RBS Marketing Traditional & Digital 2 PDF

This is the role of data and personalization. Why do we talk about this? It\'s not because I want to have a distinguished service or a distinctive service; it\'s because in every single minute that I talk to you now, this is what is taking place at a global level. In one minute, Amazon is selling a...

This is the role of data and personalization. Why do we talk about this? It\'s not because I want to have a distinguished service or a distinctive service; it\'s because in every single minute that I talk to you now, this is what is taking place at a global level. In one minute, Amazon is selling almost half a million dollars\' worth of products on its e-commerce platform. X users send 360,000 tweets. 6.3 million searches are taking place on Google. Taylor Swift is selling almost \$70,000 of music in one minute. Four million people are placing posts on Facebook. X is receiving or transforming almost 7,000 prompts, etc., etc. LinkedIn is receiving or exchanging more than 6,000 CVs in one minute. Almost 42 million people are sending messages on WhatsApp. What is this picture relating to? We are taking into common knowledge that data and personalization based on these are the key success factors of any company nowadays. Why? Because we are all there. Every single potential customer is there. You don\'t believe me? How many people are we? We said we are 8 billion people. Out of those 8 billion people, unique mobile phone subscribers are 5.61 billion. That means 70 percent of the total population are enjoying a portable device---a smartphone or a basic handy phone. And out of those 5.61 billion, 5.33 billion---that means a little bit less---are individuals using the internet. Not like me; I have three or four email accounts, and I surf the net from one web browser, and then I use another web browser, and I have my company surfing methodology, etc. No, we are talking about individuals using the internet. So coming back to here, I do a little bit back and forth. Please take into consideration that nowadays, marketing people are not and cannot be taking under evaluation under exclamation. Yes, you have 30 computer attacks from cybercriminals. Yes, you have Twitch, but you have 242 million people sending emails per single minute. Of course, there will be canceling a lot of spam emails, but if you write to me, \"Dear Professor Domenico, last week we noticed that you surfed our web, you placed an order, then you purchased three books, and then you put on the trolley another two books. But then you decided not to buy those two books. Did you forget them? Are you still interested in buying? Was the price too high? In that case, we are willing to give you a 10% discount. Will you be purchasing them in two weeks\' time? In the meanwhile, let us give you an abstract of those books.\" That means that through the internet, you are able not only to communicate but also to get feedback. Because if I\'m interested in those books but I\'m not willing to spend 25 euros per single book, I will write, \"Yes, I\'m interested, but they cost too much. I\'m already an expert in marketing; there was a kind of narrow old marketing and something really theoretical. You know what? I\'m not willing to pay 25 euros.\" They are able to receive feedback and eventually apply a discount. Dear ladies and gentlemen, I know that I keep on talking too much, but I don\'t know if you---not too much but at a fast pace because there are a lot of things to tell you---but I would like to give you no more than a 10-minute break, if you agree. If you agree, let\'s have a meeting. It\'s 7:30 now, 7:40 sharp, because I have a lot of things to tell---maybe some Coca-Cola, some products---and then come back. Oh, thank you. Good. 7:40 here. 7:40, I\'m back in. If you are all back in, I will start again. But in the meanwhile, I would like to---I don\'t know if Pujacare is there---agree with you that, of course, marketing and digital marketing is not and should not be only in the hands of a few giants. But you\'re here in order to learn this discipline, to fully understand these topics, which are of paramount importance for the correct and effective management of each and every company in any place in the world. This is somehow the spread of knowledge, the spread of competencies, the spread of expertise that will help small companies to perform better---to perform absolutely better. So I agree with you that it should not be only in the hands of a few, but it is something unavoidable that Google has the best algorithm. It\'s somehow unavoidable that, thanks to the fact that we changed behavior and set of interests, Amazon was one of the first e-commerce neutral platforms best able to understand that and to deliver the best value proposition. So somehow, if you have clear that you can manage a lot of data and you can personalize those data to deliver the best customer experience to your customers, to your clients, you are much better off and able to offer a better service. That is exactly why, in my personal opinion, it is very important that you attend a master course, even online, because you can get not only a different point of view---as you can hopefully see, this is not the typical classical marketing online course that you can find anywhere in, I don\'t know, any private consulting firm. We---or we are trying at least---but we tend to deliver a distinctive point of view that will allow you to use these technologies, to use these competencies in a better way, in a more effective way. I don\'t know if I\'ve answered your comment, but I will go immediately ahead because it seems like you are all back with coffee, tea, and any food or drink that you have enjoyed in the last few minutes. Going back to our presentation: the role of data, but the role of personalization has generated added value and a competitive edge to some companies which were able to better enjoy those data. Because the real change of paradigm was the shift in consumer behavior. Why? Because we were more empowered; we had a much better set of information, much better access to all information. And what did we do? Compare products. Before taking a compulsive purchasing initiative, what do we do? We evaluate the product; we compare the product. We know that Amazon tends to be the cheapest, tends to present you the cheapest offer, but we surf the web; we go to, I don\'t know, Alibaba or AliExpress or Nike.com or Adidas.com. I don\'t usually---and don\'t always---buy on Amazon. I\'m a little bit Generation X, immediately after the Boomers, just for one year, and I tend to be digitally literate. I study a lot; I read a lot of books, etc. But I cannot deny the fact that if I can buy something latest by five o\'clock in the afternoon, I can have it the morning after by 10 o\'clock. I know that from the sustainability standpoint, there is almost criminal---why? Because the Prime subscription involves a