>> Hello and welcome to this special CUBE update conversation, I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE with my partner, Dave Vellante, co-host of theCUBE. Dave, lots of people are asking us what's going on with theCUBE what's happening. Obviously COVID people know that we go out to events to extract the signal from the noise. Number one leading in enterprise tech events, there's been no events. People want to know what's going on with theCUBE, theCUBE virtual. And they want to know when the events are going to come back and when it does what's theCUBE going to look like. >> Well, as you know, for a decade we were on premises at events, tech events, our great sponsors would have us there and let us do our thing. And we'd have editorial there, which is nice and have our own on discussions. But it was always at the host venue, or largely was, we've done some of our own shows but now with the virtual occurring we're driving a lot of our own events, We've got now the time to do that, and here's what I think, John, I really do believe that there's no question that in the second half of the year we're going to start to see some kind of hybrid emerge where you might see VIP's, almost like the Golden Globes, if you saw that, there may be 15, 20 people socially distant, comfortable, maybe a VIP event, 10, 20 CIO's in a room, and I think there's going to be a digital overlay to that, the virtual overlay to get greater reach. And then even in 2022, when physical comes back in a big way, I think virtual is here to stay. People are learning so much. They're learning the value of that long tail, that host event consumption that we've seen in our data and that's going to continue. And people are really learning how to fine tune that playbook. >> You know, I want to get your thoughts on this because I was explaining to someone about our CUBE virtual opportunity and events coming back. And as you know I've been an avid clubhouse user since December 30th and I've been noticing that the engagement is so high in these apps where people are collaborating. So, I want you to explain the dynamics as, as we have these cube virtual, our first event is March 24th, we've got Jerry Chen from Greylock, Michael Liebow from McKinsey, Jeff Barr from AWS, three big names, big individuals in terms of talent and start up power. But the names of the companies, McKinsey, Greylock, AWS, and me and you, you starting to see virtual as a format, Dave, where our community can come together to compliment theCUBE physical events and bring a new venue, a new format to engaging and creating content together. Can you explain what this means for audiences, our community and our sponsors? >> Well, I think a lot of companies are looking at just events in very narrow sense, we do an event, maybe it's a webinar, we're going to do an event, maybe it's small, mid-size, maybe even a large event. And then we're going onto the next one, onto the next one, so it's all about this sort of event cadence. And I think there's a much bigger picture here. And it's really about the content, the arc of content, the community, engaging with that community, over a long period of time, it's not a one-shot deal or they're not disposable, sort of events are kind of disposable in that regard. I think our philosophy is different. We really try to connect, build that community out. And then also bring that community back in, those who want to participate, it's almost like a reward system. If you participate in an event, a community event, the next one you're actually going to be featured, you're going to come on theCUBE, you're going to be participating in the program directly. And I think, John, for sponsors, it really means, we've seen that a lot of the value that the sponsors are getting really has not been replicated from the physical events. And so what we're trying to do here is give those many, many sponsors a platform in order to have their voices heard so that they can engage with broader communities and tap in to other communities. >> Dave, you know, we were just talking the other day about all these event platforms that are out there and we're a media platform and that there's a new dynamic out there where it's not about the number of events that you participated in, it's the audiences that you engage with and create content value together and sponsors that you enable, we enable, can enable to go direct to the consumer. And this is a big trend that we're seeing. Media as a service or direct to the consumer. You seeing companies like Tesla do it, Apple, even venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz going direct to the audience and cutting the middlemen out of being disintermediated. This is an interesting opportunity. Can you share your thoughts, because if a customer, our sponsor, is going to try to do that, they need to have media capabilities, not just event software. An event is a moment in time, media is ongoing for engaging. They're two different things but they have to work together. Can you explain what this means in basic terms to customers and audience? Why is this so important this new trend? >> I think it's really simple. The bottom line is that every company has to be in some way, shape or form a media company they're producing content, and everybody wants to control the narrative, control of the audience, except the way you do that is to produce great authentic content. And I will tell you most companies, certainly most companies in the tech business aren't really that good at it. There are a couple of standouts. You mentioned some big names like Tesla, so you see some VC firms doing it, but people are learning, and they're going to get better and better at it. But our basic premise and I think it's right on is that every company has to be a content company, a content producer. So what we want to do is help them do that. Give them tools, give them platforms, give them methodologies to really be able to in an agile fashion, produce high quality content and distribute it through a workflow and then iterate >> Agile Media, that's our opportunity and that's what we're going to try to do. And I think what I'm most excited about Dave is we can help our sponsors with a product that helps them go direct to their customer while we can at the same time increase our serving our audiences with high quality content so that they can work with us, consume or create with us. And I think that's a power dynamic that is a flywheel of innovation. This is kind of what media should be, and this is what we're trynna do. >> Well, that's a mega trend. And the other thing that I think people forget about sometime is that data, there's a data fabric that connects all these different events, all the different webinars, all the content initiatives, the content programs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, that data fabric flows in a distributed way throughout the year, throughout the network, throughout the community. And it's got to be a two-way street and it's fundamentally you have to put data at the core of those initiatives. >> And Dave, one of the exciting things we're doing that I'll share is on March 24th, 9:00 Pacific, we're doing theCUBE On Cloud Startups, our virtual event in conjunction with AWS, Amazon Web Services, startup showcase. We're going to showcase 10 of the hottest startups in the Amazon cloud ecosystem around data, data ops, and pre-public, the next UNICORE, the next deca-core, And these are the hottest companies that are going to be hitting the enterprise and emerging technology markets in the next year. We're going to showcase them in our format, this is theCUBE virtual, so check it out, join us, be part of our community. If you want to engage with us, definitely get on the roster. We're going to do these four times a year, and again, we do a lot more of them. And then you'll see us back in person, when the events come back, post pandemic. I'm John Furrier, Dave Vellante, thank you for your time and we'll see you on the 24th, or at our events, thank you.

