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Marketing Beyond with Alan B. Hart
3: Transforming marketing with 3D spatial data: Insights from Tom Klein, CMO at Matterport
00:38:21
Tom Klein is the Chief Marketing Officer at Matterport. He brings more than 20 years of experience spearheading marketing efforts for some of the world’s leading brands and has a passion for operating at the intersection of marketing and technology....
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- [00:00]
Tom Klein
Foreign.
- [00:07]
Alan Hart
Are you ready to go beyond the basics of marketing? I'm Alan Hart and this is Marketing beyond, where we talk about the questions that spark change and share ideas that challenge the status quo. Join us as we explore the future of marketing and its endless potential. Foreign he's the Chief Marketing Officer at Matterport and is responsible for aligning the company's global marketing initiative with its mission to digitize the built world at scale. Tom brings more than 20 years of experience spearheading marketing effort for some of the world's leading brands. Before Matterport, Tom served as Global Chief Marketing Officer at mailchimp, where he led the company's go to market efforts and the brand, product, campaign and content teams. He's been recognized as one of the 50 most indispensable executives in marketing by Adweek. And as you'll find out later in the conversation, he's one of the cool kids, having co authored a book, Enterprise Marketing Management the New Science of Marketing, way back in 2003. On the show today we talk about Matterport, what it is, types of solutions they offer, how it is a fairly complex go to market with many different types of customers across a solution that encompasses kind of an e commerce solution, services and a SaaS platform altogether. You talk about where property intelligence, which is one of the things in which they deliver is going and much more. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Tom Klein. Tom, welcome back to the show. I should say it's nice to see you again.
- [01:58]
Tom Klein
Nice. Nice to see you too, Alan. How are you doing?
- [02:01]
Alan Hart
I'm good, I'm good, I'm good. Well, I think I didn't write down the episode number but last time we talked you were at mailchimp. You were the CMO at mailchimp. You've now found your way to another company. We'll talk about that in a minute. But before we get into the business side of things, I'd love to hear more about your professional career as, as a refurbishing old houses pro.
- [02:29]
Tom Klein
That's right. All of that, all those words are, that's just a lie. So one of the adventures that I started in it was in 2018, my husband and I bought a 200. No, not a 210. It felt like a 210-year-old house. It was only 120 years old. So and started down this into this world of adventure of how do we take a, a home and bring it into, you know, the modern age but still retain all of the charm. And so the way I describe it, it was part restoration, part Renovation and an addition. I can see Peachtree street in Atlanta from my office. And the. That was just a very difficult but ultimately very rewarding project. The kind of which. That I have just never tackled before.
- [03:28]
Alan Hart
I love it. I love it. Well, I almost sensed a little PTSD when I even said it. So. As much as you might have loved this old house and obviously kind of feels like you fell in love with it to start this ambitious project, it sounds like there were a lot of twists and turns along the way.
- [03:47]
Tom Klein
Very much so. And relevant to the marketing world out there, I think. I don't know whether it's hubris, but if you've been in marketing a long time, you're used to sort of starting on a project where you don't really know it's going, where it's going to finish. I think about sort of my mailchimp days where I would certainly start. We're going to do a brand campaign and I don't know what it is yet, and I don't know what it's going to look like or how it's going to turn out. And so refurbishing an old house is sort of like that. You're starting a journey where you don't really know where it's going to end. You certainly have visions of what that's going to be like. But it was a. Had lots of twists and turns to it, I guess. And so I. I kind of learned that it wasn't. It's not just a project, it's a journey and it's got. Ultimately, I learned a lot about love design and certainly I'm a big fan of it from working in marketing for so long. But I also encountered all sorts of things that. That were intimidatingly complex around just how to engineer a house and all the parts of home building that a layman just would not know or understand. So it was very much a humbling experience.
- [04:59]
Alan Hart
Well, so I know we're going to talk about buildings, so there's a connection here between your old house and what you do now. And you are currently the CMO or Chief Marketing Officer at Matterport. Tell me a little bit about your journey to Matterport. I know I. I believe it was just the next job after mailchimp. Is that right?
