>> Live from Las Vegas,
it's theCUBE covering Adobe Summit 2019,
brought to you by Adobe. (techy music)
>> Hello, everyone, welcome back to theCUBE's
live coverage in Las Vegas for Adobe Summit 2019.
I'm John Furrier with Jeff Frick from theCUBE.
Our next guest Bradley Jenkins,
who's the marketing CIO and vice president at MetLife.
Part of the global technology
and operations group. >> That's right.
>> Innovative title. >> It is.
>> Welcome to theCUBE. >> Thank you.
Thanks for having me, thank you.
>> So, we're here at Adobe Summit.
A lot of things are happening.
It's really interesting because
you have a convergence of two worlds,
and it looks like a cloud world.
It's the creative cloud,
it's the experience cloud now called.
So, the whole world's changed.
A lot of devops mindset in there.
You've got a platform.
So, the whole world's changed.
Now, marketing-- >> Yeah, yeah.
>> Has a full-blown cloud.
It's not just marketing cloud.
>> That's right, yeah.
>> And so it's a whole system. >> Yeah.
>> So, as a marketing CIO what does that mean?
There's now a new role emerging in organizations.
>> Yeah. >> Is this what we're seeing?
>> I think it's an emerging role.
I think it's one of those things where in the marketing
and technology space the lines are blurring,
and part of the role of people
like me are the ones who can be
the bridge makers between the two functions
and bring in products like we see all around us here today,
cloud-based solutions, how do we
activate marketing tactics faster, quicker,
and then combine things like experiences with tools
and technologies in different ways,
so I think it's a specialty skill
that's coming out now and emerging.
>> Well, one of the patterns is that marketing departments
that have a technical and also IT relationship
seem to be more agile and transform faster.
>> They do, yeah. >> This seems to be the same
thing that you guys are looking at, right?
>> Exactly, it's all about speed to market.
So, I think agility is one, co-locating,
combining everything from creative to the developers
all in one, to our product resource person all in one,
and we get in and try to solve
business problems as fast as possible.
>> But you're almost kind of the personification
of the story we hear all the time,
which is CIOs get a seat at the table right now.
They're no longer just keeping the lights on
and the systems lit, but it's a fundamental way
that the company goes to business,
a fundamental way the company interacts
with their customers. >> Yeah.
>> And so to actually put a marketing CIO title,
that's a pretty unique thing.
I don't think we've ever had one on.
So, you come at it no doubt about it,
"I'm here about customer engagement,
"customer experience, not keeping the light on."
>> That's right, that's right.
First one, so it's like a unicorn.
(laughing) >> Very good.
>> So, how's it been, so tell us some of the things you do,
and I love how you're part of a global technology
and operations group. >> Yeah.
>> Notice the word operations and tech together.
Again, back to this-- >> Yeah.
>> Cloud theme of devops-- >> Yeah.
>> Which changed the game on the IT world.
>> It has, yeah. >> So, we're seeing that same
thing happening, playing out in the creative market,
whether it's content or here. >> Yeah.
>> Same thing, explain some of the things you're doing.
>> Yeah, it's the same thing,
and everything's very cloud-based today, obviously,
so everything from building out content platforms
and services and content services frameworks,
which is key to what we want to do,
but also, you know, campaign and analytics,
and you know, social and what the emerging capabilities are
in social and how do we tie all of those together,
but do it in a way where we're capturing data and insights
across all of our channels in a more creative, quicker way,
and then activating that across,
you know, new experiences, so--
>> You know, Bradley, one of the things I wanted to ask you,
and I'm glad you came on, because I've been
really kind of riffing on this idea,
and I'm trying to get a day, an actual year,
kind of a before cloud/after cloud
demarcation line because (chuckling)
you know we're in Silicon Valley.
We cover a lot of startups, and literally the ones,
go big or go home is kind of the mantra,
but if you were born before Amazon--
>> Yeah, yeah. >> You pretty much either
aren't around or got acquired. >> Yeah.
>> If you were born after Amazon,
where cloud scale and all this stuff happened,
you tended to thrive in a whole
new kind of shift. >> Yeah.
>> So, in MarTech, which was a heavily
funded sector-- >> Yeah.
>> The ecosystem map of pure play applications
was pretty dense. >> It's very dense, yeah.
>> Did that live up to its name?