>> Announcer: Live, from Las Vegas. It's theCUBE! Covering Oracle Modern Customer Experience 2017. Brought to you by Oracle. >> Okay, welcome back, everyone. We are here live, in Las Vegas, the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, this is SiliconANGLE Media's theCUBE, our flagship program where we go out to the events and extract the signal from the noise. I'm John Furrier with my co-host, Peter Burris, Head of Research at siliconANGLE and wikibon.com. Our next guest is Jennifer Renaud, who's the CMO/Global Marketing Lead for Oracle Marketing Cloud. She's the brains behind this show, underneath Laura Ipsen, who was on yesterday, General Manager, SVP. Great to see you, Jennifer. >> Thanks, it's great to see you. >> John: Thanks for coming on, I know you're super busy, thanks for spending the time to come on theCUBE. >> Thank you for having me, I'm really happy to be here. >> So we talked last year. You guys were new. Laura popped into the position, took over the helm at Oracle Marketing Cloud, you joined the team. It's been quite a transformation over the past year. A lot of great feedback on the show. I mean, the Markies was like the Golden Globes, was glammed up, and people screaming, you mentioned. And then now, the conversations in the hallways, certainly great feedback on the sessions, and people in there saying, "Hey, I'm getting great, qualified people walk through, having great conversations." What happened? Between last year and this year. Give us some insight into what was the big shift. >> The big shift? Well, we've had a big shift in our team. You know, during that time period. (both laughing) Which is really interesting. >> And as manifest by the show, a big shift in direction. >> Yeah, a big shift in direction. You know, two things I think, seriously, there was a big shift in the team, overall, you know, my marketing team, we've made a lot of changes, we're relooking at how we do the work that we do. Really looking at the stories that we tell. You know, there's been a lot of change in that, as well. And then, how we tell our stories together with the rest of our CX team. That's been really important. I spend a lot of time with the rest of my CX peers, you know, that are here also. >> It's interesting, we've been following Oracle, this is our eighth year covering Oracle as Oracle proper, and two years covering Marketing Cloud, with theCUBE, and it was interesting, we were observing that how you guys got here, or there, last year, a lot of great acquisitions and integrated pretty well. But the question was, man, if you can just put all this together. Which you guys were kind of smiling, smirking, but you were doing that, so you have now this cohesive story and platform. You still have pillars of solutions, but, yet integrated under one customer experience. Give us some insight into where that is, and what's next, and how that's going. >> So, the connection with the entire customer experience cloud? >> John: Yeah. >> You know, we've been sharing that message for a while. You know, across Oracle. And I think you probably heard it the first time at Open World, which is where I met you, this last year, and we made some announcements then, but we are continuing to drive that total experience, you know, for our customers to engage with their customers. And, you know, I think probably the best way to look at that, and we were just talking about this a few minutes ago, you know, when I was thinking back in marketing 25 years ago. I've been reminiscing a lot lately. And I was looking back at re-reading the one-to-one future. And at that time, they were really saying, you know, the great thing you can do is engage with a customer in a way where you're a learning organization. So every touchpoint has the right reaction. I might call it, maybe, the physics of marketing. You know, we're going to have the energy that goes with this, so, you know, if I talk to you, if my last engagement with you is a services conversation, then the next marketing message better be in reaction to the last services conversation. And I think now with the ability for us to connect everything that we do in customer experience, and be able to connect our data, and be able to connect our interactions, our transactions, we have the ability to have a really great experience for our customers as result of having this connection. >> And the Marketing Cloud has gotten some good props, too. But I want to ask you about the CMO summit that you guys had in parallel here at the Mandalay Bay, we didn't get a chance to cover it, we were busy doing interviews all day yesterday, but we heard some good feedback. Mark Hurd came in and laid down some, like, "We have all this technology, why are we getting a 1% conversion improvement?" Or, I mean, all that tech. So it makes you rethink about CMO roles. And I want to ask you specifically, what was the conversation like when marketers were trying to think of progressive ways to get modern? What were some of the conversations around where they turn things upside down, what are some of the conversations that the CMOs were having, and saying, look, we know the future's the certain direction, directionally correct data, what do I got to do? >> Yeah, well, it's interesting, we talked a lot about data. We talked a lot about hiring people who can govern data, integrate data, manage data. Several of the companies said, you know, we're in merger and acquisition all the time, and it's a huge issue for us, because a whole new data set comes in. And it may have the same customer touchpoints. You know, the same customers. And now we have to figure out how to match the IDs. And so they said it's a huge challenge for them, you know, to be able to merge all of that. >> It's a great marketing opportunity for you to go to startups saying, hey, if you want to get by the big company, and they're on Oracle, make sure you're on Oracle! >> Jennifer: Make sure to call us. >> But that's a good point. >> Peter: Extends the ecosystem. >> Jennifer: Yeah, exactly. >> But that, the whole system of record, this brings up the integration challenges of moving fast and integrating in data. >> Right, and one of the things that came out of that, which was fascinating, is, the question was asked, is IT doing that, or is business doing it? And, without fail, almost all the marketers said, we own this now. This is our thing. You know, it's the customer touchpoint, business has to own it. >> What percentage of that is ownership by the marketing folks? Because I would say that I see a similar pattern where the digital end-to-end life cycle, from beginning to moment of truth is owned by the marketer. >> Yeah, well, it's happening more and more all the time, of course. >> John: 50/50? 60/40? 70/30? >> I mean, in reality? >> Yeah, reality. Middle America, middle of the world, not Silicon Valley. >> Let's see, in reality, it's maybe 50/50, maybe. I mean, I think we have a long way to go. >> John: Well had the commerce folks on earlier, saying that, 'cause we interviewed her, two years ago at Open World, 50% now are on the cloud vs. on-prem. >> Jennifer: Right. >> On commerce cloud. That's pretty significant. >> Oh yeah, big move. But I think as far as, you know, going back to the question on managing the data, how many people, how this is happening, and who owns it yet? I think there's probably still tension across all the businesses on who owns it and how you do that. If you could drop that tension and say we really do want that customer experience, we are going to focus on the customer. >> But are seeing that, and it's an interesting point, are people battling for control of the process, or are people battling for the control of the data, or both? 'Cause there's a difference. >> I think they are controlling the data. I don't think they're controlling the process, and it would be really great if they got to just obsessing about the customer instead. 'Cause if you did that, then the question of process or owning the data would go away. 'Cause you would do what was right for your business. >> So how has that relationship been between, the crucial relationship between sales and marketing starting to evolve? 