huge supply chain, a huge amount of logistics, costs, and pollution. Very often, the Amazon trucks deliver a product from the delivery station, and they use a big truck with only 30, 40, 50 products---not 32 pallets. The supply chain guys and girls know what I mean. A pallet includes a set of boxes for over 150 pieces. But very often, in order to deliver the promise, Amazon must come to my area here in Rome and must deliver the product that I specifically ordered with a big truck---of course, not the big tier, the one that goes on the highways---but with a big truck just to deliver one piece. The better they understand and get our feedback, the better the companies can develop a customer-centric business model, and that is what is making the difference nowadays. That is why we know that there is a big difference between digital and traditional marketing. Digital gives valuable information. You go to buy a car, and you are not waiting for the guy there---the sales guy with the pen here---that says to you, \"Don\'t buy that car. That car is not as effective and as competitive as the other one.\" Probably he\'s trying to sell you this car; he was trying to sell you this car or the other car because he needed to reach a specific target. So behind the informal advice, there used to be their own interest. Now, probably a lot of you work in the automotive industry, and you know what is the new trend. The shift in behavior means before going to a specific store---digital or physical---I\'ve already acquired a huge amount of information. I have compared products because I surf the web and I find the best insurance coverage policy that I can buy. I go to a specific store, and I\'ve already done all my homework. You know already a lot of information; you follow blogs, you follow web societies, you follow landing sites of specific car dealers related to specific products. At the end of the day, digital marketing is not only a powerful selling tool; it\'s a powerful source of valuable information. What about traditional? It costs a lot; it somehow interrupts your decision-making process. You need to find information on paper, on TV, or radio spots. You need to go to a physical store to acquire the information. The client is interrupted in their decision-making process. On the other side, digital marketing allows people to acquire information while sitting at the table. Last week, I was waiting for my son to finish his basketball game. I was surfing the net with this, and I made a purchase. I didn\'t need a product; I didn\'t know I needed a product or wanted the product, but I was surfing the web with a portable phone, and I was a victim of compulsive purchasing. And I know---I mean, I run courses, I build courses, I deliver marketing courses, and I\'m a marketing manager---I exactly know what happened in my brain. I know what happened in my emotional dimension, and I finalized the purchasing without needing it---not because I was bored, but because I thought there was a specific special offer tailor-made for me. I bought from Temu---it is not automatically one of the best e-commerce platforms. I did it even though I\'m an expert because I\'m changing my behavior. What is the key success factor? It\'s written here. I want to have a real-time response. I want to have a personalized experience. I want to have seamless interaction with the maximum amount of touchpoints with the company---but without touch pain points, and that is delays in delivery. I open up the box; I ordered a beautiful smartphone or beautiful green bottle. I open up the box, and it includes a lousy product well below my expectations. All the contact moments between customer and company must be seamless and painless---please remember this. Customers want to enjoy the maximum amount of contact with the company. You need to have---or you prefer or enjoy having---tracking records: \"Your product left China and is now on its way to Europe. It will be landing in Amsterdam, and it will go through customs clearance.\" Who cares? Yet we like it. Why? We want to feel contacted by the company, but only for painless, seamless interaction. So in this age, which is the digital age, you want to be able to get an immediate response. Another beautiful experience---or another terrible experience---was with Temu. I opened up the box; the picture was beautiful. The product inside was not beautiful at all; it was not even comparable to the beautiful picture, and I know that this happens. But then what happened---that was a couple of years ago---I sent the product back to Temu. It took me ages to send back the package, to get the money back. I had to send a couple of emails. From that standpoint, Amazon---and I don\'t want to repeat, and I\'m not selling you Amazon; I don\'t like Amazon either---they are too dominant in the market. They are becoming monopolists; they are becoming the benchmark of our life, not only of our product selection, so I don\'t like that at all. Yet I called them, and there was a lady behind the phone; there was not a chatbot. I was not talking to a robot; I was talking to a real woman. She said to me, \"I\'m sending you, in real-time, a QR code. Did you receive the email?\" And I said, \"Yes.\" \"Okay, print this QR code.\" I printed it, put it on the box. \"In 20 minutes, you will receive a guy ringing at the door and picking up the box. And in 48 hours, either you receive a full refund, or you will receive another product.\" That is seamless interaction; there is real problem-solving. So you don\'t buy from Amazon only because it costs less; you buy from Amazon because you give them your credit card, and you\'re on the safe side. You buy from Amazon because you want to have a refund, or you want to have the money back, or you want to have another product, and they will do exactly that. Yes, unfortunately, we will have the same experience with artificial intelligence. I\'m not so happy about it. I\'m not a Boomer; I work with artificial intelligence, but the final aim of my company is to humanize artificial intelligence. We\'ll talk about it later. Yes, a very scary and sad reality if we do not put it under due control, but we\'ll be discussing it because that is impacting our lives and marketing approach. The reason is very simple: you don\'t buy because the price is lower---because, I don\'t know, Alibaba does offer you low prices---you buy from Amazon because your credit card is on the safe side. You have 48 hours after, and the guy rings at the door after 20 minutes---it was not a dream; it was reality, etc. So the idea is, yes, we are changing behavior; we want to have individual service. We want to feel like individuals; they do offer you made-to-order customer service, which, by the way, is exactly the same for me and for all the 72 that are attending this course. But anyway, we feel like it\'s individual. It\'s seamless; it\'s painless; it has several touchpoints, yet it\'s effective. That is why nowadays we don\'t talk about the four P\'s of marketing anymore. I\'m a little bit late; I have only one hour, and I will take a shortcut. Some provocative questions to you: based on all the information, generally speaking, I ask a question---how many are the P\'s of marketing? A lot of people answer me four, and I say, \"Wrong answer.