AI could make you sound like everybody else.
Sure, you may 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 identification sooner than you may say “algorithm.”
So, what can set you aside?
“Tales,” declares Leandro Perez, Chief Advertising and marketing 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 current workflows with a “thought of, measured method.” From his early days as a software program developer to his present function on the helm of selling efforts throughout 10 nations, Leandro has at all times seen know-how 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 continues to be in its infancy, and posits the marketer as the one supply of reality for the shopper whereas stressing the significance of native groups in numerous markets.
This interview is a part of G2’s Skilled Highlight collection. 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 tissues get better. I additionally love my morning macchiato after I arrive on the workplace.
What was your first job?
Earlier than I even completed college, 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 discovered lots about buyer expertise, teamwork, following a supervisor’s directions, and private self-discipline, together with exhibiting up on time. And I additionally discovered 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 suppose that I’d be the place I’m right now.
What’s your favourite software program in your present tech stack?
My favourite is Slack. It permits me to speak with of us 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 instrument 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 could 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 a giant, contentious merchandise after I began on this function in 2020.
Our world CMO revamped our advertising attribution technique and applied new algorithms utilizing AI to calculate the share of attribution to gross sales and advertising. Because the implementation, these moments have been decreased.
Deep dives with Leandro Perez
Sidharth Yadav: You began as an engineer and transitioned right into a advertising function. Might you’re taking us by your skilled journey? What had been the numerous milestones, and the way did they form you as a marketer?
Leandro Perez: My first function as an engineer taught me how know-how can handle a enterprise downside. In that firm, each enhancement was requested by the enterprise. Actually, they paid for the enhancement upon its supply.
Subsequent, it was answer engineering or pre-sales. I’d been an engineer for 5 years. Folks informed me that I needed to search for different roles if I needed to spend extra time with prospects. 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 function, which took me to the US. I received this chance as a result of I received to know a few of our merchandise rather well whereas positioning them to our prospects. It was about understanding what the product does, the shopper’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 know-how.
“I noticed the way you promote know-how is simply as necessary as the way you place it. It’s not nearly what it could possibly do however what folks suppose it could possibly do.”
Leandro Perez
CMO, Salesforce, Asia-Pacific
I continued in that function for a number of years earlier than touchdown in Salesforce.
At Salesforce, I helped launch the analytics cloud, rebranded as Einstein right now. At the moment, the corporate was pioneering the cloud shift. Later, I used to be requested to affix the company messaging crew, which I ultimately led. It was about figuring out the way to characterize Salesforce as a collective—not only one product however all the pieces that Salesforce does.
At Dreamforce, our largest occasion in San Francisco, I used to be accountable for the crew that constructed the keynote. We’d later take that keynote all over the world.
After experiencing these roles, I may 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 items. APAC is split into Australia and New Zealand, Southeast Asia, India, and Better China. Impartial groups are accountable for these items.
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, they usually implement options primarily based on how they see match.
That then connects to my management stage, which additionally consists of some pan-APAC roles equivalent to content material and subject operations. This ensures I get the most effective of each worlds.
After which, in fact, we’re all related to our headquarters, which creates and disseminates model pointers and content material items segmented by product and business.
This creates a reasonably good steadiness. Native empowerment brings us nearer to the shopper and is advantageous to us as a result of it ensures we’re respectful of all cultures. We additionally guarantee our groups characterize the communities we serve. So, the Indian crew has members from India.
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You’ve led many transformational advertising initiatives internationally. However may you recall the one you’re most pleased with? What did you be taught from it?
We’ve been speaking about AI for a while now. At Salesforce, we’ve been working with AI for 10 years now.
Previously 12-15 months, generative AI has exploded. I had the problem of guaranteeing the native market is aware of that Salesforce is a serious 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 online. So, we launched a world marketing campaign known as “Ask Extra of AI.”
To drive the dialog in Sydney, our greatest market in Australia, we made up a saloon in the course of the Darling Harbour. It was known as the WAILD West Saloon. Anybody may cease by. It was the type of bar you’d see in cowboy movies.
However there was a twist. The entire bar had been generated by AI. It appeared like an everyday bar from the skin, however the title was misspelled, and one of many doorways was misplaced. Once 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 had been attempting to indicate in these early phases of AI, you’ve received to ask extra questions as a result of AI continues to be in its infancy. It is nonetheless studying.
WAILD West Saloon marketing campaign of Salesforce. Supply: Salesforce
You may’t belief AI solely with out taking the suitable steps. These embrace guaranteeing the information shared will not be leaked on the web and that you already know the place AI received its information from and what it is leveraging.
The marketing campaign was an enormous success. Hundreds of individuals visited the saloon, and the media coated it, beginning a dialog.