'Cause in many respects, marketing used to be in service to sales, especially in the B2B universe, and now what we've heard today, and what we agree with, is marketing needs to be put in service to the customer. You need to do valuable things for the customer, otherwise you're not going to get any business, and you're not going to get any data back. So how is the marketing/sales relationship evolving as both of you try to focus on the customer? >> Well, you know it's interesting. Of course I'm doing that in my own role. Not just watching what's happening with my customers, but in my own role, my relationship is evolving with our salespeople. And, you know, relooking at what happens with the lead? And when we get a lead, what kinds of customers are we doing this with, and how do we want to engage with our customers? And we're completely changing how we've been doing this. I think, in the past, and I think it's really easy for customers to follow the numbers. >> What changes are you guys making right now that you can talk about that would be notable business practice wise that has been based upon data? >> So right now, just reducing our numbers of leads. Making sure that they are the right ones, and match the sales models we have. >> You're still taking a lot of inquiries you're more than happy to have pour in. But you're doing a better job of qualifying. >> We have a lot of demand. Making sure the demand becomes the right lead and opportunity, I think is the most important piece of this. You know, it's interesting language. We call it MQL, a lead score lead that comes out of Eloqua. And, to me, that's not really a qualified lead. I feel like there needs to be human interaction for it to be qualified. So I think it's interesting that the industry, over time, has started calling it an MQL. To me, it's an ML. >> Is the funnel changing now? 'Cause now we also observed and had conversations here on theCUBE where, if there's now super omnichannels, not just omnichannel, but like, every channel's open. There's been a flattening of channels. So you can have anything could be a channel. The entry point to the cloud for you guys could be Marketing Cloud, it could be commerce, it could be something else. Either way, the market is involved. So there's so many channels out there, so what does that do for the funnel? Because, if you're using third party data, which you guys have announced here, with the first party data, that's a compelling, game-changing shift in thinking. So the vertical funnel to your point of, you know, what's at the top. >> There's no such thing as a vertical funnel anymore. I mean, it just doesn't exist that way. Really, if you think about how we are engaging with customers, or consumers, you know, all the time. We talk about the omnichannel world, just like you just said, you can't look at it and say, "I'm going to go out and target someone" and wait for that to come in. People are searching all the time. They're picking up their phone. We just released that CMO Club whitepaper today, you know, talking about mobility. I was laughing, because we said people look at their phones 150 times a day, and I thought, seriously, I do it 150 times an hour. I can't even imagine. >> You're the first CMO that I've ever met that has agreed with me on this one. You're awesome. All right, so the funnel is sideways, it's all over the place, it's everywhere. That brings up the data question. And I think I know where you're going with this, so I'm going to try to see if I can lead you on there. So if that premise is there, which I agree is true, 'cause we have a lot of data that we're putting out there. That's our engagement data with siliconANGLE and all of our assets. The question is, it's the data. So, if the funnel was built for a certain reason, to track things, but that's to get the data, now the data's everywhere, so this brings the question up: how do you find the right data? So is the data available? 'Cause you mentioned the customers are talking, they're doing things. >> Data's available. We have it all over, we just have to make sure we're aggregating it in the right way. So, you know, for us, we're using our DMP, we're connecting it to our third party data, which I think is a great way to do this. You can know more about your customers. In some cases, maybe more than they might know about themselves. We're learning a lot about them as a result. And I think, with that, as we talked about earlier, I want more data. I don't want less data. I want more data. I want to know more about-- >> That's counterintuitive to what most people think about it. >> Exactly, I think it's very counterintuitive. I'm really excited about IOT for that reason. I would love to be marketing to people in space and time. I want to know where you are and what you're doing so that the conversation and the dialogue I'm having with you is exactly relevant to what's happening at that moment. >> You might be an outlier, maybe, but because you work for Oracle, you got a big net. You walk on the tightrope, but you got a net called Oracle. A lot of marketers might not have that support. So you're data-driven, you want more data, bring on the data is what you're saying. >> Yeah. >> Which is good, 'cause you can make sense of it. How does a company get to that position where they would have the courage and confidence to say "bring it on, bring on the data"? What would they-- >> Find the right partnerships. I mean, you can get that data, you have your own first party data, you can get second party data with other groups. There's no reason why you can't go in and say, hey I want to partner with another business on this. Companies have loyalty programs. You can go and share, you know, anonymized data with another group like that and learn more about your potential customer base. There are ways to get at this. >> And you guys are opening up the data cloud to them. Is this a true statement? Oracle customers can get access to the data cloud? Which is all the data that you guys are providing, third party data? >> They can purchase the data. >> John: Well, they can subscribe to it. >> Yeah, they get it with purchasing DMP as well. Yeah, they can subscribe to the data. Yeah, any customer can get access to it. >> I have two questions about what you've said thus far. One was, I heard you say, I want to make sure I heard it, that it's an ML, it's not an MQL until it touches a person. Because that, at a conference where everybody's talking about AI and everyone's talking about automation, that is counterintuitive. Totally agree with you, but want to hear what you mean by that. >> Okay, so we'll distinguish what I think AI will do versus what happens when a lead comes out from Eloqua that's lead scored. So, when a lead is lead scored, you know, it's still human interaction right now that says how do I come up with a lead score? You know, so my team, we spend a lot of time, like, which metric should we be using to make sure we figure out, is truly a lead that should come out of Eloqua at this point. We spend a lot of time, and then we run the data, and we look at it and figure out what's going to be the right mix. >> So you're, in many respects, training Eloqua. Just in a very labor-intensive way. >> Jennifer: Yes, it is a labor-intensive way. >> John: That's a human-curated algorithm. >> It is a human-curated algorithm, yes, and we talk to all of our global teams, we look at absolutely every way we should do this, and then we start testing it and making sure that we get the right leads that are coming out of this. At the right rate. That matches the number of people that we have that can serve the leads, as well. Too many doesn't help us if I don't have enough salespeople. Too few doesn't help me if my salespeople are sitting there not doing anything. >> So the readiness is the knob you're turning. So that the flow of leads are popping out in capacity to fulfill them. >> Exactly, exactly. It's an interesting mix. You know, we've been doing the model that says more is better, more is better, more is better. And after while you say, you know, how are this many people going to service this x many times leads that come out of this? But lead scoring is still based on my less than perfect -- >> Peter: Discretionary observation on what this actually means. >> Jennifer: What this actually means, exactly. >> That's great, that's great-- >> So I still need a human to pick up the phone and call the person and say, you know, are you actually a perspective customer? Are you a student, or are you, you know. >> So you're using some of the inside to then validate and use your judgment, it can be very quick, and very simple, but it's a central feature of the whole process, and it's the ultimate data. It's the ultimate first person data. Did you talk to someone, are they there? That's great. Second question-- >> John: I'm not sure I agree-- >> Now we can go to the AI, I think, which is the other part of that question, which is the predictive analytics that's coming out of this now. So now we have predictive analytics are coming out of this, that are looking at this and saying, hey we can look at this a little differently and do a little more listening and see how people are really engaging. Do we have different search patterns? We're saying, do we see search patterns inside of a company that might say there really is a buying activity happening here? So, great