Frode Stenstrøm: One of the biggest challenges with marketing activities is being able to make their results measurable. Particularly in B2B companies, there is often an attitude that marketing does not create measurable value. As a consequence, companies cut their marketing activities and only start marketing when it is too late. I have, however, been looking for an answer to the question of how we can link business objectives to marketing and communication objectives, what kind of strategy a company should have. What can you have, which objectives are relevant, and what is important to choose in a system that supports these activities and metrics. Frode Stenstrøm: In today's episode, I have Andreas from ITEO joining me to shed light on these issues. My name is Frode Stenstrøm, and this is ProsessPodden. And Andreas, thank you so much for coming! Who are you, really? Andreas Thue: First and foremost, it's very nice to be invited. It's fun to come here and talk about this. I am a white man pushing 50, a father of two, a proud supporter of Kristiansund football club, and I have worked as a consultant in the marketing communications industry for almost 25 years now. I started out as a journalist and have actually worked with PR and B2B marketing for some ten years. Frode Stenstrøm: Kristiansund, well, I am originally a Rosenborg supporter, so this could be fun! Andreas Thue: It's fun to support a team that's in a challenging position, isn't it? Frode Stenstrøm: There was a time when Rosenborg played good football, you know. We are going to get started with today's first topic, which is really the importance of marketing, and Andreas, why is marketing so important for a company? From your perspective, and I mean regardless of size and industry Andreas Thue: I think the absolute most important thing is to be remembered, and that is a key word. There is a lot of research on this. Among others, Boston Consulting Group has conducted studies over 40 years, looking at purchasing decisions and what influences them. What they have found is that when we humans are about to buy something, whether we are at a company or at home, or at work or at home, as they say, there are always three brands that pop into our heads, top of mind. Research shows that when you start the purchasing process, you remember three brands, and when you then finish the purchasing process, even if you have considered 15 different providers, in up to 90 percent of cases we will choose one of the brands you remembered first. Frode Stenstrøm: That you remember from the start? Andreas Thue: So that really says it all: if you are not remembered when the purchasing process starts, there is a very high risk that you will not be preferred, and all the work you put in is wasted. Frode Stenstrøm: But do you see the same thing in business-to-business relationships? Andreas Thue: I think it is actually stronger in the business-to-business relationship, because it is much harder to spot the providers, it is much harder to understand who can help me, who can help me make a safe and career-enhancing choice, and the one thing you absolutely do not want at work is to make the wrong choice. And that is why I think this importance of being remembered is even greater in B2B, because people are so concerned about not making the wrong choice. You know, the good old “You don't get fired for choosing IBM.” Frode Stenstrøm: Exactly, and I have seen for myself how purchasing patterns have changed over many years. In the old days, solution selling was what mattered, and you got in touch with the customer at an early stage. But now, word of mouth and brand and all that have a much greater position than I think many business leaders are really willing to acknowledge. Andreas Thue: Absolutely, and that brings us to what is absolutely central to marketing: it is about perceptions. In other words, what do you want customers and stakeholders to think about you? What impression should they be left with, and how should you work to influence these perceptions? So that is the very essence of marketing: having a message and a story that creates the image in people's minds of how you want them to think about you, so that you are preferred. Frode Stenstrøm: There is a claim that I have heard business leaders make, that brand building for, say, a consulting firm is too expensive to carry out in practice. But I find it interesting that now, in the market we are in, which is in a bit of a downturn, the consulting firms that clients do not know are still being dropped from their assignments. Andreas Thue: That is exactly what this is about; it comes back to security. When a leader says that marketing is too expensive, you can ask what marketing really is, and marketing's job is to create demand And you do that through brand building, so if you are not visible, if you do not create demand, if you do not influence the attitudes and perceptions of your target groups, then you will not get assignments in the future either. It becomes a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation, and as the Gartner Group has said, when you come out of a crisis, it is important to remember that those who dare to accelerate through the turn are the ones who also do best over the long term, and they have researched this for a long time. Frode Stenstrøm: We talked a little about the differences just now, but are there any major differences that you see in marketing and communication in the B2B and B2C industries? Andreas Thue: The answer to that is really yes and no. In both sectors, it is simply about influencing people and being remembered. Whereas in B2B, you may have to take into account that there are long sales processes and a great many people involved in a purchasing decision. A purchasing process can take anywhere from two minutes to five years. And you have to be very creative, and you have to be very thorough in how you work with the purchasing process and the customer journey across a great many touchpoints over a very long period of time. So I believe