Episode 183 / Anders Holvøe / Telenor / Director - Head of Marketing & Digital
Podcast: How Agile Teams Can Deliver Marketing Performance
In his role as Director – Head of Marketing & Digital at Telenor, Anders Holvøe is trying to bridge the gap between two disciplines that seem siloed within big organisation: marketing and digital, as well as all related elements such as sales, legal approvals, and so on. For Anders, the key to succeeding in the new world of digital marketing, and his Shiny New Object, is breaking down organisational silos.
Anders hasn’t always dreamed of being a marketer. In fact, as his grandfather before him, he started off as a pianist and hoping to make it as a full-time musician. When that didn’t work out, he became a projectionist in a cinema, before eventually going to university and studying marketing. He then joined an independent marketing agency in Denmark, where he got hands-on experience for over nine years.
These first steps into the marketing world lead Anders to advise all newcomers to the industry to prioritise getting experience, preferably in an agency. As he puts it, “marketing is not science, it’s a craft” that needs to be learnt by doing. Although university studies are a great way into the marketing world, the best way to then develop is by getting as much experience as possible. This, in turn, will help new marketers develop their intuition – something you can’t pick up from a book.
Anders’ Shiny New Object is related to his experience after working in agencies, moving to the client side and trying to create successful initiatives in a big organisation. Whenever marketing projects need to move through various teams’ approvals and multiple meetings and hurdles are created, this can all be eliminated using an agile model. This involves pulling together relevant people from each team that needs to be involved, having them working together in a focused manner for 2-3 weeks, and then releasing them back into the business.
Listen to more tips from Anders, why he thinks waiting problems out is better than jumping to solutions, and his other views on the future of marketing, on the latest podcast episode here.
Transcript
The following gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.
Anders Holvoe 0:00
Marketing is not science it's a craft it's really something that you need to learn by doing. Go out, get a job getting your hands dirty. I think that's probably the best tip I could give.
Tom Ollerton 0:18
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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 weekly show where I interview the leaders of our industry and ask them about their vision for the future of that industry. So I'm very excited to be on a call with Anders Holvoe, who is director head of marketing and digital at Telenor. So Anders anyone who doesn't know who you are. And what you do, could you give us a bit of background?
Anders Holvoe 1:28
I can definitely do that. And thanks a lot for having me on here. And just a small buried inside note to my last name here. And you pronounced it very, very nice, it was actually my grandfather, he was a pianist playing the piano. And he had a vision of actually going to US to get a big career over there. But he needed a shiny new name, last name, to do that. And then he chose Holvoe. And that is totally impossible to pronounce and spell and so on in US, just to tell a little bit of a story of how off he actually was going to US trying to get a career with that last name. But and he of course didn't make it. So he went back to Denmark and pursued another career. But a little bit about myself. As you also said, I'm director of marketing and digital here at Telenor and working with how we can actually bridge marketing and digital together. So I have a fairly large team working with marketing, CRM, with our website, our app. And so and also I have some, some data people actually sitting and empower us with data and models and so on. So, so really exciting and great to be here at your time.
Tom Ollerton 2:55
And what career did you have before this? What are the jobs you did to get to this point?
Anders Holvoe 2:59
It's actually started a little bit. So I also told you about my grandfather, he was playing the piano. And I did the same for many years and actually thought I should be a musician, pursued that career a little bit, but didn't have the talent, as he didn't have either. So..
Tom Ollerton 3:17
As I always say, it doesn't stop most people. That's certainly not a prerequisite for success. As far as I've seen.