way to look at it from a B2B perspective. Now that begins to change what's happening with the lead. >> So it sets priorities on who they should be calling. Do you still anticipate that that customer's going to get a phone call? >> Jennifer: Yes, yeah. >> Okay great, second question-- >> Hold on, I'm going to push back on that side. One little caveat I have. I agree with your statement, in the all-digital world, the users are self-serving, so you can imagine a scenario where there's no human involvement at all. I'm flying around the web, I'm surfing, I'm discovering, and I'm a person, and I'm into some marketplace, and I'm buying, I'm buying. No human touched me at all. I'm a qualified lead, but I get link-baited, or I get tracked into a discovery pattern that is completely digital. There's no human involvement in that. >> In a B2B sense, though, it's setting up the contract so someone can buy off a contract, for example. So the buying activity may be set up. >> John: Oh, you're talking about B2B? >> Yeah, B2B, always. >> Yeah, and B2C I think it's a totally different scenario. >> When was the last time you got a call from somebody at Amazon? >> John: Never. >> Yeah. So second question, and I think this a great point, it ties back to the conversation we had earlier about partners. The partner often is the weakest chain. Weakest link in the chain. In a world where digital is both informing the customer about what's good and what's bad, but also you're sharing data. You run the risk that that partner defines the quality of the entire chain. So you've got to start sharing more data, you got to start sharing. How is the role of data impacting and influencing the activity of bringing on, nurturing, measuring, ultimately managing, partnerships? >> I think you guys talked to Doug Kennedy yesterday. >> John: He's a pro. >> Yeah, he's fantastic. From a marketing standpoint, in the same way, we are going to continue to share with our partners. So if we're looking at the numbers of partners that we engage with. Could they be the weakest link? I would probably challenge you on that, I think our partners can be our strongest link in what we're doing, and are probably closer to our customers than we are, in marketing, by a long shot. So I count on my partners to bridge that gap that way, absolutely, but will we share data so we can absolutely have a better relationship, from a selling perspective? Yeah. >> First let me qualify, that when you have multiple partnerships involved, and typically a solution, a complex solution like the Marketing Cloud, what we're talking about, is going to have multiple partnerships involved. You may have three phenomenal partnerships, and one good partnership. But that one good partner could have an enormous influence over the three very good partners. That's what I mean. So the second thing is, what I'm talking about is, does Oracle compete, or does Oracle utilize its willingness to use data, especially through tooling like Marketing Cloud, and the customer experience cloud, as a way of making Oracle more attractive to partners? >> Yes, absolutely. We would absolutely want to do that. We haven't been doing a lot of it, but we are moving forward that way, absolutely. We want to have that engagement. Absolutely, we want to have that engagement with our partners. I think, especially in marketing, we don't want them to just buy technology. I mean, they need to buy the really great creativity that comes with our partners, as well. And so we have to share as much data as possible to create that great experience for our customers, through our partnerships. >> Jennifer, I want to thank you for coming on theCUBE. Appreciate you coming on, sharing the insight into your role as CMO from Oracle Marketing Cloud. Appreciate it. Just share what's up for next year. Will there be another, bigger Markies? What's on the agenda for in between this event and next year, what's the plans between event windows? What do you got going on, what's the plan? >> Okay, so, when the 12th annual Markies happens next year, roughly about this time. I think it's almost the same week. Which will be fantastic. In the meantime, we're going to do a lot of storytelling. You will hear a lot about the Markies nominees and Markies winners. We have some incredible stories to tell, it gives us a great opportunity, actually, to talk about the people. You know, for us, the heroes, that created all of these great stories for us. The technology. And how they were using the technology to really make all of this happen, and the partners that they were using. >> Yeah, Doug rolled out his new strategy to the partners, he's been seven weeks on the job, back to Oracle from Oracle in the old days. So he's a pro. >> Jennifer: Yeah, oh yeah, he's great. I worked with him at Microsoft. >> And integrating into the Oracle cloud, still part of the plan? >> Jennifer: Yes. >> Cool. >> Just staying connected with the rest of Oracle, absolutely, we are Oracle. >> We will keep track of the stories with you guys. So we'll be tracking them. >> We'll be telling them with you, all year. >> We'll be documenting them. Jennifer, thank you so much for coming on theCUBE. Congratulations on the very successful event. >> Thank you very much. >> We're looking forward to hearing the data stories that you're using, and expanding on that next time. It's theCUBE live here at Las Vegas, at Mandalay Bay, for Oracle Modern CX show, #modernCX, this is theCUBE, I'm John Furrier with Peter Burris, more after this short break.

>> Narrator: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering Oracle Modern Customer Experience 2017. Brought to you by Oracle. >> Okay, welcome back here. We're here live in Las Vegas. This is SiliconANGLE Media's theCUBE. It's our flagship program. We go out to the events and extract the signal from the noise, talk to the influencers, the experts, thought leaders, CEOs, entrepreneurs, anyone we can that has data we can share with you. I'm John Furrier, Peter Burr is my co-host for the two days here. Our next is Jay Baer from Convince and Convert, CUBE alumni, great guy, super influential, knows his marketing stuff, perfect guest to summarize and kind of package up what the hell Modern CX means here at the Oracle show. Welcome back, good to see you. >> Jay: Good to see you guys, welcome. >> So you were hosting the CMO Summit that was going on in parallel they had the Marquise Awards which is their awards dinner. >> 11th annual Marquise Awards it's like a thing. >> It's amazing, it looked like the Golden Globes. >> It was beautiful this year, it was like, legit. >> Peter: Is that the one with the O on the top? >> And they delivered an award with a drone. It was a great night. >> Awesome stuff. So give us the package, what's going on, tease out the story here. >> Yeah, I think the story is two-fold. One, Oracle's got an interesting take on the marketing software space because they really are trying to connect it between the overall customer service experience initiative, and then marketing as a piece of that. This event in particular, the Modern Customer Experience event has tracked almost full conferences for marketing, for customer service, for sales and for commerce. So all four of those are the verticals underneath this umbrella and that's a really unusual conference setup but I think it reflects where Oracle's head is at from a thought leadership standpoint. That like, look, maybe were going to get to a point where marketing and customer service really are kind of the same. Maybe we're going to get to the point where sales and marketing really are kind of the same. We're not there yet, by any stretch of the imagination. But I think we all feel that convergence coming. And my world the marketing side, CMO's are starting to get more and more responsibility inside organizations and so if that happens, maybe we do need to start to align the software as well. It's and interesting take on the market, and I think it's sort of prescient for where we're going to head. >> It's interesting you mention of all those different silos, or different departments or different functions in a digital end-to-end fabric experiences are all about the customer, it's one person, they're going to have different experiences at any given time on that life cycle, or product spectrum or solution spectrum. So the CMO has to take responsibility of that. >> Well, I feel like somebody has to be responsible for it. Mark Hurd said this in one of his remarks over the course of the show, the CEO of Oracle said look, there