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 id sooner than you’ll be able to say “algorithm.”
So, what can set you aside?
“Tales,” declares Leandro Perez, Chief Advertising Officer for Salesforce within the Asia-Pacific. It is a easy reply to a posh downside, 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 method? Use AI purposefully, weaving it into present workflows with a “thought-about, measured method.” From his early days as a software program developer to his present position on the helm of promoting efforts throughout 10 nations, Leandro has all the time considered expertise as a way to an finish, not the top itself.
In our current dialog, Leandro paints a vivid image of the advertising world’s AI conundrum, reminds us that AI remains to be in its infancy, and posits the marketer as the only supply of fact for the client whereas stressing the significance of native groups in numerous markets.
This interview is a part of G2’s Skilled Highlight sequence. 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 take pleasure in it?
I’ve a protein shake each morning after my exercise to assist my muscle groups get better. I additionally love my morning macchiato after I arrive on the workplace.
What was your first job?
Earlier than I even completed faculty, I began working after I was 14 at an electronics retailer known 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 exhibiting up on time. And I additionally realized about gross sales and advertising.
However my first skilled job, popping out of college with a pc science diploma, was as a programmer. I undoubtedly didn’t assume that I’d be the place I’m immediately.
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, you might have a powerful stakeholder relationship with gross sales. Traditionally, like many people, attribution inside advertising can get contentious. The place did the lead originate, and from which pipeline was it generated? Was it gross sales or advertising? That was an enormous, contentious merchandise after I began on this position in 2020.
Our world CMO revamped our advertising attribution technique and carried out new algorithms utilizing AI to calculate the share of attribution to gross sales and advertising. 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 position. Might you’re taking us by way of your skilled journey? What have been the numerous milestones, and the way did they form you as a marketer?
Leandro Perez: My first position as an engineer taught me how expertise can tackle a enterprise downside. In that firm, each enhancement was requested by the enterprise. In actual fact, they paid for the enhancement upon its supply.
Subsequent, it was resolution engineering or pre-sales. I’d been an engineer for 5 years. Folks 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 abilities 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 position, which took me to the US. I received this chance as a result of I received to know a few of our merchandise very well whereas positioning them to our clients. It was about understanding what the product does, the client’s ache factors, and creating messaging belongings.
That have was an eye-opener for me. Product advertising allowed me to be on the forefront of expertise.
“I noticed the way you promote expertise is simply as essential as the way you place it. It’s not nearly what it may possibly do however what folks assume it may possibly do.”
Leandro Perez
CMO, Salesforce, Asia-Pacific
I continued in that position for a number of years earlier than touchdown in Salesforce.
At Salesforce, I helped launch the analytics cloud, rebranded as Einstein immediately. At the moment, the corporate was pioneering the cloud shift. Later, I used to be requested to affix the company messaging crew, which I finally led. It was about figuring out methods to symbolize Salesforce as a collective—not only one product however all the things that Salesforce does.
At Dreamforce, our largest occasion in San Francisco, I used to be answerable for the crew 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 models. APAC is split into Australia and New Zealand, Southeast Asia, India, and Larger China. Impartial groups are answerable for these models.
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, and so they implement options based mostly on how they see match.
That then connects to my management degree, which additionally contains some pan-APAC roles corresponding to content material and subject operations. This ensures I get one of the best of each worlds.
After which, in fact, we’re all linked to our headquarters, which creates and disseminates model pointers and content material items segmented by product and trade.
This creates a reasonably good stability. Native empowerment brings us nearer to the client and is advantageous to us as a result of it ensures we’re respectful of all cultures. We additionally guarantee our groups symbolize the communities we serve. So, the Indian crew has members from India.
You’ve led many transformational advertising initiatives internationally. However might you recall the one you’re most happy 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.
Prior to now 12-15 months, generative AI has exploded. I had the problem of making certain 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 accessible 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 known as “Ask Extra of AI.”
To drive the dialog in Sydney, our largest market in Australia, we made up a saloon in the midst of the Darling Harbour. It was known as the WAILD West Saloon. Anybody might cease by. It was the sort of bar you’d see in cowboy movies.
However there was a twist. The entire bar had been generated by AI. It appeared like a daily 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 attempting to point out in these early levels of AI, you’ve received 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 solely with out taking the suitable steps. These embrace making certain the info shared shouldn’t be leaked on the web and that you understand the place AI received 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 have pressured the position of CMOs because the buyer’s single supply of fact. What does this imply for the advertising operate? What challenges include this method, and the way do you overcome them?
