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CCOs... can be perfectly

As brands look to strengthen their bonds with their con-sumer base, an increasing number of boardrooms across the globe have seen the arriv-al of a new position over the past few years: the chief cus-tomer officer (CCO).

One CCO described their role as being “to galvanise the company to adopt a customer-centric point of view, build customer-centric capabilities and convert them into desira-ble value propositions”. While the precise responsibilities and remit of a CCO may vary from company to company — not to mention the specific job title and who the CCO reports to — the execitove entrusted with the role is the one princi-pally accountable for custom-er relationships.

Those with a CCO role in an operational capacity may have marketing, sales, sup-port and distribution chan-nels reporting to them. Con-versely, those acting in an advisory or consulting func-tion to other parts of the busi-

ness are likely to have smaller teams and budgets.

The position is certainly in vogue globally, particularly in North America, though argu-ably it has not quite yet be-come de rigueur in Asia.

However, t here a re a number of CCOs in the re-gion, including Mar yan Broadbent, group CCO at AIA. She attributes the emer-gence of the role to increased competition and the rising power of consumers.

“Consumers are more de-manding, more connected and more enabled,” she says. “They are assessing brands and what they stand for and making active choices.”

It is a sentiment shared by Jerry Smith, regional presi-dent, Asia-Pacific at Ogilvy-One. “The emerging need to focus again on customers has a lot to do with how market-ing developed in the digital era,” he says. “It is really the speed by which consumers have adapted new technolo-gies, especially smartphones

that has highlighted a gap and a need for advertisers to get much closer to their cus-tomers through engagement strategies and channels.”

While a multifaceted role, one common mandate is obvi-ously the need to be an au-thority on a company’s cus-tomers. CCOs classify and segment customers in order to develop and own strategies that create effective acquisi-tion, retention and advocacy, which ultimately leads to longer and more profitable re-lationships through superior engagement and customer experience.

Manulife vice-president and CCO Isabella Lau says other aspects of the role in-clude marketing, brand man-agement, analytics, customer relationship management and customer services.

“The CCO’s role is to bring the end-customer perspective to everything the company does and drive customer strategies for delivering high-er values to different target

customer segments and en-hancing their experiences with the company at different touchpoints, ” she says.

This means that a core function of a CCO — or a chief client officer or chief experi-ence officer, to give it their other oft-used titles — is to change internal culture and processes so that the compa-ny can deliver the best results for the customer and in turn the business.

It is this change in culture that can really benefit an or-ganisation and its relation-ship with its consumer base, says Christopher Brewer, who just left his role as global head of analytics and strategy at SapientNitro.

“A savvy CCO can shift an organisation to focus on crafting experiences, instead of campaigns and processes which reside in silos. They achieve this by developing a cultural shift and structuring leadership and talent around problems framed through the customer lens.”

With consumers becoming a medium of brand promotion and infl uence, the chief customer offi cer has become a necessity. By Matthew Carlton

Customers’ advocates enter the boardroom

MARKETING CCO

BRAND AMBASSADOR Downey is the one for HTC

In an all out attempt to revamp its image, Taiwanese phonemaker HTC has shelled out an estimated US$12 million to engage Robert Downey Jr as its brand ambassador for smartphone HTC One.

“Downey is definitely not short of money, but he wants to work with a brand that, like the film roles he

picks, will bring about meaningful changes in the world,” HTC chief marketing officer Ben Ho told a media conference in Hong Kong last month.

According to HTC, Downey was picked to illustrate the brand’s role as a change-maker and he has even been working with WPP’s agency team, 171

Worldwide, to shape the creative direction of the campaign he’ll be fronting.

Spanning digital, social, PR and above-the-line activities, the new campaign carries the message that HTC inspires innovation by standing for ‘Anything you want it to’.

The series of ads will feature a range of

possible HTC acronyms including ‘Humongous Tinfoil Catamaran’ and ‘Hipster Troll Carwash’. In its TVC spot for the China market, Downey uses Chinese acronyms for HTC, (yes, in Chinese).

Ho says the HTC acronym is open to interpretation. “It is pretty bold, most brands won’t

Brewer believes that such experiences will be appreci-ated by consumers, creating strong bonds and equity they will be willing to pay for.