Did it shift in shape, what's your
thoughts on that MarTech landscape,
because certainly it's relevant.
When you're a marketing CIO you want to put
the technology in place. >> Yeah.
>> Has the platform shifted, what's the,
what's going on, tell us. >> Yeah, so you know,
I think has it lived up to its name?
Yes, and it's created challenges
(chuckling) at the same time.
So, what it's done to the MarTech landscape
is 17,000 or whatever tens of thousands of products now.
I'm not sure what Scott Brinker's latest one shows.
Every year it doubles or quadruples in there,
and I think one of the biggest challenges
we have now is just navigating the landscape,
but then being able to pick out and say,
"Here are the five things I need to focus on,
"and here's how I'm going to tie them
"together and integrate them in,"
and there's a lot of noise and you have
to break through a lot of that
to be able to craft these solutions together.
So, in a lot of ways I think it's lived up.
In a lot of ways I think it's created
a lot of new challenges that things like marketing CIOs
need to think about and be aware of
the breadth of capabilities that are out there,
but not just the capabilities,
how do you stitch them together,
and you become a little bit more
of a weaver than a specific domain in a classical setting.
>> So, cloud's an early adopter.
Proves the model-- >> Yeah.
>> But now reality as operationalizing things
becomes clearer. >> That's the real challenge.
Yeah. >> The wheat from the chaff,
as they say, kind of get figured out.
>> Exactly, yeah. (chuckling)
>> Bradley, I want to get your kind of thoughts
on as the relationship between the company
and the customer has shifted from
sitting down with an agent or maybe talking--
>> Yeah. >> To an agent on the phone
to really electronic means-- >> Yeah.
>> How you've been able to kind of
continue a certain type of brand experience,
and I'm also just curious your feedback on the theme here,
where it's not really the transaction.
It's the experience of which the transaction is a piece of,
and how are you seeing that play out in the way
that you guys interact with your customers.
>> Yeah, and I think for us, we're an evolving state, too,
and we have agencies and brokers that we work through,
and so it's a B2B model in some cases.
In some cases it turns and we're a B2C targeting B2B.
Group customers is an example,
and so the experiences vary a bit.
So, for us it's experience of the end customer
and how do we service them, how do we treat them.
What's the purchasing and servicing capabilities look like,
what's our customer service look like,
but also the experience of agents and brokers,
and are we providing the right services
and products to them to be able
to equip them to go help and resell product.
So, we look at it from a couple different angles,
and depends a lot on context
and where we're operating and servicing products at.
>> And is it easy to maintain kind of the voice of the brand,
if you will, through these alternate channels,
or you know, how do you kind of stay true to the brand
yet go to market through these, a myriad of channels.
>> Yeah, yeah, no, it's a good question.
We're literally working through the same
kinds of things now of what can we help
provide agents and brokers with that helps with our brand,
our brand promise, helps them sell better.
So, it's a work in progress but it's a good challenge.
Yeah, I don't have all the answers.
>> Take a minute to explain the MetLife transformation,
what you guys have done, where are you now in the journey,
your journey. >> Yeah.
>> Obviously you're an Adobe customer.
You're here at their event.
Where are you on that progress bar?
How far along are you, you're obviously,
it seems to be a theme of transform
and continue to transform is what
successful companies are doing,
or iterating or raising the bar,
whatever term you use. >> Yeah.
>> Where are you guys at?
Can you take us through where you're at?
>> Yeah, so maybe a few years ago
we refreshed our enterprise strategy.
We placed customer and digital and data
at the center of our enterprise strategy,
and we have pillars around different
transformation aspects that we're working on,
everything from customer service to right products,
simplifying our product messaging.
The way we talk about products,
especially in insurance, can be complicated,
and so we're trying to get a little more concise
and clear and package things differently,
but at the core our strategy now is placing digital,
placing data at the center of it,
and then how do we enact data in new and different ways,
everything from not only knowing customers,
but how do we use data to create better
and smarter products, or even de-risk different products
that we have so we can be price
competitive in certain market areas.
>> So, data's the lifeblood of
your transformation. >> It is, it is, yeah.
>> What's the strategy,
how are you guys enabling that internally?
What's some of the results, can you take us
through some experiences? (laughing)
You don't have to tell us any numbers,
but I'm sure it's helping.
If you do it right it'll be-- >> Yeah.
>> It's challenging, though.
It's not easy. >> It is, yeah.
