Jason (00:00)
Hi, I'm with my friend Dave Edelman, marketer extraordinaire. Dave, welcome to the Wisory Wise in Five

Dave Edelman (00:07)
Thanks Jason, it's terrific to be part of the team here.

Jason (00:10)
Well, we are thrilled. So thank you for sharing your wisdom, your time, and can't wait to dive into some of these questions. But before we do, if you wouldn't mind sharing some of your incredible background with the people who are watching and listening.

Dave Edelman (00:23)
so I've been in marketing for quite a while, even before the internet. So it's been about 35 years since I graduated from ⁓ Harvard Business School. I went right in with the Boston Consulting Group, working on marketing-oriented projects right before the internet when customer information became a thing. I wrote an article called Segment of One Marketing in 89.

Then I wrote all the new stuff coming on with e-commerce through the 90s and then became part of a team that started Digitas, one of the larger interactive agencies now part of publicists. I ran the strategy and analytic team there. Then when we, when we sold to publicists, McKinsey appeared on my doorstep and asked me to build a digital marketing strategy practice for the firm, which I did for eight years. It was a terrific run of working with

a lot of different size companies across sectors on how to transform the way they operate to take advantage of digital capabilities, which is a lot of parallels now with AI as well. And then I left to get my hands dirty and I became chief marketing officer at Aetna, the health insurance company where we did a pretty, ⁓ pretty major overhaul, overhauling brand organization, digital capabilities. And it was

A great run as well. got bought by CVS during that time. And then during the restructuring, I became a free agent. And so I do independent consulting now. I'm just on my own. I work with large enterprises, driving change. I work with a lot of mid-sized companies, especially with CEO and CMO pairs about how to get marketing to provide more impact.

And then I also work with AI startups to really keep myself fresh and understanding what's going on at the front line of the action today. So ⁓ it's a great run and I'm still having fun.

Jason (02:21)
And you and I, similar backgrounds in terms of, kind of the digital transformation, getting into data.

So let's dive into our questions. My first question, which I ask all of our guests, is where do you find inspiration?

Dave Edelman (02:36)
so I have long been a huge fan of the arts. I play tenor saxophone, I am part of a jazz ensemble, and I find my inspiration from the arts, especially arts where groups are working together in a collaborative way to make something special, different, unique, how they play off each other, how they think about bringing in new ideas into the team.

And so different recording artists, whether it's theater as well, I get a lot of inspiration from that. I certainly listen to a lot of jazz and edgy composers and rock stars like David Bowie have always interested me. And some of the newer jam bands like Fish and Goose, I love the way they connect and push things and their sense of...

improv and shape. think there's just a lot for organizations to learn from. I've written articles about this. I think there are many parallels to what's needed today in terms of teamwork, agility, playing off each other, introducing new ideas and experimenting that I absolutely bring into the discussions I have with my clients.

Jason (03:48)
and jazz especially, Because it's a lot of playing off of each other, not knowing exactly where it's gonna go. So you go outside of yourself to make sure that as a team, we're working together to create something that's meaningful.

Dave Edelman (03:55)
That's right. Exactly, Jason.

Exactly. Yes.

Jason (04:04)
So let's talk about AI, I think that's how you pronounce it, right? As AI. So I've heard it described as two years ago, it was wow. And then last year it was how, and then this year it's now, Let's get it done. So what emerging trends in AI and marketing technology are you most excited about? Not just now, but for the next five to seven years?

Dave Edelman (04:06)
Mm-hmm.

So in October, I actually published a co-authored book on personalization called Personalized Customer Strategy in the Age of AI, because I've always been fascinated by the ability for brands to not only change marketing, but aspects of the customer experience overall based on appropriately knowing things about your customer.

And so what gets me excited, and this was the premise of the book, is that personalization doesn't really have to be just manipulating people through marketing messages that happen to have their name or that happen to have a picture of an image of the city they're in. It's actually thinking about how to compete and change the value proposition by using customer information to make something different.

Just very quick example that I use in the book when my town where I lived at the time, Lexington, Massachusetts offered a discount on solar panels. You get a discount on your property taxes. There was a company who sent personalized URLs to everybody. You click on the URL, you get a Google Earth image of the roof of your house.

Calculating the amount of energy those panels generate based on your longitude and latitude, your east, northwest exposure. They went to Zillow, got the square footage of my house to estimate my total energy and came up with a proportion of how much energy I would save with solar panels. And the whole experience going forward was completely personalized. That wasn't a big company.

