Taking a customer-centric approach is difficult. It requires not only thinking differently, but also ignoring your own personal agenda for the greater good of the company. But putting the customer first also requires trust and it requires a top-down effort from everyone involved.
That’s why PwC’s remodeling of its business strategy is different. “The New Equation” as it’s called, is not just a motto, it’s an entire strategy based on the principles of building trust and helping PwC customers keep up with the pace of change. And the key to any successful marketing strategy begins with a top-down approach and a relentless focus on implementation.
“I don’t think any strategy is perfect, nor do I think any strategy needs to be perfect. What needs to be far better is the execution of that strategy… All of our people fundamentally understand what we’re doing, but it’s the getting the confidence in that story and making sure that they really feel supported, bolstered and have everything that they need in order to bring that with confidence.”
On this episode of Marketing Trends, we caught up with J.C. Lapierre, Chief Strategy and Communications Officer at PwC, who offered up some insight into the steps PwC went through to implement its new three-pronged services model. Plus, J.C. explains why successful implementation means everything when you’re rolling out a new strategy, and how PwC is forging ahead with a customer-first approach.
Main Takeaways
- Successful Strategies Start with Successful Installations: The best marketing strategies are ultimately the ones that have the best implementation from beginning to end and from the top down. This will help your marketers not only have a strong understanding of the values of your new strategy, but it will give them the confidence to relay that message to the company’s clients.
- The Days of A Siloed Marketing Approach are Over: Siloed approaches to marketing no longer work, especially if you want to have an efficient, cross-functional business. When you eliminate silos, you’re able to effectively and efficiently push your message and your purpose across all your channels without confusion.
- Don’t Be Scared to Play in New Channels: Even when you’re a legacy company, it’s important to try new channels and continuously evaluate your marketing mix to understand where your message is resonating and where it’s not. Don’t get comfortable with the same strategy that’s worked in the past. For a company like PwC, that meant advertising on OTT platforms, a channel the company had never participated in before.
Key Quotes:
“There’s really two things that crystallized and came into focus that our clients need to focus on, and that they’ll have to address in the coming years. One is around trust. How do you build trust? How do you maintain that trust? How do you show that you’re trustworthy to all of your stakeholders? And then the second is how do you deliver sustained business outcomes? We’ve seen every company take on a transformation of some kind, but many are not yielding the value out of that transformation.”
“One of the most important things that any organization can do is really break down silos and work across functions in order to bring the best to bear for the organization.”
“We are a 160-year-old legacy organization that’s built its brands on delivering trust, quality, and independence to the capital markets…Where we thought we had flexibility was to say our clients are facing a different set of issues than what they faced before. Let us tell the story. We wanted to stay true to who we have always been in our heritage and our legacy, but recognize there’s been a real change in the landscape and recognize that there’s been a change in us because we’ve really invested in evolving our capabilities so that we can bring the best of human and tech to bear as we solve these problems.”
“There were a couple of goals that we had in mind and we wanted to try to put our name out there in places that may not historically know us. We had not done advertising with streaming services, but here we are on Hulu. We are going to monitor and measure the performance of this first round of advertising to see what is resonating and to try to figure out what channels or messages are getting heard, and perhaps how we can adjust our messaging where it’s needed in some channels where it’s not being heard. But our approach is to really start with the top line messaging.”
“One thing that’s really important is coming up with something that resonates across the globe. We operate in just about every territory and country there is. With localization, we have to be sensitive to something that works for everybody. We do believe that there is a multiplier effect that happens when you bring the best of human and technology together now.”
“Data is critically important to our marketing strategy [and we] leveraged a number of different data points in our campaign life cycle. We have dashboards and different ways in which we then ask our marketers to think about and use that data… What we are currently doing and what we want to do is to think about what the optimum marketing mix is so that we can bring the best points of view to our customers and help them prioritize the business issues that are most on their minds.”
“What we want to have is always-on data so that we can empower our marketers to go and have smart conversations with their stakeholders and figure out what is the right mix. Is that mix more thought leadership? Is it more inviting them to events? Is it this email hitting the right tone? Have we customized the way that we need to do it? That’s our goal and that is our vision for each of our marketers as they work with their stakeholders.”
“I don’t think any strategy is perfect, nor do I think any strategy needs to be perfect. What needs to be far better is the execution of that strategy… All of our people fundamentally understand what we’re doing, but it’s the getting the confidence in that story and making sure that they really feel supported, bolstered and have everything that they need in order to bring that with confidence.”
Bio
J.C. Lapierre is the U.S. Chief Strategy & Communications Officer for PwC leading communications, marketing, brand, and creative teams with heart. Redefining the industry with the best team and technology to better serve our clients as they seek to build trust and deliver sustained outcomes. Committed to my nieces and nephews, adventuring around the world, upskilling teachers in Kenya with Flying Kites and cycling in Boston’s Pan-Mass Challenge to raise funds for cancer research and treatment.
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