- [05:21]
Tom Klein
Yes, it was. I think it was right. At three months after leaving mailchimp, I started as the chief marketing officer at Matterport. And Matterport is really all about digitizing physical spaces and. Or really property marketing is the way I sort of. That's the shorthand. I use for it, or at least that's one of the ways that most people are familiar with it. And so it turns out that all of my focus on design and construction of a home and working with architects made me more familiar with the world of property. And so that was an interesting connection because I come from a. Obviously a marketing platform like mailchimp, and I had just been. I don't know. I don't know if it would be a trial by fire, but it was basically I had. I had a lot of empathy for what was it like to essentially try to. I was intrigued with essentially the digitization of a physical space and the property marketing that goes around it, both in real estate as well as increasingly for Matterport, working with, designing projects. So it was all very interesting to me and I. I probably knew. Knew enough to be dangerous about the real estate world. Trying to put chocolate and peanut butter together.
- [06:41]
Alan Hart
I love it. So you created the Reese's pieces of marketing and property.
- [06:46]
Tom Klein
Exactly.
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Alan Hart
So I love it. I love it. Well, let's talk a little bit about Matterport and the types of solutions that you guys provide.
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Tom Klein
Sure. Most people, what's funny is when you're introducing the company that you're with, it's always interesting to figure out when you say it, what is the expression on the other person's face. So pretty much every time I introduced Matterport, in most instances, there's sort of a. Sort of a familiarity, but they're not really sure how they might know it and they definitely don't always connect the dots. And so Matterport is best known from an experience perspective. If you're looking to buy a home or rent something on VRBO or get an Airbnb, the company's best known for 3D or virtual tours. And those are those. Essentially it's a 3D experience where you've got those little circles on the ground and you move around and you can see what it's like in great detail. And that's how people. People know the experience, but they don't necessarily know that that is Matterport. And then when I connect the dots for them, they're like, oh, of course, I've used that tons of times and it's very helpful. So that's. That's the way most people use Matterport. Increasingly, that property marketing solution has been. We've essentially expanded dramatically. And in many ways, I had the same challenge I had at Mailchimp, which is that everybody could remember Mailchimp from 10 years ago. But there's been a lot that's changed. And in the same way Matterport has expanded dramatically to really serve the design and construction market. So if you are, if you're building an airport or something kind of great big and you're looking for a way to really capture a level of detail and you're a professional in the design and construction business and you want to create, what we call, our terminology is digital twin. You're essentially creating a digital replica of a physical space. Matterport is very useful. And so all kinds of different companies use this for that use case. And then the third solution area is facilities management, which is a bit of a grab bag of different things. But it's one thing to be working on a big design project or you know, hey, I'm, I have a chain of restaurants, I'm always having design projects. Another solution this facilities management is I might have an existing whole lot of buildings and they might be manufacturing facilities or warehouses or really anything. And just managing them takes work or training people to run the hotel. Right. So there's just a lot of different use cases where it's very helpful to have a digital replica of a physical space that is easy and fun to get around in. And so those three, those, those are our big three really. Property marketing, design and construction and facilities management.
- [09:54]
Alan Hart
Yeah, well, I mean it's, it's each layer there that you talk about is like an increasing level of sophistication from like what I've done as a consumer to like tracking and, and I guess archiving the construction process and what you can see and experience through that process to then like having it if you will, like a digital twin available for that and facility management use cases. That's a lot, that's a lot of data too.
- [10:24]
Tom Klein
It is, and it is a kind of like, and I always put things in sort of my old mailchimp terms because sometimes we get in, you know, this is a real technology business. It's real, it's new, it's complicated. And part of my job as the marketer is I must simplify everything. And even when I talk about things like facilities management, what does that even mean? So if I have a whole set of, if I'm building cars on an assembly line and I have 20 production facilities, it's very helpful. You have a lot of data, not only in the facility, but essentially all the machines are throwing off data. And the challenge is if you present all that stuff in a spreadsheet, you don't really, ultimately you have to interact with people. And so what we find a lot of times is A digital twin of, you know, I'm in Atlanta and say, I'm talking to somebody in France, and I am. Maybe I'm the engineer that knows about a particular piece of equipment. I can pull up a version of the plant and I know, yeah, I can see it and I can feel it and experience it. And I can see the data from, like, a. We work closely with Amazon and AWS IoT as a. They have an IoT solution called IoT TwinMaker. I know it sounds very complicated, but essentially it's a thing to sort of pull all the sensor data together so you kind of get the whole picture of what's happening. This machine is performing this way and it's in this location. And so it's a very nerdy thing, you know, but ultimately facilitates people sort of understanding what's going on and ultimately solving problems. So facilities management is more about solving a problem when you. Inside of a physical space.