that ... From a marketing perspective, B2B may be the most demanding type of marketing, while perhaps it is a little—I would not say easier—in B2C, but you probably face much greater demands for creativity at the very top of the sales funnel in order to get noticed. And you have to be much more constantly present with expensive, costly advertising in order to be preferred, so that you are visible on the store shelf, that you have packaging design, and that you are also remembered at the moment of purchase. But I think people underestimate how difficult it is to be a B2B marketer and how much is required to succeed there. Frode Stenstrøm: And we have several customers here at ProsessPilotene who tell us that they are good at customer relationships with customers they know, but they are unable to reach customers they do not know. And that is because they have been running—this is putting it a bit harshly—an order desk, order processing, rather than customer communication with a market and brand building. And to me, those are two quite different things. Andreas Thue: Completely agree, and there is a lot of research here, but there is also a lot of marketing research showing that if you stop advertising and if you stop being visible, you will lose up to 20% market share per year, and then it will increase exponentially after that. So the important thing, what we try to tell our customers, is that you do not need to create a huge campaign one week a year and then set off all the fireworks then. What is important is to be present and available to your customers all the time. Frode Stenstrøm: Agreed. But now we are talking about the difference between types, consumer sales or business sales. If we look at different industries, do you see significant differences within those industries, for example that the construction industry is one type of sales and the legal industry another? Andreas Thue: Yes, there probably will be. I think it is important to remember that people are people regardless of industry. But I think there is a different way of speaking, different messages from industry to industry, where perhaps in the IT industry they have tended to be the ones talking about what is coming, staying furthest ahead, having to do a lot of thought-leadership messaging, meaning that they have tried to influence things in a certain direction and pointed somewhat to what—like they have been looking into the crystal ball all the time—whereas they may have been a little more conservative in other industries, where they have, in a way, perhaps not adapted technologically as quickly in their marketing communications as in the IT industry, where they have been forced to do so. So I do think there is a great deal of difference in the tools used; many of them are the same, but I think, in a way, the language and wording and the way you approach the customer side differ depending on the maturity of the industries. Frode Stenstrøm: I have been fortunate enough to work in industry, construction, education, and healthcare. And I can see that it is connected to the way sales are actually conducted. It is not limited to customer communication, in my view. It is also, as I said earlier, that many companies have the classic order offices with order processing, and that is not sales. It is simply back-office work, receiving an order. And if that is your attitude toward sales, it is often also difficult to be modern in customer communication. Those things are somewhat interconnected, really. Andreas Thue: Absolutely. I think that now, as large parts of Norwegian business may be struggling a little more than usual, a great many are probably struggling with transitioning from being an order office to being more proactive, and being more advisory and understanding that you actually have to make an advisory effort to attract more customers. Frode Stenstrøm: Competitors often have to enter the field to provoke that. It is often crises that can bring out new things. I worked for 7-8 years in the media industry, where we were suddenly challenged by Google and advertising platforms and other local newspapers that had a completely different cost base. And it was a demanding process to get that many people to change their thinking to: A different or somewhat more aggressive approach to sales, really. Andreas Thue: There is also an interesting debate regarding Google and Facebook and all those things, about how they have changed the marketing profession, because over the past 10-15 years, in marketing generally, a great deal of money has been put into these platform companies from Silicon Valley, and people thought that was the way to do it. And now we may be seeing a major shift in the market, where people may be returning to the things they did before by building brands and engaging in creative communication, rather than believing that they can keep pestering customers through these investments in American platforms, as they have done until now. Frode Stenstrøm: I can look at ourselves too; I think I can count on one hand the number of sales I have made as a result of advertising on Google-LinkedIn platforms. If you look at content sharing, simply being present in the market and not, in a way, letting the meter run for every tiny thing, that has generated far more sales, and visibility as well, so there is something to that. We quickly get into this—and I work in a field that I find very exciting—which is about maturity theory: do you see that customers have different levels of maturity in terms of how far they have come on their journey and their understanding of this? Andreas Thue: Yes, I think there are a great many skilled marketing directors out there who understand what is required and what needs to be done. I think part of the problem is that most marketing directors I meet look down at the floor a little when asked how much money, time, and resources they have. And I think, in a way, that the major challenge is perhaps elsewhere in the organization, where they lack an understanding of what a strong brand