Digital Darwinism – Vivaldi https://vivaldigroup.com/en Writing the Next Chapter in Business and Brands Tue, 27 Jun 2023 22:00:39 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.8.22 Digital Darwinism Summit 2015: Lessons, Impressions & Takeaways https://vivaldigroup.com/en/publications/digital-darwinism-summit/ Mon, 21 Aug 2017 20:56:03 +0000 http://vivaldigroup.com/en/?post_type=publications&p=2281 Vivaldi hosted its third annual Digital Darwinism Summit (DDS) in Frankfurt on February 4th, 2015. Over 220 business leaders and marketing executives from various industries came together at the magnifcent “Palmengarten” to discuss the next chapter in the digital business and brand age. The Vivaldi Digital Darwinism Summit provides a spotlight on the challenges and […]

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Vivaldi hosted its third annual Digital Darwinism Summit (DDS) in Frankfurt on February 4th, 2015. Over 220 business leaders and marketing executives from various industries came together at the magnifcent “Palmengarten” to discuss the next chapter in the digital business and brand age.

The Vivaldi Digital Darwinism Summit provides a spotlight on the challenges and opportunities of the rapid digitalization across companies and industries. This year, we were proud to yet again host renowned speakers from various industries—ranging from consumer electronics, automotive and financial services to Internet, technology, and media—to discuss the wide range of experiences posed by the digital transformation.

To summarize the most compelling findings, we have put together a snapshot of each speaker’s presentation and insights shared during the Vivaldi Digital Darwinism Summit.

DIGITAL PREPAREDNESS

Vivaldi Partner’s Markus Zinnbauer opened this year’s DDS by presenting the results of the survey conducted prior to the summit. The underlying objective of the study was to assess the level of digital readiness of the participating companies, according to a number of key criteria.

One of the key findings was that digital increasingly becomes an integrated part of the business and also the personal literacy has increased, yet the majority still lags behind in their digital marketing activities. The respondents admitted that they lack digital customer insights and an according to need to map their customers’ journey. Moreover, they assessed their own company’s digital competence to be well behind the competition. The surveyed executives felt that they do not su ciently embrace and deploy digitization within the organization required to set them ahead of the competition. More than 65% of interviewed participants stated that too many competing priorities hinder their organization bene ting from the digital opportunities.

While companies are trying to adapt to the digital revolution, we are moving towards an even more connected and complex world, as the first speaker Liat Ben-Zur from Phillips laid out.

CONNECTED DEVICES, COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE & THE FUTURE OF COMMERCE

Liat Ben-Zur shared her personal view on today’s meaning of digital revolution and the impact it will have on companies in the future. She emphasized that digital has become a central element of today’s businesses and should be at the heart of every corporate strategy, regardless of the industry a company is operating in.

“Smart is more than just connectivity.
Products become smart when they share, adopt and learn to become part of customers’ lives!”

The next big thing in the digital revolution, she argued, will be smart products that disrupt value chains, force companies to rethink their way of doing business internally and unleash a new era of competition. So far, products are perceived as “smart because they are connected.” But connectivity is only the rst step for smart products.

Ben-Zur illustrated that the power of smart products lies in the opportunity to create value by sharing information among seemingly unrelated devices, using medical technology as an example. If a doctor gains data from smart devices such as a toothbrush, s/he could, based on the condition of the patient’s gum, assess the risk of a stroke. Truly smart health product need to be part of a bigger health continuum by becoming a contributor to the overall health.

The key for connected devices is to seamlessly t into the ecosystem of consumers. Only then they can reach their true disruptive potential and provide valuable bene ts based on the information they exchange.

HOW TO WIN BY DISRUPTING YOUR OWN INDUSTRY?

Claudia Lang and Dirk Rieken shared insights on the future of the insurance industry in the digital age. While other companies moved their business online several years ago, the insurance industry has struggled with outmoded organizational structures and the broker paradigm, explained Dirk Rieken. As a result, many insurers lagged behind in the ability to serve the needs of digital customers.

