Episode 139 / Cicero Hennemann / Reckitt / Marketing Technology Lead - Western Europe
How Brands Can Enhance Customer Interaction Through Mobile
The Marketing Technology Lead for Western Europe at Reckitt, Cicero Hennemann is, in his words, “the tech guy.” His career covers lots of different technology, media and marketing roles, all centred around enhancing consumer experiences by the best use of data. His Shiny New Object is mobile – specifically, mobile marketing and the next use of it.
As per Cicero’s top marketing tip, “The future is already here.” At any given time, a possible future is already happening from a technological standpoint, but it just hasn’t reached the critical mass which makes it widely used. In this sense, developments in the world of mobile marketing and mobile consumer interactions with brands are also developing continuously, with the future inching closer all the time.
The future of technology has to be at the service of the business objectives, Cicero warns. He thinks a lot of companies end up doing “data for the sake of data” but should, instead, remember that technology is just a delivery method and should work alongside the broader company strategy.
Although mobile technology has been around for a long time and some could argue that users are engaging less, not more, with mobile apps, Cicero believes that the development of ways to interact with brands is ever changing. Customers have a shorter path to brands than they’ve ever had, thanks to channels such as Twitter used for customer service.
This is why brands need to position themselves as offering more ways to facilitate consumers’ lives thanks to apps and services within the mobile sphere. People start to trust specific brands more as the privacy rules tighten and markets mature, so will naturally expect more of their favourite brands to be able to respond to the saying “there’s an app for that” – offering them mobile ways to get in touch or make the most of their services.
To find out more of Cicero’s top marketing tips, his relationship with technology and his views on how the future of marketing unfolds, listen to the podcast.
Transcript
The following gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.
Tom Ollerton 0:00
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Hello, and welcome to the Shiny New Object podcast. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of Automated Creative. And this is a podcast about the future of marketing every week or so I have the pleasure and the privilege of interviewing one of our industry's leaders, and this week is no different. I'm on a call with Cicero Hennemann, who is Marketing Technology Lead - Western Europe at Reckitt. Cicero, for those in the audience who don't know who you are and what you do, can you give them an overview?
Cicero Hennemann 1:21
Hi, Tom, pleased to meet here. I'm the tech guy, right? I've had had a couple of tech related roles in the past few years across industry names like Rocket Fuel, comScore, then I went to a short stint at Transmission agency then joined the FMCG world with dunnhumby. And then now I am at Reckitt. So I've been here in there in different technology, media, and marketing roles. And now doing a lot of that at Reckitt in out of London, but in a European role.
Tom Ollerton 2:04
And so across , that varied background, what has been the best investment of your time, energy, or money.
Cicero Hennemann 2:11
In all that time, I think one of the most fun things that I've done to understand everything was building my own website. I mean, I don't have it live right now. And not necessarily my own website, but just websites for people. Because it just gives you that very well rounded experience of, you know, thinking about what do you actually have to say? Right? And how do you actually do it from scratch? How does everything work from SEO from maybe Facebook, all of those platforms? What What do you do with them, and having that nitty gritty detail, failing a lot more than succeeding, and, you know, seeing how hard it can be to build something. And really thinking what you have to say, and the end of the day, it was was a really good exercise. And it gave me a lot of grasp to do my actual job. Both at Reckitt and everywhere else.
Tom Ollerton 3:10
And when you say you built your own website, you're doing to mean scratch, like you wrote all the code, and then drove all the traffic to it and so on, or do you mean like Squarespace?