is no data department, everybody has to be responsible for data but somebody has to figure what the ins and the outs are and maybe that's the CMO, maybe it's the CXO, I don't think we've fully baked that cake yet. But we're going to have to get to the point where the single record of truth about the customer and their customer journey has to exist and somebody's got to figure out how to wire all those together. We're gettin' there. >> It's so funny, I was joking, not here on theCUBE, but in the hallways about the United Airlines snafu and I'm like, to me as a kind of a developer mindset software should have solved that problem. They never should have been overbooked to begin with. So if you think about just these things where the reality of a consumer at any given time is based upon their situation. I need customer support, I need this, I need that. So everyone's got to be customer ready with data. >> Talk about relevance, relevancy is the killer app, that's it, right. Relevancy is created by technology, and with people, people who actually know how to put that technology into practice in a way that the customers actually care about. So, one of the things that Mark said, he said look, here's the issue, it's not about data, nor is it about clout, it's not about any of that. It's about taking that data and creating understanding out of it. But he said a really interesting thing, he said what we have to do is push those understandings out to the front lines where somebody on the front lines can do something with it that actually benefits the customer. I think that's a really smart point because so often right now we're talking about, oh we've got these data stores, and we've got DMP's and we've got all these things. That's great but until that gets manifested at the front lines, who cares, you've just got a big pile of numbers. >> We had Katrina on from the commerce side, it's funny, she was making a retail comment look, they don't care about the tech, they don't care about blockchain and all the speed and feed, they have to do a transaction in the speak of the consumer. And the language of the customer is not technology. >> No they don't care, solve my problem right. Just solve my problem, and I don't care how you solve it, what sort of magic you have behind the scenes, if I want a sweater, I want this sweater, and I want it right now. >> OK, Jay, share with the audience watching right now and us conversation hallways you've had, that's always the best because you had a chance, I'll see ya on the big stage doing your hosting thing, but also you get approached a lot people bend your ear a lot, what's happening? >> You know what's been an interesting theme this week is we've made such great advances on the technology side and I think we're starting to bump up against okay well now we've got to make some organizational changes for that technology to actually flourish. Had a lot of conversations this week with influencers, with CMO's, with attendees about, I really want to do this I really want to sort of bring sales and marketing together or commerce and sales, et cetera. But our org chart doesn't support that. The way our company thinks, the way our people are aligned, does not support this convergence. So I think were it an inflection point where we're going to have to like break apart some silos, and not data silos, but operational, what is your job, who manages you and what is your bonus based on? There is a lot of legacy structures, especially at the enterprise that do not really facilitate. >> John: Agile. >> Cross-departmental circumstances that we're looking for. So a lot people are like, oh wow, we're going to have to do some robust organizational change and that ain't easy. Somebody's going to have to drive that. Your marketing practitioners, which is my world, they can't drive that. That's got to come from up here somewhere. >> And also people got to be ready for the change. No one likes change. But we were taking about this yesterday called Add the Agile process into development being applied to marketing, really smart. >> Oh, all the time so many marketing teams now are using Agile and daily Scrum and Stand-ups and all those kind of things as opposed to Waterfall which everybody's used forever I think it's fantastic. >> Yeah, and that's something that we're seeing and Roland Smart had to point, he had a book got a signed copy Peter and I, but this is interesting, if you of Agile, to your point, you just can't read the book you've got to have a commit to it, organizational impact is Agile. >> One of the things we had a CMO Summit, we had 125, 150 CMO's from all around the world and one of the things we talked about in that session yesterday was, jeeze, we need to start taking people or hiring people out of a software development world, people who have Agile experience and put them as PM's on a marketing team. Which is going to put that group of people have the Agile background in even greater demand. Because they won't just be doing tech roles for project management but also marketing project management and sort of teaching everybody how Agile works. I think it's really interesting. >> But they've been doing that for a while. I mean the Agile, Agile started in software development but moved broader than that when it went to the web. >> No question, but a lot of these CMO's do not have those type of skills on their team today. They're still using a Waterfall. >> Or they don't recognize that they have the skills. Because most of them will have responsibility for website, website development, so it's that they don't again, it goes back to. >> Web versus marketing. >> Yeah, they probably have it somewhere, they just don't appreciate it and elevate it. >> It's silo'd within the marketing team. >> It's silo'd within the marketing team. So there's going to be, these are the consequence of changes. We'll see the degree to which it really requires a whole bunch of organizational stuff. But at the end of the day, you're right, it's a very very important thing. What are some of the other things you see as long as we're talking about it, other than just organizational. >> Actual other sort of baseline skills. It wasn't that long ago that your social media teams and contact marketing teams, it was manifestly a written job you made things that were rooted in copy. Now we talked a lot about, you have to have like a full video team on your marketing org chart because the core of the realm now is video content and while companies are getting there it's still a struggle for a lot of them. Should we have our agency do this, should we get somebody else to do it, they're like now I got to have all these people, I got to have video editors and camera crew. >> It's expensive. >> Of course it is, yeah. Not everybody can be theCUBE. >> We'll they're tryin'. No, but I think video's been coming down to the camera level you see Facebook with VR and AR certainly the glam and the sex appeal to that. Then you got docker containers and software development apps, so I call that the app culture, you've got the glam, apps, and then you've got cloud. So those things are going on so are the marketing departments looking to fully integrate agency-like stuff in house or is the agency picking up that? What's your take on the landscape of video and some of these services? >> It depends on how real-time they're thinking about video. We're starting to Facebook Live in a public relations circumstance. You saw when Crayola announced the death of the blue crayon or whatever it was a few weeks ago. They did a press release on that, but the real impetus for that announcement was a Facebook Live video. Which puts Facebook and live video as your new PR apparatus. That's really interesting. So in those circumstances the question is do we do that with the agency, is it easier to do it in-house. I think ultimately my advice would be you have to have it in both places. You have to be able to do at least some things in-house you have to be able to turn it quickly and then maybe for things you have more a lead time, you bring in your agency. >> One of the things we're seeing and just commenting while we're on this great subject, it's our business as well, is content is hard. Good, original content is what we strive for as SiliconANGLE, wikibon and theCUBE is something that we're committed to serving the audience at the same time, we collaborate with marketers in this new, native way so that the challenge that I see, and I see in this marketing cloud, is content is a great piece of