ADOBE SUMMIT 2017: IT’S ALL ABOUT THE EXPERIENCEintouchsol.comApril 2017

CONFERENCE RECAP

Ari Weinkle

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INTRODUCTION

EXPERIENCE IS STILL EVERYTHING

THE RECIPE FOR GOLD-STANDARD EXPERIENCES

EMBRACE EMOTION

ADOBE SENSEI: THE ULTIMATE MARKETING GURU

SMALL CHANGES LEAD TO BIG RESULTS

CONNECTING THE DOTS

WE’RE SPECIALIZED

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INTRODUCTION

Adobe Summit is THE conference for digital marketers; the place to discuss industry trends, learn about new Adobe products and, of course, get tips for effectively using the software behemoth’s ever-expanding suite of tools. As in previous years, this year’s event was an extravaganza of lights, sights and sounds, where more than 12,000 attendees rubbed elbows with some of the smartest people on the planet.

Several Intouchers were there and brought back a number of valuable takeaways, which we’ve compiled here.

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EXPERIENCE IS STILL EVERYTHING

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CONTENT + +PLACE TIMER I G H T R I G H T R I G H T

Last year, Brad Rencher, Adobe’s executive vice president and general manager of digital marketing, gave a keynote that focused on the importance of creating experiences for customers — driving behavior through emotional connection is the future of marketing, he posited. The overarching theme at this year’s Summit was much the same: curating the customer experience is essential to business success. Experience isn’t the future — it’s the NOW.

Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute, framed it another way. In his session, Content First, Product Second, he stated, "content is not the asset; the audience is the asset." In other words, the right content in the right place at the

right time — something Intouch has long known — will build your audience, and your audience is ultimately who will help build your business.

“To take the reins of our audiences’ experiences, we need a way to understand and adapt that experience to the individual across channels.”

– Paul Pierce, VP of Development Services, Intouch Solutions

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THE RECIPE FOR GOLD-STANDARD

EXPERIENCES

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THE RECIPE FOR GOLD-STANDARD EXPERIENCES

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Know your audience, predict their needs and maintain their privacy.

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Make technology transparent. Tech should facilitate the experience, not BE the experience.

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Speak in one consistently relevant voice.

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Delight them at every turn.

AUDIENCE VOICE TIME DELIGHT

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EMBRACEEMOTION

POSSIBLY CHANGING IMAGE

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“We hear statistics, but we feel stories.”

– Ben Gaines, Senior Project Manager, Adobe Analytics

It’s impossible to separate emotion from experience. Emotions affect our judgment and often motivate us to change our behavior or choose one course of action over another. For example, if your first experience with the ocean was a positive one, it’s likely that talking about the ocean or seeing pictures of it will elicit positive emotions. Conversely, if you were pinched by a crab the first time you set foot into the surf, your instinct (i.e., your emotional response) might veer toward the negative. Either way, if you were invited

to a seaside picnic, the emotions attached to your first experience could very well influence whether you accept or decline the invitation.

Understanding what sparks particular emotional responses in our audience can help us create positive and meaningful interactions. By improving their experiences with a brand, we boost our chances of increasing brand loyalty.

We must always be asking ourselves, “What emotion do we want audiences to feel?”

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ADOBE SENSEI: THE ULTIMATE

MARKETING GURU

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As always, Adobe announced enhancements to several of its products, but the belle of the 2017 ball was definitely Adobe Sensei.

In marital arts, a sensei is someone with a great deal of experience who guides a novice on the path to mastery. For the marketer, Adobe Sensei is that guide. Sensei is a state-of-the-art artificial intelligence and machine-learning framework that’s capable of harnessing vast amounts of data and using a deep understanding of design and experience delivery to:

• Amplify human creativity through computational creativity, experience intelligence, and content understanding

• Simulate potential customer journeys by evaluating data, behavior and facial changes

• Use anomaly detection to determine what happened and why

Sensei also plays an important role in Adobe’s new Experience Cloud, which the company calls its “one-stop shop for everything your business needs to deliver amazing experiences” and includes Adobe Marketing Cloud, Adobe Advertising Cloud and Adobe Analytics Cloud.

“If pharma can overcome the process challenges associated with publishing dynamic, real-time content, Sensei provides an opportunity for optimized web experiences and media spends.”

– Aaron Uydess, EVP, Customer Experience, Intouch Solutions

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SMALL CHANGES LEAD TO BIG RESULTS

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Adobe’s toolbox covers all the bases when it comes to curating experiences, but trying to tackle everything at once can be intimidating, especially in tightly regulated, slow-to-change industries like pharma. The good news is that instead of trying to do everything at once, it’s okay to try one (or a few) thing(s) and identify the content that appeals to each customer before building further.

In her session, Digital Transformation: Patterns for Success, Loni Stark, senior director of strategy and product marketing at Adobe, stated that early adopters aren’t the ones who ultimately fail. Early adopters, Stark said, have the most success because they have time to experiment, executing pilots and using data and behavior changes to adjust along the way and arrive at the ideal end state. Instead, it’s the late adopters who are more likely to fail as they attempt to catch up to their competition, trying to execute something with a "big bang" instead of through iterations.

For example, another speaker explained how his company launched their online presence using only a blog for the first 36 months. Once they hit 30,000 subscribers, they began launching other things (podcast, newsletters, etc.), each about nine months apart so they could continue learning and iterating based on what was working.

“Sometimes we forget that we don't have to do everything all at once. Trying/building/learning to inform the next step will yield better results.”

– Erin Porter, Director of Marketing Operations, Intouch Solutions

TRYING > >BUILDING

BETTER RESULTS

LEARNING

I N F O R M S & L E A D S T O

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CONNECTING THE DOTS

CHANGING OUT IMAGE

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“The true value of the Adobe Marketing Cloud comes when these solutions are connected together, to provide a consistent, relevant experience across channels and devices,”

– Brad Meehan, Senior Tech Strategist, Enterprise Marketing Cloud Platforms, Intouch Solutions

At this year’s Summit, we saw and experienced an impressive platform growing into a potential industry standard for every other player in the

category to chase. Smart agencies like Intouch have long realized that building a successful experience framework for client brands involves much more than a command of the creative suite and good brand strategy. In today’s reality, they must also build strong enterprise operations capabilities and be ready to help organizations they serve prioritize, implement and adopt platforms like Adobe to drive their own remarkable story.

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WE’RE SPECIALIZED

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“Of the more than 950 Adobe partners, Intouch was the first Specialized partner representing the pharmaceutical industry. We currently have more than 50 professionals certified in Adobe Analytics, Adobe Experience Manager and Adobe Campaign, and we maintain a constant pipeline of team members in formal training.”

– Brad Meehan, Senior Tech Strategist, Enterprise Marketing Cloud Platforms, Intouch Solutions

When a member of Adobe’s consulting team was asked, “What makes a good partner for Adobe?” His answer was simple: “It’s a partner who knows the difference between implementation and adoption, who knows Adobe’s solutions and more importantly, knows their client’s unique situation.” Perhaps our most important takeaway is this: Intouch Solutions is that partner.

CONTACT USgetintouch@intouchsol.comP 913.317.9700

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intouchsol.com

Ari Weinkle