Anders Holvoe 3:24
I agree. But I did that for a couple of years, actually played in a couple of bands, and then thought, Okay, I need to do something else. So I started working as a projectionist showing films in a cinema, and then started in university. And then by luck or incident or whatever, I actually came into marketing, and a degree there. And then, for many years worked at an agency, a fairly big one in Denmark, but independent agency, worked out on almost nine years, and made the way from junior consultant to partner at that firm. And then at some point, I thought, okay, I probably need to do something else, I need to get some other insights, I need to get some other perspective to life. And then I went to another agency, smaller digital one, really working with marketing automation, how you can you can use all the all the new stuff. The other one was a little bit more straight strategic oriented. So when I was there for a year, and then actually got this opportunity at Telenor and took that and have now been here for two and a half years.
Tom Ollerton 4:43
So in terms of the last five years, which new belief of behavior has improved the quality of your work life?
Anders Holvoe 4:50
I think that's a very good question. I think, just getting older and wiser is probably the boring answer. But if I should name something that actually is a little bit more tangible, and also maybe usable for other people, it's actually that, I would say I don't know how much a percentage, but plus 50% of all problems will disappear again, if you just wait a little bit of time, so don't really, really jump into a solution, right? When a problem emerges, try to give it a little bit of time, breathe in, see if it's also there, the day after or a week after. And then really just, yeah, also give some time to evaluate the problem. And I will say that, most of the times, it's not a real problem. It's just somebody in the organization or somebody that invented this problem, because they needed something to do. So really, really breathe and see if it's actually a real problem. And it's actually in sorry, but it's actually my old CEO, he had this whole vision of, hey, don't solve problems. Let's just wait and see. And when I went into the management part of the team of the agency, he told us this, that, hey, we don't need to solve all problems, let's just wait and see. And of course, he really, really saw and this opened my eyes in terms of just breathe, just wait.
Tom Ollerton 6:39
That is the first time I've heard that really on this podcast, if ever, and it's a brilliant idea. So let's dig into that. So first of all, you said that 50% of all problems disappear, is that science? Or is that feel?
Anders Holvoe 6:53
No science behind this, it's just a feel. And maybe it's bigger, maybe it's less, I don't know, but it's just, I, maybe there is, you can find some science backing this up, I don't know, it would really be interesting to dig into it and see if you can actually prove this. But right now, it's just gut feel. But I can tell you, I have tried this now for four years or something really trying to not solve all problems, by instant. But I think it's a human reaction, actually, when you see a problem, and if it's connected to you, you by instant, you start looking for answers, you start trying to solve it. I think it goes all the way back to when you were, when it was way more simpler, when it was about not getting killed by dangerous animals and getting food. So if you saw an animal, you ran, all whatever your legs could carry you and as long so it's just human nature, I would say, to try to solve the different problems. But if you try to really, really try to wait and breathe and wait a couple of days, I know. And it's also and I'm oversimplifying things, because of course, some problems need to be solved just as they come. But many, you can wait.
Tom Ollerton 8:25
So give me an example of when this has worked for you.
Anders Holvoe 8:30
I would say in performance issues. The old CEO, CMO or CEO that I mentioned before, the the only the only time where it didn't wait, it was when our pipeline was too small or too thin, then he put up a lot of new initiatives. And most of them didn't make any impact. It was so if he actually would just have waited and just seen things. Just seeing how they progressed and so on, it would probably have been better. And it's kind of the same. We can just see in telco as well, when we really try to push in terms of performance and in getting new customers in, we get too aggressive. And then we buy them too expensive. And then they leave us six months after leaving us with a with a bad CLV and a bad experience. So if we just waited a little bit and and gave it some time, maybe it would actually have been better to not try to solve that problem.
Tom Ollerton 9:41
So what would you say is your top marketing tip? What is that bit of advice that you've heard from the same CMO perhaps or someone else that you find yourself sharing most often?
Anders Holvoe 9:53
My current CEO actually, and I think he said it a couple of times and I totally agree with that. Marketing is not science, it's a craft, it's really something that you need to learn by doing. So, my best recommendation to everybody is actually not go and have a big degree or anything. Of course, that's good to have in your backpack, but if I should select or recommend, I will say, go out and get a job in an agency, if possible, or working with a brand, and then really get some some tangible practical experience. And then, because this will give you better intuition in terms of what works, what doesn't work, you cannot read that in a science book. So so really go out and get the get knowledge from working with getting your hands dirty. I think that's probably the best tip I could give. Don't read too many difficult books.
