Top 10 Most Memorable Moments & Events at Inspire18

Originally posted on Linkedin

More Easter Eggs than the White House Lawn in April...

Choosing the 10 most memorable moments and events at Alteryx Inspire 2018 is a difficult and very subjective thing to do. Why? Because we had a cross mix of analysts, data scientists and business executives from 29 different countries representing over 30 different industries. And there’s personal taste… where some of you love classic rock, others are into EDM. So let's give the people what they want! Including surprises within surprises as our goal was to to be completely unconventional.

The Doors were the first band to play the Anaheim Arena 51 years ago

See my Top 10 including more videos, photos and reveals on my LinkedIn post

This article was originally published in MarTechAdvisor

Building Blocks: Seth Greenberg, CMO at Bask Talks Marketing Tech

by Ankush Gupta May 18, 2016

1. Could you tell me a little about yourself and how you came to be the CMO at Bask?

I had just finished a two-year stint as the CMO of LifeLock. I was busy consulting and advising start-ups and other tech companies in the Bay Area when I was approached by an up-and-coming tech company in Utah. At first, I was asked to join the company as a consultant. Then, it made sense for me to join the board. Finally, I broadened my role to become CMO.
I’m here because I believe Bask’s mission is exciting. Being from the Bay Area, I’m fortunate in that I can be very choosy when it comes to where can I help make an impact. But Bask offers a compelling problem to solve, and it’s a common problem people face today. If you’re reading this and have parents who ask you for tech support, but you don’t have the time or patience to solve those issues – that’s our calling.

2. Are you happy with the buy-in for Marketing Technology that exists at Bask? Do you think the investments being made are adequate or could be more?

My concern is always “to what end?” Marketing technology needs to serve your business strategy, so if it can move us along faster and better and with more impact, then I’m happy.

Currently, I’m evaluating how technology can better support our company strategies. Getting your house in order is more important at first, because you need solid legs before you can move forward with technologies that can help you efficiently scale.

3. What is the key problem you are attempting to solve with marketing technology implementation – could be 360 customer view, better customer experiences, crafting better journeys, full circle attribution?

I would say customer nurturing. That is, making sure that our members are engaged with us, and that they see what value we’re bringing to the table. We support our members in ways that they might not always see – such as data backup, antivirus, and identity protection – so it’s important for us to build a relationship, not just when they need our help, but when things are going well through strong communication.

4. What are some of the challenges your team faces from a technology & integration perspective?

We’re small and we’re scrappy. We don’t have the resources that big companies have, so we’ll bring in experts for implementation and then cross-train ourselves to be utility players. Our team members cover more than one area, rather than becoming siloed as subject-matter experts.

5. What is your take on the massive explosion of martech companies across so many categories? Do you feel spoilt for choice or is it just more of a chore to evaluate additional options?
No salesperson ever tells me that they can’t solve our problems, so it’s harder now to discern B.S. from reality. I’m seeing a trend where many forceful martech companies come to me with their agenda before they develop any deep customer empathy for what our needs are.

Earn your credibility – if you tell me you’re not right for us, I’m going to remember that. And later, when maybe you are right for us, I’m going to remember that too.

6. What is the one area of investment you'd like to make in the immediate future from a marketing tech perspective?
Unfortunately, running a business is not always linear. We have immediate needs across CRM, social advocacy, measurement – and we’re addressing all of them concurrently. For now, those are our big three.

7. Build your own stack or buy into a pre-built martech cloud - what team are you on?

Throughout my career, including when I ran digital marketing for TurboTax at Intuit, I’ve tried both approaches. The promise of a pre-built martech cloud – which I have a bias for – isn’t usually fulfilled, because often, some of that cloud is based on acquisitions. My team ends up knowing more about what’s going on within the different technologies that have rolled up under one company than the folks who are responsible for their individual units. So the answer really depends on timing and their bandwidth and cross-knowledge issues. We just want to make our experience the best, so I don’t have a definitive preference.

8. Could you share for our readers, an infographic, list or description depicting your marketing stack (various marketing software products or platforms your team uses or subscribes to)?

We prefer to keep this close to the vest. But I can tell you that we’ve built a proprietary platform which enables us to resolve 95% of our members’ tech support issues remotely. We use several martech solutions to integrate and support that platform.