\" Product, place, promotion, and price are the four main pillars of classic traditional marketing. Of course, surprise, of course, you have to focus on product. Of course, you have to focus on distribution channel, and of course, you have to focus on that beautiful, evocative, and emotional \"Just Do It,\" \"Think Different,\" etc. But nowadays, we need to put on board---we need to do an onboarding of people. And those people are customers, but they are also your employees. If they don\'t believe in your vision and mission, you will never be successful. So people must be included in the P\'s of marketing. The physical evidence has got to be included. \"Professor, in a digital world, you\'re talking to me about physical evidence.\" Yes, I\'m telling you, the physical evidence is becoming much more important and is included in the P\'s of marketing, which, by the way, are not only seven. I\'m showing you this first slide in which you can see seven of the P\'s. I\'m including in it the process because it\'s exactly what we meant here---real-time responses, multiple touchpoints do include and involve a seamless process. Why is supply chain management more and more included in any operational activity of the company and in any marketing activity of the company? Logistics are strictly related to marketing. Why? They\'re part of a process. You want to be distinctive. Amazon with Prime was absolutely distinctive and is becoming a market leader. Why? Because the processes are integrated into the value proposition. I can offer what any other e-commerce neutral platform is offering you. How many are there in the world? Over 250. Name them---I don\'t remember, I don\'t recall. I don\'t even think about giving you 250 e-commerce neutral platforms, but you have Alibaba, AliExpress, Amazon. Zalando has become increasingly one of the most competitive e-commerce neutral platforms. It\'s going to be an element that people will pay for in the future transaction. In a digital world, I want to be distinctive in offering you physical evidence. What do you do very often? What do all of us do? We order made-in-Italy boots---beautiful. ASOS is another one; you name them. What is this? What is the physical evidence? A product. I love that---Fiorentini+Baker boots. They\'re made in Italy, but the size is in English---good for yours. And either you pray you don\'t like it, you put it back in the box, and you send it back, but the sustainability managers are jumping on the chair because it involves a big pollution issue. Or what do you do? You go to a physical store, you try it on, you look at the size, you think about it, and say, \"I will come back.\" Don\'t tell me that you have never done it because almost everyone has done it, and almost everyone has done it several times. Physical evidence is of paramount importance in the world of digital, and the P\'s of marketing have become eight, together with the classical ones: product, price, promotion, and place. You have physical evidence, you have people---which include employees, customer service---and in class includes promotion, place, price, and product, and process, and includes performance. Why do we talk about performance and include it in the marketing mix? Because how well the service or the product competes in the marketplace is the performance that you need to know in order to have loyal customers. We\'ll be talking about cross-selling and upselling; we\'ll be talking about the ways to keep on having happy, loyal customers. Why do we talk about this? Because Apple was the best one, but a lot of companies are very good at keeping customers loyal to the brand. Think about the fashion industry; think about the automotive industry. For your information, I don\'t know if anyone is working with Audi, but Audi invested almost 1 billion euros in anticipating the change of its Q5 and Q3 SUV models. Why did they do that? They decided to do so because competitors were aggressively jumping into the segment, so they anticipated the change of model in order to remain competitive in that segment. On the other side, Alfa Romeo, an Italian automotive brand, almost went bankrupt because after a beautiful model, the Alfa 149, they substituted it with another Alfa Romeo 159. Then between Alfa 159 and Alfa Romeo Giulia, it took them 10 years---nine years to be exact. So what happened? The very loyal Alfa Romeo customer, who was in love with the brand, with performance, with all features of their brand, went to the car dealer and said, \"My Alfa 159 is getting too old, and I need to have a replacement.\" And the guy or the girl, the car dealer, said, \"I have nothing. We are waiting for the Alfa Romeo Giulia.\" Of course, I\'m putting things simply, and the process was not so linear and easy, but I\'m highlighting the fact that nowadays, the cycle of a car or a product is much shorter. So performance becomes of paramount importance, becomes discriminating if you need to replace the product. And again, why is it a P of marketing? Because you get feedback from the customers. Because customers can tell you that after three years, they are sick and tired of the old car or the old product. That is why all major companies used to replace old products with new ones on a three- to five-year cycle. Nowadays, they replace it within one to two years, polluting the world and impacting the supply chain and also sustainability, investing a lot of money. But if the feedback is, \"I want to have a new iPhone after two years,\" they must be able to respond. So that is why performance---how well the service or the product competes in the marketplace---has become one of the key critical factors of the marketing mix. And I jump on mobile marketing, the rise of social media. Why do we talk about this now? What is it that we are putting on the table? A few years ago, I would surf the net with my computer, but there was no social success. I started using a tablet; it was easier. I would carry it around, but then, at the end of the day, features and performance and activities were not so competitive. So the tablet was not as successful an alternative to the laptop. But nowadays, how do you manage your social media? I\'m not on Facebook; you will never find me. I\'m very active on LinkedIn; I have 3,000 contacts. I welcome every one of you who would like to join or get in touch with me through LinkedIn because LinkedIn is a serious platform. If you say that you deliver training managerial courses in English and you write it down on LinkedIn, someone can raise their hand and say, \"Listen, last time you were delivering courses, you were not speaking English properly. You were not putting good content.