WFA asked industry experts from four of its strategic partners The Customer Framework, Digital Decisions, Ebiquity and The Observatory International to identify the trends that will shape the marketing industry this year.

Christian Polman, Chief Strategy Officer, Ebiquity, on aligning brand purpose with business performance:

In 2020, marketing leaders will refocus the purpose of marketing for their organisations on its ability to drive financial performance. In so doing, they will enhance the ways in which the discipline can best deliver growth and drive business transformation.

This requires action in three priority areas: building capabilities, dismantling silos, and embracing analytics:

First, it means building new capabilities and recruiting fresh talent to deliver new and better customer experiences, content, and propositions.

Second, it calls for enhanced cross-functional collaboration, breaking down silos across technology, analytics, sales, eCommerce, and other critical functions that all have a role to play in genuinely integrated marketing and business transformation.

And third, it entails embedding smart use of data and analytics throughout a business, much of which marketing can lead.

Only in this way can brands truly understand what does and doesn’t drive value and how they can best align investment behind the right models for them.”

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