That's a company who is just really thinking through the customer experience and what's possible with the data available. And that's what gets me excited. Companies that are asking me to come in are thinking about those things. It's often a blend of from the top, how the CEO wants to compete and how a CMO or chief digital officer or chief experience officer, or in a midsize firm, doesn't have to be a chief, just a VP of that.

somebody who's leading the charge from the customer perspective, thinking about how can we add new kinds of value based on what AI can unlock about capturing and mobilizing customer information.

Jason (06:42)
That's really smart. That example blows me away because being product centric versus customer centric, right? That is extremely customer centric and trying to think about what they need throughout the journey, not just in how they're engaging, but then how it's actually delivered and that value message. That's a very impressive example. Good for that company.

Dave Edelman (07:02)
And there are many other ways that are subtle ways of thinking about it. One of my other clients is a midsize industrial distribution company. think, know, drill bits, lubricating fluids, things like that. And for the most part, distribution companies thought of themselves as where people who worked in manufacturing shops would just go to buy stuff. And so it was based on convenience, availability, price.

and a discussion about what's the right thing for me. But now with AI, you can go a lot further in terms of what is the right thing for you, trying to compete as a machine shop owner on an RFP. What do you need to buy in order to carve that part out of metal? And how much is that going to cost? And how do you get the exact right tolerances?

And that's where my client's going is using data to unlock those kinds of questions instead of just being essentially a Home Depot for industrial goods. That's thinking about personalization and using data in new ways to drive value.

Jason (08:11)
Totally agree. And I think even with AI, mean, you and I have been through different data iterations and modeling iterations. It's the adjacencies around what AI can do and then good old fashioned human insights, And that type of expertise and experience that only comes with folks like you that can say, okay, here's what it told us, now how do we apply it?

Dave Edelman (08:35)
And there's a lot of issues around how you mobilize your operations to take advantage of it. We're not thinking in general broad enough about what AI can do. Gen.ai has stolen the show for a lot of content creation and doing research, but there's also AI has the ability, for example, to help you integrate data from disparate sources.

enable you to analyze data by just asking queries, enable you to model different customer segments and how past behavior might extrapolate in the future. It can help you build scenarios of what might happen as you play with prices. And all of those have ripple effects in terms of your ability to take advantage of that because

it requires often a village. requires a number of different functions working together in an integrated way to operate differently because now you can bring the data together. You can change the way you're delivering value. And that requires strategy on what you actually want to deliver. But then senior leadership saying, no, we're going to actually mobilize in a different way to do this.

We're going to create smaller cross-functional teams that can be focused on customer segments or particular categories, for example. And those are the kind of changes that come up with my clients who are trying to get the value out of AI beyond just simply getting an efficiency boost here and there. To really make the change, it requires going a bit deeper. And that's what we work on.

Jason (10:16)
we just did a round table a few weeks ago around AI and analytics with some, with three very high level, analytics executives going through exactly what you were talking about. and one of the things that I come away with this is it's actually a good time to be small because

You can use AI, it's a force multiplier, Essentially what you're saying, because you can move very nimbly if you're a mid-sized business to take that data. And as you were saying, to the village or the team that you have, be able to execute in a variety of different ways that sometimes these larger organizations, it's just working through the different bureaucratic layers to get things done.

Dave Edelman (10:55)
and working through all the different functional silos set up in hierarchies, smaller companies can be a lot more nimble. They can swarm around things. Now there are still issues about resource allocation and wing walking. we talk about that a lot, my clients and I, how

You make the move from point A to point B without losing all the revenue on point A and how to actually do that. And, there's an art to that that we work through. There's testing involved and different ways of running those tests and mobilizing to do that that are important. But you're absolutely right, Jason, for small and mid-sized companies, the ability to...

get all that knowledge and expertise and analytic firepower and creative support. You have that now. So the question is, how are you going to use it to change the way you compete?

Jason (11:50)
Yep, absolutely. So we're on question three. And I could tell this is going to be a really great conversation just off of the first two questions. So you mentioned your book, the book about personalization and customer strategy in the age of AI. And people can get that on Amazon, right?

Dave Edelman (11:53)
Thank

Yes, absolutely.

Jason (12:07)
Maybe they could get a signed copy from you if they engage with you, right? So for marketers who've been around for a while, let's say, that a segmentation of one has always been discussed, As that's the holy grail, if you can get to it, it's not just the marketing side, it's the operational side, as you said. But what are the biggest challenges that mid-sized businesses face when they try to implement?

Dave Edelman (12:11)
There you go. Yes.

Jason (12:33)
these personalized approaches.

