CMOs Need to Focus on Managing Multiple Brands, Not Multiple Identities

By Dave Scrim On Sep 6, 2019

Retailers with multiple brands are struggling to obtain a single view of their customers across their portfolio. Their siloed Marketing departments can’t connect the dots as customers shop from one brand to the next, across display, email, and in-store. The lack of visibility creates an identity crisis. Brands make the mistake of thinking about channels – and their customers – in segments, and waste their media spend confusing the customer with conflicting messages without even realizing it.

While many struggle, some brands are leading the charge to deliver relevant cross-band messages to each of their customers based on individual preferences. In doing so, they’re optimizing against their own data. Signet Jewelers is an example of one company focused on getting identity right across brands.

“The key is to extend our understanding of how shoppers approach our various banners at an even deeper level and unlock the power of digital attributes – the true value of the digital attributes is unlocked only when our first-party data is deeply integrated on a platform that enables advanced algorithms,” said Todd Birchenough, Senior Vice President of Retail Analytics at Signet Jewelers.

Identity to marketers is like water to humans. It enables everything we do, and we can’t function without it. It drives audience selection. It drives Personalization. It drives measurement. Without a solid identity, the rest of it doesn’t work.

Smart marketers like Todd know this. Signet’s portfolio includes Jared, Kay Jewelers, Zales and multiple other national and regional brands, after all.

“Customer-first, data-driven assets are considered a unique part of Signet’s strategy that sets us apart from some of our competitors,” noted Todd. “We tap into the digital browsing and habits of our shoppers to deeper understand the best predictors of future purchases and the best way to communicate Signet value to those shoppers.”

While not all companies manage multiple brands, the importance of achieving a single identity for each customer remains the same.

We’ve seen marketers who are unable to separate true prospects from current customers. In one prospecting campaign, nearly 50% of the DSP impressions being delivered were going to existing customers. When you have a strong identity and can separate customers and prospects, you can re-route those impressions to actual prospects, re-invest the media and measure actual prospect performance. We’ve also spoken with brands that unknowingly have multiple IDs for the same customer. In one instance, we de-deduplicated more than 10% of their customer IDs. When that happens, you can create more accurate customer profiles that improved reach, personalization, and measurement.

Signet and all brands deserve top-line and bottom-line solutions that enable them to realize significant savings and/or incremental pockets for top-line growth. It’s our job as engineers, data scientists and marketers to provide the right solutions.

The industry is getting closer to one-to-one personalization, but we still have a long way to go. The early adopters continue to innovate what is possible, and the skeptics are finally realizing the value of delivering a unique and relevant message to everyone.

The fight for a share of wallet is real, and marketers looking to capture their share must be able to meet customer expectations of relevant and unique messaging. Make no mistake, identity is no longer a “nice to have;” it’s a must-have.