- [12:08]
Alan Hart
Yeah, no, I mean, this is a very simplistic view of it, but I came back to your PTSD of refurbishing old houses. My wife and I, we bought a, like, 19. It's not that old. It's like 1960s house. But there's constantly little things that somebody did something to the house. And you're like, why did they do it that way? But our heating systems, we had, like, a filter next to the heating duct. It's a gas system. And for some reason they had put it. The filter mechanism inside of the H vac system. And there was, like, a gap around that filter and it was allowing. We didn't know this, but, like, it took us, I think, four H vac reps to come out and. And, like, look at the system. And it wasn't until, like, we had somebody that actually, like, followed the flow of air through the system to realize the reason you're getting, like, this gas smell in your house. It's not a gas leak, but there's a seal that's not working properly. And it's allowing, like, the fresh air and the combusted air to mix. And they were like, if we just move the filter out of this base unit and put it next to your system, everything will be fine. It's like. So in your example, you know, like, it's like seeing not only, like, I think, like, the problem at hand and having the expert on site, but being able to look at the total system and how it's actually working inside of the building can maybe help you solve better problems.
- [13:35]
Tom Klein
Oh, my gosh. That is such a great Example, so we have this. We're on the. A lot of these things take a lot of time. And so to your point, the. This is not a brand. We use the term internally. Time travel. Everybody wants to do travel in time back to before they put the drywall up, or can I just go back to the day that they put in the H vac system so I can see what the heck they were doing before it was covered up by all this other stuff or where the plumbing is, because I don't know why you just. And also my problem with the refurbishing of this. This house was. Okay, I'm not. I always like to say I'm sort of more about software than hardware. Like, that's not my department. So I don't understand how any of these things work in the first place. But certainly having a system that will. Having a. This sort of system of record idea of like, you could at least point. You could. You could say this is what was put in. And the other thing I'm sure you. It sounds like you experienced was you can document when each person comes because most likely if you have an H Vac problem, you get a different H Vac person every time they come out.
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Alan Hart
Yes.
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Tom Klein
Nobody can remember your. Your weird problem and just, you know, having like clear documentation can really go a long way.
- [14:55]
Alan Hart
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I totally see the. See the need and like my little small house, you know, you magnify that to a large facility plant like you were talking about. I mean, can only the problems compound. So this is the complexity of solving.
- [15:08]
Tom Klein
So true.
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Alan Hart
Well, you've gone from email marketing to marketing properties in some form or fashion. It seems like you're still selling marketing to marketers to some degree. Like you've got designers, architects, real estate folks. Is that the best way to think about it in terms of like how your solutions actually get out into market?
- [15:28]
Tom Klein
Well, I mean, that's the one. That's the big one. Right. So I think, and I think that the marketing solution part for. For Matterport is. Is sort of the basis for the company and we have a very close relationship with the overall kind of real estate industry, which I'm sure you've been following is kind of moving, is going through a lot of ups and downs. And so. And it seems like there's a great deal of appetite for more digitization. And so yes, it's, it's very much. And of course, every real estate agent is essentially a small business.
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Alan Hart
Yeah.
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Tom Klein
So that's near and dear to my heart. And so I'M super keen to figure out how do I really just help agents be successful and whatever that means. And having a digital version because I didn't really talk mention this before, but the marketing solution actually has a lot more in it than a 3D or virtual tour. So the exciting part is not the thing that you got to know ten years ago. Right. You know, there's been a few technology revolutions in the interim and there's so much more that's possible that ultimately can make agents more successful. Selfishly as a buyer could make it a lot easier and less stressful to just go through the buying process and find a home. And whether that's to buy or to rent. Honestly, we, we usually, we rent houses, whatever like to go on vacation with our family. So we, and like we're not there. Right. So it's six or seven hours away. So I need to know what it's going to look like. So there are lots of different great things for buyers and renters, but that's a super fun area for me to apply kind of marketing thinking on behalf of agents.