entails, and what you have to do to become the preferred choice and to be remembered by your customers. So I do not feel that the problem lies with marketing people in Norway. It is that they may need to get better at explaining... to the rest of the management team why this is so important for creating demand and winning new customers. If you do not create demand, if you do not influence the attitudes and perceptions of the target groups, then you will not get assignments in the future either. Frode Stenstrøm: Because what you are touching on right now is a question that I have heard many of the customers I have spoken with say they have faced as a dilemma. Management asks them: do you want to hire one more salesperson, or do you want to hire someone in communications? You get one position—what do you want to use it for? Andreas Thue: And that is actually a very cool question, and I think that in 99 out of 100 cases, people would say one more salesperson. But I have, for example, another customer in the technology industry who has achieved a great deal with their marketing communications. I started working with them three years ago, and it was very rational... product-heavy communication, where they talked a great deal about the features of their products and why you should be in the cloud, and talked a great deal about somewhat dry topics. And what we helped them with was talking much more about—we shifted them toward talking much more about what mattered to their target group. In their case, they had a person on the management team who was very important to them. So what we did was create a communication concept that addressed everything that mattered to the person in that role, and they have been talking about it for three years. And what they see is that by focusing on brand building and talking about what the target group cares about, they get more and more leads every month. They get more and more customers. When the customers arrive, they are warm, they have done their reading, and you do not have to spend as much time convincing them. And what is happening now is that the customer most recently told me that when they were asked who wanted a new person on their team, sales or marketing, the head of sales said that he would prefer a new marketer to be hired. Frode Stenstrøm: In that respect, they have reached that level of maturity, and unfortunately, that maturity has to be experienced and developed over time. So they have seen that, as you said, the customers are ready; that is, a customer inquiry that comes to you is in buying mode, whereas a customer who is wondering about something is much earlier in their evaluation. And I see in our industry, when we deal with software such as sales and marketing systems, that there are often, yes, 6-12 months of evaluation, needs clarification, and understanding before you even reach a procurement situation. Andreas Thue: And in addition to that, the buying process may have started a year before that as well, which is when you come into consideration as a provider. Then it is simply about being available and visible with good marketing communications, relevant information in digital channels, and being influenced. LinkedIn has a very cool rule here that they call 95-5, where they say that of the 100 percent who make up your market, only 5 percent are in the market to buy services right now. The problem is that you do not know who those 5 percent are. So what you have to do in your marketing is influence the entire market; you have to influence the 95 percent so that they remember you on the day a purchasing need arises. Frode Stenstrøm: I agree so, so much, and that is why I believe—and this is my personal view—we have started talking a little more about measures and such, but when you look at classic appointment-booking services and the like, they have really outlived their usefulness, because you cannot simply force a business system on someone who does not want it. So you have to reach the 5% at the right time. Andreas Thue: Absolutely, and I am not saying that telemarketing is dead in any way, because it can also serve a useful function. Not least, it may remind them that you are there, or simply tempt them to visit the website. So it is probably not completely dead, and for many marketing directors it is a very useful tool that they can report decent figures on. It may not be what I would choose first, but in some cases it can be important if there are many people you need to reach within a short period of time. Frode Stenstrøm: That may be true. But then again, it comes back to budgets and balancing priorities. But hey, that was a great first part, Andreas. Frode Stenstrøm: The next topic we're going to look at, which is something we've already started talking about, is marketing strategy and plans, and how can a company manage to link its business goals to a marketing strategy? Andreas Thue: Yes, absolutely, so it's an exciting topic, and I think the most important thing the marketing manager needs to do is become very familiar with the strategy. What is the business supposed to achieve, what goals are to be reached, how are you going to get there—immersing yourself as thoroughly as possible in the business strategy. In other words, speaking the language of business, speaking the language otherwise used by the management team. In other words, we're talking about creating growth, finding new customers, increasing revenue, improving profits, becoming a more attractive employer—in other words, the straightforward, hard business goals. Frode Stenstrøm: If you imagine that you're sitting and listening to the podcast, working in marketing and communications at a company with 20–30 employees or whatever, and you see a need for the company to do something here? What advice would you give him or her about where to start? Andreas Thue: I think I would first do a quick analysis of what they had done, and carry out some analyses of how it had worked. But I think the biggest problem I encounter with customers when I meet them—and