Along with marketing re-sponsibilities, an aspect of the CCO’s role is to work closely with marketing teams and the chief marketing officer (CMO) is essential. “We see marketing as one of our CCO’s key functions,” says Lau. “In this way, we can bring the customer’s perspective into our marketing strategies. More collaboration between marketing and customer service functions would mean more understanding of the customer and the market we are operating in.”

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BRAND AMBASSADOR Downey is the one for HTC

allow consumers to come in to interfere their brand. We are not imposing our brand on consumers; consumers need to feel they want to be part of the brand.”

HTC has even embraced the less glittering moments of Downey’s past, which include run-ins with the law and drugs. “As a brand, HTC were in lots of trouble too.

We would rather not look at his past, but look at his life and career as an inspiration,” says Ho. “We don’t see ourselves as a challenger’s brand to our competitors, but a challenger to the status quo to the industry.”

Will HTC’s bid pay off? While Daksha Desai, director of branding agency

Flamingo Group Singapore, is positive that the actor “chimes with HTC brilliantly”, others are less certain. The head of a 4As agency in Taiwan for example says that the campaign will likely create some buzz but still doesn’t show HTC’s ‘brand essence’.

By Benjamin Li

Adam Morgan, founding partner,eatbigfish. Follow Adam on Twitter @eatbigfish, www. eatbigfish.com

Adam Morgan on Insight...

A story you can wear under your sleeveIn a client meeting last week on the West Coast of America I realised every other male over the age of 45 in the room was wearing a Nike Fuelband. I had been given one last year, but never used it.

But this seemed like a gentle push between the shoulder blades. So when I got off the plane home I charged the Fuelband up and decided I would give it six weeks to see if it was for me.

The benefit that has most struck me is not the one I had been expecting. I had read a lot about the ‘Quantified Self’, and while I can understand that for many this is a useful way to keep motivated and set goals, that is proving less interesting to me personally. I know that many like the Fuelband’s linking to a community, and measuring progress against peers, but again this leaves me relatively unmoved. I like the fact that it lets me see the difference a walk vs a taxi makes, but I could get this from a pedometer.

No, the benefit that I am most struck by is a different kind entirely. ‘We are the stories we tell about ourselves’ is a concept from psychology that describes how we reinforce self-perceptions in the narratives we tell about ourselves. If I have a habit of saying ‘I am bad at presentations’, to slightly over-simplify, then I increase my tendency to present poorly: I will be more nervous and apologetic, and too reliant on the PowerPoint slides I use as a crutch.

Men don’t wear bracelets, by and large. So seeing that electronic sophistication on my usually naked wrist tells me a story about myself every time I see it — a story very particular to my age and context: That I have made a commitment to fight the fifties. That I am serious about it. That this commitment will endure past the unfortunate incident with the vodka luge at the party on Saturday night. And by telling me that story, it makes me more likely to put on my running shoes tomorrow.

Five weeks to go. Let’s see if the story sticks.

However the CCO’s place across company ecosystems is not firmly fixed. Often a CCO reports to the chief executive, although many believe that coming under a CMO’s lead-ership may be the more ap-propriate path.

“CMOs should own both the ‘customer’ and the ‘brand’ as well as the functions that enable this: data and technol-ogy,” says Smith. “This is be-cause marketing will become more customer-centric, fo-cusing on engagement and experiences that are deliv-ered through omni-channel strategies. If it doesn’t, con-sumers will vote with their eyes, ears and feet and ignore the advertisers.”

While not yet widely adopt-ed by advertisers in Asia, there appears to be a cluster of CCOs working in the finan-cial and business-to-business sectors. With organisations in these fields continuing to in-vest in database marketing and CRM, they have a wealth of customer data which a CCO can mine to their advantage.

Broadbent believes the need for financial brands to better understand their client base can partly explain the concentration in finance and B2B. “There is less natural fo-cus on the customer beyond the point of sale than with other industries, so the need to better understand is impor-tant,” she says.

Looking forward, Brewer believes CCOs are likely to play an even more critical role in Asia compared with their global counterparts and are not just the latest boardroom fad. “As spending and con-sumer attitudes shift, Asia is a potentially bloodier battle-ground, where more is at stake to win or lose, ” he says.

sSuch feelings are shared by Smith, who believes that it is inevitable that more CCOs will be employed in Asia “as organisations compete heat-edly for the emerging middle classes who are technologi-cally savvy, and eager to con-sume.”

Perhaps 2014 will be the year of the CCO in Asia.

positioned in their companies to drive changes in the way customers experience the brand

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