- [17:11]
Alan Hart
And it feels like, I mean like I think we talked about this before, but like the 3D images you can, you've got three sophistication now to like remove people's furniture or maybe look at the. What would this room look like in a different color? You know, as you think about reimagining the opportunities to buy this space or to be in this space.
- [17:34]
Tom Klein
Yes. You know, whether that's generative AI or you know, if you just said a photo is not a photo anymore and neither is a 3D tour. And so what we can do with one visit to one home, right. So imagine you're a real estate agent and you're trying to sell a house and you have to list it with, you know, with one person with one visit. And we have a camera, right. So we have a lidar camera that. And we have a service so people will go out or will work with other photographers, of course. But the gist is, is that with one scan of the house, so to speak, you not only get a 3D tour, but you have really an unlimited number of high definition photos we can generate and we do generate floor plans from that. We'll label the floor plans automatically with the names of the rooms just based on what the AI thinks they're called. And we'll provide the dimensions, the ceiling heights, the, I mean literally the square footage, all sorts of things that just automatically upload into an mls. So there's a lot that's just being in some ways automated. You know we still have to use of course we need a person has to do it. Right. We haven't gotten to the point where there's a robot from the future who's there to do it for you. But still the. And to your point, what's super exciting is once we actually capture the data it's becoming more manipulable to what you were describing is we can now very easily defurnish an entire house because a lot of times, especially if you're a real estate agent or just if you're a buyer, it's kind of helpful to see what is it going to look like on move in day versus you know it's almost always I hate your taste. I can't even think about the potential this house or.
- [19:24]
Alan Hart
Right, yeah.
- [19:25]
Tom Klein
You know or I love this furniture. I sure wish it were all staying but none of mine looks. Is going to look this good. So what I like about it is it's a very. It just makes the experience more, you know, in some ways easier for the buyer and more honest. So to just show it as it is. And we think that's been extremely popular just because it's, it's what people need. Right. And so in many ways there's been decades of effort to build up digital marketing in like in all sorts of other industries. But honestly, because property marketing is hard and it's a physical space and you're, it's just, it's spread out, it's got all these challenges to it. The digital, you know, sort of marketing strength hasn't really penetrated this world to a great degree. But finally now with systems like Matterport and Generative AI, I think there's just going to be a world of possibilities when you look at marketing properties.
- [20:19]
Alan Hart
Yeah, makes sense. You've got these three big use cases if you will largely different markets. You've got real people at least until we figure out the robot angle. You know, going out and providing the service to collect the images and do the imaging. What is marketing look like at Matterport? Like how do you, how do you get your message out there?
- [20:40]
Tom Klein
Yeah. So I think it's definitely a challenge. I do. If I said I would I probably miss the simplicity of mail mailchimp. You know, if you just said you can have the other sort of complexity is that this is not just a regular, this is not a SaaS, a pure SaaS business if you will because there's, there's an E commerce operation, there's a service operation and then there's a SaaS platform and as you mentioned there's a, this is a breadth of customer from super technical, highly skilled like fancy architect or somebody who runs a collection of manufacturing facilities to a real estate agent who lives on her phone and doesn't have a lot of appetite for technical complexity, really just wants to serve her clients and get the job done. And so that is super challenging. So sometimes I feel like I have one of everything. Right. Because we're, we have to deal with sort of the traditional world of E commerce. You know you can buy a Matterport camera on Amazon from our own cart on our own@matterport.com and at the same time I've got a demand gen operation creating pipeline, a pipeline of opportunities for the sales team. And so we have a self service operation so you can download a free mobile app and get to know Matterport and use it on your own. There's a free version you can experiment and play with at home as well as have a enterprise and mid market sales teams across the world. So it's a, like I said, I sort of have one of everything and we're. You try to, try to kind of COVID cover the gamut.