\" It\'s a serious platform for professionals, speaking to me. Facebook is not a place where to find good old folks from the past; it has become a marketplace. You sell products; you do a lot of other things. So I skip that fashion. But mobile marketing was strictly linked to social media. Why? Because it allowed you to keep on talking constantly and interfacing constantly through mobile. Nowadays, websites which are not optimized for mobile phones simply don\'t sell. They don\'t communicate; they don\'t do marketing. So mobile marketing was somehow included in the service. You have to focus on mobile users. As I mentioned to you before, out of 8 billion people living all over the planet, 5.61 billion people---70 percent of the entire population---have a subscription with a mobile phone. Almost 5.4 billion people---66 percent of the population---have access to the internet, even if they are in the desert, in not easy locations. And 5.2--5.4 billion people use social media. How can you avoid communicating? It\'s a powerful, great, and outstanding opportunity. Why? Because social media has become, as I mentioned to you before, a way to transfer information, a way to get information, a way to get to know people, but a way to develop business. A lot of companies develop marketing campaigns exclusively on Facebook. And you know what? They\'re successful. A lot of other companies develop campaigns on Facebook, LinkedIn, or whatever platform or social medium you want to refer to. They do word of mouth, and they have physical stores. But the integration of those must go through the fact that nowadays everybody is on social media because we love to talk to people, we love to have access to information. We love to stay in the same place where dealers and all the famous guys, and boys and girls, and groups and music are. I can easily develop information, music, etc. And this is social media usage. You remember those 5.04 billion people that are members or have a social media subscription? Out of those, a lot of people increasingly use social media and subscriptions. A lot of people---84.2 percent of social media users are aged 18 and over. That means that an entire segment over 18 is using social media. And social media has a 266 million people year-on-year growth. This means that by four or five years. Every single person will have a beautiful subscription access to Internet Etc. Why? Because things are changing every day; things are constantly changing. A lot of women are free, or they can have free access or easier access to information through social platforms. Think about ladies in student communities or in some other countries. Again, I don\'t know where you come from, probably you\'re not as aware of that reality as I am, but as a matter of fact, we are putting on the table what you want to talk about, and that is my case. We deliver services to hotels and facility management. I want to hire a legal expert nowadays. I focus on LinkedIn. Tomorrow, I want to hire waiters, chefs, shift managers, cuisine specialists, and cleaning clerks. I don\'t even bother to go to LinkedIn. I go on Facebook, or any other platform. Teenagers on TikTok and Instagram are major global economic driving forces at the moment, and I completely agree. I agree with you, and there is another issue with TikTok. Exactly like Google, they sell nothing. What is their product? The product of YouTube and TikTok, etc., is the content that we upload. We upload the content; we are their product. We constantly feed those platforms. And you know what? There is a company, a consultancy firm that does nothing all year long. They do not produce anything but collect data and information. At the end of each year, they rank the brand power and brand visibility of each company. The name of this consultancy firm is Interbrand. They gather all the data, and then every year, almost in a couple of weeks, they release the rankings. They create a ranking of brand power. That means if you want to buy the brand Apple, you don\'t need 700,000 euros or 700 million; you need over\... I don\'t remember how many billions you need to buy the brand. But you want to know something: TikTok is nowadays in the top 10 rankings from Interbrand due to the fact that if you want to buy TikTok, you have to pay 70 million dollars just to buy the logo. Of course, nobody will ever buy the logo. But what is the link between the logo and value proposition nowadays? There is a strict link between them and for people who serve the internet all year long, all day long, an average of two hours and 23 minutes, people are on their own social platforms. That means they spend almost eight hours over-checking their phones. You know how many times we check our smartphones? On average, between 170 and 250 times a day. We are becoming addicted. That is why artificial intelligence might be a major threat. We are already addicted. Someone said to me, \"You go to the metro or train and see everybody staring at their phones. 20 or 30 years ago, you would find yourself in front of a train full of people reading newspapers.\" So what\'s the difference? The difference is the tool. The difference is not only the tool. The information was static back then. The information is fully interactive now, which is why there is a major shift in behavior because social media use has greatly affected our lives. And that is why we talk about opportunities and challenges. Of course, the digital market gives you unparalleled opportunities. It also presents a set of challenges because things are constantly changing. I will show you in just a couple of minutes in detail what we mean by a constantly changing environment. But I\'m giving you advice, a stimulus, something that will put you in a condition to reflect upon tonight and tomorrow before we meet again. Today, I\'m giving you the idea, the methodology, and the content. Tomorrow, we will implement, and we will base all this content on an enormous amount of examples. I will show you innovative distribution channels. I will show you companies that have generated the greatest growth in the history of business, and they are not Apple, Amazon, or TikTok. The company that generated the greatest and fastest growth is an American company called Liquid Death. Tomorrow, your mouth will go like this, by surprise, and your eyes will be spread like this. Where am I giving you here? As a hint, as food for thought: not only marketing people, not only marketing gurus or marketing experts must be flexible, agile, and adaptive to changes. Each manager of any company in any industry must be conditioned to dance with changes. The reason is very simple: not only marketing, but in any operational set of activities a company performs, there is space for dramatic change. We will look at it and focus in one minute on the fact that it\'s not