“Insurers that build brand through trust and transparency will thrive in the digital age.”

Yet, as big data, telemetrics and mobile distributions emerge, the traditional insurance distribution process will move away from the broker paradigm to a wide variety of direct and indirect channels between providers and customers.

Lang, former board member of Canada Life, pointed out that the key for successful insurers in the digital age is to build trusted brands known for good service through transparency and less complex products. She also explained that insurances ironically lag behind today because they were ahead of the IT game in previous decades. Additionally, a shift towards creating additional values along a digital customer journey is required in order to gather insights via data, which will allow insurers to provide customized cover and more risk-based pricing. With all these insights, Lang has given herself the mission to demonstrate what ‘Insurance 2.0’ looks like and launched a start-up that is backed risk-wise through a partnership with Swiss Re.

PANEL I: WHO WINS IN THE AGE OF DIGITAL DARWINISM: FIRST MOVERS OR FOLLOWERS?

Panel participants debated who the winners are in the age of Digital Darwinism – the rst movers or the followers? Undoubtedly, the participants took the same view that digitalization brings meaningful opportunities for companies across a variety of key dimensions. But before rms emerge as winners in the digital age, they have to adapt to new circumstances and master new capabilities.

“Big data will come to you; you don’t have to search for them.“

Big Data analytics, for example, provide new opportunities for companies to both deliver services and to improve operational intelligence. Yet, the discussions around big data miss a crucial point: the opportunity of small data. Winners of the ‘Big data challenge’ will be those companies who move from small to big data ltering the right information, highlighted Rob Walker.

Dr. Rob Walker
/Vice President Decision Management, Pegasystems/

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Dieter Wegener
/Senior Vice President Industry, Siemens/

Katrin Saternus
/Head of Corporate Communication, Daimler Mobility Services/

But digitalization is not only a purely market facing transformation. Industry 4.0 will also open up huge potentials for companies to respond to the demand of speed and agility necessary to survive in the digital age, as stated by Dieter Wegener. He explained that companies should start with the digitization of their value chain – connecting tools, machines, employees and the outside world (namely the internet) – to gain competitive advantage. Smart factories will enable individual customer requirements and the ability to respond exibly to changes. Siemens, for example, increased the output per worker at its factories by a factor of 6 through their Industry 4.0 program.

“The customer is the real driver of digital transformation.“

With regard to mobility, today’s user journeys have extended far beyond a nifty collection of gimmicky technology touchpoints – they expect their experience to be smart, convenient and seamless. Katrin Saternus explained that companies have to broaden and grow their digital ecosystem to deliver on the expectations of today’s customers, consumers.

Although rst mover advantage is critical to survive in the digital age, companies that set best-practice standards will at the end separate the winners from the losers, concluded Dieter Wegener. The question is not so much, how early you adapt a speci c technology. Instead you have to understand how to address the key driver of digital Darwinism: the customer

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Chair: Roland Bernhard
/Senior Partner, Vivaldi Partners Group/

INDUSTRY: Advertising – Google

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A NEW MARKETING PARADIGM: DATA DRIVEN STORYTELLING

Paul Co ey, of Google, discussed the growing importance of data-driven storytelling for marketing campaigns. He explained that the success factors of campaigns have radically changed through digitalization. While in the past the marketing strategies of companies were mainly focused on advertising their products, today the key to good campaigns lies in storytelling and deep audience insights.

“The power of successful digital campaigns lies in the contextualization of audience signals.”

As a result of digital revolution, companies often face several challenges including fragmented insights, performance obstacles and ine ciencies of managing campaigns across multiple formats and devices. These challenges force companies to rethink their traditional approach towards pursuing marketing campaigns.

Co ey proposed three key levers to succeed in this environment: First, attack the increased fragmentation by using a single operating model to reach the right user at the right time with the right message while getting smarter along the way. Second, shift to a programmatic ecosystem that will increase e ciency and decrease the process time of a campaign by up to 33%. And third, use the combination of audience signals across various touchpoints to ‘supercharge ads’, with a potential 542x uplift in marketing e ectiveness.

