AI could make you sound like everybody else.
Sure, you’ll be able to flaunt your uniqueness, burst with contemporary concepts, and combine each shiny new tech toy. However one broad stroke of AI, like autotune in music, can dissolve your model’s identification quicker than you’ll be able to say “algorithm.”
So, what can set you aside?
“Tales,” declares Leandro Perez, Chief Advertising and marketing Officer for Salesforce within the Asia-Pacific. It is a easy reply to a posh drawback, however one which carries the burden of his 20 years of expertise.
The hackneyed however nonetheless influential artwork of storytelling stays on the coronary heart of brand name differentiation. Leandro’s strategy? Use AI purposefully, weaving it into current workflows with a “thought-about, measured strategy.” From his early days as a software program developer to his present function on the helm of promoting efforts throughout 10 international locations, Leandro has at all times seen know-how as a method to an finish, not the top itself.
In our current dialog, Leandro paints a vivid image of the advertising and marketing world’s AI conundrum, reminds us that AI remains to be in its infancy, and posits the marketer as the one supply of reality for the shopper whereas stressing the significance of native groups in numerous markets.
This interview is a part of G2’s Skilled Highlight collection. For extra content material like this, subscribe to G2 Tea, a publication with SaaS-y information and leisure.
Heat-up questions
What’s your favourite beverage? When do you get pleasure from it?
I’ve a protein shake each morning after my exercise to assist my muscle tissues get well. I additionally love my morning macchiato after I arrive on the workplace.
What was your first job?
Earlier than I even completed college, I began working after I was 14 at an electronics retailer referred to as Dick Smith Electronics, which is a sequence. I used to work on the weekends there. I realized lots about buyer expertise, teamwork, following a supervisor’s directions, and private self-discipline, together with displaying up on time. And I additionally realized about gross sales and advertising and marketing.
However my first skilled job, popping out of college with a pc science diploma, was as a programmer. I undoubtedly didn’t suppose that I might be the place I’m at the moment.
What’s your favourite software program in your present tech stack?
My favourite is Slack. It permits me to speak with people worldwide asynchronously. For instance, I can schedule to ship somebody a voice clip or a video recording of myself whereas I’m asleep. Then, they will reply. The device additionally has a package of AI capabilities.
What issues at work make you need to throw your laptop computer out the window?
In advertising and marketing, you could have a powerful stakeholder relationship with gross sales. Traditionally, like many of us, attribution inside advertising and marketing can get contentious. The place did the lead originate, and from which pipeline was it generated? Was it gross sales or advertising and marketing? That was a giant, contentious merchandise after I began on this function in 2020.
Our world CMO revamped our advertising and marketing attribution technique and carried out new algorithms utilizing AI to calculate the share of attribution to gross sales and advertising and marketing. For the reason that implementation, these moments have been lowered.
Deep dives with Leandro Perez
Sidharth Yadav: You began as an engineer and transitioned right into a advertising and marketing function. May you are taking us by means of your skilled journey? What have been the numerous milestones, and the way did they form you as a marketer?
Leandro Perez: My first function as an engineer taught me how know-how can tackle a enterprise drawback. In that firm, each enhancement was requested by the enterprise. Actually, they paid for the enhancement upon its supply.
Subsequent, it was resolution engineering or pre-sales. I’d been an engineer for 5 years. Individuals instructed me that I needed to search for different roles if I needed to spend extra time with clients. Then, this chance got here up. I used my technical expertise to showcase discoverability options to enterprise search applied sciences within the early 2000s. I used to be working with enterprise search applied sciences then.
Then got here my product advertising and marketing function, which took me to the US. I obtained this chance as a result of I obtained to know a few of our merchandise very well whereas positioning them to our clients. It was about understanding what the product does, the shopper’s ache factors, and creating messaging property.
That have was an eye-opener for me. Product advertising and marketing allowed me to be on the forefront of know-how.
“I spotted the way you promote know-how is simply as necessary as the way you place it. It’s not nearly what it will possibly do however what folks suppose it will possibly do.”
Leandro Perez
CMO, Salesforce, Asia-Pacific
I continued in that function for a number of years earlier than touchdown in Salesforce.
At Salesforce, I helped launch the analytics cloud, rebranded as Einstein at the moment. At the moment, the corporate was pioneering the cloud shift. Later, I used to be requested to hitch the company messaging workforce, which I ultimately led. It was about figuring out how one can signify Salesforce as a collective—not only one product however every part that Salesforce does.
At Dreamforce, our largest occasion in San Francisco, I used to be accountable for the workforce that constructed the keynote. We’d later take that keynote around the globe.
After experiencing these roles, I might mix them as CMO for Asia-Pacific, which introduced me again to my homeland, Australia.
The Asia Pacific is a various market. How do you create synergy throughout your groups and tailor your methods to go well with the area’s cultural uniqueness?
Salesforce has many working items. APAC is split into Australia and New Zealand, Southeast Asia, India, and Better China. Unbiased groups are accountable for these items.
I do not need to create the identical asset in India as I’m in Australia from scratch. So, I’ll create it as soon as and localize the final 10% to fifteen% with the native buyer story or nuance. This mannequin empowers native groups, they usually implement options primarily based on how they see match.