only a matter of General Data Protection Regulation, rules, and laws, etc. All those rules and regulations must condition a potential customer to protect themselves from invasive marketing activities. On the other side, you must be conditioned to know that the challenges are related to understanding digital channels and devices used by a constantly growing number and quality of consumers. We change: when we are 18, we decide to follow certain content; when we are 25, we decide to follow other content. When it\'s early in the morning and we are managers, we follow some content; at night, we follow completely different content. So the first challenge is we must understand the digital channels and devices used by consumers. Number two, different devices use different protocols, specifications, and interfaces nowadays. Your website optimized for computers is not optimized for smartphones or tablets. You are wiped out in the market, as simple as that. If I\'m surfing the net and I visit inter.com or juventus.com and I see beautiful videos and pictures on a laptop, then I switch to my phone because I\'m in the middle of the street waiting for my son to come out of the gym. But inter.com or juventus.com don\'t show me those beautiful sets of videos. They are simply out of business. Why? Because I\'m using my computer for business activities and my phone for fun activities while waiting for my son. So I must condition myself to enjoy services here as well because if I enjoy services here and I have TamU and Temo on my laptop, I can exchange information and benefit from constant special offers, and I go back to TamU because they are very proactive in proposing things. The third challenge is consumers interact with devices in different ways and for different purposes. In the morning, I use them in a specific way to grab information, interact with my customers and employees, and manage my company in a completely different way than in the afternoon when I enjoy those devices differently using different protocols. We use devices for different purposes. The fourth challenge is that nowadays, we are all constantly distracted. I\'m not old and obsolete, but very often, I open a window in Windows or in Google, surf the net, and receive pop-ups, reminders, calendars, etc. After three minutes, I don\'t remember why I opened the window. Again, I\'m not old, I\'m not obsolete, I\'m not stupid. I don\'t smoke joints, I\'m very fresh, and my mind is still very sharp, but I get so many distractions that do not allow me to make proper decisions. What does this mean here? While you are proactively proposing your product in the market to a potential customer, a lead, or a prospect, please bear in mind that they are receiving your value proposition and your special offer, but they are also receiving another 10, 15, 20 special offers. We are all overwhelmed. How do you grab their attention? How do you attract them? I will show you tomorrow with the AIDA funnel. Don\'t surf the net and look at AIDA funnel now, because I will give you my specific interpretation key. Last and most important marketing challenge: you must be conditioned to synthesize, analyze, and utilize the increasing amount of data. As I told you in the beginning, I am partly the owner of a consultancy firm. The name is Ambire, and the core business of Ambire is to provide companies with internationalization consultancy services. We approach companies most of the time when they call us and ask us to go international, to develop internationalization, even when the owner and founder of the company is getting old and wants to be substituted by daughters or sons. So there is a generation gap. They call us and try to smooth the substitution process. Very often, the main reason why they call us is because they receive a huge amount of data from their website, from their customers, from their intermediaries. They don\'t know how to effectively prioritize and interpret that data. It sounds incredible, but this is reality very often. They really don\'t know how to prioritize information. Exactly. Seven or eight touchpoints before they buy because consumers are exposed to a huge running inflection. I will give you a reference regarding this Jasper in a few minutes. So what are the major sets of threats? Not only that things constantly change, not only that devices change, not only that you have access to computers in different ways, but also that very often companies get a lot of data, mainly from their digital customers, from their digital intermediaries, from their website. They don\'t know how to effectively interpret that data or how to prioritize them. If I\'m telling you, throughout these two and a half hours, I gave you a lot of information about me. I am all LinkedIn, I love watches, a lot of information. Very often companies don\'t know the correct priority setting. Why are you supposed to sell me watches or ask me to travel around the globe? After 11 years of an expert career, completely changing industries after 25 years in the air transportation industry, joint consultancy. Do I like delivering training manager courses? Yes, I do, even though I\'m not a typical professor. I follow my own logical thinking and transfer the information in a way that is not orthodox. A lot of information, a lot of data---very often, you don\'t know how to interpret that data, how to fully prioritize that data. And that creates a whole set of key, critical issues for companies. So, at the end of the day, very often, especially with reference to devices, you are finding difficulties in reacting properly to market challenges. Let me give you a very good example related to that. Let me tell you a true story that happened to me a few months ago, and then I will ask you a question. A few months ago, I said to my son, who\'s 14, very active in the digital world, spending a lot of hours in front of a smartphone, \"I must look to you as a boomer because I keep using my laptop, even though the laptop I\'m using to deliver this course is my office.\" I don\'t have an office; for 10 years now, the typical classical office desk, room, chairs, etc., I move around. Even in my office, I don\'t stay in the same location, and as the CEO of a company with 370 people and over 20 million euros in turnover, I don\'t like to stay in any specific office. I like to move around and enjoy changes, but I look like a boomer because I\'m using a laptop. I told him, \"In a few years, you who are using a smartphone will be considered out of fashion.\" He said, \"Why?\" I showed him a beautiful example of Apple Vision Pro. You wear those glasses, and you have a beautiful, huge computer display in front of you. You move icons, open icons simply by moving your hands. I don\'t know if you have seen the video. Well, set the pair of glasses. They are heavy. They have a big band, about one and a half kilos on your head. It makes your hair collapse. After one hour of use, it has a big recharging battery, which weighs another kilo at the bottom of your desk. It\'s a heavy tool. And he said to me, \"Of course, I will not use my phone, but I will not use those Google or Apple Vision Pro. I will be using a pair of glasses.