- [22:15]
Alan Hart
I love it. I love it. Well, we talked about kind of like the potential of this but I'd love to get your thoughts on like where you're going. We talked about the ability to integrate gen and remove furniture. Maybe think about a space and imagine it as your own, paint walls and things like that. But like as you think about maybe on the pro side like where, where do you feel like this, this technology is going to go next?
- [22:41]
Tom Klein
Yeah, it's, it is a. I feel like we're really at this important inflection point where everyone from like the home buyer or home renter all the way through to the professional audience will find something of interest. And so for the professional audience in many ways that's already happening kind of behind the scenes. And so the, there, there are two sort of interesting developments there. One is we launched just recently the ability to connect spaces so you can create a digital twin that's there's no limit to how big it can be. Right. So I can, you know, if I have a. Obviously you can. If I have a football stadium or if I have their manufacturing facilities that are bigger than that. So if I have this gigantic space I no longer have to like do it all at once. I can, I can. We call it, it's called Connected Spaces but it basically made it much easier to bring spaces together to create something that's very. That makes sense. Right. So it's, it's connected with geotargets. And so what that means is not only can you have a great big space like, like a small, like a town, right. Or a college camp, but you, you don't have to do it all at once. Right. And also that means you can distribute the work. So I could say as a school project, let me just. You do this part, you do that part and then it can all be brought together. And now you have a digital twin of the college campus and it can all be annotated and can embed images and videos and it's basically turns in, if I wanted to turn a physical space into essentially kind of a super cool website, website doesn't really do it justice because that's 2D insert cool 3D version or you know, I hesitate to call it video game because the moment I say make it sound remotely appealing or fun, it becomes less appealing to business people. You know, that's a great appeal. That's, that's one thing. And then the other is what we were talking about. Also great interest to the professional audience is that time travel again. So being able to see in the time travel isn't always of a construction project. It could be if I have a very sort of a big maybe production line. This, this is where you would be like whatever. I really want to put our lidar camera on a robot and have it wander around and just be on all the time. And so you always have a notion of what's happening in the physical space. And so that's. The time travel thing is really compelling and very useful. So I think those two are especially like the, the great big spaces. I feel like that's, everyone's familiar with sort of the mapping like Google Maps, how you can see the. Somebody's driving down the middle of your street. Having a level of detail inside a property and outside is super compelling. And that's, that's one thing that we, we're seeing more and more and people want indoor, outdoor and giant spaces. It's very compelling.
- [25:45]
Alan Hart
Yeah, it makes perfect sense. Well, you have a knack for finding fascinating companies to work for. So I mean, I think we could go on forever about like all the various applications of matterport. I mean it's, it's super fascinating to hear and to talk about. But as you know, one of the things we like to do on the show is get to know you a little bit better and the person behind the topics we cover. And my favorite question to ask Is has there been an experience of your past that defines or makes up who you are today?
- [26:16]
Tom Klein
Yeah, I find that the defining, the defining experience as a, as a marketeer and for me are my screw ups or my things that I get wrong or failures or at least they're the things that stick with me. And so there are times. One of my favorites is the this isn't a matterport example is a mailchimp example, but just one where knowing what the answer is and bringing the answer to light are two totally different things. And so I worked for a significant amount of time to launch a new, new essentially web experience. And I have been working on in websites and doing stuff since the browser came out. So there's a part of me which is like, I got this, I understand this. It was a complete disaster and failure where literally it just sort of burned and went down the sea of flames. So. And what I really needed to learn and some of this was making the move from, you know, what was kind of like the agency world to more of corporate marketing. And the lesson for me was I can't do this on my own. I have got to ask. Everyone has to be in it and big cross functional projects can't just depend on one function. And so that was that. That was super important for me to learn that if I do see myself as the subject matter expert, I still have to ask for help. So that was a super, super important one. And then sort of increasingly as I encounter, even at Matterport, for example, I have to learn to manage people and not always know exactly what all the. Not have the technical expertise for absolutely everything, everything and just be. You sort of live in the question and also just be a good manager. Right. As someone who grew up in marketing as the, as the subject matter expert, that, that part has been sort of developmental for me is just feeling more comfortable sometimes a little out over my skis and just saying I've got a business hat and I'll figure it out.