The key for marketers will lie on contextualization by using technology and audience insights simultaneously to drive successful campaigns.

Paul Co ey
/Director Business Development Europe, Google/

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THE REAL DISRUPTORS? YOUR CUSTOMER

Erich Joachimsthaler made it clear that digital Darwinism can certainly not be regarded solely as an event. In fact, it is a systematic and time consuming process of multiple innovations where lucky strikes are rare. Along with this process, not only is technology changing, but also consumers are changing and adapting to these shifting circumstances.

“Hope is not a strategy to win in the digital age.”

Joachimsthaler concisely illustrated the pace of digital transformation by reviewing the changing focus of Vivaldi Partners’ event series at the summit over the past three years. When coming together for the rst time three years ago, the growing importance and disruptive power of digital start-ups were the spotlight of the summit. Three years later, we now talk about how digital transformation disrupts entire industries. It is no longer only about connected products; it is about how industries connect with each other.

In his presentation, he also pointed out that digital transformation is only one step to succeed in the digital age. Another key factor for companies is to capture the value from digitalization and to monetize the mass of data. This will require changes in marketing, branding and often new business models.

Dr. Erich Joachimsthaler
/CEO and Founder, Vivaldi Partners Group/

INDUSTRY: Automotive – BMW Group

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LEADING CHANGE THROUGH BRANDING AND NEW BUSINESS MODELS IN THE DIGITAL ECOSYSTEM

Steven Althaus spoke on the changing role of mobility within the automotive industry and the way BMW manages to lead this change in the digital age. He gave a deep insight into BMW’s cutting-edge project and illustrated how successful change requires shifting and heightening the area of interest.

“Companies have to consider and treat digital transformation as new business models
and not only as a partial aspect in the eld of communication and marketing.”

Companies have to change their views from within the walls of the enterprise to a much broader ecosystem to be able to re-de ne their business models and brands accordingly. Rede ning the understanding of the industry is the key in a digital age to appeal new customer segments with new products and services and to shape the future through a future-proof brand portfolio.

Althaus further demonstrated how BMW managed to lead change by implementing their digital ecosystem approach. As a key takeaway, Althaus made clear that in the digital age it is a must for companies to build brands around a digital ecosystem in order to adapt to the rapid changes that digital Darwinism and the digital customer bring upon them.

Dr. Steven Althaus
/Senior Vice President Brand Management & Marketing Service, BMW Group/

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PANEL II: CMO-CIO RELATIONSHIP

In the light of the ongoing discussion about CMO-CIO relationship, we have asked leading Marketing and IT executives for their opinion on that matter. To turn the bene ts of technologies into pro t and growth, a close collaboration between the CIO and the CMO is essential, agreed the participants.

As customer experiences become more technology-driven and data-dependant, the CMO-CIO relationship has become a crucial corner stone for every company to develop a thriving customer relationship. Along with the digital revolution, IT has become a crucial success factor in today’s growth strategies forcing CIO’s to shift their role from being only an internal service provider to becoming a strategic partner or even a business accelerator. CMOs on the other hand need to develop a su cient understanding of the potential of new technologies and anticipate new opportunities to reach customers through cutting-edge digital means.

At the same time, the role of business software provides as SAP will change towards a ‘bridge builder’ function in order to connect IT and marketing, and support marketers to better connect with their customers.

The panel agreed that a key challenge for heterogeneous teams lies in their ability to simplify unstructured data and overcome business complexity to derive actionable insights and develop meaningful digital solutions that precisely target the speci c needs of today’s always-on consumers.

