Fusion Marketing Experience Antwerp - Intro

As the Moderator or Master of Ceremonies that the last Fusion Marketing Experience Conference, I was asked to say a few words
Here is a transcript of that few minutes.

Welcome to The Fusion Marketing Experience, Edition 3.

Let me introduce myself. I'm Gianfranco Cuzziol and my role as moderator today is three fold.

One to let you all know who's presenting next

Two, to let you know when it's time for drinks

And three, is to let the presenters know when they have 5 minutes left.

I think I should be okay with all that

At these digital conferences, I believe it's traditional to start with a quote from Econsultancy, Gartner, Forrester or some research or white paper.I'm going to ignore that and talk about football, so bear with me for a few minutes

For those of you who don't know, and indeed for those of you who do know, this week saw the appointment of Roy Hodgson as the new manager of the English national football team.

Roy was not a popular choice

He wasn't the fan's choice

He wasn't the player's choice

And he certainly wasn't the media's choice

So why did the FA make that choice and go against popular sentiment?

I think they decided that they put the task in hand at the fore and decided that Roy's skills,  experience, track record of delivery was exactly what they needed for the immediate job of getting success at the European Championship in 2 months time and for the longer term ambitions over the next 4 years.

So they ignored the popular choice and went for getting the job done

‘’And what has that got us to do with us marketers Gianfranco’’  I hear you say in Flemish, Dutch or French

Well I think we are faced with making similar decisions everyday as marketers when trying to decide on how we are selecting ways to talk with or engage with our customers...or indeed to get them to buy ( let’s not forget that ultimately what we want them to do)

Do we go with what we are experts in or comfortable with?

Do we go with what the latest guru is telling us or is flavour of the month?

Do we go with the latest silver bullet the press has latched onto?

Or do we try and do what's right for our customers in terms of what they want from us and what will help them do what they are trying to do.

I would suggest that the latter is the only route for us for success in the long term.

It's always been about the customer.

We are very clever talking about customer touch points, life cycle marketing, moments of truth etc

But surely what we actually want to do is understand what the customers wants and needs and deliver that. Keep our Brand Promise

Over the next two days we have an international selection of real experts who are also practitioners, ready to impart their practical advice to you on how to understand the customer to drive profitability for your business.

I urge you to take at least one nugget from each session and use it back at the office, not in a week or a month but from one to help you improve how you engage with your customers.

Anyway, you didn't come here to listen to me so let me introduce our first speaker.