\" He already knows that Apple launched those super beautiful and professional Vision Pro, which allow you to work in any space and watch beautiful movies in any environment, but they are still heavy, too involving, and they cover your face with a big protection band that prevents you from looking normal in front of other people. Yet very soon, he will be enjoying miniaturized versions of those Apple professional devices, whatever you want to call them. I don\'t remember exactly the name because they will be conditioned to include two RAM modules, a beautiful video camera, and all the hard disks, etc., linked through proper cloud connectivity. So, as a matter of fact, the changes and opportunities in digital marketing are already taking place. I will be a boomer with a laptop, but you probably will be Generation Z, Alpha, whatever will be out of fashion with your smartphone because you will be wearing a pair of glasses and surfing the web while waiting for your son to finish at the gym. You will be purchasing something simply with your hands, and most probably in a matter of a few decades, even less, you will have a beautiful piece of metal inserted in your hands and talk over the phone like in any science fiction movie. This topic is already on the table. So, what is the idea? The idea is that yes, you have a lot of opportunities in digital marketing, but you also have a lot of challenges related not only to the fact that devices are changing but also to the different protocols, how consumers interact with devices in different ways, and capturing people\'s interest is becoming increasingly difficult because we are all overwhelmed with information, last but not least, too much information generate no information. If too much data is prioritized, nothing stands out as more important. If everything is important, nothing is important. Not only you, but all companies must be conditioned to effectively prioritize data in order to remain competitive. After all this talk about traditional marketing and innovative digital marketing, I\'m proposing to you, I\'m putting on the table under your attention the fact that the best way is, as usual, a blended mix of digital and classical marketing. We need to have everything integrated. Why? Because yes, traditional marketing provides you with a lot of opportunities and constraints. Digital marketing is generating a huge amount of stress besides a huge amount of opportunities. We need to find a hybrid way to react. Integrating is the only future of marketing. You need to blend them. You need to use both in a reasonable, attractive, and emotional way. The eight-piece marketing strategy I already gave you serves as a recipe, and tomorrow I will tell you exactly why we will be in a condition to do that. We need to find that way. Traditional marketing is the past; digital marketing is the present, but we want to not only disrupt traditional marketing. We want to absolutely generate a third way, which is the integrated one. Nowadays, companies are successfully launching only digital campaigns, and they are delivering very well, but they are missing a full component, and that component is, again, I want to be involved. I want to be eventually involved. I want someone to deal with me. If I make a phone call and receive, and this happens often at least in Italy, if I receive a phone call from a strange number and I say hello, and I get a robotic voice telling me that their offer is the best in the market, I hang up. I don\'t even waste time listening after five words. If I\'m talking to a chatbot and they say, \"Good morning, my name is Luca. I\'m here to assist you,\" once a few years ago, I joined the trap and wrote some messages. As soon as I understood I was talking to a robot, I immediately quit and also quit the company. What does that mean? It means that I understand that due to the economy of scale, you do not respond with a human being because probably that guy or girl costs a lot. I understand this, but I don\'t like to be treated or managed by a robotic voice or a chatbot. I must be conditioned to say, \"I don\'t want that. I want something else.\" It\'s exactly like when you\'re calling a bank and they ask you to press one for English, press two for Italian, press one for a claim, press two if you want to deposit money, etc. At the end, they say press zero if you want to talk to an operator. How many of you press one, two, three, four, five? We all press zero. We want to talk to a person. Of course, if I have to deposit 10 euros, I can do it easily and don\'t bother. But if I need something more complex than a simple automatic activity, I want to talk to a person. So, the future of marketing is not only delivering a message. A few years ago, marketing was considered a sub-activity of sales, activity of salespeople. I\'m a salesman, a negotiator. I\'m a professional negotiator. Just to make things clear, yes, I\'m HR, I\'m a general manager, whatever you want to call it, but I am in sales. I\'m a sales manager, but I consider marketing nowadays a strategic set of activities and a strategic discipline of any company. It\'s not because we are broadcasting a message and it\'s not because we are broadcasting a two-way message, where I send you a message and you give me an answer. It\'s because nowadays companies receive big data, and those who are not conditioned to deliver the proper message are simply out of the marketing game. People are strategic in prioritizing, interpreting, and responding properly to potential customers---8 billion people who want to feel like individuals. Please remember this: you want to feel like an individual, even your brother, even your cousin, even the guy in front of you is different. All of you want to have specific, different services. Otherwise, that unique selling proposition will not be there. Can you make an example of a specific unique value proposition? Classic and digital marketing strategies\' final aim is to improve brand equity. We talk and address the brand as an equity because brand equity is an asset of the company. Otherwise, Interbrand would not rank brand power and would not associate a value to the brand, an economic value to the brand. Brand equity means your company can produce exactly the same product as Apple. Apple will always beat you for the very simple reason that it has extremely strong brand equity. And that\'s the reason why you love Apple---not because the video display or the computer itself is better than a beautiful HP. I\'m delivering the lesson that the intrinsic value is exactly brand equity and the unique selling proposition. If you have a unique selling proposition, you are not playing in the Champions League; you are Maradona or Ronaldo. The unique selling proposition is what makes the Rolex brand unique. What happens to you? What happens when you want to buy a Rolex? You go to a jewelry store, select the product that costs 10,000 euros, pay three thousand euros as a deposit, and the jewelry manager says, \"Okay, you can go home. We will call you three years from now.