Adobe Summit 2015: The Product is Marketing

The Dick Tracy moment was on Monday, March 9, when Apple heralded the coming of its much-awaited smartwatch in San Francisco with Apple CEO Tim Cook calling it the "most advanced timepiece ever created".

On Tuesday, March 10, the watch that can measure its wearer's heart beat, process voice commands and send email alerts, was a big part of the conversation among the 6,500-odd marketers gathered at the Adobe Summit, a mega digital marketing conference, held annually at Salt Lake City, Utah.

"The drumbeat about wearables is getting louder. But we need to see beyond the bright shiny objects and explore, why and how they can become meaningful," said Brad Rencher, Senior Vice-President and General Manager of digital marketing at Adobe.

"Things like Minority Report and Dick Tracy's watch are becoming real," exclaimed Adobe CEO and President Shantanu Narayen, referring to the science fiction story about alternate realties and the much-loved comic book detective's two-way wrist radio.

At a time, Narayen said, when the pace of change is being measured in weeks and not in years, he urged marketers to think holistically and go beyond marketing itself. "Marketing is no longer just science and art. We are in an era when your product is marketing and it's about how you sell and not what you sell."

The 'how' part is where Adobe comes in. Over the last five or six years, the San Jose-headquartered tech company that gave the world disruptive creative offerings, such as Photoshop, has been transforming itself to a powerhouse of digital marketing solutions, notably the Marketing Cloud, which raked in $1.2 billion in revenues in FY14. Increasingly, Adobe has been expanding the armoury of digital marketing tools it offers - either through acquisitions (the Adobe Campaign Manager got through the Neolane buy) or through in-house development.

The Marketplace

The Summit, where marketers from 44 countries were in attendance, is a place for Adobe to demo new products and solutions. This year the company is focussing on the Internet of Things (IOT), wearables and other digital touch points through its tools Adobe Target, Adobe Analytics and Mobile Core Services.

But the showstopper demo on day one was the Adobe Experience Manager screens, a technology whereby interactive content experiences can be managed and where the creative cloud connects with the marketing cloud.

Sports clothing company Under Armour's Senior Vice-President, Product Integration and Commercialisation, Jody Giles, showed how his company had disrupted its product development and marketing using AEM screens.

Three large separate TV screens were wheeled on to the stage. On one of the screens, a jacket took shape and colour, drawn on Adobe illustrator. Once the design was complete, with a flick of fingers, it was flung on to the next screen where the production numbers (volumes, sizes, etc) were decided, while on the third screen, the dynamics of marketing the jacket - from tracking the order to product fulfilment - could be seen.

No longer was it a click, drag or drop, but a wave and flick as the three screens were integrated through a mobile app. Even videos and photographs on a smartphone could be flung on to the TV screen through a flick of the fingers.

As Narayen pointed out, what the demo showcased was how marketing is increasingly encompassing product creation, which is moving into real time as customers share their colour preferences and so on.

Big Takers for Tech Products

But day one of the Adobe Summit was not just about new tools and solutions. There were learnings shared by top marketing companies, including Coca Cola. Lorie Buckingham, chief development officer of the 128-year-old cola firm shared how the company relentlessly creates consistent and continuous personalised experiences for its customers.

Keeping it "linked and liquid" is the Coca Cola way, said Buckingham, who described how through Coke's Freestyle vending machine, customers can create their own drink flavours. It took its open happiness platform to universities with its hug machines where consumers could hug a machine and get a free drink. Analytics plays a big role for Coca Cola with digital insights now coming from beacons planted in vending machines which tell small retailers in Atlanta what the drink preferences of customers are.

Even as marketers shared their digital marketing insights, it was left to author Michael Lewis, author of bestsellers like Moneyball and Liar's Poker to keep the optimism about the new brave world of technology alive. Asked about the tech bubble, Lewis said it did look very frothy, but he said, he did not feel so worked about these tech bubbles as he did about financial shenanigans on Wall Street. For, he joked, these tech bubbles have the pleasant side effect of encouraging entrepreneurship and creating jobs.

(Chitra Narayanan travelled to Salt Lake City as a guest of Adobe )