- [28:24]
Alan Hart
Yeah, no, it makes sense. Any advice you'd give your younger self if you're starting this journey all over again, besides buying an old house.
- [28:31]
Tom Klein
The thing that's been so important to me and was really inspired by my grandfather was an admiral in the, in the United States Navy, but also was a scientist. And the thing that I was always so inspired by him was that he was eternally curious and he, he was nuclear physicist and really did very complicated things that I could, I would struggle to explain, but the point was have faith. You know, find the thing that you're curious in that you're curious about and you feel like will continue to expand. And that has worked for me. I'd say that I went through times where I thought that that was, that was not going to work out. But ultimately I was always interested in the intersection of marketing and technology and that turned out to be a good thing. And you know, it's good not only in terms of where the future was going, but also what was just going to hold my interest. And then what's the kind of thing that I feel like I can. I. I'm happy to study over the weekend or whenever it is like it's just a passion project. And so I've got daughters that are in their 20s now and I'm really pushing them to find the thing that will hold their attention and will be something that they can be excited about every day and not just a job.
- [29:51]
Alan Hart
Yeah, that's a great idea. I have a 17 year old and I'm going to deliver that message later tonight.
- [29:58]
Tom Klein
Okay, good.
- [30:01]
Alan Hart
So. And she's very curious, but she hasn't found that thing yet, you know, and not that she needs one right now, but like a couple would be good. So.
- [30:12]
Tom Klein
True.
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Alan Hart
What is there a topic either you're trying to learn more about yourself or you think marketers in general need to be learning more about right now?
- [30:21]
Tom Klein
Well, you know, marketing. I wrote a book that came out in 2003, why Fred refers to it as the undiscovered classic, the intersection of marketing. And at the time, what was sort of interesting was enterprise software. Right. So, you know, we, we had seen ERP and CRM and SCP and all the other parts of the Alphabet soup, but marketing never seemed to get an enterprise platform. And so it was about that. But you know, flash forward 22 years and you know, AI and basically combination of AI and big data are really kind of turning marketing upside down. And marketing went from do they have a seat at the table to marketing has the whole budget now and it's super complicated. So I think the AI story is interesting because it's just, it's going to kind of eat marketing altogether. And so I'm really fascinated by it. And because there are many problems, you know, marketing is far from figured out, that is for sure. Right. And there's, there's just a lot to do. If you just said I am supposed to create and optimize and monitor and manage the ideal customer experience for the ideal customer profile 24 hours a day around the world. Right. So it is a very demanding thing. To stay on top of and also achieve the highest roi and, and, and, and. Right. So I'm very excited about its ability to kind of close the loop, if you will, between marketing does this stuff over here, puts it out in the marketplace, and then these results over there. So we just need to keep getting. My, My hope is that AI will make that loop much more intelligible, because now it is just. It's very messy. And. And I think we're. We're at everything feels like a really blunt instrument. So AI is the thing I'm really all about.
- [32:28]
Alan Hart
I got two questions for you to wrap up. Are there any trends or subcultures that you follow you think other people should take notice of?
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Tom Klein
Probably on the subculture front?
- [32:37]
Alan Hart
Yeah.
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Tom Klein
I am always fascinated by the ability for. And the importance of how design helps a brand connect with people. And so I always. I'm always interested in sort of. I don't know if that qualifies as a subculture, but if you said. Or if you just said we're all the cool kids. And so whether they're designers of images or designers of, like, words or music or fashion, it can be very hard to reach the whole planet. But if you reach the people who are really the great communicators and connectors, that's. That's sort of a leverage point. And it was super important for us at mailchimp in the day because it was like, small businesses is everywhere globally, and it's expensive to try to show them all on ahead. However, if you can connect with the people that really understand communications and understand messaging and imagery, and a lot of times they're artists, they have side hustles, they are consultants or work in agencies. And so I'm always interested in that subculture, if you will. And where are they and what are they doing?
- [33:50]
Alan Hart
Right?