I talk to quite a lot of different companies all the time—is that they aren't able to see themselves from the outside. They aren't quite able to communicate who they are and what they stand for, and they become very navel-gazing and introverted in their communication. They talk about themselves; they don't talk about what they can do for their customers. Frode Stenstrøm: Exactly, but that's an extremely tough question. I've been asked it myself a few times in my life, and trying to define who you are, for whom, and why—those are pretty tough questions to delve into, yes. Andreas Thue: They are, and perhaps I'm preaching to the choir here, but that's why you need someone from the outside who can help. Help ask these questions and help formulate the answers, unless you're a new marketing manager who hasn't yet had time to become blind to yourself and your own company. So I do think, in a way, that in many cases it helps to have someone to bounce ideas off and challenge you! And in my experience, especially in B2B, I also think, in a way, that the gold is inside the company. In other words, it's the services, skills, experience, references, and people. That inner life is the gold that needs to be reflected outward and become the most important part of the marketing communication. Frode Stenstrøm: In the world of customer communication, are there, in a way, any frameworks or assistants, or anyone who can help them get started more quickly? Andreas Thue: Yes, when you say assistant, there is a copilot, but perhaps that's not where we should start? There are a great many frameworks, a great many methods, and if you Google it, you'll find a lot; if you go on YouTube, you'll find a lot, so there's plenty of help available. I think most agencies and marketing experts have their own method, which essentially amounts to much the same thing. They just use slightly different words and phrasing for it. Then there are lots of tools you can use, lots of different analysis methods and things like that, but there is one part of the strategy that is key. Frode Stenstrøm: As a supplier, when we've delivered tools for customer communication, for example, as we've done many times, I've found more often than not that you deliver the tools, but there is no marketing strategy or communications strategy, and then the content falls short. You get a very nice tool that does everything it's supposed to do and is technically set up correctly. But the value creation doesn't happen. And by that I mean it comes down to the content and a failure to appreciate the scale of what it costs to produce relevant content over time. Not just a little blog post every six months, so to speak. Andreas Thue: Yes, you have to keep doing things all the time, and this is really partly about the culture you want to have in the company. So I think that if you want to get off to a good start, you have to understand the company, the market, the customers, and your own employees. You have to make some decisions about whom you're going to talk to and whom you're going to prioritize, because you won't have the time or capacity to focus on everyone. You have to start, like ripples in water, from the inside and work your way outward. And that means working with the employees. If you involve the employees in the marketing communication, if you bring out their thoughts, values, and attitudes, some people say that you can copy everything in business except culture, because that's the only thing that's unique to you. If you manage to reflect that culture outward and involve the employees in content marketing, you'll go a very long way. Frode Stenstrøm: If we take one step back to the person who can get started with customer communication at the small company they work for, I would argue that one of the starting points you need to be conscious of is what you want to achieve, and then we quickly get into the famous metrics or KPIs, or perhaps even more importantly, the inputs that underpin them. In your experience, what would you say are perhaps the most relevant inputs or metrics they should consider? Andreas Thue: The most important metric, regardless, is to find out what level of awareness you have in the market and how well you're remembered. The challenge, though, is that it's expensive to measure, and it's demanding. And there are methods that allow you to measure this in a smarter way that may cost a little less, but the most important thing is, in a way, that, as I said earlier, the more people who remember you, the more often you'll be preferred. So you have to discuss how to measure it. But I think—and the answer here is quite subjective—that, for me, it's important to measure engagement. In other words, to what extent do people engage with what you create, produce, and distribute? In terms of how many... Like what you do on social media or comment. Website traffic—in other words, how many people visit the website—may not be that relevant, but how long they stay, where they click, and what they do on the website are extremely interesting. You have to think about how many people you actually need to reach, how many customers the company actually has, and the potential ones. And I'm also very fond of what we call soft conversions, such as signing up for a newsletter because they want to hear from you, or signing up for a webinar. In other words, showing interest in who you are and what you stand for is, to me, much more important than getting 100,000 clicks on the website that leave again immediately. Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, and I think you gave quite a few good examples of what we've called good KPIs—in other words, metrics—but they're often shared by many; they're somewhat the results of something. Frode Stenstrøm: If we could talk a little about the inputs: getting lots of website visits or engagement with an article follows from the fact that you actually wrote the article! Yes, it's good to measure revenue. But there isn't very much you can do about that, because it's history. What you can do something about, though, is how many people you have in sales, how many you have in communications, how many customers write reviews of your product on your online channel—in other words, you can actually influence that, and perhaps that's where, at the start of a marketing strategy, many people also aren't conscious of which metrics they choose to use? Andreas Thue: Absolutely, and that's exactly it. I try to use a metaphor that it doesn't really help much if you spend two million marketing a new restaurant in central Oslo. If the customers come there, but the restaurant is bad and the food is terrible. It's about having coherence in what you do. In a way, you have to be confident that every stage of the customer journey is in place before you take too many measures, quite simply. There has to be quality, and it has to add customer value. That is very important to me. Frode Stenstrøm: If you think back to that same person who is going to get started and succeed more internally and face a bit of resistance and so on, then you have figured out which input factor, you have assessed what the strategy is, you know where the company is going, what the goal is, why we are doing this: What is the next step, then? Is it to make a plan? I think it is about operationalizing the work? Because now the work begins. Planning is only a small part. Andreas Thue: Absolutely, and I think that, yes, you need to have a plan, and to me that plan is about, as I touched on earlier, defining who you are going to talk to and prioritizing that. You need to know what to say to them, that is, you need to have a good message, and you need to have a position that is relevant to them. And then you have to figure out what resources you have at your disposal, that is, how much money you have to spend. How much of your colleagues' time can you use? What expertise and skills do you have in the marketing department? Do you need an agency? Can you handle things yourselves? Should you have someone look at you from the outside? And those are important things to define before you start thinking about how to reach people. If you are going to start prioritizing what to do, I would say make sure you have an exceptionally good website with a good customer journey that helps customers before you start thinking about how much money to spend on LinkedIn, or advertising or PR, or whatever it may be. Frode Stenstrøm: Do those who come to, for example, you and your company already have a strategy in mind, or do they also need help developing that marketing strategy? Andreas Thue: It varies greatly. We have highly professional clients who come with a clear brief and very clear ideas about what they want to achieve and exactly what they want to use us for. And then there are some who are a little more humble, but who are much more capable than they let on, and who simply come to us hat in hand and want help, but who have often already figured out a great deal themselves. Then we have those who may need to be convinced that action must be taken to create a good customer journey. So we really meet clients at every point on the spectrum. The most important thing for us is that the clients are open, positive, and want to work together. Because you cannot come to an agency and think that the agency will fix everything. It has to be a good collaboration. That is, we have to make the best use of each other's strengths. And we have to ask each other good questions and dare to step on each other's toes a little. For better or worse. Frode Stenstrøm: That is how it is. But would you say that... those who come to you have reached a minimum size in terms of revenue or number of full-time equivalents? Or do you also get the very small companies with ten employees? Andreas Thue: You also get the small companies, and you have to remember that in a country like Norway, where there are a great many sales organizations as well, belonging to large international organizations, ten people can also constitute a very large company. Frode Stenstrøm: That's true. Andreas Thue: But I suppose it really depends somewhat on what they offer and how they do it. Because a plumbing company with ten employees operating in a small geographical area may not need this in the same way. So really, the clients who come in are at every point on the spectrum, and the most important thing for us is that they are pleasant to work with. Frode Stenstrøm: Would you say there is any important expertise or capacity they need to have themselves? What expertise or capacity should they actually possess internally? Andreas Thue: I think the most important thing is that they are self-aware about what they do and do not have. I think that, and this goes back to the organization, you need to have someone who, if they choose to work with an agency, can lead or manage the project. Of course, we hope they have a marketing manager. Many of the companies we work with tend to have a marketing manager, and that is the marketing department. Perhaps they have a coordinator alongside them who helps out. But I think, in a way, that you need to have a good marketing manager who understands the field. And then you need to have someone alongside them who can help the marketer handle their operational tasks so that they do not... The marketing manager ends up dealing with all sorts of details, because then he or she will lose the opportunity to think ahead and think strategically. Frode Stenstrøm: Marketing communications involves a great deal of operational work, that is, tasks that need to be done, and there is constant pressure to produce things. You generally want to squeeze a lemon as much as possible to get as much as possible out of it. Andreas Thue: An enormous number of details, so many things that need following up: where should the logo go, where are the things we need to bring to the trade show booth? There are so many details. I think most people have come to see how much a marketing manager actually has to follow up on. It is an enormous amount. Frode Stenstrøm: Because there is