Stephan Gemm
/CIO, Trelleborg Vibracoustic SAP/

Dr. Steven Althaus
/Senior Vice President Brand Management & Marketing Service, BMW Group/

Oguzhan Genis
/Vice President & CIO Customer O ce, SAP SE/

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THE KEY TAKEAWAY

In summary, the Vivaldi Digital Darwinism Summit 2015 highlighted recent key developments across various industries. Understanding and leveraging the context of the daily lives of consumers and customers have become crucial in order to remain relevant and access new revenue streams. This also implies that the CMO and CIO roles need to grow much closer together to excel in this digital environment. Moreover, often times partnerships are essential to creating value add for the customer within a broader ecosystem. At the same time, our survey documented that there is still a lot of potential – especially from a customer insight perspective – to drive digitization within businesses. Only a thorough end-to-end digital strategy from the customer to product/production and down to the actual customer experience will create a sustainable competitive advantage. As our CEO Erich Joachimsthaler put it: it is the customer, not technology, that is disrupting industries.

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Ignore the Competition: How to Win with a Disruptive Business Model https://vivaldigroup.com/en/blogs/winning-disruption-video/ Mon, 12 Jun 2017 15:25:03 +0000 http://vivaldigroup.com/en/?post_type=blogs&p=2107 Disruption in the marketplace does not happen because of new technologies, as Vivaldi’s founder and CEO Erich Joachimsthaler explains, but rather because consumers now adopt new technologies at an exponential rate. These technologies enable, empower, and connect consumers, facilitating disruption. A winning disruptive business model is one that ignores the competiton and focuses on consumers. […]

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Disruption in the marketplace does not happen because of new technologies, as Vivaldi’s founder and CEO Erich Joachimsthaler explains, but rather because consumers now adopt new technologies at an exponential rate. These technologies enable, empower, and connect consumers, facilitating disruption. A winning disruptive business model is one that ignores the competiton and focuses on consumers.

To understand how behavior today changes in the future, you have to reimagine how you create value in the lives of consumers down the road. New value can only be created by changing the organization’s culture, strategy, and operations. Further, organizations must scale themselves to the speed of their changing environments.

Organizations looking to create disruption must create different expectations for their customers. Take taxi companies, for example. In the face of Uber, these companies must create a different customer expectation and fundamentally change to create value for their customers. Disruption must change how consumers receive value.

Organizations need to use disruption to not only create a brand, but also a brand promise. They need to promise their consumers added value in exchange for their expense, as Uber promises their customers convenience in exchange for their data. This brand promise will allow you to create value as you approach disruption.

In disruption, most people look to their competitors, but this is not how you win. Instead, you need to understand where it is that consumers’ money is going. That is how you win.

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A Fresh Perspective on Customer Expectations in the Digital World https://vivaldigroup.com/en/blogs/branding-magazine-interview-november/ Wed, 16 Nov 2016 16:23:54 +0000 http://vivaldigroup.com/en/?post_type=blogs&p=1454 Branding Magazine features our very own Founder and CEO Erich Joachimsthaler, in their latest installment of “What the Leading Brand Thinkers Really Think” – a series in which they drill down past the packaged “thought leadership” of leading brand consultants and examine what today’s essential thinking is, or isn’t – taking a look at digital not […]

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Branding Magazine features our very own Founder and CEO Erich Joachimsthaler, in their latest installment of “What the Leading Brand Thinkers Really Think” – a series in which they drill down past the packaged “thought leadership” of leading brand consultants and examine what today’s essential thinking is, or isn’t – taking a look at digital not as a mechanism, but as a mindset. See below for a short video of Erich’s talk with Chuck Kent of Branding Magazine along with excerpts from their interview.

Branding Magazine: Digital is such a broad topic. I know that you have invested in addressing it in a number of different ways, including your Digital Darwinism Summit, and your various digitally-related reports, such as your recent study on social currency. But I’d like to back up a bit and explore some of the thinking in “Bridging the CMO/CIO Gap,” which you produced in conjunction with SAP.

It raises five key issues, the first being new methods to understand customers and their use of technology. Since we often hear marketers dismiss digital insights gathering as merely “shiny new objects” for consumer research, can you share what you see as the most profitable or even transformative ways that digital is helping us understand customers?