Tom Ollerton 11:04
Or listen to too many podcasts, right?
Anders Holvoe 11:07
No, but seriously, but podcasts, that is way more practical in my many of them are really practical in terms of what is working, what is not working. If you read a science book, it's mostly science, and it's very theory and so on. And it's too, it's too academic in many of the times. And I actually have a degree and so on. So it's not because I haven't read a lot of marketing books. But and, of course, some of them are great, but we also have a lot of books that really don't give any benefits. So I would always recommend, go out and get your hands dirty.
Tom Ollerton 11:58
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So we're now going to talk about your shiny new object, which is breaking down organizational silos. So what do you mean by that? And why is it your shiny new object?
Anders Holvoe 12:45
Maybe it's a different shiny new object compared to many other of your participants in this podcast. But I really believe that if we need to succeed with the marketing, branding, especially all the digital stuff that we are talking about now, in terms of digital transformation, or whatever we call it, we really need to break down silos here, we really need to get people to work together, we really need to get marketing, sales, or commercial guys check a lot of these different silos that we have known for many, many years in organizations, we need to bring them together in smaller teams that can work together and really work based on how they can create value for customers. So really trying to put teams together, cross functional, different functions is key to success.
Tom Ollerton 13:52
So before we get into the solution, some of the people listening to this podcast will maybe have only ever worked in agencies, for example. So could you help them understand the problem of having organizational silos, what happens on a bad day?
Anders Holvoe 14:06
On a bad day, I can give you many examples of this. But if I, for instance, would like to do something that requires check or maybe legal approval, then we could have have a fantastic strategy or something that we would like to do in terms of how we could really accelerate the digital CDP, for instance, could be a customer data platform implementing that could be a good example. I need to go to legal to get that approved. I need to go to check to secure resources to actually get that implemented. I also probably need to go to an advisory board in terms of getting them to sign off and then also to the CEO group to probably also get that signed off. If we could maybe the CEO could not be in, should not be part of this. So we cannot get away of that. But if we could put teams together in terms of how could we actually solve this problem? Now we allocate people into this solving this issue. People from check legal, whatever the stakeholders needed, put them into a team and say, hey, you need to do this, then I would bet that instead of writing emails back and forth to each other, and calling in for meetings, and then you need to you forget about what, what was the issue, and then you need to start over 14 days after when you have a follow up meeting. If we try to really put people together to get a solution done, it would be way more efficient and way more effective.
Tom Ollerton 15:49
So what's the best way to get started with breaking down the silos? Is it like going back to zero? Or is a slight tweaks of teams, if someone's listening to this thinking, we need that, like, what's your advice for getting started?
Anders Holvoe 16:00
Many, many companies, if you look at, for instance, Spotify has really tried to embrace this agile way of work, and so on. But that's, it's easier when you're a startup, if you are more mature company and with a fixed organization, what we have actually tried to do and what I've tried to do is try to just really try to not pull people out of their normal day of life, but say, hey, borrow people for 14 days, or something, just to say how now we actually just work on solving this problem. And we try to get as far as we can, with this limited period of time. And then really try to put people together and give them a clear objective of what we need to reach and how we need to get there. And then back off as a leader, you need to really, also give the team and trust the team that they are the specialist here, they can solve this issue the best way but borrow people in and show how it's done. And also what value you actually can create. With just 14 days or three weeks or whatever time you can actually borrow people that I think that that's a way to go to try it out and test it. And then really show some results.
Tom Ollerton 17:21
So your trial is for two to three week period, build a kind of super team made of different disciplines and go after a problem is that what you're suggesting?