an endless discussion in every industry about insourcing versus outsourcing, right, agency or no agency, doing it yourself or not doing it yourself, and I think that often comes down to money and understanding. I have tried to buy my way out of a task myself, but I have seen that it does not work in practice, because then the agency does not have a sparring partner to help it do the good work that the people there are actually capable of doing. Andreas Thue: I think you have hit the nail on the head there. For example, four years ago we tried going to market and saying, relax, dear client, we can help you with everything; you can outsource everything to us. And it actually did not take many months before we changed tack and thought, no, this does not work. You need a client who is willing to play ball; you need a counterpart on the other side, because otherwise there are far too many details, and you do not have that constructive partner. So I think that no matter what you do, you need to have someone internally with a certain level of marketing expertise. Frode Stenstrøm: The question of systems and tools always comes up. Do you find that companies spend a lot of time choosing systems and tools? Andreas Thue: Yes, I think that for many people it also becomes a bit of a crutch, that they may turn to technology a little too quickly before they have figured out what to do internally in terms of messaging and how to engage customers. But I think you have to go through a maturity phase, and then I do not think you can avoid having good tools for smart, digital, and automated marketing communications. Frode Stenstrøm: That... I completely agree with that. Because tools are tools; you still have to produce content, and without content you will not get anywhere either, and content has to be produced by someone. And yes, Copilot can help produce content, but you still need an idea and a plan, so... Andreas Thue: Definitely, and now you are talking about what is perhaps closest to my heart in marketing terms: the content, the good story, and how you work with the organization to bring it out. What we often want to achieve with clients is to get those who know the subject, that is, the subject-matter experts, to help us with inspiration and ideas and tips, and perhaps provide half-finished articles or be willing to appear on camera or in front of a microphone and talk about what they know. Because it is often peer-to-peer communication, that is, expert to expert. And marketers have to make sure that we do not sit in the middle and muddle that language, because many have a tendency to do that. But I have worked extensively with various areas of marketing, including PR, and many of the best stories I have secured in the media for my clients have been based on things people have said in passing, which are obvious to them but are major and exciting news to others. So when we manage to get the subject-matter experts involved and have them talk about what they know, it often becomes very good content. Frode Stenstrøm: And there is something about the fact that those who are subject-matter experts at, say, a company are supposed to speak to the subject-matter experts at the customer companies or their supplier, so it is about not trying to make it pedagogically understandable for a market that is not actually supposed to receive that message at all. Andreas Thue: muddle it up, as I say. Frode Stenstrøm: muddle it up, right? There is a topic here that I had intended to ask you about, Andreas, and that is that, for me, I have been on a journey myself when it comes to market communication and marketing, and I grew up in a time when you had the sales department and you had the marketing department, and they were often two independent departments, and one sent out DMs, and the other did sales, and there was no connection. But when I look at where Dynamics 365 as a product is going, and where I really think a great deal of this is going, then what we are actually talking about is customer communication: customer communication in sales, customer communication in customer service, in projects and deliveries, supplier procurement—it is communication across many channels. Do you see your customers now beginning to break down the barriers somewhat between traditional marketing and the sales department, for example? Andreas Thue: Those who succeed best do so. There are probably still very many who remain in their respective silos, where they may not be good enough at working together or have enough respect for what each other's professional discipline can contribute. I think that those who are most successful at creating a cohesive customer experience across sales, marketing, service, customer support, all of it, are the ones who are most successful at growth and at gaining the most satisfied and loyal customers who recommend you. So it is an enormously difficult task, and then you simply have to have the kind of tool you mention; you have to have a system that—or one ring to rule them all—you have to gain control of your dialogue, because you cannot track this manually. Frode Stenstrøm: I have put a lot of effort into trying to talk to customers about precisely that: that it is communication, and someone who is good at visual design or a copywriter can actually help write and design an email campaign that the sales department can use for nurturing customers at an early stage, for example. I see that technology has now moved in that direction, but I think the market is still somewhat stuck in these silos. Last year, I had the pleasure of speaking with grocery retailers and the like, who talked about their reorganization of the sales and marketing units. They are looking at reorganizing so that you get expertise related both to technological matters, because at some point there will be some technology involved, and also to customer communication and sales, and I think all the somewhat larger marketing departments or companies struggle with what the optimal way to organize it is. And that is a question