Erich Joachimsthaler: Let me give you a good example. We work with a platform that is part mobile diary, part social network, and part community, with which we can actually track the daily life of consumers and interact with a large group in real time. The participants engage with each other, and we map how consumers really live and buy and shop.

BM: Your report also speaks to the second point, which is how digital creates new business models and ideas on how to generate sales. Do you have any favorite examples of this?

EJ: Yes, absolutely. What’s important is that business models need to be distinguished between demand side models and how you create new value on the supply side. These are two different things, and we always forget the supply side and how do you really capture the value.

A good example is the car industry. Almost every large car company today knows that consumers no longer want a car, they want somebody to sell them mobility. Everyone is experimenting with additional services, specifically mobility services, often times associated with the electric car.

Think about BMW and its i Division; it has a small car called the i3, and a larger car, the i8.

The point about these electric vehicles is not the cars themselves, even though they are amazingly beautiful (especially the i8, with its wing-style doors). The most beautiful part is that they are connected devices, like your mobile phone, connected to the cloud, wherever the car goes.

When you think of the business model here, you think of a future where the car is actually sold at cost, much as you buy a mobile phone today. BMW or other car companies make the money on the services that they sell over the months and years of usage of that car.

There are services such as DriveNow or ParkAtMyHouse, which are like Airbnb, but offered in a car. Now you can park at another person’s garage instead of in public parking, at a much cheaper rate. The service automatically identifies your car as you drive into Munich and tells you what private car garages are available for the day or for that weekend, so you can actually park share.

BM: So the whole paradigm of looking at people as customers — is that irrelevant now? Is that inherently too transactional if we need to connect to people as human beings on a more essential level?

EJ: Looking at people as customers is an outmoded notion. You need to look at people as humans. Today, one of the hardest topics in customer experience is customer journey mapping. Everybody maps a customer journey, whether they still map the funnel or they map several loops, a customer decision journey or whatever other methodology they use.

But 95% of a person’s day is not lived on that journey, so you’re really only studying the 5% when people are in a buying mode. That’s not where the action lies.


Click here for the full interview.

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Designing a Marketing Organization for the Digital Age https://vivaldigroup.com/en/blogs/designing-marketing-organization-digital-age/ Thu, 10 Mar 2016 15:53:05 +0000 http://vivaldigroup.com/en/?post_type=blogs&p=880 With the rapid pace of technology innovation, how can you ensure that you have the right marketing organization for success? In this recording, Marketo CMO, Sanjay Dholakia, and Vivaldi’s founder and CEO, Erich Joachimsthaler, will provide insights on creating the marketing organization for the digital age. In addition to key steps to future-proof your team, […]

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With the rapid pace of technology innovation, how can you ensure that you have the right marketing organization for success? In this recording, Marketo CMO, Sanjay Dholakia, and Vivaldi’s founder and CEO, Erich Joachimsthaler, will provide insights on creating the marketing organization for the digital age. In addition to key steps to future-proof your team, get guidance on what marketing’s role should be within the broader company scheme.

Watch to learn:

  • Why you should be focused on restructuring your marketing team
  • How your organization should be structured
  • What new skills your team will need to succeed

UPDATE: 

Watch the full webinar covering the need to design a marketing organization for the digital age.

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SXSW 2016: Connecting the Dots Between Your Customers, Your Brand, and IoT https://vivaldigroup.com/en/events/connecting-dots-customers-brand-iot/ Thu, 18 Feb 2016 17:30:44 +0000 http://vivaldigroup.com/en/?post_type=events&p=404 At this year’s South by Southwest conference and festival, associate partner, Philip Ryan will share how brands can better connect with their customers, enrich their lives, and forge lasting relationships. We’ll share success stories and cautionary watch-outs across a variety of industries including hospitality, retail, consumer products and financial services. Watch Philip’s talk here.

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At this year’s South by Southwest conference and festival, associate partner, Philip Ryan will share how brands can better connect with their customers, enrich their lives, and forge lasting relationships. We’ll share success stories and cautionary watch-outs across a variety of industries including hospitality, retail, consumer products and financial services.