\" \"Dear Mr. Dominico, it\'s not the case. I didn\'t buy Rolex. Dear Mr. Dominico, please come to pick up your Rolex. It has finally arrived. By the way, the price has risen from 10,000 to 13,000 euros. So, please come to the jewelry store with another 10,000 euros, and you can pick up the watch.\" What do you do? You run to the jewelry store with 10,000 euros, pick up the Rolex, and go home happy. Why? Because Rolex has a unique selling proposition. I know people hear it wrong. The former general manager of Ernest and Young Consulting firm retired; he had quite a bit of money. I personally know him---I don\'t know if he is one of your relatives or uncles or parents, but I know the guy. He buys a Rolex, goes to the bank, puts that Rolex in the safe, and doesn\'t even wear it once. He keeps the Rolex there. After three, four, five years, he pulls the Rolex out of the safe and resells it for 50-60 percent more than the purchase price. He said to me, \"I enjoy this kind of investment because it gives me a ROI return on investment which is higher than any apartment I can buy in Rome.\" Why do you buy Rolex? Not for fashion. You buy Rolex because you pay attention to status. I have a colleague who does not even know that Rolex has an internal fine automatic mechanism. He told me, \"Mauricio, I bought this Rolex three years ago, and I haven\'t changed the battery yet.\" When he told me that, I wanted to kill the guy---of course, I\'m joking. I\'m not a killer. I love watches; I have this beautiful Omega 1965 Omega, which is worth much more than 10,000 euros, but nobody looks at it. You know why the guy bought a Rolex? Because he wants to show off a status symbol. \"You don\'t buy Rolex because you\'re watching time on your watch.\" People watch time on their smartphone. People take pictures on their smartphone. You buy a Rolex away for three years? You invest for the same reason why you drive a Mercedes. And to add, it\'s exactly the same reason as buying a Mercedes Class A. You don\'t know that the engine of that Mercedes Class A and the basic platform are exactly the same as a Renault Megane. And if you know, you don\'t buy a Renault Megane for 19,000 euros. You buy a beautiful Class A for 27,000 euros---almost 10,000 more for the very simple reason that you want to show status. That\'s exactly the reason why. So that is why we need to implement it. It\'s prestigious, but it is not the only reason why some people don\'t even know what they are wearing. They are just using it as a tool. Only a few very experts in watches buy a Rolex because of its intrinsic value. They have a beautiful ETA movement. It is an investment. The guy that I know, the former general manager of Ernest & Young Italy, buys Rolex watches, keeps them in a bank safe, and resells them after three years because it\'s an investment. I can list a lot of brands that do sell status---Gucci is one of those. A lot of companies are delivering outstanding unique selling propositions because they are the best in conveying, transforming, and transferring a brand equity message, a brand impact message, and a unique selling proposition. I\'m not asking you or advising you to sell lousy products with a beautiful brand because if the product is not good, the brand cannot be improved. As a matter of fact, the brand has to be strong because it\'s based on some core business, some core product, some effective real value product. If you\'re selling a mediocre product, you can invest a lot of money in brand equity, but sooner or later, the product will not be there to support the brand equity. Apple has strong brand equity because it sells outstanding products. They sell outstanding products, but a lot of people buy them not for the product itself but for the intrinsic value---the brand\'s power. Irrelevant bags are an investment like Rolex. Watches depreciate much slower than cars. We are saying that it's more effective to be positioned to deliver a blend or hybrid of digital and traditional marketing. The more effectively you deliver the message, the more you enhance revenue, support brand equity, and strengthen your unique selling proposition. If you have a beautiful product, but you don\'t know how to communicate it, because neither you have clear in mind it, you will fail. Apple almost went bankrupt to fully understand that they were in a condition to deliver outstanding innovative products. Once they fully understood the reason Why a customer should buy their product, they started to deliver a coherent message and they never left it, that is the secret. Remember, why should I buy a Mercedes? Because of status? Yes, but if a Mercedes breaks down after three years, nobody will buy it. The quality is essential: the product must be effective, and the communication should reinforce its value; this is what we are doing. So how do we do that? An integrated traditional marketing strategy is so important and I should have already convinced you by now, how do we implement a digital marketing strategy. What are the elements of a successful digital marketing strategy? Number one: engaging, appealing, interesting website. How often do you land on a website and read the latest or last updates? June 2021. Oh, okay. I\'m not buying anything from this. The latest update was June; probably they died of COVID, the company went bankrupt, etc. The website has to be interesting, appealing, sexy, involving, updated, adjusted, with special offers---\"Tomorrow we will be launching this new product. Please follow us. Please give me your email account. I will be giving you constant updates.\" The website is as visit card and it has to be fresh, involving,l. It should be involving emotionally, generating appealing content. Very often, I use the word \"sexy\" because I\'m not referring to sexuality, but a website that is interactive, fresh, constantly updated, and appealing is somehow sexy---not in a difficult male-female interaction sense, but it\'s sexy in the way that makes me feel appreciative of the product. Immediately after, search engine optimization. And I will give you a brief introduction to what I do. I run and manage a startup called Rebu. Rebu in Japanese means \"review.