Cicero Hennemann 3:19
I mean, from from Yeah, so from, you know, who do I hire? Do I get Hostgator or GoDaddy like all of the basic stuff, right? So you understand a little bit of infrastructure, then you go and Okay, I need a CMS, oh, I need, you know, the homepage, I need to have flow to it. I have what is the content that I put there the images? How do you make it go fast? Right, how does it show up in Google? Right? So you just learned the basics, and you learn, you know, how do you see what people are doing? And if you receive a lead or if people read your content, right, it's good fun. And then after I did that, I've helped some people as well. Right? Again, just for fun just to understand how the pipes work, had a few friends who had you know, websites with meaningful numbers of visitors so helping them out to to also understand they had YouTube channels so you understand a little bit about what goes on behind the scenes their Facebook campaigns at times so you understand how Facebook ads runs from you know, building the pixels and and all that kind of stuff. I think it was all good fun to to help small businesses or individual intrapreneurs just to get them up and running. So we'll have all this, you know, marketing knowledge, I might not know how things work, but I do know how to use the search bar and Google mind if you know how to ask the right questions, you must just find what you're looking for.
Tom Ollerton 4:53
So the only other person that said that in 140 shows to my knowledge is John Hall, who's the VP of Whirlpool, home appliance manufacturer, and he, his view was actually fed to him by Gary Vaynerchuk, or people was that, you know, you should have a working knowledge of everything. Even if you're awful at it, it ceases to become a blackbox. It's something that you have a some kind of vernacular, or you can't just like cross your fingers and hope, hope it works out. But I'm curious to know, what was the website?
Cicero Hennemann 5:31
So I had a website that I helped my partner to build. So she was offering all kinds of services and digital design rights or something around lead gen and there, then I had a family business that needed an e commerce. So I build an e commerce website from the ground, decided, you know, are we going to use Shopify? Are we going to use something different? So you understand about product management systems, then I had family hotel that needed building the website. So you look into the integrations with booking engines and that kind of stuff. Then someone else had a blog, with, you know, over 600 articles on it, and a lot of traffic coming in YouTube channel with, you know, over 4000 hours. So all these things you see, like, actual digital assets and how they perform, right, and how you can make them better. So yeah, a lot of different stuff. So you see different use cases and how different business models need different tools as well, right? A booking engine for a hotel is completely different from ecommerce store, right? And all of these nitty gritty details are really fun to learn. If you're a marketeer and a tech guy.
Tom Ollerton 6:53
So if you're taking on three or four family projects to try and help those guys out and building them from the ground up and a lot of cases, and you have a pretty weighty position at Reckitt. How do you deal with overwhelm? When you've said yes to so many things, and you find yourself with a to do list? It's longer than there are days in the week?
Cicero Hennemann 7:15
I yeah, I did have a big crunch time when I was doing all of that. And it was just right in the middle of COVID. Right. So family business suddenly get shut down because of COVID. You have to now get it done. Right? So setting all those things up by working Saturday, Sundays, having my partner help me to do that, and obviously enjoying it in the beginning. But at some point, you just need to kind of offload it. And right, I think I did it for a couple of months, running all these things at the same time. And at one point, yeah, I've became over on my cell, I cannot do all of these things, right? So you need to kind of stop and see where are you actually adding value to those people, but also adding value to yourself. The primary reason why I went into this is because there was value to me, right? learning all of these needy greedy would certainly help me to be better at my job, I understand things better. I always say that I've entered internet back in the year 2000 and never got out. Right, I do have a passion for it. But at one point, I just didn't have more of that divide of not being in front of a desk. So the way you go about not getting that overwhelm is just, you know, right, what is important for you and what are you getting out of it? As it? Is it worth the effort? Right, and I had gotten out the value that I needed. So I just said, Okay, I'm going to now you know, do the project legacy of what I've done, how do I offload and transition to the people who manage this and you know, do this in a sensible way, just not to let everything drop. And it worked. Right things are in a much better position today. And yeah, things are running fine.
Tom Ollerton 9:11
I'm glad to hear that you've dealt with that overwhelm, and things are going in the right direction. So amongst all of that experience, I'm keen to know if you have any killer marketing advice, just trying to make things easy here, we've got that one line that you play back to other people and think, you know, that really encapsulates my view of this industry.