Entrepreneurs are progress drivers and creators, however we are the closest to the client. We push campaigns to the market every day and get real-time alerts a few piece of content material being checked out, the feedback made, and the suggestions given. So, we have got the heart beat on the client.
Traditionally, advertising 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 client. We’ve accomplished this internally at Salesforce. You monitor advertising campaigns, assessment gross sales made, service instances raised, and collect product telemetry. This manner, entrepreneurs can create a single view of the client.
That is essential as a result of, immediately, you don’t need to attain out to a buyer to promote them one thing in the event that they’ve already received 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 operate, if you do not have the whole view, AI doesn’t have it both. Your buyer will get annoyed 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 position for this past perhaps the CEO. Nevertheless, CMOs should companion with IT, the CIO, and the heads of gross sales and customer support. The problem is that they’ve all received completely different aspirations. I do not see any of them desirous to place the client on the middle of all the things 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 in terms of AI? What units aside companies that efficiently implement AI in advertising?
AI has been round for a while. Many entrepreneurs use predictive AI even with out figuring out about it. For instance, our advertising cloud’s ship time optimization characteristic helps 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 essentially the most success, I am going to offer you an instance of our group the place we carried out AI within the workflow. AI shouldn’t be a separate device in search of a separate enterprise situation. You inject AI into one thing already being accomplished to make it higher, sooner, extra environment friendly, or ship a greater ROI.
Once I led the company messaging crew, our CEO needed to make sure that our 70,000 staff, after Dreamforce, knew about our newest improvements and will speak through the most recent narrative we’ve simply launched.
So, I arrange a course of known as company certification. My crew skilled 10 useful leaders on the newest messaging. They skilled 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 crew used Einstein’s AI capabilities in Slack. You’d document 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 will come again saying, “Leandro, you have accomplished an awesome 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 larger high quality.
“To make use of AI in advertising, 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 will you retain the human contact? How do you stability AI’s progressive potential whereas sustaining an genuine model voice and personalization?
We do not need a world the place each model sounds the identical. In case your model appears like everybody else’s, you would possibly as properly be promoting the identical merchandise off the identical shelf. So, it’s good to differentiate your self.
Considered one of our clients in Australia, Mecca, a cosmetics model, needed to reinforce its on-line shopping for expertise past the established shops. In order that they launched a chatbot known as “Miss Mecca.”
Salesforce skilled 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 outdated chatbot wasn’t sensible sufficient. This reinvented AI agent appears 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 all the time 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 purchasers. The AI concierge might deal with nearly half the instances rapidly, with people within the loop. They might assessment what the AI had really helpful.
In each examples, the manufacturers thought by way of the use of AI. They didn’t go along with the most affordable, most publicly accessible device. It is a thought-about, measured method, as with AI in place, in the event you make errors, there might be extreme penalties.
Storytelling has acquired a strategic significance for organizations immediately. What are the important thing parts of storytelling in advertising? 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 gained’t excite them.
Within the age of AI, it’s good to differentiate your self. And story can do this. At Salesforce, we do that by sharing examples of how our clients have succeeded, which is considered one of 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 an awesome relationship with the client. Nevertheless, the second worth is about buyer success.
We have accomplished 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. Not too long ago, we have gone from not simply celebrating tales about manufacturers but additionally in regards to 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 expertise utilization worldwide. Nevertheless, sure challenges persist, corresponding to a scarcity of expert expertise to function the instruments. How can organizations take care of them?
The advertising subject 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 crew. We’ve employed folks with that experience who can use the advertising 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 essential. You need folks to be self-serve. You do not 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 it’s good to reskill your present workforce frequently. You additionally want a resilient and agile crew as a result of their talent units change and develop.
What’s your imaginative and prescient for the way forward for advertising, and the way do you see your position 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 may have their very own AI, so AI will probably be speaking to AI.”
Leandro Perez
CMO, Salesforce, Asia-Pacific
With this phenomenon, I believe the operate finest geared up to know the client’s wants is advertising.
So, I implore all entrepreneurs to make sure this expertise 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 all the things from software program to investments. It’s important to brush up in your information evaluation abilities so you’ll be able to speak to a CFO and defend the place your cash goes.
At Salesforce, we now have the privilege of working with some wonderful manufacturers, and I get the chance to share their tales. APAC is amongst our fastest-growing areas, and main groups right here presents an enormous alternative.
I’ve not come the standard method into advertising. I am excited to be at a rising firm like Salesforce, the place we now have many new merchandise.
Do you know advertising expertise patrons valued integrations essentially 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.
