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Marketing Beyond with Alan B. Hart
27: Ford's data decisioning for dealers and drivers: Insights from Ford Motor Company Head of Marketing Technology and Dealer Platforms, Mark Sucrese
00:21:50
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- [00:00]
Alan Hart
So today on the show, we've got Mark Sucrease. He's the head of marketing technology and dealer platforms at the Ford Motor Company. And on the show today, we're going to talk about marketing technology, the data, the decisioning and the content, and then how AI is changing and evolving that marketing technology stack for the future. That and much more with Mark Sucrece.
- [00:24]
Alan Hart (Intro/Outro)
Are you ready to go beyond the basics of marketing? I'm Alan Hart and this is Marketing beyond, where I chat with the world's leading chief marketing officer, officers and business innovators to share ideas that spark change and inspire you to challenge the status quo. Join us as we explore the future of marketing and its endless potential.
- [00:49]
Alan Hart
Well, Mark, welcome to the show.
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Mark Sucrease
Thanks.
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Alan Hart
I'm excited to have you here.
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Mark Sucrease
Yeah, great to be here.
- [00:53]
Alan Hart
I. I've always had people on the show that somehow have a brush with celebrity, but I think yours is very unique in the fact that you. You somehow met and hung out for a little while with the Bollywood megastar Shahrukh Khan.
- [01:11]
Mark Sucrease
Yeah.
- [01:12]
Alan Hart
Tell me about how that happened.
- [01:13]
Mark Sucrease
Yeah, well, I didn't know it was a megastar at the time. So, yeah, I was working for my prior company and was on a long work trip there and had an opportunity. We were. I was at breakfast one morning and a gentleman approached me. He had a fairly big entourage with him at the time, and so I knew it was how to be somebody important. And he was asking me why I was there. And he gave me his name and said his name was Shahrukh Khan. And. And so we had. He was telling me, you know, here's good food to eat for breakfast. And it was a lot of fun. So got to meet him, sat and talked for a little while and had no clue who the guy was. And coincidentally, that night I actually had. It was like a Friday, and I had plans to go to a movie, Chuck Day at the time, and he was starring in that movie. So I hadn't even put two pieces together. And then I had went to the office and I. I asked everybody, like, what, you know, who's this guy? Sh. And. And they said, what are you talking about? And I said, well, I met this guy. And they just went crazy. So the whole office was going nuts. And I said, well, who is. And they said, oh, this is like, you know, your version of Tom Cruise. So I was like, okay, great. That was kind of cool to meet somebody. I think that's probably why he was talking to me for so long, is because, you know, I didn't know who.
- [02:25]
Alan Hart (Intro/Outro)
He was at the time.
- [02:26]
Mark Sucrease
A lot of fun.
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Alan Hart
It was, I mean if it's interesting, like they're people just like us, but we like somehow because of the fame and what they do. So he was probably pretty refreshed.
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Mark Sucrease
Yeah. And the movie, it made the movie more interesting than I do. So I was like, okay, now I know who this guy is.
- [02:41]
Alan Hart (Intro/Outro)
That's awesome.
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Mark Sucrease
It was a lot of fun.
- [02:42]
Alan Hart
That's awesome.
- [02:43]
Mark Sucrease
Yeah.
- [02:43]
Alan Hart
Well, I'd love to know how you got your start, you know, in your career. You're now the head of marketing technology and dealer platforms at Ford. But like where'd you get started and how'd you end up at Ford?
- [02:54]
Mark Sucrease
Yeah, sure. Wow. What a long road. Okay. So I started in Telco long ago in like sales and service and I wasn't very good at it, didn't like being a salesperson, not very good at it. But did understand data and how people interact and sort of the human element of, you know, communication styles and things through that process. So that was sort of one of my life changing events at that time is I had worked with a person that said, you know, you should probably, you're making good money but you should probably take a step backwards and you'd be better off in this area. And that area was in marketing. And so I moved into like a data science role, early data science role that was under the marketing organization and fell in love with doing that work. I wasn't making quite as good money in sales, but it was fun to do something different and I found that really interesting, the sort of the human connection with the data and so I just sort of stuck with that. And then I moved into high tech. So I moved into, I moved to Austin, Texas and worked for Dell for 10 years. Did the same thing, worked in, you know, software and marketing and had a lot of fun. Met some incredible leaders. Dell, I think Dell probably forged my career. Where to where it is today. It was, it was a great experience, great culture and, and then I wanted to give the agency side a little try. So I worked for a big agency for quite some time and ran an AI group and that was a lot of fun. Did that for about a decade and, and then I felt like it was time for something new and I felt like Ford had the right culture, really love where they're going, you know, changing up kind of the automotive space and they're doing, they're doing a great job. And so this opportunity came about and I just felt like it was a, a good marriage for me to bring Kind of the skill sets I had in Martech and working with people and bringing innovation and that's where, you know, Ford sort of headed. So. Yeah.