That then connects to my management stage, which additionally consists of some pan-APAC roles comparable to content material and area operations. This ensures I get one of the best of each worlds.
After which, after all, we’re all linked to our headquarters, which creates and disseminates model pointers and content material items segmented by product and business.
This creates a reasonably good stability. Native empowerment brings us nearer to the shopper and is advantageous to us as a result of it ensures we’re respectful of all cultures. We additionally guarantee our groups signify the communities we serve. So, the Indian workforce has members from India.
You’ve led many transformational advertising and marketing tasks internationally. However might you recall the one you’re most pleased with? What did you study from it?
We’ve been speaking about AI for a while now. At Salesforce, we’ve been working with AI for 10 years now.
Previously 12-15 months, generative AI has exploded. I had the problem of guaranteeing the native market is aware of that Salesforce is a significant participant on this area and beginning the dialog.
Many individuals are defaulting to publicly out there generative AI options, which aren’t secure or trusted as a result of they’re open to the net. So, we launched a worldwide marketing campaign referred to as “Ask Extra of AI.”
To drive the dialog in Sydney, our greatest market in Australia, we made up a saloon in the course of the Darling Harbour. It was referred to as the WAILD West Saloon. Anybody might cease by. It was the type of bar you’d see in cowboy movies.
However there was a twist. The entire bar had been generated by AI. It seemed like an everyday bar from the skin, however the title was misspelled, and one of many doorways was misplaced. Whenever you walked in, you noticed a barman with three arms. The drinks on the menu, designed by AI, had one thing off about them. We have been making an attempt to point out in these early levels of AI, you’ve obtained to ask extra questions as a result of AI remains to be in its infancy. It is nonetheless studying.
WAILD West Saloon marketing campaign of Salesforce. Supply: Salesforce
You possibly can’t belief AI completely with out taking the precise steps. These embrace guaranteeing the info shared shouldn’t be leaked on the web and that the place AI obtained its information from and what it is leveraging.
The marketing campaign was an enormous success. 1000’s of individuals visited the saloon, and the media lined it, beginning a dialog.
You’ve got confused the function of CMOs because the buyer’s single supply of reality. What does this imply for the advertising and marketing perform? What challenges include this strategy, and the way do you overcome them?
Entrepreneurs are development drivers and creators, however we are the closest to the shopper. We push campaigns to the market each day and get real-time alerts a couple of piece of content material being checked out, the feedback made, and the suggestions given. So, we have got the heartbeat on the shopper.
Traditionally, advertising and marketing has stayed in its swim lane. Entrepreneurs use the info captured to launch additional campaigns, phase audiences, and so forth.
The change now’s about entrepreneurs bringing collectively the entire view of the shopper. We’ve performed this internally at Salesforce. You monitor advertising and marketing campaigns, evaluation gross sales made, service circumstances raised, and collect product telemetry. This fashion, entrepreneurs can create a single view of the shopper.
That is necessary as a result of, at the moment, you don’t need to attain out to a buyer to promote them one thing in the event that they’ve already obtained an energetic service case with you. That is a horrible situation. However as we transfer right into a world the place AI will contact clients on behalf of the advertising and marketing perform, if you do not have the entire view, AI doesn’t have it both. Your buyer will get pissed off about not coping with a human as AI doesn’t perceive in the event that they positioned an order or requested a service.
So, I’m bullish that the CMO is one of the best function for this past perhaps the CEO. Nevertheless, CMOs should associate with IT, the CIO, and the heads of gross sales and customer support. The problem is that they’ve all obtained totally different aspirations. I do not see any of them eager to place the shopper on the heart of every part they do in the way in which I described.
A current G2 survey revealed that AI integration into MarTech is hovering, with 75% of companies reporting adoption. As a CMO, what’s on the highest of your thoughts on the subject of AI? What units aside companies that efficiently implement AI in advertising and marketing?
AI has been round for a while. Many entrepreneurs use predictive AI even with out figuring out about it. For instance, our advertising and marketing cloud’s ship time optimization characteristic enables you to ship emails at one of the best time. For some, you’d ship them at 10 a.m., for others at 1 p.m.
To reply the query of who’s having probably the most success, I will offer you an instance of our group the place we carried out AI within the workflow. AI shouldn’t be a separate device on the lookout for a separate enterprise situation. You inject AI into one thing already being performed to make it higher, quicker, extra environment friendly, or ship a greater ROI.
Once I led the company messaging workforce, our CEO needed to make sure that our 70,000 workers, after Dreamforce, knew about our newest improvements and will discuss by way of the latest narrative we’ve simply launched.
So, I arrange a course of referred to as company certification. My workforce educated 10 practical leaders on the newest messaging. They educated one other 10, who in flip taught others. Ultimately, we lined the 70,000 folks. As you’ll be able to think about, this isn’t a quick course of.
The brand new head of the company messaging workforce used Einstein’s AI capabilities in Slack. You’d report your self on Slack for 5 minutes pitching the company message after studying the fabric. Then, you’d ask Einstein to charge your presentation. It might come again saying, “Leandro, you have performed a fantastic job highlighting this buyer story in relation to this new product characteristic. You forgot to say a statistic, and perhaps your tone was too direct. You most likely ought to make it extra pleasant.”