data. >> Content is data. >> Content is data. >> And it also helps you get more data because there is a lot of data exchanged. >> So a lot of companies I see that fail on the content marketing side, they don't punch it in the red zone. The ball's on the one yard line all they got to do is get it over the goal line, and that's good content, and they try to fake it. They don't have authentic content. >> Another way of saying that John. >> John: They blew it on the one yard line. >> Yeah, another way of saying that is the historically agencies have driven the notion of production value. They have driven the notion of production value, to make the content as expensive as possible because that's how they make their money. What we're talking about is when we introduce a CX orientation into this mix now we're talking about what does the customer need in context, how can video serve that need? It's going to lead to, potentially, a very very different set of production value. >> You bring up a good point, I want to get Jay's reaction on it because he sees a lot too. Context is everything so at the end of the day what is engaging, you can't buy engagement, it's got to be good. >> What serves the customer. >> John: And that is defined by the customer, there is nature of reality silver bullet there's no engagement bullet. >> Sometimes you can argue that the customer values a lower fidelity content execution because it has a greater perceived authenticity. >> You may not know this Jay, I'm going to promote us for a second. A piece of video that's highly produced in the technology industry generates attention for a minute and a half to a minute and 45 seconds. theCUBE can keep attention for 12 or 13 minutes, why? >> John: We have interesting people on. >> If we were a digital agency. >> I would say the hosts, obviously. >> The hosts, the conversation. >> It's back to relevancy. >> It informs the customer. And that's what, increasingly, these guys have to think about. So in may respects, we'll go back to your organization and I want to test you in this, is that in many respects that the CMO must heal thyself first. By starting to acknowledge that we have to focus on the customer, and not creative and not the agency, and rejigger things so that we can in fact focus on the customer and not the agency's needs for us to spend more. >> There was, one of the great conversations in the CMO Summit was this point that, look, with all this technology we have all the opportunities and darnit, all we're doing is finding other ways to send people a coupon. Like isn't there something else that we could use this technology for. And what if we just flip the script and said what do customers genuinely want? Which is knowable and certainly inferable today in a way that has never been historically why don't we use that data to give them what they want, when they want it, how they want it, instead of constantly trying to push them harder. >> Focus on value and not being annoying. >> I mean I wrote a while book about it. >> Well your key point there, is that you're going to infer and actually get signals that, we've never been there before. Chatter signals. >> But let's use them for good not evil I think is the subtext there. >> Yeah, don't jam a coupon down their throat. >> But as Mark says it's hard because CEO's are under tremendous pressure to raise top line in an environment that is not conducive to that. You're going to have to take share. The economy is not growing so fast that you can just show up and grow your company. CEO's have tons of pressure, they're then droppping that pressure on the CMO who then says you need to grow top line revenue. So the CMO says we've got all this technology I guess we'll just send out more offers we'll have a stronger call to action and as opposed to using this information, the inferences, the data, to be more customer focused. I think in some cases we're being less customer focused which, if anything is short-sighted and at worst is a cryin' shame. >> So the solution there is to use the data to craft relevant things at the right time to the right people. >> And it will work but it requires two things that a lot of organizations simply don't have. Time and courage, right. It requires time and courage to purposely push less hard. Because you know it will payoff eventually you've got to buy into that, and that ain't easy always. Sometimes it's not even your decision. >> What we don't want is we don't want to automate and accelerate bad practices. At the end of the day what CMO's are learning, this conversation came out yesterday is, jeeze maybe marketing really isn't that good. Maybe we have to learn ourselves from what this technology is telling us, what the data is telling us and start dramatically altering the way we think about marketing, the role that marketing plays. The techniques we use, the tactics we use, that will lead to organizational changes. I'm wondering, did you get a sense out of the session that they are in fact stepping back and saying we got to look in the mirror about some of this stuff. >> Absolutely, absolutely. I thought it was remarkable, considering who runs this company, Mark Hurd, came in and did a little Q&A at the CMO Summit and he said, And this is the guy who runs Oracle, who's puttin' this who thing together and is sellin' tons of marketing software and says look guys, I'm not even sure if what we're doing here is right because we've got all this technology we have been doing this for a long time, we've got all these smart people and still, what's our conversion rate, 1%? If we've got the greatest technology in the history of the world, we supposedly know all this about customer service and customer journey mapping and our conversion rate is still 1%. Maybe something identified fundamentally broken with how we think about marketing. I thought for somebody in that role to come in and just drop that on a group of CMO's, I was like whoa. >> I think he's right. >> Totally right. >> But to have a CEO of a company like this just walk in and say here's what I think. >> This is a question for you and I'll ask it by saying we try to observe progressive CMO's as a leading indicator to the comment you mentioned earlier, which is flip things upside down and see what happens. What are you seeing for those progressive CMO's that have the courage to say ya know what, we're going to flip things upside down and apply the technology and rethink it in a way that's different. What are they doing? >> One of the markers that we see on the consulting side of my business is CMO's who are thinking about retention first. Not only from a practical execution layer, but even from a strategic layer. Like, what if we just pulled back on the string here a little bit and just said how can we make sure that everyone who's already given us money, continues to give us money and moreso. And essentially really turn the marketing focus from a new customer model, to a customer retention and customer growth model, start there. Start with your current customers and then use those inisights gained and then do a better job with customer acquisition. As customer service and marketing start to converge, mostly because on online. Online customer service is very brand driven and more like marketing. As this two things are converging we're seeing smart CMO's say well what if we change the way we look at this and took care of our own first. Learn those lessons and then applied them outwardly. I think that's a real strong marking signal. >> It's a great starting point and it's almost risk free from a progressive standpoint. >> It's not always risk-free inside the organization. >> I mean it's harder to get new guinea pig customers to like see what works, but go to your existing customers and you have data to work with. >> But wouldn't you also say that the very nature of digital which is moving the value proposition from an intrinsic statement of the values in the product and caveat emptor, towards a utility orientation where the value's in the use of it, and we want to sustain use of it. We're moving more to a service to do that and digital helps us to do that. That the risk of taking your approach goes down because at the end of the day, when you're doing a service orientation you have to retain the customer because the customer has constantly got the opportunity to abandon you. >> Yes the ability to bail out is very very easy these days I completely agree. But what find is that it makes sense to us. It makes sense to us on theCUBE, but in the real world it's