent. To help customers stay loyal, Gartner predicts that in 2019 more than 50 percent of organizations will redirect their investments to customer experience (CX) innovation. Organizations that lead in CX outperformed laggards on the S&P 500 index by nearly 80percent, according to Qualtrics. The company’s research shows such organizations retain higher share of wallet with customers seven times more likely to purchase more, eight times more likely to try other products or services offered by the experience-led organization, and 15 times more likely to spread positive word of mouth.
“Through this educational series, we’re kind of sounding the alarm for the creative class to prepare for dizzying change, including even more digital disruption,” said Futurefy Marketing Executive Director Angela Long. “My background includes advertising in New York City, biotech marketing and legal marketing. In all of my stops, I’ve never seen such pressure to innovate and adapt. In fact, it’s becoming clear that over the long term, only the experience-led brands will survive. We have to help the marketing community get ready for these changes now, and that means learning about AI and other highly applicable fields.”
“With the rise of AI technology, the business world will observe an influx of scientists from diverse fields such as artificial intelligence, neuroscience, cognitive science, and linguistics,” said Al Naqvi, founder of the American Institute of Artificial Intelligence. “In this new world, marketers and other business leaders will need to upskill themselves to understand how to best use technology to create meaningful results.”
The first learning lab will be held in Columbia, Md. on June 5, 2019, at event sponsor Unleashed Technologies. A second event will be held at Virginia Tech’s Arlington campus on August 16, 2019. Organizers say a third learning lab is planned in Washington, D.C. on October 3.
“Our clients are feeling a new kind of competitive pressure to offer hyper-personalized and frictionless experiences,” said Michael Spinosa, CEO of Unleashed Technologies. “We look forward to hosting other marketers in our space so we can help teach and learn from others about these changes and what to do about it.”
Futurefy Marketing presenters include former Kraft foods marketing/finance advisor and professor at American Institute of Artificial Intelligence, a George Mason University professional education partner organization; neuroscientist John Burkhardt, adjunct professor of enterprise risk management at Columbia University’s Business School; digital transformation expert Greg Kihlström, principal at Yes&; Chad Solomonson, vice president of marketing and alliances at Microsoft partner RDA Corporation; Scott Greenwell, co-founder of Unleashed Technologies; Angela Long, president-elect of the American Marketing Association Washington, D.C. (AMADC); and Ed Bodensiek, founder ofCravety and the first chief experience officer at a U.S. law firm.
“To make fully informed decisions for our brands, we need to better understand how to capture and use experience-focused data,” said Bodensiek. “It’s one of many take-aways we’re planning for Futurefy Marketing participants. There’s nothing quite like it in the Mid-Atlantic.”
The AMADC will serve as media partner of Futurefy Marketing. Registration is open at www.Futurefy.Marketing. Futurefy Marketing is modeled on Futurefy Work, a two-day lab to teach HR innovators how to use human-centered design thinking for Employee Experience.