Dave Edelman (12:34)
there's a few challenges we have to get over. One of which is really thinking about the value proposition. So are you just simply going to have creative designs that are tailored or are you really going to provide a much richer experience? So for example, for a mid-sized company,

You've got a sales force, let's say you're a B2B company. You got a sales force that's knocking on doors. Are you going to step back and enable your sales force using these tools to have way richer knowledge of the companies they're calling on? Latest information about what's being said about them in social media, about from analysts reports.

latest information about what that company may or may not have done on your website with your products, and then using that to actually suggest the top three things you can talk about with them and maybe even script it out. Now that's all doable today, but are you going to really do that? Are you going to get your sales force to operate differently? So, so much of this is around behavior change.

and getting people comfortable with new capabilities and ways of working and the way they interact with customers will change. It'll be enabled with much richer information, more suggestion, more priorities, but you are changing behavior. I'll give you just another quick example. You may be a company that runs seasonal campaigns. That's the way you do marketing is you've got

calendar but the reality is people are buying all at different points at different reasons they're in market at different times and You want to be able to run something that's more trigger-based? So responding to information about particular customers in the moment Well in order to do that at scale it requires bit more automation and it requires a lot more test and learn

And it requires smaller groups of people working together to test things versus having five people all hand off to each other to get something out the door. Think about those five people working together interactively to get 25 more things out the door because they're working as a team. They're using the tools to automate, generate some creative ideas, get lists, get the trigger list faster.

And so that's change in the operation. So the hardest thing, and whether it's a big company, medium-sized company, is changing behaviors. These tools are incredibly powerful, but it's not just the tool. I did a study with BCG about what separated folks who were getting more ROI from less, and 70 % of the value was the difference in the ways of working.

Jason (15:27)
That's right.

Dave Edelman (15:27)
as opposed

to whether they had data or whether they had technology.

Jason (15:30)
That's right. For me, and I think for the foreseeable future, it's going to come down to people, no matter the tools and the data, it's how you do it. That's where this whole idea of adjacency with AI, it's a pendulum. So people tend to swing pretty fast. I don't know if we'll call this the shiny penny, but they're swinging very fast to try and figure out, I think for the most part, efficiency and cost reduction. And I think what you're calling out is, let's talk about growth.

Dave Edelman (15:53)
Yes.

Jason (15:56)
Right. And where AI can help with growth. And I think that's a really important distinction.

Dave Edelman (15:56)
Yes. Absolutely.

Yes. That's useful to bring out, Jason. Yes.

Jason (16:03)
So when we talk about data and AI and personalization, there is the other side, which is kind of the creepy side, right? Which is, how do you make sure you're not using the data in a way that tends to overstep with your prospect or your customer where they're saying, I didn't know you had that information and now you're using it? Have you?

dealt with that with companies and situations.

Dave Edelman (16:24)
absolutely. And there's a lot of anxiety around it. There's a number of ways though of dealing with it. I mean, first of all, try things out with your own workforce. So see your own workforce as customers. and see how your own people react. The other thing is a lot of this is all testable. You can do this at a small scale, start to see customer reactions, do people

Jason (16:37)
Very smart.

Dave Edelman (16:49)
right your back, do they unsubscribe? What kind of open rate or response rate do you get? And start looking at that and gradually testing it. But it's also important to have a marketing leader who is really thinking from a customer perspective, who's willing to bang on the table about what it means from a customer's perspective.

to experience what you currently deliver and what you plan on delivering. And to me, that's one of the most important roles of a marketing leader is to be the voice of the customer at every table you sit at and banging on the table for that, always challenging, turning it around. I'll just give you an example. One of my clients, she has a dog.

And she's posted on social media a lot about her playing with her dog. Well, a software company sent her a package with dog biscuits in it to get her interested in their software. She was totally offended. All of that was personal stuff, not business stuff, had nothing to do with the software at all. And that was completely out of line. You know, so.

Jason (18:06)
Right, fake familiarity

that just wasn't contextual to the relationship.

Dave Edelman (18:10)
you can't just let these things go on autopilot. You have to put a human in the loop and frankly that's a responsibility marketing cannot abdicate.

Jason (18:20)
Right. So on the other side, and I'll use that pet example, we'll move on to the next question, which I think it's chewy, right? If you cancel your subscription for food because your dog passed away, they send you flowers and you know, they send you a remembrance, Very contextual to the relationship. yep. So question four, I'm going to take a little cup of wisdom here.

Dave Edelman (18:33)
Yeah, great. Yes, that's wonderful.

Hahaha

Jason (18:43)
So you've been a long time mentor and advisor and teacher for many people in organizations, right, in universities. Who do you go to when you need advice and guidance for things that you're taking on?