Anders Holvoe 17:31
I will say that's definitely my suggestion to get started, we build, build a call team, actually trying to solve the issue and then see how far you can go.
Tom Ollerton 17:42
What I'm really keen to know is how this has worked for you in the past. So as you say, theoretically, makes sense. But you've said that your tip is to get actual experience, are you able to relay any of your practical experience of working in this agile way, so that the audience can get a better understanding about how to apply this theory?
Anders Holvoe 18:03
Yeah, yeah, I can definitely do that. I think, looking back at it, just when I started at Telenor, we were way more siloed and had a different way of work. Now we actually tried to implement that this just to say, we tried to put a core team together, we call it core team, that is a cross functional team, with people from commercial, with people from my part of the organization, with also people from the channel side. So we're working with retail, and so on, bring those together, it's not a big team, it's eight people, seven people actually in total, about performance, how can we do it tactical day to day oriented campaigns to deliver a fantastic baseline of just performance all the day, all the time. And so when we give them, when they have some targets, they also know what to do, how, and they have some resources they can pull in if needed, in terms of creative but also budget they can use that's allocated for them. And then they can go do, then they can deliver the performance of course they report out once in a while. But most importantly is actually also they not only report out in terms of KPIs or what performance by numbers but actually also in terms of learnings and what they have actually learned. They AB test a lot of things and so on to get learnings but it's it could also be tried to automate things try to try to always on campaigns versus one off campaigns and so on. So they have a clear target, they have a clear objective and then they are working together to actually deliver the goals and performance that we set out.
Tom Ollerton 20:05
So what are the downsides of this approach?
Anders Holvoe 20:07
The downside is, of course, if you put people together, the cross functionally, they are pulled out of their normal daily life. So they don't have the same opportunity of actually sparing with the other marketing specialist, or specialist within their field. So, so most often we, I hear that, hey, I need to, I'm feeling a little bit disconnected from my team. And I miss this pairing with other specialists within my field of work.
Tom Ollerton 20:42
So what's the antidote to that issue?
Anders Holvoe 20:45
It's doing both. It's actually still keeping them and having a reference point, in terms of the functional area that they are working with. So they can still spar and they can still join the team related stuff, within marketing and digital, but they also have a clear objectives and working within this, this cross functional team, or call team or whatever agile team, whatever you call it, because then they will naturally be more T shaped, they will naturally learn more about the commercial issues and so on, if you are marketing people, you will learn more, but you still have the opportunity and the benefit, of actually still being connected to your marketing team and to the people that work within your field of work.
Tom Ollerton 21:38
And so what would you say is the best thing to read on this, what would you say is the kind of the core text here that people could investigate to learn more?
Anders Holvoe 21:48
I can, if you just Google marketing, or agile actually, then you can find a lot of issues, or not issues, but there's a lot of a lot of textbooks and so on. We have a podcast, but it's in Danish, so. So that's, that's probably a little bit narrower. But if you if you Google, Spotify model agile, then you will get a lot of just videos, YouTube and so on. And also a lot of textbook, examples, articles and so on about explaining that model. And I think that's a good way to start because it's actually reaching some of the issues here and also pitching like a matrix organization and how you get that up and running.
Tom Ollerton 22:39
Well, unfortunately, Anders we are at the end of the podcast, so if someone wanted to carry on this conversation with you, where would you like them to reach out to you? And how would you like them to do that?
Anders Holvoe 22:50
I definitely get a lot of the LinkedIn messages. But I would still mention that channel as the best way. But please write something that can catch my attention. Instead of just adding please, I would like to add you to my network or something. Try to draw a small line in terms of what you would like to talk about and so on, then I normally answer and approve, but you need to invest a little bit in yourself to get my get my attention.
Tom Ollerton 23:22
Fantastic. And thank you so much for your time.
Anders Holvoe 23:26
You're welcome, Tom. Always a pleasure.
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