Cicero Hennemann 9:34
I have unfortunately, it's not mine. So this is a presentation that I've seen from Bjarke Ingels, the architect, and he's super futuristic. He has great projects, and he says, The future is already here. Right? It means a future is already happening, just not at the same time for everyone. That means that you know what the future might look like. Is Happening maybe in the UK or maybe in different markets or in different places. And you see that a lot, right? You see, when Tesco tried to debut their one hour delivery, you know, back in 2018, or 2019, and we weren't ready. But it doesn't mean that, you know, it wasn't happening. And today, you see a lot of different players trying to come in, and be that future. Right. So it was already happening then. And now it's, it's, it's just accelerated. And in a lot of different areas, you will be able to find those things. And then live it and enjoy it and it enriches our lives, it makes things more interesting. Make it better. And yeah, I always try to be there. Right, find those pockets.
Tom Ollerton 10:48
So how do you work out the difference between something that is the future and something that's just in the present?
Cicero Hennemann 10:56
So I think, what is the future is that, you know, the adoption curve, right. So early adopters, and so on. And I think the way they're worked out is just critical mass mind that there isn't really a lot of critical mass, sometimes the things that you're doing, doesn't mean they're not the future. And I can give you, you know, basic examples from not having ever watched broadcast TV in the UK. Right. So since I moved here six years ago, I just wasn't tuned into it from, you know, using deliveries from the day that I've also moved to the UK. But there are more fine details, right? Using QR codes. I remember when I bought my latest iPhone, and I scan over a QR code and then with the camera, and then the QR code just popped up. Right. And that wasn't a thing, because I didn't have the phone before. And it's not like I bought a phone that just launched. But I just wasn't in that future that other people were living because they just didn't have that. Right. So you see now how QR codes are in menus. And I was reading an article the other day talking about, you know, menu analytics, right? So the future is already here on menu analytics, how do you drive higher, you know, orders in your restaurant based on what analytics? Can you see when people scroll to the menus, it's not a thing, but I'm sure that it will be very soon.
Tom Ollerton 12:26
So my concern is that, you know, you got a marketer who's trying to do a job for record brands, or whoever. And then there's, you know, ad tech is there's tons of supplies, including my own. But how do you make sure that you're not just spending your entire time trying to find out where the future is happening? And not just getting the job done? How do you find that balance between investigation and then hitting your targets?
Cicero Hennemann 12:57
Yeah, I think in the FMCG world is super tough right, I mean, there are products that people use every day. And there's not a lot of tech around it, right? There's not it's not very complicated to use them. And you've got to have that critical mass, right? A lot of people use it. And you just need to be there also when when people need it. So with with technology, for me, it's just striking the balance of, you know, effort of how much effort Do you need to put something out there? And does it actually drive value to to your consumer, or you just want to talk, you know about something or, you know, nothing that has really relate to your consumers. And you see a lot of that with with brands that they just want to talk about something and they don't really think about it, if it's reaching the consumer and adding value to them. So I think when when it comes to technology, you know, the content and the story, and the conversation is a lot more important than the actual delivery method. Right? And I see a lot of times, and I think that the the name of this podcast, speaks to it, right, a shiny new object. Some people want to do technology for the sake of technology. And you got to keep reminding yourself that technology is just a delivery method. Right? So you don't do data for the sake of data. You do the data because there's a business objective behind. And every time people talk to me about technology, I always try to bring it back. What are you trying to do? What is the business objective of what you're doing? And if people don't have the answer, then you know, we go back to the drawing board. Make sure that you know we're serving the business and not serving the technology for the sake of technology.
Tom Ollerton 14:56
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So we're at the halfway stage now. And we're going to talk about your shiny new object, which is mobile. So it's pretty broad, not old, but also new in lots of ways. But I think we were going to talk about how mobile marketing and the contemporary and the the next use of it. So it's a broad topic, we could go anywhere. Tell me why you've chosen mobile as your shiny new object.
Cicero Hennemann 16:01
It's been my shiny new object for a long time. Now, I did my thesis on mobile adoption, back in 2013. And it hasn't been the same thing. Right, it has changed a lot. And it has just changed how people interact with everything around themselves. I think there's still a lot more to come on the way that mobiles enables you to interact with places interact with other people to facilitate your own life. You see, you know, Apple launching now air tags and things that have been there, right,
Tom Ollerton 16:39
Sorry, go on, what's an air tag? It's a new one to me.