It's challenging and it will take a while to sort out,
(chuckling) so I won't say we've solved everything,
but I think we look at a few different things.
One is knowing the customer, and so, you know,
we're investing heavily in doing things
like customer profiling and customer 360,
whatever you want to call it, in different areas,
but how do we know them and then how do we then
enact the data as an insight into different channels.
So, we've had a lot of good successes in there
in particular markets on creating more engaging experiences
and lifting customer retention and loyalty,
so we've had good insights there.
We're applying it to other different areas,
so things like when we go to bid for new products
or new customers around a new product area,
what can we do for our pricing models
and how do we leverage data around
where is geographic or whatever it might be,
or demographics and apply it to be more price competitive,
and we're starting to see a lot of fruition there
in how it gets applied to win new business.
>> One of the things that we've been talking about
on theCUBE, we go to a lot of events,
and the theme that comes up all the time
when we have these new shifts
is new things are emerging, new capabilities,
different economic points, scale's different.
So, all good. >> Mm-hm.
>> Now the hard part is making it work.
>> Yeah. >> Operationalizing something
new is a huge challenge. >> It is.
>> Could you share your view on that and reaction to that,
because this seems to be not about the tech.
>> Yeah. >> About either skills gaps
or culture gap, there's a lot of things
in the way of-- >> Yeah.
>> Operationalizing something new.
What do people do to operationalize something new?
>> Yeah, no, it's a good question.
I'm glad you brought it up, because that's actually
one of the things that I advocate for a lot
is a lot of times we lead with the tech
and then we place it, and then we say, "Well, now what?"
And then everything, you know,
sort of comes (chuckling) to a standstill,
and you have to lead with the people process.
So, again, in for transformation.
Understand exactly what it is you're trying to solve,
how you're going to solve it afterwards,
do you have the skillsets in place to do it,
and then follow up with the tech,
and then I think a lot of companies do it
a little bit reverse where they go and acquire,
and like, "Oh, we're going to solve this"
"and bring the tech in," and then
you're literally left standing at the end
of the day of how do you operationalize it.
So, then we focus on a lot is the people process piece
of enablement, training, the skills that are required.
How do you turn it into a machine
after you bring the tech in to really start
pumping up whether it's a growth objective or cost savings,
whatever the objective might be,
but you have to almost produce this into
a life machine of its own that can then
live and breathe after you bring the tech in.
>> What should marketing CIOs, as it becomes a,
I think it will be, in my opinion,
I think it will be a role. >> Yeah.
>> Because it's really critical because of the opportunity.
What should they be doing, but that's,
this new persona evolves. >> Yeah.
>> You're pioneering it. >> Yeah.
>> What is the job function, what does it do?
>> Yeah. >> In your opinion
how does this take shape? >> Yeah.
I think number one, learn the business.
I think you have to speak the same language,
and it's funny, the biggest challenge is translating.
So, different languages across different groups,
and the first thing any marketing CIO can do
is go learn the business, speak the same language,
and depending what company, you know,
we're an insurance company and a risk management company,
so understanding finance, understanding marketing
objectives, your customer objectives, is key,
and then figure out how to start mapping the solutions in,
but yeah, I think it's a bridge role
where you have to be able to be
a navigator in a way across solution options,
but always in context of understand the business
and how you can best apply it in a specific way.
>> And a data wrangler, of course,
because you're wrangling a lot of data.
>> Yeah, yeah. (chuckling) (chuckling)
>> Well, and I'm curious, you probably
don't have a lot of intersection with, you know,
kind of the actuarial side of the house,
which is-- >> Yeah.
>> You know, kind of always been data driven,
right, since the early earliest days,
but I mean, are you seeing, you know,
kind of that side of the house go, "Hey,"
you know, "can we get some of these new tools.
"Can we get some of these kind of new ways
"to approach the data problem than we historically did?"
>> I think now yes, I think it's been an evolution.
I think in the early days of data
it was a bit more of a scary thing,
and so I feel like we were, you know,
as advocates in the CIO space that we were pushing
a little more than, you know, being pulled in,
and I think lately in the last
couple years I know at least at MetLife
we've seen a shift of demand side,
of requests coming in saying, "We need to partner.
"We need ideas of how to accelerate
"and be competitive," which is great.
Now it's almost become a supply/demand trade off where--
>> Yeah, I mean-- >> You just can't keep up.