Watch Philip’s talk here.

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San Francisco Meets Zürich https://vivaldigroup.com/en/blogs/san-francisco-meets-zurich/ Mon, 06 Apr 2015 16:16:33 +0000 http://vivaldigroup.com/en/?post_type=blogs&p=550 Zürich, Switzerland had an air of Silicon Valley last month as the worldwebforum hosted over 500 executives on the topic of “Digital Transformation & Leadership.” Key executives from companies such as Twitter, Swisscom, RedbareBull, and Paragon held engaging and vigorous presentations about the challenges and opportunities facing brands in today’s digital age.  As a co-partner of the worldwebforum, Vivaldi […]

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Zürich, Switzerland had an air of Silicon Valley last month as the worldwebforum hosted over 500 executives on the topic of “Digital Transformation & Leadership.” Key executives from companies such as Twitter, Swisscom, RedbareBull, and Paragon held engaging and vigorous presentations about the challenges and opportunities facing brands in today’s digital age. 

As a co-partner of the worldwebforum, Vivaldi Partners Group Founder and CEO Erich Joachimsthaler opened the event by putting a spotlight on Digital Darwinism and how to win with today’s customer.

Erich pointed out that digital transformation is consumer driven: “It is not technology that changes markets, but people!” With an empowered and always-on consumer, building brands in the digital age has changed fundamentally since the days of traditional marketing approaches. To be successful in the digital age, Erich suggests that brands have to adapt rapidly with a simple objective: solve the consumers’ problems and improve their lives.

Shortly after, the event’s keynote speaker and Co-Founder of Apple Computer, Steve Wozniak, took the stage. In an entertaining panel discussion, Wozniak addressed myths of Apple’s early days and the opportunities and risks in the brand’s new product, the Apple Watch.

The worldwebforum provided some thought-provoking insights and we were honored to participate in the discussion regarding the challenges and opportunities involved in facing digital transformation.

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Digital Darwinism, or How to Win With Today’s Consumer https://vivaldigroup.com/en/blogs/digital-darwinism-win-todays-consumer/ Wed, 04 Feb 2015 12:18:59 +0000 http://vivaldigroup.com/en/?post_type=blogs&p=552 The digital revolution has changed the game: building a strong brand, driving the innovation agenda, and achieving sustainable growth are now determined by our capacity to adapt to the digital age. With opportunities and challenges to connect with consumers evolving faster than ever, brands that use today’s tools to establish a relationship with and create […]

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The digital revolution has changed the game: building a strong brand, driving the innovation agenda, and achieving sustainable growth are now determined by our capacity to adapt to the digital age. With opportunities and challenges to connect with consumers evolving faster than ever, brands that use today’s tools to establish a relationship with and create meaningful value for consumers gain a necessary competitive edge.

CEOs, CMOs, and marketers across industries face a wide range of challenges posed by the digital transformation, ranging from how to leverage social, mobile and digital data to how to extract meaning from the Internet of Things, all to better serve their customers. The volume of options, risks, and the potential complexity of implementation are enough to send executives into a vortex of paralyzing confusion. At Vivaldi Partners Group, we understand the scope of the challenge and have spent over a decade advancing our thinking to help our clients thrive in this cutthroat digital environment.

Inspired by the term Digital Darwinism — coined by Evan I. Schwartz in 1999 and popularized in recent years by Brian Solis in the context of digital transformation—Vivaldi applied the concept to its core area of expertise of creating demand-driven growth strategies. Over the years, we’ve refined our perspective on the evolution of industries, categories and brands by continuing to explore how the increasing digitalization of people’s daily activities, goals and contexts are integral to driving growth.

Starting 2005, we put a spotlight on social technologies and how they aid consumers in connecting with brands and others. This led to our research pioneering the concept of Social Currency, which we defined as the extent to which people share the brand, or information about the brand, as part of their everyday social lives.