Cicero Hennemann 16:42
Okay. So air tag is like, a small device, that you're able to track other objects, like, your wallet, a car, a pet or something, right, like,
Tom Ollerton 16:55
like a beacon,
Cicero Hennemann 16:56
like a beacon. Exactly. And those, you know, kind of existed for a while. But again, we go back to critical mass when Apple launches something then when they
Tom Ollerton 17:06
When they invent it five years after someone else has invented it.
Cicero Hennemann 17:09
Exactly. So so that's why I say the future is right, it was already there. But we hadn't had the adoption. And I think what with mobile that keeps happening, I think, we don't understand where we're going with technology, which is both exciting and scary for everyone. Right? Think about, you know, I see an online people with pictures of the airplane, and then pictures of people landing on the moon, and that's 60 years, 66 years apart. So can you imagine, you know, I always look back at movies, the movies, when people didn't have mobiles, and now they have it, right, and how just it changed people's lives and how they interact with their means. And I think for for brands, and for people, the way that they interact, and they converse has been a lot, you know, that the path is a lot shorter. So if people are unhappy with a brand, they want to be able to reach out to them, you know, as soon as possible, right? So I tweet a lot to the brands that I'm interacting with. I you know, Twitter as as a channel for customer care has been super effective, anytime that I needed to use it, but not not all brands have that, you know, very well sorted out. And people are getting evermore used to interacting with brands companies, both from a purchase perspective, but also from a customer growth perspective right now. Right, I've ordered food the other day in the middle of of Hyde Park right, because Deliveroo now can deliver it at that point. And that wasn't part of my life. Five years ago, there wasn't a thing, right? So those things are, are ever changing. And everything will become, I think more of this right now approach.
Tom Ollerton 19:05
So what do you think is going to change from a marketing perspective? So we've seen 5g come in. And we've seen all of these new technologies that the mobile phone manufacturers bring us to try and differentiate from the other handset? That's the same price that looks the same. But what is what is actually really gonna change? Yeah, sure. You can get like something delivered to you in the middle of Hyde Park on a, you know, electric powered scooter or whatever. But fundamentally, you're still gonna buy the same things you would have bought had you walk to the Tesco Metro down the road. And for the more complex phones get what strikes me and I don't have a data point for this. But it seems that people are doing more and more simple things with their phones. People are installing less apps with everyone's centered around. Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, tik tok, whatever it is that we're not really extending the use of our phones at this ease. Nice use cases where you can I know you can. On my Pixel, I've worked out what my resting heart rate was by putting my finger over the over the camera, sorry of the light. But like, main, the mainstream use of mobile isn't really going to change that much. What do you think that we might be seeing in a year or five years that we wouldn't recognize now?
Cicero Hennemann 20:21
I think I think it's the small things. It's not, you know, the big, shiny stuff. I'll give you examples. It's how you interact with stuff, right, and be mobile enabled. So I found this app to play Scrabble. Right. So now I don't do a Scrabble, you know, on paper anymore. I just take a picture from Scrabble, and it calculates all of the scores. Right. So whenever I'm playing Scrabble, instead of using pen and paper, I use an app Rhyme. And it's not about the mass stuff, but it's about the long tail. So it's not so much what we can all use, but, you know, various specific use cases, and you know, how many different things we can do with it, and the ability to enable it? Right. So I started playing RPG. So role playing games, for those who don't know, Dungeons and Dragons. And there's our, as Steve Jobs said, there's an app for that, right? So you don't roll dice anymore. You can roll the dice on your app, and then everyone who's playing with you, whatever they are, they get to see what did you roll, and you play the game, and it does all the math for you. Right? And all of these little things, you know, they compound on the way you behave and what you expect, right? How you see little kids trying to pinch zoom magazines, and that kind of stuff it, it certainly changes the way that you interact with with things around you.