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Alan Hart
Well, talk to me a little about the scope of the role like Mark Martech and dealer platforms. That sounds like a lot of complexity.
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Mark Sucrease
It's got some complexity. It's really more about like, you know, we call it like CX and dx. So it's like digital experience or, sorry, dealer experience and like customer experience. So regardless of where folks are, you know, engaging with that brand, you're either, you know, a consumer that's new to the brand and learning about Ford, or you might be an experienced consumer and working with the dealers. And so regardless of where that's at within a lifecycle of a, of a customer, those are the platforms that, you know, my, myself, my team support and they're really focused on building connections with Ford. So it's whether it's, you know, better website development or email programs or commun. Communication styles, you know, those are. And those impact both when you're showing up at the dealer or you're just getting, you see an advertisement on television.
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Alan Hart
Right.
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Mark Sucrease
They're the same. But yeah, they work through different technologies to, to bring that to life.
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Alan Hart
Yeah. And so do you. You know, most people will. Well, I don't know, most people listening to this hopefully know that like the dealers, it's a, a B2, B2C kind of business model. Right. Because you've got Ford, the Mothership and you've got the dealers. They're all independent businesses then in their own. Right. And then you have the. Going to buy a car.
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Mark Sucrease
Yeah.
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Alan Hart
Or a truck. And so it's like, you know, you know, building technology at each of those layers is, is unique, I'm sure, brings its own unique kind of challenges.
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Mark Sucrease
Yeah, I mean, I think it's the, the challenge there is really within the data because, you know, you think about like customers that may own small or large businesses and they're buying from our pro division and they're, you know, they're buying Ford vehicles like a Transit or something to that effect, you know, they're still, they still might go home and have a Ford F150. Right. So there's still customers in different ways. And so understanding your data and how to communicate with them and recognizing, you know, where they are and that in that journey, I think is an important part of what we're doing and forge on a mission to create those, you know, really great experiences for those people.
- [07:09]
Alan Hart
Well, you mentioned data, so yeah, it Leads me to personalization. Right. Because you can't really personalize without the data. Like how are you thinking about personalization now and the data you need to enable it, power it.
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Mark Sucrease
Yeah, it's funny you say that. So you know, when I was in Dell years ago, it was, I'd say 1, 2, early 2000s, 2004. Like the idea of the marketers would talk about like one to one communications then.
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Alan Hart (Intro/Outro)
Right.
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Mark Sucrease
I mean here we are two decades later and we're still talking about the same thing. But I think for personalization, that sort of reality is here now because there's mass amounts of data. People engage with brands anywhere they want, whether it's social media or traditional marketing, like engagement areas, like an email campaign or something. Right. They're still engaging with us, but they're all over the place and there's no consistent journey. So things like AI play an important role creating these hyper personalized experiences. So now the idea of having like a segment of one where a person can be individually treated and communicated to is really where I think that we're headed. And I think that's where personalization is, is trying to get as close to that one to one. So that reality that we were talking about 20 years ago now is real. And I know we tried to get there back then, but I mean I think the best you could do back then was maybe some macro or microso segmentation. Now I think it's a real thing because with the speed of the tech that we have and how fast AI is working and how much data can consume, you know, we can get a better understanding of each profile.
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Alan Hart
Yeah, yeah. Well, maybe a follow up to that question is like, so you've got your own data, you probably have to have third party signals coming in as well. And then you know, as we talked about that layering of the, the B2, B2C, you've got layers of signals that you've got to aggregate. Any like top level learnings of like how to harness that, I mean it, it's, it's a lot.
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Mark Sucrease
Yeah, I think, you know, I think with the, the promise of what we have today is overwhelming at times. So I think it's important to get small wins along the way and, and show value in that. I think try not to do maybe too much at once is the right approach. I mean, I think where Ford's doing a great job is, you know, they're really focused in and fine tuning their messages to each consumer. So if we can recognize them as a business owner or regular consumer and you can get some small ones along the way on, you know, maybe it's the type of vehicle they might have an interest in or where they've shown, you know, a vehicle that test drive or something. Right. And being able to, just focusing on that moment in time and looking for those signals around that moment and focusing on that. I think we get some wins that way. I think over time. Yeah, I think the idea is to bring the entire journey into that spectrum. But you know, trying to boil the ocean all at once is challenging. So that's what we tend to do is focus on those micro moments that are impactful.
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Alan Hart
Yeah, yeah, well, so as a Martech guy, I put you in that, in the bucket for the moment. All right, so we've got data, we know what we want to do to try to get to one to one personalization. But you've got a decision at some level and it feels like every, every company I talk to does it very different. You know, they have their own unique ways and you know, sometimes they're outside decisioning models that are feeding into the system. Sometimes the models of decisioning is happening inside of whatever the tech stack is that you're working on.