You have careworn the function of CMOs because the buyer’s single supply of reality. What does this imply for the advertising perform? 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 shopper. We push campaigns to the market each day and get real-time indicators a few piece of content material being checked out, the feedback made, and the suggestions given. So, we have the heartbeat on the shopper.
Traditionally, advertising has stayed in its swim lane. Entrepreneurs use the information captured to launch additional campaigns, section audiences, and so forth.
The change now could be about entrepreneurs bringing collectively the entire view of the shopper. We’ve carried out this internally at Salesforce. You monitor advertising campaigns, assessment gross sales made, service instances raised, and collect product telemetry. This fashion, entrepreneurs can create a single view of the shopper.
That is necessary as a result of, right now, you don’t need to attain out to a buyer to promote them one thing in the event that they’ve already received an lively service case with you. That is a horrible situation. However as we transfer right into a world the place AI will contact prospects on behalf of the advertising perform, if you do not have the entire view, AI doesn’t have it both. Your buyer will get pissed off 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 the most effective function for this past possibly the CEO. Nonetheless, CMOs should associate with IT, the CIO, and the heads of gross sales and customer support. The problem is that they’ve all received totally different aspirations. I do not see any of them desirous to place the shopper on the heart of all the pieces they do in the best way 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 the case 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 realizing about it. For instance, our advertising cloud’s ship time optimization function permits you to ship emails at the most effective 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 applied AI within the workflow. AI will not be a separate instrument in search of a separate enterprise situation. You inject AI into one thing already being carried out 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 workers, after Dreamforce, knew about our newest improvements and will discuss through the latest 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 coated the 70,000 folks. As you may 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 report your self on Slack for 5 minutes pitching the company message after studying the fabric. Then, you’d ask Einstein to price your presentation. It might come again saying, “Leandro, you have carried out an ideal job highlighting this buyer story in relation to this new product function. You forgot to say a statistic, and possibly 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 may 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 fast worth.”
Leandro Perez
CMO, Salesforce, Asia-Pacific
With the rising use of AI, how will you retain the human contact? How do you steadiness AI’s revolutionary potential whereas sustaining an genuine model voice and personalization?
We do not desire a world the place each model sounds the identical. In case your model appears like everybody else’s, you would possibly as effectively be promoting the identical merchandise off the identical shelf. So, you should differentiate your self.
One among our prospects in Australia, Mecca, a cosmetics model, needed to reinforce its on-line shopping for expertise past the established shops. So 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 good sufficient. This reinvented AI agent appears like a consultant of Mecca. The model may deflect 75% of chats to the agent, which meant people now had extra time to spend with prospects.
Additional, there’s at all times 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 may deal with nearly half the instances rapidly, with people within the loop. They’d assessment what the AI had really useful.
In each examples, the manufacturers thought by the use of AI. They didn’t go along with the most cost effective, most publicly accessible instrument. It is a thought of, measured method, as with AI in place, when you make errors, there might be extreme penalties.
Storytelling has acquired a strategic significance for organizations right now. 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 prospects gained’t excite them.
Within the age of AI, you should differentiate your self. And a superb story can try this. At Salesforce, we do that by sharing examples of how our prospects have succeeded, which is one in every of our core values. So, belief is our primary worth as a result of, with out it, you may’t do a lot with cloud computing or have an ideal relationship with the shopper. Nonetheless, the second worth is about buyer success.
We have carried out that by creating movies of buyer tales. We function prospects in our occasions and like to have them communicate and showcase their merchandise. We seize these tales; we have fun them. Not too long ago, we have gone from not simply celebrating tales about manufacturers but additionally concerning 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 know-how utilization worldwide. Nonetheless, sure challenges persist, equivalent to an absence of expert expertise to function the instruments. How can organizations cope with them?
The advertising subject has turn out to be extra technical. I’m fortunate as a result of I come from that background. We’ve taken a couple of approaches for my crew. We’ve employed folks with that experience who can use the advertising cloud, information cloud, or our Tableau analytics answer.
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 necessary. 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 you should reskill your current workforce regularly. 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 function 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 corporation implements AI at scale, prospects find yourself speaking to AI. Quickly, prospects 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 perform finest geared up to know the shopper’s wants is advertising.
So, I implore all entrepreneurs to make sure this know-how will not 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 pieces from software program to investments. It’s important to brush up in your information evaluation abilities so you may discuss to a CFO and defend the place your cash goes.
At Salesforce, we’ve got 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 a giant alternative.
I’ve not come the normal manner into advertising. I am excited to be at a rising firm like Salesforce, the place we’ve got many new merchandise.
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Comply with Leandro Perez on LinkedIn to be taught extra about AI-driven advertising.