TBT - Intuit QuickBooks "Small Business Big Game"

I'm extremely proud of my last (and largest) marketing campaign at Intuit. Check out the highlight reel!

These are a few of my favorite things..!

Someone recently asked what is my favorite project I've ever worked on.  That's too difficult to answer as I have dozens of campaigns I am so proud of.  Here are three that are top of mind...

1. SnapTax by TurboTax

With the new product launch of the first-ever way to do your taxes on a smartphone I felt marketing needed to step-up and make the app developers proud and do justice to an amazing product  We produced this online video (and I negotiated the music rights) that was so well-received we also aired aired this as national brand advertising on primetime television.  The SnapTax app debuted as one of the most popular paid apps with millions of downloads in a short tax-time window - and culminated in the lead developer giving me a bear-hug as she said she couldn't have imagined such a wonderful ad.

2.  LifeLock's new Brand Positioning

I started as the new CMO in July 2013 and was challenged to change the brand from fear-based marketing to "peace of mind" and something a much broader-based group of consumers would love.  Within 5 months we conducted extensive research, onboarded a new agency and produced 6 spots that encourage folks to Life Your Life Freely in an always Connected World.  I hired comic actor Rob Riggle for VO and the spots are testing through the roof. This represents a foundational change to now reach a huge addressable market that have shared values.

3. Small Business Big Game - a Never-Been-Done before Super Bowl concept!

Click the above Image and Check Out the Microsite

This was one of (if not the) biggest social media campaign in SMB history culminating in one lucky small business winning 30 seconds of glory.  I drove the concept, development and sold this into the company to donate our first-ever Super Bowl ad buy to a lucky small business owner in 2014.  What made this so exciting is the team crushed the lofty business goals.  One metric was to try and surpass 3 Billion earned media impressions (QuickBooks typically gets 1 Billion/year).  I am proud to say this campaign received over 20 Billion earned media impressions!)

I hired Bill Rancic (from The Apprentice) and football's Jimmy Johnson to help promote the cause:
I'm extremely proud of my last (and largest) marketing campaign at Intuit. Check out the highlight reel!

Late Night with Seth Meyers

I had the pleasure to work with Seth Meyers who allowed LifeLock to be the first in-show promotion on his Late Night program. Great job!!

Netflix has a terrific vision of workplace culture

Culture from Reed Hastings

Super Excited!

My ride at Intuit was a rocketship.  It started with Vanilla Ice and ended with the Super Bowl.  My secret sauce at Intuit was to push the envelope with "NBDs" (never been done) innovation.  And my teams executed on The Tax Rap and now "Small Business Big Game".

For seven years my motto was Go Bold or Go Home. I encouraged my teams and our agencies to strive for break-thru programs.  And like George Costanza, when I pitched something so outlandish in the spirit of breaking barriers so bold with the potential of trying to get fired, I'd often get approval, recognition and even promoted (twice).

I am so happy to say I've left my final mark with what CEO Brad Smith called "Intuit's Camelot". When I pitched "Small Business Big Game" to Brad I could see the excitement on his face and 22 minutes later said "This is the best idea I've heard in my entire career".

Based on an insight that small businesses don't have a voice, the company gave me the green light to produce the biggest social media campaign, a true Cinderella story where hundreds of thousands of small businesses have a platform to share why they get out of bed each day, what drives them and share their mojo with the world.

Hundreds of thousands of entries will get narrowed down via gamification, 8000 Intuit employees will vote for their top 4. The Today Show will showcase the finalists for the world to vote.  The winning small business will have a 30 second commercial produced by RPA (who produced the Ferris Bueller Superbowl spot 2 years ago for Honda).  So you're watching the Superbowl commercials and it's the 3rd quarter... imagine a Paramount Pictures Tom Cruise release, followed by Gatorade, followed by our winner i.e. "Bob's Donut Shop" in SmallTown USA, and then Nike.  The beauty of it is that the first 27 seconds of the spot will be all about the winner, and nothing about Intuit, no product integration.  There will be a tag at the very end that shows how Intuit stands for the little guy and a call to action that kicks off the next big thing (which I won't disclose).

The campaign went live last week and has gotten the amazing buzz and earned media I had hoped and expected.  Already thousands of articles from AdAge to USA Today... And it's literally just the beginning.

I previously posted why I left a great job.  I am rooting my former team on from the sidelines.  I know this ginormous social media campaign will get them all fired...up!

@sethg