\" And what is the issue here? What is the issue today? Everybody leaves a review, especially if you\'re not happy. A lot of companies don\'t pay attention to reviews. The better you answer a review from a happy customer and from an unhappy customer, the better your website will be visualized in any search. So search engine optimization is of paramount importance because if you want to look for a cozy hotel for families on the weekend with a babysitter, you search the web. You ask Google or Chrome, whatever you want to call it. If your hotel is on page number three or page number four, the question to you is, how many times or how often do you go after number five, number one, number two are sponsored offers; you don\'t open them. Number three, number four, number five are the ones that you see. How often do you open page two or page three when you are surfing Google and trying to buy something or trying to get information? Nobody does. Search engine optimization means using the proper keywords, the best reviews, or responding in the best way to a review. Any of your customers leaving a review will increase your visibility. Then content marketing. Very often, content marketing is about leaving behind creative digital content to generate brand awareness. Why is content marketing becoming more and more important? The answer is very simple. How much do you trust influencer bloggers and trendsetters? Probably, you used to trust them, but not nowadays. Why? Because nowadays, trendsetters and blogger influencers are paid by companies. They tell you how beautiful this hotel is, and it\'s not true. It used to be true because influencers were people with a lot of friends, a lot of contacts, and many people followed them, so they would give you advice: \"Look at this beautiful bottle, it\'s green, it keeps water cool for over three hours.\" So it made sense for me to follow your advice. Nowadays, followers are not paying attention to influencers as much as they used to. Email marketing. A lot of businesses use email marketing as a way to communicate with their audience. Again, mass email marketing is a massive email campaign. If you send mass emails like, \"Dear customer, land on my website and follow my webinar,\" doesn\'t work. If you write to me, \"Dear Mr. Dominico, you bought this product last month, you attended the tourism board in Rimini, and you had a chance to pay us a visit. Please use this special coupon as a welcome to our website because you are very interested in our product,\" it\'s personalized email marketing. Same thing for social media marketing. Social media is a great way to promote your brand. But think how influential and how deluded this is. The paper click-purple click is still a little bit effective, but again there should be touchpoints personalized to be effective. The key critical factor I\'m putting on the table is all the key critical issues. And tomorrow, I will show you all the ways to solve all these issues the proper way. But anyway, the paper click, social media marketing, and email marketing together with an engaging website or search engine optimization and content marketing are still the way to run an effective strategy. Red blogs and articles, especially expert articles from your industry journalists---credible people coming from outside your company who can write accurate and reliable articles and blogs---be credible. That is the key. Web content, white papers, documents coming from another industry, another set of experts, another institution that would support your ideas, communications, marketing proposals, variety of eBooks. But again, it\'s incredible if your eBook only talks about your company; that\'s not an eBook. Nobody will even get it for free. Paperclip campaigns, specialized search engines, and webinars. Webinars cannot be three hours long and not talk about a huge amount of information. At the end, they can say, \"If you want further information, please contact us.\" Nobody attends them. In terms of webinars, they must be short, aggressive somehow, elegant, polite, and somehow provoking, but very fast. You must generate reality, but you must generate accuracy with eBooks or white papers where search engines are the key factor. Digital marketing strategy relies on the fact that people don\'t read emails anymore. And if they read them, they read the first three lines. After the third line, the fourth line, they lose attention. You want to generate an inviting, evolving, provoking proposal. Write it down: \"75% discount\" and only write down \"why?\" But if you write all the reasoning, why, then you prepare your text for the very bottom, and even if you\'re brighter in bold, capital letters, you will not be as affected. Because, as I mentioned before, the threats are too many distractions, too much documentation, too much information---overwhelming information. So the strategy, the digital marketing mix based on those strategies includes all of those. And this is somehow a better or more detailed explanation. It\'s nine o\'clock. I assume that you must be tired, but this is the last statement as a status by customer is the best marketing and strategy and business strategy of all. Your final aim is to have satisfied customers. Now, I know that it\'s nine o\'clock, and I didn\'t have time to open a Q&A session. But tomorrow, hopefully, we\'ll be in a condition to do that. I can\'t rely on usable customer reviews, trust file reviews, real-time videos uploaded by certified customers to be incorporated into a digital marketing strategy. Yes, because if they are independent, if there are certified customers who can write a review and say, \"I can witness that the product offered by that company is a good product,\" that is definitely a good opportunity. Tomorrow, I will be in a condition to give you a lot of examples based on the eight-piece marketing strategy, and I will be in a condition to provoke a lot of reflection. I will be provoking a lot of reflection because I will put on the table outstanding examples of companies you didn\'t even know existed. That is why I do not anticipate materials to my students, and I will be in a condition to remember that digital strategy is based on influencers. I do not agree with this. Young people who have zero experience still believe in influencers, but the influencer phenomenon is constantly decreasing because they are not trustworthy, they are not credible. Everybody knows that they have been paid by companies, so not so many people still believe that influencers are neutral and trustworthy. Young people? Absolutely yes. But we, people who are surfing the web for a couple of years, know that influencers lack credibility somehow. Tomorrow, I will give another set of information. Now, I kindly ask you to reflect upon what I said: the integration of digital and traditional marketing. I kindly ask you to focus on the reason why you should buy from your USP (unique selling proposition) and brand equity. All this will be the fundamental core and basis of tomorrow\'s presentation. If you don\'t have any comments or anything, I will kindly ask you to thank you. I know that I don\'t know if it\'s a great lesson, but anyway, based on a different approach, enjoy the evening. I will rest my boys for tomorrow. Thank you, thanks to all of you.