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Tom Klein
And they're. They're little pockets. They're just sort of where the cool kids are. It's also where great restaurants are.
- [33:55]
Alan Hart
So that's a good side benefit.
- [33:57]
Tom Klein
Side benefit? Yeah.
- [33:58]
Alan Hart
Yeah, no, it's very. It's very true. It's very true. I mean, I. I love your definition of subculture, where the cool kids hang out. Because that is, as marketers, we're trying to understand who's on the cutting edge. Cutting edge, I don't really like that word, but, like, who's ahead of the pack? Where is the pack likely to go next? It's those people that are setting the course. Because as much as I'm. I'm sure I'm going to Irritate some people with what I'm going to say next. As much as we love to think that we're independent thinkers, most of us follow the herd.
- [34:32]
Tom Klein
That's why it's the herd.
- [34:33]
Alan Hart
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so, like, I love your notion of, like, finding where the cool people hang out because there's interesting stuff going on. And you're right. Most of the places that they hang out, they have really good drinks and food.
- [34:45]
Tom Klein
So true. And good music. Yeah.
- [34:47]
Alan Hart
Yes. Yeah, that's true, too. That's true, too. Well, last question for you. What do you see as the largest opportunity or threat facing marketers today?
- [34:54]
Tom Klein
Yeah, if I had to pick a. One of my chapters in the Undiscovered classic was one where I wrote about how to be. If you want to build a brand, you really need to focus on the whole sort of the whole experience. And so I. I think that. I really think that that's a great opportunity today because we still have. The promise of enterprise software was supposedly to eliminate islands of information. And we're not done yet, so. And I think that's what's exciting about artificial intelligence is its ability to, from a user perspective, from a, like a marketer's perspective, give you a view across the entire experience. You saw this ad, you visited this. You talked to this person in customer support. You came into this store, you did that thing. That is not. I don't know any of that now. I can't even see that. So, like, that is just, you know, here it is about to be 20, 25, and those that I. How am I supposed to create a wonderful customer experience when I don't even know what's happening?
- [35:58]
Alan Hart
Right.
- [35:58]
Tom Klein
And so at least I feel like there's a great promise and there's so much opportunity and. Because I want to think about it and I want to. I want to use the right. I want to do the right thing and create things that are consistent and make sense or are engaging or funny and. And smart for customers. And. Wow, that is really still quite difficult today. And I would say most companies don't do it very well. So I just think that that's a great opportunity for marketers and something that. Thinking horizontally. I'm using my air quotes here. Thinking horizontally from an experience perspective is a giant opportunity that is just honestly, almost entirely untapped today.
- [36:42]
Alan Hart
I love it. Well, Tom, I think I'm realizing that you are one of the cool kids, and you're just way, way far out in front of all of us.
- [36:51]
Tom Klein
That's my daughter. Yeah. Exactly. You're gonna get some eye rolls there. Yeah, yeah.
- [36:58]
Alan Hart
So, you know, you wrote the book before we caught up to you, so.
- [37:04]
Tom Klein
Well, thank you, Alan.
- [37:06]
Alan Hart
Yeah, we'll link to that and you can tell your daughters, who I have no influence over that I said you're a cool kid, so.
- [37:13]
Tom Klein
Okay. Well, thank you so much.
- [37:16]
Alan Hart
Well, thank you for coming on the show. Appreciate it, Tom.
- [37:18]
Tom Klein
My pleasure.
- [37:18]
Alan Hart
The views, thoughts and opinions expressed are the speaker's own and do not represent the views, thoughts and opinions of Deloitte. 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. Hi, it's Alan again. Marketing beyond is a Deloitte Digital podcast. It's created and produced by me with post production support from Sam Robertson. If you're new to Marketing beyond, please feel free to write us a review and subscribe on your favorite listening platform. I also invite you to explore the other Deloitte Digital podcast@deloittigital.com US Podcast and Share the show with your friends and colleagues. I love hearing from listeners. You can contact me at marketingbeyondeloitte.com you'll also find complete show notes and links to what's discussed in the podcast today and you can search our archives. I'm Alan Hart and this is Marketing Beyond.