Dave Edelman (18:55)
I find it incredibly valuable to be plugged in overall to the marketing slash digital now slash AI community. I post a lot. have a million followers on LinkedIn. ⁓

Jason (19:09)
which is incredible.

don't know how many people have a million followers, Dave, but that's quite an achievement.

Dave Edelman (19:12)
Yes.

Thank you. It's been built up over 15 years. So I publish a lot. I get feedback. And some of that is intriguing. And I look at what other people write and I follow up with them. Like, wow, you've got me thinking. Who are you? And I've created a network of connections of people who I respect.

some of whom I've gotten through LinkedIn, some of whom I see at conferences, I speak a lot at conferences, and I look at the other speakers. I'm very interested in what other people have to say. And through many of those, I've built up friendships and connections and kind of mutual advisory communities where we share notes.

But I've built that a network of peers that way. And I think it's important to always be a student and to be humble and to recognize provocative, interesting things and then reach out. And if you've got something to offer, which I think I do, it becomes mutual.

Jason (20:09)
Yep, I love that. And it's always this idea and I ask it because you as an advisor on The Wisory, have so many great people and there's always been this challenge where some people think asking for help is a sign of weakness, And really it's a sign of strength, that giving people access to folks like you is really just making

them and their teams, their businesses stronger,

Dave Edelman (20:32)
Absolutely, and frankly, a lot of the clients I have have come to me through CEOs who realize that there is opportunity in their business, that they have somebody who they really respect leading marketing or digital, but they need help. And the CEO knows that this person could use some help in coaching, especially to see around the corners what's next, what to anticipate.

And so they are bringing me in and it's, it is a sign of strength, not weakness. It's a sign of their faith in these people that they want to invest in having somebody like me help them so that the marketer or the digital leader can grow and have more impact. That's what it's about.

Jason (21:19)
Yep. I feel like I'm going to church right now. You're just preaching and it's terrific. the last question that I have, what do you consider the most important leadership qualities for mid-sized business executives who are spearheading digital transformation and the go-to-market initiatives, many that we've already talked about?

Dave Edelman (21:21)
hahahahah

I think one of the most important things is to try at least to see around corners, coming back to the point I made earlier, thinking about the competitive and overall ecosystem environment, the context that you're in and balancing the need for short-term performance, which absolutely is key, but recognizing you got to lay pipe

for things that are gonna be on the horizon. And you always have to be the best leaders that I've worked with can operate in both gears. They can walk into a monthly operating review and be right in on the numbers of performance and working to problem solve to get things to where they need to be in today's business. But then they're also having strategy sessions with their team on a regular basis.

And so having that balance is what allows mid-sized businesses, especially to scale over time.

Jason (22:42)
Yep. And I think that's a pretty rare individual to be honest, which, which is why they need folks like you, that village, that team that you had talked about to make sure that they've got the right support because you and I both been around people who have been super strategic, but can't execute and then executors were missing, the forest of the trees. So I think that's a, if you can find that person, you know, that's definitely someone you want to keep in coach. So.

We got through our five questions, so thank you for that. I do have one bonus question. So as being one of our newest amazing advisors on the platform, on The Wisory, as people want to engage with you, what topics or advice are you best prepared to help them with?

Dave Edelman (23:23)
at the highest level, it's about how do we think about our strategy in the midst of what's going on with AI digital data and from a capability perspective and from a competitive perspective, how do we make sense of all of that to chart a path? Then there's more focused things like how

do we raise the impact of marketing and customer experience in the company? Where we should be getting more for what we're investing and there's, an opportunity to do that and I can work with their leaders to help find that and make it happen. Some of that is strategic, you may be focusing on the wrong things where you're spending money. It could be operational, technology.

could be organizational. There's a number of different levers and I work across all of those, but it is around how do we either long-term think about the strategy or near term raise the impact of the people who we have in marketing and customer experience.

Jason (24:31)
That's fantastic. Well, I am so excited for you to engage with the mid-sized businesses that we're working with. So I can't wait to hear what they're doing with you and how they benefit from all of your wisdom. I'm also going to tease out that I think in about a month, we're going to have a roundtable with you and one of our other advisors. And I just, can't thank you enough for making the time, for being an advisor.

⁓ I can't wait to bring more opportunities to our membership base with you as part of

Dave Edelman (25:00)
Well, I'm looking forward to engaging with your membership base as well. the ability to have impact and to learn because in every engagement I'm learning as well. And I totally enjoy that aspect of it and then get really excited as we start to see the results. So I'm looking forward to see what we can make happen.

Jason (25:20)
Terrific. Thanks, Dave. Take care.

Dave Edelman (25:22)
All right, thank you, Jason.