Tom Ollerton 21:54
And what do you think about frictionless experiences, so I've noticed on Netflix not so recently, where it gives you the option to just play something. So the idea of sort of scrolling through Netflix trying to find something you haven't already watched, or don't like the look of it, just play something. And I've heard those guys talk about in the future, you'll just open your laptop or turn on the app, and it will just play something, you won't even get the you won't even get the option, it will just start playing you whatever thing they want to feed you. And I think that for me, that's always been the promise of mobile is actually not using it, it just it because it becomes this your digital representation of yourself that, you know, when I do walk into a restaurant, I don't need to scan the QR code. It knows that I like card or whatever it is like do you think that there's a future version of the internet that and with mobile marketing and mobile services where we don't have to download an app? Or we don't have to go to like, a web app? Or whatever it is? Or is that just my fantasy?
Cicero Hennemann 22:55
I think yes, I already tell my Alexa, play some music. And I hope it doesn't start to play anything, as I just said it, but I yeah, I do the same, right. And we do expect you know, please get it right. It's something that I actually want to listen, you know, they they've got they know the time I paid, they recognize my voice. They see what I played it has access to probably my whole history on on Spotify. So yeah, why not? I think that's that's very much what we would want to happen. And I think the same thing with all of the experiences, I think we are seeing some markets mature a lot about privacy, and, and we probably are taking a sidestep on that. So people regain a lot of control. But I think as we build that transparency, and people start to trust the brands that they trust their data with, they will be able to gain that personalization, if they so want, right if the personalization is as good as you have just mentioned, I think the mobile device will be the appetizer of that right? It will help you to connect, and always get that personalization. You just see McDonald's bought a company to personalize all of their menus. Right their drive-through menus. So imagine you coming to McDonald's, drive your car in and then it pops up exactly, you know a customized experience probably your phone will be a part of that personalization. Right you just scan a QR code or you show your phone or something like that and it will know what you order your favorites will try to suggest you something new. We've seen that in movies right is is not so far fetched of in terms of imagination, and it's certainly not impossible to pay delivered and and most atomized piece of tech in the house is the phone right so I don't think the device will drastically change. I might be wrong there, but I don't expect it to drastically change. But what enables you to do is, right, I don't think the houses will have, you know, flying walls and that kind of stuff. But I think the way that you interact with stuff will will get better and better.
Tom Ollerton 25:23
So what are brands not doing with mobile that they should be?
Cicero Hennemann 25:27
So there's a lot of things that brands are not doing with that technology. And let's start with the basics. I bought a L'Oreal product the other day, and I've loved the smell. But I cannot figure it out what the smell was, right. So I had to go to internet forums, rather than to L'Oreal to find it out, because I messaged them on their Instagram profile, and I didn't get any response. So I turns out, it was cedar wood, and it was something that I really liked. Now I want to find a set of perfume, I still have to sift through Amazon listings and, you know, different products and all this kind of stuff. Like, would it be great if I could, you know, have seen the formulation and, you know, find more products that have the same scent. So, I think that that's just one use case, but just the path to actually, you know, go on to this wild goose chase of something that I want. And the prime is not making it easier for me to find.
Tom Ollerton 26:34
And that's a that's something we've all been guilty of at different times for the different companies we've worked for, and a lovely space to leave the conversation. Cicero if someone wanted to get in touch with you, what's the best way to do that?
Cicero Hennemann 26:47
Best way to get in touch with me is through LinkedIn. You have my name probably on the description of the podcast here and just drop me a line on LinkedIn and make sure that I'll reply
Tom Ollerton 27:00
And what makes the perfect LinkedIn message to you?
Cicero Hennemann 27:04
I think perfect. LinkedIn messenger is the one that speaks to me with a great reference on something cultural, a meme. You know, you you really show that you're digital that you live in the same space that I live. I think that's that's the best way to, to you know, spark something, maybe something witty? Definitely, definitely can remember some guys who sent me really good messages on LinkedIn. That even if they weren't right, I replies had really good, really good copy. So yeah, I really loved it.
Tom Ollerton 27:40
Fantastic. Cicero. Thanks so much for your time.
Cicero Hennemann 27:43
Thank you, Tom.
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