not. Not everybody's drinkin' that punch yet. >> John: And why? >> I don't know. >> Sounds like courage. >> It is definitely courage is one of 'em because you're essentially saying look, I've been taught to do marketing one way for 40 years or 20 years. >> Yeah, I'm going to lean on my email marketing all day long. >> Yeah, I'm going to keep pressing send. It's easy, there's almost no net cost. So there's that. And also just the pressure from above, I think. From the CEO to grow top line, net new customer revenue, I think that's certainly part of it. And some if it, I think we went back to earlier about org charting and skills and resources. There's a heck of a lot more people out there at every level of the marketing organization who are trained in customer acquisition moreso than customer retention. How many MBA's are there in customer retention are there? Zero. How many MBA's are there in marketing and sales? >> Lot of 'em at Amazon. >> A thousand? >> A lot of 'em at Apple. >> Yeah, but they were trained there. They didn't come in like that, so they trained them up. >> Jay, great to have you on theCUBE. Great insight as usual, and I think you're right on the money. I think the theme that I would just say for this show, and agree with you is that if you look at Oracle, you look at IBM, you look what Amazon is doing Microsoft in some way maybe a little bit, but those three, data's at the center of the value proposition. Oracle is clearly saying to the marketers, at least we want to say digital it's end to end if you use data, it's good for you. This is the new direction. If you think data-driven CMO, that seems to be the right strategy in my mind. >> The best quote in the CMO Summit, you guys need a CUBE bumper sticker that you can manufacture with this. Data is the new bacon. I was like, oh I love that, that's the best right. >> Who doesn't love bacon. Jay, great to see you. Real quick, what's up with you, give us a quick update on you're opportunities what you're going these days. >> Things are great, running around the country doing fantastic events just like you guys are. Working on a new content marketing master class for advanced marketers on how to take their content marketing strategy to the next level. That launches in a couple of weeks. Continue to do four or five podcasts a week, a new video show called Jay Today where I do little short snippets three minutes a day. JayToday.tv if you want to subscribe to that. >> Beautiful, Jay Baer, great on theCUBE great thought leader, great practitioner, and just a great sharer on the net, check him out. I'm John Furrier with Peter Burr here at Oracle Marketing CX more live coverage after this short break.

(energetic music) >> Voiceover: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, Covering Oracle Modern Customer Experience 2017. Brought to you by Oracle. (upbeat music) >> Hey, welcome back and we are here live in Las Vegas at Mandalay Bay Convention Center for Oracle's Modern C-EX, Modern Customer Experience Event. Part of Oracle Marketing Cloud, I am John Furrier with SiliconANGLE. My co-host Peter Burris, head of research at Wikibon.com. Our next guest is Adrian Chang, director of customer programs at Oracle Marketing Cloud, also emcee of the Markie and big part of that program. Congratulations on the success of the Markie's awards, which were given out last night. I read your blog post on the site this morning. >> Thank you >> Great to see you again and welcome back to theCUBE. >> Thank you for having me, always great to be here and I love Modern Customer Experience and that marketing is a part of it. >> It's really been a great transformation this year. The simplification of just now narrowing it down to one simple value president, Modern Customer Experience, which encapsulates a lot of stuff. Quickly review what that is and then let's talk about the Markies. >> Absolutely, so I start with the Markies and so we have a history of celebrating excellence in data-driven modern marketing. So, this program has grown tremendously over the past 11 years. When I look at the submissions, they're customers that are focusing on acquisition and loyalty retention. And they read these stories all the time and spend weeks preparing the submissions. So this event is all about how can we share our intent to have our customers have a good experience as part of Oracle and then how can we help them delight their customers in delivering experiences and create value at every touch point. >> One of the thing I really like about the change in the name from Modern Marketing Experience to Modern Customer Experience is you move from the process, the function, to the outcome and the result. So how are the Markies reflecting that this year? >> Absolutely. So if you think about where we started, again it was six categories celebrating excellence in B2B marketing and reaching folks behind a single device, their laptop computer. So cut to 2017, the customers' preferences, their activities are fluid. So great marketing requires you to use a series of channels to reach them everywhere. And so, marketers have to balance brand with action, and then also deliver on intent. So the Markies have had to evolve to think about the habits. So the account-based marketing team of the year was a new award that we gave out that really represented the intent. Are people actually doing this, we have tons of great stories. So we have to balance out a bit of the usage of the product and the technology and embracing the new strategies and what's current within the marketplace. >> So the future of marketing as it goes into data, that's been the theme here. All of our interviews, day one. And certainly the key notes, even Mark was giving a great specific example. Now data is at the heart of it. Adaptive intelligence is the theme. You can see the dots are connecting the convergence of where the Markies are showing traction are some pretty interesting use cases. Any notables you'd like to share that kind of highlight that data piece? >> Absolutely. So our winner for best email campaign was from Jetstar and they're an airline in Austraila. What's great is they have been able to find ways to-- so when you get an email about travel, sometimes you book at one particular point and your preferences and relationship with that airline may change. Your travel destinations may change. So the fact that they can optimize the information at the time of send, sending the weather, curing you to maybe upsell and look at other opportunities to have a pleasant experience, that's amazing. So Laura Ipsen spent some time talking about how we at Oracle are looking to evolve preferences, so going from one to many, to one to one, and the hallmark which is one to you. And I think the Jetstar campaign, they use Oracle responses as a perfect example of that. The first award that we gave out was to Covance for account-based team of the year and by doing, setting up an account-based marketing strategy, putting it in place, getting all the stakeholders in sales in place, getting the discipline on the content. They were able to increase their engagement with key accounts by a significant margin. And they were delighted to be among those that are partners to celebrate that achievement. >> Adrian, I want you to talk about, for the folks that are watching who aren't here, the buzz in the hallways, because the hallways is always a good conversation, certainly the lunch table as well. I'll include that technically at the hallway, but people sitting down. >> Absolutely. >> AI has been front and center, but it's not being painted over, white-washed, "Oh! AI! It's hot so let's jump on the bandwagon." There's some real tech involved. What has been the reaction from customers in used cases that you hear in the hallways? >> Customers are excited about it. I think for a lot of our customers had the opportunity to hear Mark Heard talk about it. Where he embraced and said, "If you think about AI at the core, it's computing done real fast to help people make really rich decisions about what to do next." And so, I think our customers are still grappling with all the technology and how to get value out of their core platforms, how do they deliver on their initial objective and then we have a subset of our most mature, most excited, who are starting to put those data plots together, and start getting more predictive and allow the machine to do the work for you. But in order for you to have, to even think about it, you've got to have great, you've got to fill the cup with great