I would like to gather people to discuss, because I actually think there is some value in talking about it in a plenary session. Andreas Thue: I think that is very exciting, and I also think we should not underestimate people's fear of technology, because a lot of terms are used that sound very difficult, such as big data and artificial intelligence, and GDPR, and people are very afraid of... there are too many things where you can choose incorrectly and make mistakes. So they may fear and be afraid of making the wrong choice. And that is where we strongly recommend perhaps getting help from someone who knows this market and who knows that implementing good technology is not hocus-pocus. You have to do it thoroughly and get help from good, thorough advisers who know the technology and understand marketing and sales and the other disciplines. Frode Stenstrøm: But we cannot quite avoid talking a little about the trends right at the end here, Andreas. I brought one up, though perhaps that was more about organization. But do you see other trends in marketing and customer communication that you believe companies are becoming very aware of? Andreas Thue: It is completely impossible to avoid artificial intelligence when talking in that context. I think that, as I said initially, I have been doing this for a few years, and I was probably never there when the internet emerged and saw everything that has happened since, but I do not think I will ever have seen a change that could potentially bring about as great a change as now, with artificial intelligence and the possibilities it offers. I think we are only just getting started. I think we have some teething problems, and people do not quite know what to do, and many are skilled, and it gets hyped and things like that. But I think, in a way, that you have to stay on the ball when it comes to artificial intelligence, both by using it, understanding it, ethics, everything that may be involved, and simply taking on board how to use it. Frode Stenstrøm: And I agree with you there. I can see that the tools are now bringing in content production, graphic production, channel optimization in terms of whether you should send email or SMS to people. These are extremely powerful tools that we are now getting in this segment. Andreas Thue: Absolutely, and for my industry this is not particularly favorable in terms of making a living from what we used to make a living from, so we have to create entirely new business models and make money in new ways. We have to use artificial intelligence for many of the high-volume tasks, and we also have to be conscious of what humans need to do. Because the most important dimension in marketing is creativity; creating the things people notice, creating a little magic, touching people's emotions. I mean, the most important thing is not—people do not remember what you say to them; they remember how you make them feel. Artificial intelligence cannot do that; it cannot make you feel anything at all. Frode Stenstrøm: Well, you can get angry, though. Andreas Thue: Or feel relief, sometimes when you get help, but I think we should look at this as something where we can work together, and then we can achieve fantastic things together as long as it is done in an ethical, thorough and accountable manner. Frode Stenstrøm: And there is a very important point in what you just said, because the EU has now introduced new requirements for the use of artificial intelligence, and the one that affects all of us quite significantly is that you are not allowed to profile individuals, as so many people dream of doing; that has now been prohibited, and you must be able to explain how these models work. And I think very many will fall short on that point alone, so there is a need to build expertise among people; that will not disappear anytime soon, at least. Andreas Thue: And I am glad that lawmakers are regulating this strictly; the industry needs it, and the industry needs it quickly, and we need to be very open and honest about what we do and how we do it. Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, great, Andreas. Frode Stenstrøm: If we are going to wrap up now, I usually ask whether, for those listening to us now, there is a key takeaway or a point you would like them to remember when we talk about the topics we have covered today? Andreas Thue: I think the most important thing I hope those who care about marketing remember is that the most important thing is to be remembered I mean, we just have to remember that we are private individuals all the time. And what do we do when we want—the important thing here is, what do we do when we want a new bicycle, which brands do we think of then, which airline do we search for online when we are going to Granka? In other words, think a little about how you evaluate things yourself as a private individual, because those are exactly the same mechanisms you use at work and in a work situation. So you are a private individual around the clock, and you are at work around the clock. So being remembered, being preferred, being liked, and engaging and inspiring people are absolutely the most important things. Frode Stenstrøm: Thank you very much for that, Andreas, creative director at Iteo consulting, and for your contribution to today's episode. This episode can be found everywhere you listen to podcasts, such as the website https://radio.Prosesspilotene.no. This podcast is produced by ProsessPilotene, which increases the value of your customers through the use of Microsoft technology. And works with work processes in marketing, sales, service and project management. ProsessPilotene's analytics team can help you with artificial intelligence, insights and analytics, and ProsessPilotene's collaboration team can help you with your websites, customer portals and customer clubs. The person responsible for this episode is me, Frode Stenstrøm, and the project manager is Oddbjørg Berge. I welcome questions and feedback on LinkedIn. Wishing everyone better work processes, until next time.