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Mark Sucrease
Yeah.
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Alan Hart
How do, how do you think about like the decisioning that has to happen around all.
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Mark Sucrease
I mean it's, it's, um, it's actually one of the three key pillars that we're really focused on. And, and, and to your point, like if you put the bookends, I'd say the bookends are data and content. So you know, content has to be curated, created, designed and developed in a very molecular way. The same way you're looking at your data, you're looking at data in a molecular way. So once you have that, then having an appropriate decision engine. So software, big software companies are trying to tightly couple that into their platforms and, and using them more often. You know where I've seen really great ex, this is where that is somewhat of an abstract layer to do exactly what you talked about earlier. Like how do you understand these little moments when they're either shopping or browsing or buying and having that decision engine be able to siphon through data, find the appropriate message or content or communication, and then give it out and serve it at the right appropriate time. So yeah, I've seen both. I've seen tightly coupled packaged solutions and sort of standalone. I'm sort of leaning more towards the standalone side. I think it allows me to help within things. Like maybe you're at the site of the dealer or maybe you're in a call center. You know, it's not always, it doesn't always have to focus on the digital element of it.
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Alan Hart
Right, right. More customization potential.
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Mark Sucrease
Exactly. And it, and the modeling that you referred to allows some flexibility there. You, you want out of the box stuff because you want to go to the market fast. But being able to tap into how quickly AI is moving today and tap into all these models that are out there and the ability to use some of that is, is, is a great way to go. And a lot of those tightly coupled systems don't allow for that. So having something that's more abstract is sort of the approach.
- [12:18]
Alan Hart
Yeah, well, building on what you said, you got data, the content you have decisioning is like this middle layer. Let's throw AI and agentic on top. Like is it an accelerant? Like how do you think about it integrated into that entire ecosystem?
- [12:33]
Mark Sucrease
I mean, happy to say I was like coming to Ford. I was, I was very pleased like how far along they are. They've, they've got a very good development and AI development team and they're doing a heck of a job and I'm excited to tap into all that work that that's gone on. I think Ford like every other company is still new and you know, we're very cautious on how, you know, we take our steps forward because as you've clearly seen probably all the cybersecurity risks that are out there and privacy laws and everything. So we're just making sure that how it gets used is appropriate for our business. But again we're focused on building those, those customer relations. So they're going to play a role in that. Agentix going to play a role, it'll play a role in automation and creating effectiveness in our like engineering teams like creating those hyper personalized experiences and learning from that. But you know, I think we'll, we'll be taking cautionary steps along the way.
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Alan Hart
Yeah, yeah, you know, very measured approach. Yeah. Do you see it helping you more initially on the kind of back end, if you will, versus say customer facing or does that matter?
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Mark Sucrease
Yeah, no, it does matter. But I mean it's a good question. I think going back to my earlier comment about like trying to get small wins. Excuse me. And taking some steps along the way we're doing that and how we roll out sort of those AI things. So you'll see some, you know, you'll probably see things on like you know, for.com or you can communicate with like chatbots and things. But yeah, you know, I run an engineering group. So you know, we're using it to help improve efficiencies in that and streamlining code development and yeah, I think, I think we're seeing it on both sides. It's easier to test and learn though on like sort of back office and do experimental work there before you ever take anything out to the public. So there is more work probably going on there, but you'll see it on both sides. Yeah.
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Alan Hart (Intro/Outro)
Okay.
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Alan Hart
Yeah.
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Alan Hart (Intro/Outro)
All right.
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Alan Hart
Well, given your vantage point and not necessarily at Ford, but as you think about automotive in general, like where do you see the technology for the automotive industry going and how it, you know, what the vision might look like in the future?
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Mark Sucrease
Yeah, I think, well, as a automotive fan, I'll just say, you know, I think in general like you see in all automotive industries, like you know, you see a lot of the, in vehicle type activities going on and, and a lot of self driving vehicles. And so I still think there were like all, all companies are progressively moving into that space. But I think where, where you'll see a lot of companies using this type of tech and, and this is probably things around product development being able to move product into a production environment in a, in a quicker way than they maybe they were before rapid content development and testing. So, and, and we see that in the engineering space too. Like you can move through code development more rapidly and I think that's, that's where I probably see all that. It's just really sort of time to market, creating efficiencies, you know, sort of that fail fast approach to things I think is where they'll be able to, you know, you have, you think about the automotive group, automotive industry in general. It's a, you know, sort of a 100 year business over hundreds of years in, in the making in our country. And so like you know, there's a lot of change that can happen in that space. So.
- [15:55]
Alan Hart
Yeah, no, it's good and it's vital to how, how this economy runs to be honest. So. Well, one of the things we like to do on the show is also get to know you a little bit better. My favorite question to ask folks.