>> Yeah. (chuckling)
>> Because the level of segmentation
on kind of classic insurance, you know,
kind of breakdown is really high,
right? >> Yeah.
>> Sex-- >> Yeah.
>> Age, you know, a couple other factors,
but you know, now the amount of data that's available,
the amount of realtime data that's available--
>> Yeah. >> And changing,
they've got to be going bananas over on that
side of the house. >> Exactly, yeah.
(chuckling) >> Yeah, that's right.
>> You know, one of the things that
we've been seeing on the IT side,
and I want to bring a question in
of the marketing CIO piece is,
and we've had many CIOs talk about this
on theCUBE in direct interviews,
is they've outsourced everything
and they've really had no core competency.
You had-- >> Yeah.
>> All the big SIs running stuff.
You had global outsourcing development,
and as cloud became important
they had to build applications internally
they didn't have the skills. >> Yeah.
>> So, they had to quickly reset
and rebuild an in-house capability,
and the result of that is ongoing.
You've seen the ones that have done that well--
>> Yeah. >> With cloud are doing great.
>> Yeah. >> They still use
outsource stuff, now on the marketing side
you saw that same thing happen where
agencies run everything. >> Yeah.
>> The ad agency does this, you've got the creative agency,
you've got a PR firm, you've got all these things going on,
and some say that marketing has been
outsourced a lot. >> Yeah, yeah.
>> And so the question is what mix
of in-house skill-- >> Yeah.
>> And agency relationships, because now you can have
an agency that's an application developer,
no problem-- >> Yeah.
>> But core competency becomes a super
important question. >> Yeah.
>> And how are you funding it,
and what should be in-house and what should be outsourced.
>> Yeah, no-- >> Your thoughts.
>> Yeah, and we're going through the same evolution.
We had a position a few years ago
where it was almost entirely outsourced
and we insourced a bunch of it, and now
we're rightsizing what's insourced and not insourced,
and so I think one is think about what
your differentiation is and how you want to be competitive,
differentiate competitively and create advantage,
and then insource those things,
and then you have to find a way.
It's one of those things I think every year
you sort of have to rightsize and reassess,
and so for us, we insourced a lot of things around,
first around the build side,
so platforms being cloud but then
how do you enact and activate them,
so we brought some of those inside internally,
and then we started marrying
those up with creative agencies,
which is still outsourced, but we marry them up
and get these, you know, more agile lean teams
of cross-blended skillsets, then go
and go to market quicker with new experiences,
and I think over time you'll see us
start insourcing more of the agency side,
maybe shedding some of, you know, the left side
as we start becoming more pattern-based and whatnot,
so I think it's one of those things
that you evolve every year as you rightsize--
>> Yeah. >> But the key is trying
to tie it back to how do you want to create
differentiation and what's your competitive advantage,
and then make sure that you have that internal,
first and foremost, and don't outsource your--
>> Yeah. >> Smarts to another agency.
>> And I think the key point is by refactoring or resizing,
that's the iteration that you get
with cloud and scale. >> Yeah, yeah.
>> And if you don't do that, the scale can
also hurt you. >> It can, yeah, yeah.
>> It could come back and crash you.
>> That's right, that's right. (laughing)
>> Bradley, thanks for coming on.
Appreciate the insights, great to hear from a practitioner.
Love the new title, I think this
is a game changer. >> Thank you.
>> I think it's going to be a standard.
Final question to end the segment,
learnings over the past couple years.
What are some key learnings that you take away
from the process that you're going to carry forward?
>> Yeah, I think one is as a company being
a blend role between marketing and technology.
One is be willing to change and adapt,
and be willing to bring the rest of the company with you,
because you can't do everything yourself.
So, I think you have to be a, you know,
change agent for the company,
figure out that everybody is on the journey with you,
and then how do you create that
scale to get the mass moving,
because it takes a village (chuckling) to get things done.
>> Bradley Jenkins making history on theCUBE
(chuckling) as the first marketing
CIO we've interviewed. (chuckling)
Super excited, great insights.
>> Thank you. (clapping)
>> This is going to be a position
we think's going to be around for a while.
Of course theCUBE coverage here at Adobe Summit.
I'm John Furrier with Jeff Frick.
Thanks for watching, stay with us
for more day one of two-day coverage
here in Las Vegas after this short break.
(techy music)