In 2010, Vivaldi invested significant efforts in advancing Big Data solutions by integrating unstructured data from digital and social sources with structured data, using analytic methodologies and tools to better understand consumers, create new consumer insights and drive brand strategies, marketing, and new innovations. This was done using sophisticated data integration through the PowerViz platform and DataViz, a library of data visualization, data analytics, and data management techniques.

Since 2012, Vivaldi has invested in mobile technologies by understanding how data from mobile device movement across time and space can provide new insights into contextualizing a brand or marketing strategy, create new segmentation and targeting opportunities, and discover the consumer decision journey.

In our work with clients, we help build strong brands, develop innovation playbooks and formulate growth strategies across industries by connecting business strategy with a deep understanding of changing customer contexts. Vivaldi differentiates its consulting services by combining a deep understanding of new technologies together with data analytics and consumer research to empower clients to become more agile and enable the digital enterprise to meet business objectives.

Our annual Digital Darwinism Summit has become a magnet for forward-thinking executives to discuss, assess and write the next chapter of marketing. Every year we’re delighted to host luminaries from leading companies, such as Google, Tesla, BMW, Philips, and Siemens.

Vivaldi Founder and CEO Erich Joachimsthaler says, “The power of information at the hands of consumers is what makes the world so disruptive for marketing. Digital Darwinism doesn’t affect just a few industries, but all of us.”

Do you have the survival skills to thrive in the digital age?

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Vivaldi Digital Darwinism Summit 2015 https://vivaldigroup.com/en/events/vivaldi-digital-darwinism-summit-2015/ Mon, 05 Jan 2015 19:29:29 +0000 http://vivaldigroup.com/en/?post_type=events&p=439 The Vivaldi Digital Darwinism Summit provides a spotlight on the challenges and opportunities of the increasing digitalization across industries and companies. The 3rd annual Vivaldi Digital Darwinism Summit (DDS) put a spotlight on the challenges and opportunities of the increasing digitalization occurring across industries and companies. Technologies are advancing more rapidly and customers are changing […]

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The Vivaldi Digital Darwinism Summit provides a spotlight on the challenges and opportunities of the increasing digitalization across industries and companies.

The 3rd annual Vivaldi Digital Darwinism Summit (DDS) put a spotlight on the challenges and opportunities of the increasing digitalization occurring across industries and companies.

Technologies are advancing more rapidly and customers are changing their behaviors faster than most organizations can evolve. Every brand will feel the disruptions in customer behavior and will need to adapt fast to survive in this environment.

The challenge for CEOs, CMOs and marketers: leveraging digital, social, Big Data and mobile technologies to create tangible customer value, evolve brands, and strengthen customer relationships to survive or else.

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Customer Relationships in the Age of Digital Darwinism https://vivaldigroup.com/en/blogs/customer-relationships-age-digital-darwinism/ Fri, 01 Aug 2014 00:16:05 +0000 http://vivaldigroup.com/en/?post_type=blogs&p=1112 “Digital Darwinism does not affect a few industries, but all of us.” Erich Joachimsthaler, CEO and founder Vivaldi, spoke at this year’s Digital Darwinism Summit about customer relationships in the age of Digital Darwinism. He pointed out that it is not technology that disrupts the marketplace, but consumers and their changing behaviors. The customer relationship […]

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“Digital Darwinism does not affect a few industries, but all of us.”

Erich Joachimsthaler, CEO and founder Vivaldi, spoke at this year’s Digital Darwinism Summit about customer relationships in the age of Digital Darwinism. He pointed out that it is not technology that disrupts the marketplace, but consumers and their changing behaviors. The customer relationship is the main disruptive force.

