#Hashtags, The Gartner Marketing & Communications Podcast

Benjamin Bloom is a VP, Analyst helping marketing leaders with martech stack optimization, personalization, and customer data management.Mr. Bloom's experience spans customer engagement, direct response, CRM, data management, analytics, web development and brand marketing roles, as both a consultant/strategist and client-side team leader. He has developed and optimized marketing campaigns, as well as selected and implemented technology and advertising solutions for over 10 years. Prior to entering the marketing world, he analyzed the technology, media and telecommunications industries at the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information at Columbia University.

In this episode, Gartner analysts and authors of When Machines Become Customers Don Scheibenreif and Mark Raskino discuss how the rise of machine customers will impact the discipline of marketing and the marketing profession itself. What does it mean to market to a machine? What are the implications for how you position your brand? And what do marketing leaders need to start doing right now to take advantage of the huge growth opportunities on the horizon, as potentially billions of machine customers are headed their way?Don Scheibenreif is a Vice President, Distinguished Analyst with Gartner’s Customer Experience research group. Mr. Scheibenreif works with customer experience and IT leaders on how emerging trends and digital business will impact customer experience. He is a founding member of Gartner’s research on digital business and digital business transformation and he has served clients in Gartner’s Industries Research and Technology Innovation practices.Mark Raskino is a Gartner Fellow in the CEO and Digital Business Leadership research team. Mark works primarily with CIOs and their business executive colleagues. He covers business and technology trends and their implications for business strategy, innovation, business models, leadership and executive relationships. Mr. Raskino’s research includes Gartner’s annual CEO survey and CIO resolutions. He co-authored the books “Digital to the Core” (Gartner, 2015) and “Mastering the Hype Cycle” (Harvard Business Press, 2008). He is a frequent keynote speaker and keynote interviewer.

In this episode, Gartner analyst Kassi Socha and researcher Emma Mathison join to discuss Gartner's latest findings around incentives. The fear of continual price increases and, an appetite to try new brands, and XX are driving consumers to react differently to discounts and promotions than they have in the past. For those targeting a younger consumer, learn how the coupon became cool again, and free shipping is a mandate. To exceed consumers’ expectations, B2C CMOs must prioritize discounts with customer appeal, tailor discounts to specific audiences, and make discount experiences more interactive.Kassi Socha is an analyst covering trends across the retail industry, specifically eCommerce, digital marketing, and consumer insights. Key expert in Industry Marketing Execution, Digital Marketing Strategy and Execution, as well as Customer Acquisition and Retention.Emma Mathison is a Research Analyst, with the consumer insights team in the Gartner for Marketers business. She studies consumer values and attitudes as well as cultural shifts and patterns that impact consumer behaviors.Her current research focuses on studying young consumers, parents and family, LGBTQ and gender topics as well as global consumers.

Digital engagement is getting more complex, and CMOs are under pressure to show results. In this episode, Gartner analyst Kristina LaRocca-Cerrone shares Gartner’s latest research on “catalytic” digital interactions that change customer behavior, increase customer confidence and, most importantly, generate business value. The discussion includes how CMOs can find the perfect moment for “catalytic” experiences, examples of what a great catalytic digital interaction looks and feels like, and how this new approach might fit into the rest of your marketing strategy.

In this episode, Gartner analysts Ewan McIntyre and Alex de Fursac Gash share insights and explore key themes from Gartner’s 2023 CMO Spend & Strategy Survey. The discussion includes how marketing must learn to do more with less, the trap of digitization for the sake of digitization, and the growing pressures for CMOs to reduce marketing technology spending.

In this episode, Gartner analyst Penny Gillespie discusses rogue thinking, Gartner’s approach to idea generation and execution. Rogue thinking uses a fresh perspective, often going against conventional, mature business wisdom. Discover the common habits of rogue thinkers, the key skills they share and the barriers that often get in the way.Penny Gillespie is a Vice President and Gartner Fellow within marketing and communications. Ms. Gillespie is responsible for conducting research and developing publications aimed at helping executives recognize digital opportunities, develop a competitive strategy for digital commerce, and improve digital commerce performance and value. She focuses on best practices for digital customer experience (CX) interactions, personalization and trust building, as well as overcoming hurdles to online selling.

In this #Hashtags episode, Gartner VP Analyst Andrew Frank discusses how marketers and communicators should organize their thinking around generative AI and what they can do to position themselves and their brands for success amid this generational disruption.As VP Distinguished Analyst with Gartner for Marketing Leaders, Andrew Frank specializes in best practices for data-driven marketing, including how organizations can use data to drive sales, loyalty, innovation, brand value and other business goals. He also focuses on emerging marketing technology and trends, including marketing applications of AI and machine learning, algorithmic marketing, and marketing in emerging environments such as metaverse and Web3.

In this episode of #Hashtags, Gartner analyst Jason McNellis discusses how CMOs can be more data–driven without having to be experts in analytics or machine learning. Today, cherry-picking results and going with one’s gut are serious obstacles for CMOs who want their teams to make better and more timely decisions. We’ll cover how CMOs can assess their teams current use of analytics. Then we’ll use marketing examples from multiple companies as we discuss how experimentation, better questions and a “caterpillar’s-eye view” – not more data science – improve data-driven decisioning.Jason McNellis is a Gartner senior director analyst who specializes in marketing analytics and building insight-generating organizations with a focus on enhancing marketing through machine learning, artificial intelligence, marketing mix modeling, and campaign measurement. Jason helps clients concentrate on the right data and right approach to guide their critical decisions.

In this episode of #Hashtags, Gartner analyst Jason Daigler discusses how digital commerce practitioners often cross the line in the way they sell products. The discussion includes how marketers and digital commerce practitioners can avoid unscrupulous behavior and build customer trust — and what will happen if they don’t. Jason Daigler is a Gartner VP analyst focused on digital commerce technologies, including topics such as launching a commerce site, multichannel strategy, B2B commerce, channel integration, digital shelf analytics and marketplaces. Jason has 20+ years of business experience in digital commerce, software development and product management.

Join us from 22 to 24 May in Denver for the Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo — the world’s most important gathering of CMOs and Marketing Executives™. In this episode of #Hashtags, conference Co-Chairs Kristina LaRocca-Cerrone and Brianna Lux discuss how attendees can use their time at the conference to gain insight, define and validate their marketing strategies, build their networks, and get ahead of the curve.To register for the conference, visit the Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo homepage