We accomplished what used to take a month in two weeks. The entire firm might do it at scale with increased high quality.
“To make use of AI in advertising and marketing, combine AI with instruments folks already use to allow them to see the instant worth.”
Leandro Perez
CMO, Salesforce, Asia-Pacific
With the rising use of AI, how are you going to retain the human contact? How do you stability AI’s revolutionary potential whereas sustaining an genuine model voice and personalization?
We do not desire a world the place each model sounds the identical. In case your model seems like everybody else’s, you would possibly as effectively be promoting the identical merchandise off the identical shelf. So, you should differentiate your self.
One in every of our clients in Australia, Mecca, a cosmetics model, needed to reinforce its on-line shopping for expertise past the established shops. So that they launched a chatbot referred to as “Miss Mecca.”
Salesforce educated the chatbot to have the model tone of Mecca utilizing customer support transcripts of human conversations. You need to name it an AI agent as a result of the previous chatbot wasn’t good sufficient. This reinvented AI agent seems like a consultant of Mecca. The model might deflect 75% of chats to the agent, which meant people now had extra time to spend with clients.
Additional, there’s at all times a component of getting human customer support brokers within the loop. One other model, Turtle Bay Resorts in Hawaii, needed a concierge-like expertise for patrons. The AI concierge might deal with virtually half the circumstances shortly, with people within the loop. They might evaluation what the AI had beneficial.
In each examples, the manufacturers thought by means of the use of AI. They didn’t go together with the most cost effective, most publicly out there device. It is a thought-about, measured strategy, as with AI in place, if you happen to make errors, there could be extreme penalties.
Storytelling has acquired a strategic significance for organizations at the moment. What are the important thing components of storytelling in advertising and marketing? How can leaders use it to advertise their manufacturers or improve buyer expertise?
Storytelling is near my coronary heart. Traditionally, B2B entrepreneurs have been poor on this area. Merely rattling options to your prospects or clients received’t excite them.
Within the age of AI, you should differentiate your self. And story can try this. At Salesforce, we do that by sharing examples of how our clients have succeeded, which is one in all our core values. So, belief is our primary worth as a result of, with out it, you’ll be able to’t do a lot with cloud computing or have a fantastic relationship with the shopper. Nevertheless, the second worth is about buyer success.
We have performed that by creating movies of buyer tales. We characteristic clients in our occasions and like to have them communicate and showcase their merchandise. We seize these tales; we have a good time them. Just lately, we have gone from not simply celebrating tales about manufacturers but additionally concerning the people who assist ship buyer success. We name them trailblazers. We felicitate them on a keynote stage.
A current G2 survey has pointed to elevated advertising and marketing know-how utilization worldwide. Nevertheless, sure challenges persist, comparable to a scarcity of expert expertise to function the instruments. How can organizations take care of them?
The advertising and marketing area has develop into extra technical. I’m fortunate as a result of I come from that background. We’ve taken a number of approaches for my workforce. We’ve employed folks with that experience who can use the advertising and marketing cloud, information cloud, or our Tableau analytics resolution.
The opposite monitor is to make sure everyone seems to be upskilling. We provide Trailhead, a free on-line studying platform for Salesforce instruments and enterprise management subjects. That is actually necessary. You need folks to be self-serve. You don’t need a marketer who must go to an analyst or IT to know the ROI for his or her campaigns.
You might not be capable of rent for all these roles, so you should reskill your current workforce frequently. You additionally want a resilient and agile workforce as a result of their talent units change and develop.
What’s your imaginative and prescient for the way forward for advertising and marketing, and the way do you see your function evolving within the coming years?
I hope CMOs have a everlasting seat on the C-suite desk. In lots of organizations, they nonetheless don’t.
Additionally, AI presents an thrilling alternative.
“When a company implements AI at scale, clients find yourself speaking to AI. Quickly, clients could have their very own AI, so AI will probably be speaking to AI.”
Leandro Perez
CMO, Salesforce, Asia-Pacific
With this phenomenon, I feel the perform greatest outfitted to know the shopper’s wants is advertising and marketing.
So, I implore all entrepreneurs to make sure this know-how shouldn’t be left to different departments and groups alone. Entrepreneurs should take up this problem.
Lastly, I don’t see any change in CEOs asking for ROI for every part from software program to investments. It’s important to brush up in your information evaluation expertise so you’ll be able to discuss to a CFO and defend the place your cash goes.
At Salesforce, we’ve the privilege of working with some superb manufacturers, and I get the chance to share their tales. APAC is amongst our fastest-growing areas, and main groups right here presents a giant alternative.
I’ve not come the normal method into advertising and marketing. I am excited to be at a rising firm like Salesforce, the place we’ve many new merchandise.
Do you know advertising and marketing know-how patrons valued integrations probably the most whereas eying new instruments? Be taught extra about developments from our newest report.
Comply with Leandro Perez on LinkedIn to study extra about AI-driven advertising and marketing.