Erich emphasized his point with several cases, such as:

  • Deutsche Telekom / T-Online is disrupting the wireless market in the US with a new customer relationship model, not locking them in contracts anymore, but offering attractive pricing without international roaming charges or a down payment for the iPhone. T-Online is successful with its strategy, achieving growth in the US market.
  • BMW achieves disruption not with a new market entry in the electric car market or a new chassis, but with amazing innovations (e.g. 20% less heavy than lightest chassis on market) and with a significant change in customer relationships by being a leading provider of premium services for individual mobility. BMW, for example, has built a social network of private parking garages (ParkAtMyHouse) and created further initiatives like ParkNow, ChargeNow or DriveNow.

“Technology does not disrupt industries, consumers do”

Erich derived three main guidelines to adapt customer relationships in the age of Digital Darwinism.

  • Consumers are drawing a map to their doors: “If you ask customers directly, you get the obvious,” Erich explained. “To get valuable insights, you need to study their daily episodes.” To track consumer episodes, Vivaldi uses its Mobile Episode Tracking (MET) tool. MET tracks consumers’ daily episodes via smartphone diaries. This now makes it possible to uncover latent needs in order to significantly improve customer relationships. This digital tool is successful as a significant part of the US adult population are now digital consumers. The recent Vivaldi Partners “Always-On Consumer Study 2014” has shown that 48% of the US adult population are “always on” consumers and that they are not different from the less intensely digital consumers in terms of demographics, but vastly different in behaviors.
  • Consumer preferences shift daily if not hourly: This can be shown with the example of Burberry, which has now built one of the biggest presences on social networks. Fans are able to discuss and order clothing shown live on the runway, revolutionizing warehousing in the fashion industry.
  • The consumer is You Channel: Social Currency is the degree to which consumers share information about a brand with others. Vivaldi  identified six strategic territories of Social Currency where companies can improve their relationship with customers: Affiliation, advocacy, conversation, identity, information, and utility. Erich pointed out that a company is ready to build insanely valuable brands and reach new levels of customer relationships through Social Currency.

 

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When Big Data Becomes Smart Data: Darwinism in Multi-Channel Marketing https://vivaldigroup.com/en/blogs/big-data-becomes-smart-data-darwinism-multi-channel-marketing/ Sat, 26 Jul 2014 00:20:55 +0000 http://vivaldigroup.com/en/?post_type=blogs&p=1115 Representing one of the largest multichannel marketing platforms worldwide, Dominik Dommick, Managing Director at PAYBACK gave a fascinating glimpse into current practices and benefits of Big Data in his company. Despite the rapid innovation in digital channels and new technology, customer relationships in the digital age are becoming somewhat akin to neighborhood shops of the […]

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Representing one of the largest multichannel marketing platforms worldwide, Dominik Dommick, Managing Director at PAYBACK gave a fascinating glimpse into current practices and benefits of Big Data in his company. Despite the rapid innovation in digital channels and new technology, customer relationships in the digital age are becoming somewhat akin to neighborhood shops of the past, only at a much bigger scale, according to Dominik. What is different now is that customers are using multiple channels, online, offline and mobile to connect, browse and shop (also referred to as the “Trialog” at PAYBACK).

“Around the growth discussion of online retail people easily forget that offline retail still accounts for 80% vs. 20% online retail.”

The key question for PAYBACK and others becomes how to create value from the data and knowledge coming from all these different channels. Dominik shared a few fascinating patterns in this context. For example, PAYBACK found that buyers of premium gas are more likely to buy organic food. Dominik highlighted the most important goal is to better understand customers and to increase relevance. Not only because it positively impacts sales, but it also ensures that customers’ willingness to respond to marketing activities does not wear off. Especially in societies such as Germany, where data privacy is traditionally considered a very sensitive issue by many consumers, more differentiated data security standards would be beneficial, he concluded.

“Leverage data the smart way: Better understand omnichannel consumers, make more relevant offers and refrain from “overfishing” them,” explained Dominik. For the future of retail, he expects a “tendency to the middle.” In his opinion, offline retailers will continue to build up and leverage capabilities in the online space, especially collecting and leveraging customer data. Online retailers, on the other side, are already starting to build up physical retail locations to create more meaningful and personal customer relationships and also make shopping experiences more tangible.

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