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Mark Sucrease
Sure.
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Alan Hart
Has there been a experience of your past that defines or makes up who you are today?
- [16:15]
Mark Sucrease
That's a interesting question. You know, I, I had given this some thought. I, I, I had a, early, early on the one experience that I had was I had a colleague that I mentioned earlier tell me that it, you know, you're better off and suited for a different role and, and you should look at Moving out of the sales environment. And I just felt like that was a hard thing to hear from somebody, especially when they're a friend, that, like, maybe you're not best suited for that role. But in the end, that's. I mean, here we are 20 years later and worked out pretty well. It worked out pretty well.
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Alan Hart
So.
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Mark Sucrease
So yeah, I think. I think I. I would say that that was like a key moment in my life to. To change my career. So. And that I still great friends with that person. So, yeah, I would say that was probably the. The catalyst to where I'm at today. Yeah. From that.
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Alan Hart
Well, if you're starting your career all over again, what. What advice would you give your younger self?
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Mark Sucrease
I would say I mentioned the term fast fail earlier, but I'd probably apply that to myself. I think my younger self always felt like I had these great ideas and I was. I think I held onto them too long and would try to. Whether they were working or not, those ideas, I would try to continue to push them until somebody believed that there was other, you know, it was a good idea. I think it's important now to learn that, like, it's okay to not have everything perfect. And if that fast fail approach. Right. Okay, it's not working. Let's move on to something else and don't hang on to that stuff too long. And that's worked out far better for me in my career as my older self, I'd probably say that was probably a better. I'd probably go back and teach myself. I held on to things way too long. Yeah.
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Alan Hart
Well, is there anything you're trying to learn more about right now or you think marketers should be learning more about.
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Mark Sucrease
I think in general, marketers are really. They're very technical these days. I mean, if you're not a marketer, that's like investigating in deck. It's probably. You're probably somewhat outdated. Like, you really need to like, consider how, like even creative agencies, like I came from a creative agency and there's, there's. It's, you know, it's where art meets science. Now. Like, that science piece has to be well adopted into that creative world. So I think marketers have to take a tech approach to stuff. And, you know, I think that's something that I try to foster here, is that that blend of art and science and working with the business, that's why I really was excited to come to this new position, is bringing that concept order forward and working closely with business and trying to mesh, you know, that that world of art and science.
- [18:51]
Alan Hart
Are there any trends or subcultures that you're taking notice of or you're just curious about?
- [18:58]
Mark Sucrease
Yeah, I mean I love the, all the excitement around AI within the engineering world. So, you know, I don't know if I'd call it a subculture these days anymore because it's out there. But you know, it's kind of fun to explore like the possibility that's out there. Like there's, at every turn there's new things that we can do and create efficiencies and so I'm pretty excited about that. On a more, on a more personal note, like, you know, I, I'd say there's a off roading subculture that I, I really, I love like the, the sort of overlanding communities and stuff. And so I think that married well coming over to the Ford brand. I mean the Broncos. Incredible. So, you know, love the idea of that. So looking forward to marrying that little personal world with my professional life now and, and tapping into that subculture too.
- [19:45]
Alan Hart
That's awesome. Well, last question. As you think about going into the future, what do you think is either the biggest opportunity or threat facing marketers today?
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Mark Sucrease
Marketers stay relevant and they, they hone their craft using AI then it becomes more a more effective tool for running their day to day and don't become irrelevant. So I think that's a threat. But it's also a promise too that they could do a heck of a lot more with, well, adoption. So that's, I think that covers sort of for me the opportunity and the threat. Like if you're, there's an opportunity in there if you're an adopter of it. But yeah, it could become a threat if you're not.
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Alan Hart (Intro/Outro)
Awesome.
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Alan Hart
Awesome. Well, Mark, thanks for coming on the show.
- [20:26]
Mark Sucrease
That was great. Awesome. Appreciate it.
- [20:34]
Alan Hart (Intro/Outro)
Hi, it's Alan again. Marketing beyond is a Deloitte digital podcast. It's created and hosted by me, Alan Hart, and produced by Sam Robertson. We have even more cutting edge marketing insights headed your way. Be sure to subscribe to our channel to stay up to date with our latest episodes. I love hearing from listeners. Share your thoughts about the episode, the topic covered or the show by commenting on this video or emailing me@marketingbeyondeloitte.com if you're interested in more conversations with industry visionaries. We invite you to explore other Deloitte Digital podcasts@deloittigital.com US Podcast. There you'll find the Marketing beyond webpage with complete show notes and links to what we discussed in the episode today. I'm Alan Hart, and this is Marketing Beyond. The views, thoughts and opinions expressed are the speaker's own and do not represent the views, thoughts and opinions of Deloitte. The material and information presented here is for general information purposes only and does not imply endorsement or opposition to any specific company, product or service.