data. And I think people are still getting there so that the machine isn't biased and you don't make the wrong decision about how to treat your customers. >> So just notable trending tweets I wanted to share with you, and again, get your reactions, because this is speaking to the customer in used case. One was from a part from our digitizing panel, Mark wrote "According to digitize, if you're not looking to use chatbots and AI, you're going to be out of business hashtag MME17", a little bit of that, legacy there. And then hashtag Modern CX. And the other one is, "Netflix is a great example of a company creating content combined with powerful AI targeting programs." Little bit of sample of some of the things we're seeing. Chatbots. It's a new interface. It's a new way to use data. Netflix content, which modern marketers need content in this platform. Picking a Netflix approach. So, kind of begs a question. Chatbots? Netflix? Kind of modern. Email? Old? So how do you get a marketer to get you to use the reliability of hardened critical infrastructure, like email, not going away anytime soon but, it's going to be one dimension of Netflix. Content marketing. Binge watching. All this content out there. Netflix and chatbots interface. Your thoughts? >> So my thought is I am, so I was in the room when I watched the chatbot piece and I loved the fact of the, we could live in a world where we could have a fluid customer experience anywhere. You can ask a question. I also support our communities where you ask a question and know you're automatically going to get an answer to the algorithm. So that delivers on that one to you scenario. So I'm super excited about it. When I look at the Netflix example, even to get the information on what the recommendation engine should be, you still need a lot of data. And you still need to know what are the habits of your customers who even land on that decision tree. So I love the fact that folks are thinking Netflix and thinking content, but that chatbot thing, oh my goodness. When people start doing that I can't wait to see those customers that win those Markies. >> Peter: But they have to do it right. >> They have to do it right. >> One of the dangers that marketing always faces is the idea that it's all about collecting information, having the customer give something to me and not giving something valuable in return. >> Adrian: Absolutely >> And the challenge that I see with chatbots is, and I think you agree John, is are chatbots going to be used to further automate information collection at the expense of really presenting value. The new marketing, the Modern Customer Experience, has to be focused on are we delivering value with the customer at every single interaction, not is the customer doing more for us inside of marketing. What do you think about that? >> So I agree. Cause if we do not know that we are creating value and that we're not, that we're adding friction into the problem, you pour that into your algorithm, there's going to bias. And so then, you can't make a decision about how to feed information into the machine and not have the right information that says we don't have the right region, we don't understand the behavior across all products. You can't have bias in the model at all. It has to be complete for you to then look at your customer base holistically. >> Yeah, we don't want to better automate bad marketing practices. >> Adrian: Absolutely. >> We want to use these technologies to continuously drive to use a famous person's parlance a more perfect union between this marketer and the buyer. >> Adrian: Absolutely. >> John: Well you got a great article up on Martechseries, "This year has gone above and beyond, fully leverage and most innovative marketing technology to create customer centric campaigns that deliver outstanding results that Laurie has spent, Senior Vice President Chairman." Okay that's obviously marketing packaging for the quote, from PR, but what she's getting at is customer centric. Again this is the theme, multitude of technologies now in the platform. Very interesting. Are customers responding well to this platform and are they seeing the need to stand up thing quickly in these campaigns? >> Adrian: Absolutely. They are finding that there's more pressure to get interim value. They are absolutely buying into the platform message and we have quite a few customers who also were recognized for the use of multiple products and multiple partner related applications. And so we're actually seeing a nice trend in both. To do great marketing, part of the messaging, or part of Laura's talk track from today was people are freaked out about the data but if you find a way to harness it, you'll create experiences where you'll stop chasing the customers. They'll start chasing you cause you'll find the right way to have the conversation with them. >> And word of mouth gets around too. I'm going to ask you to pick your favorite child of the awards. Was there one that jumps out, without alienating all the winners. Is there one that you like? >> This is a really, really hard question for me. As you know I read all the submissions, I play a heavy role in writing the speech. So it's really hard. >> John: Here we go, the preamble, not picking one. Here we go! I don't like to pick my favorite child. No parent likes to do that. >> I don't like to pick my favorite child. This is a really, really hard thing. >> Okay, audience favorite? >> How are they different this year from last year? How about that? Or is there something general that shows, that kind of reinforces some of this customer experience or are you seeing a progress in how the Markies are evolving? >> Yeah, that's a great question. So I'm happy to answer that one. And so for the first time since 2012, we brought back the dinner. And so having the Markies and our customer celebration, it shows our intent as Oracle Marketing Cloud, for our customers as well. That we love and want them to have a great week and want to celebrate their accomplishments and get other people to the winning circle. So being at a table and feeling that energy, getting that opportunity to sit with an executive or sit with a member of a team is a really, really great lift to then come to an event with over 4,000 people and feel warm and feel included. So I think that was an important part, that was a huge feel. I mentioned that we added a account-based team of the year award. Again, you couldn't be in B2B marketing and hide from account-based marketing. It's everywhere. We also delivered an overall customer experience award, so we had two customer-related awards and we created one category. I personally the videos, so our best video submission categories won where the viewers got to pick. And I would say the reaction of Juniper taking home two trophies last night, if I had to pick one, because that one had bit of a go to it. >> Peter: Juniper? >> Juniper Networks. >> Really? >> John: Two awards. >> They won two awards last night. I loved their reaction as well as the reaction of our folks from Brazil. You know, really, really great stories from their use of data. We also had Chris Diaz, our leader of the year, who not only led really strong customer experience transformations across marketing, sales, and service. >> This is the CMO of Time Warner? >> Uh no, that's Kristin. >> Kristi? >> Uh yeah, that's Kristin at Time Warner. I'm talking about Chris Diaz who is also driving sustainability efforts in Africa. It's really transformational. Huge, huge advocate of Oracle. As is the team at Kenya Airways. There's some really feel good moments. There are really exciting moments, you can feel it. People were hugging each other. People were laughing. People brought their own noise cannons and sparklers. >> Who doesn't love an awards show? When you're giving out great trophies? >> You know, we always get the comparison to the Oscars, and so this year it felt like the Golden Globes. >> So you handed out the wrong award. >> So you had a couple of times when the winner, when the wrong winner was >> We actually did not have that but we actually did joke about it. We embraced it. So Kayla Sullivan helped us with the awards distribution. And that was fun. The trophy itself is actually made by the same designer who makes the Emmy. And I believe I said that last year. But the feel was more like the Golden Globes. There was refreshments and opportunity to have there. >> John: It was well done. It looked great on photos. Big crowd. You had the jibs and all the cameras. Great camera angles. >> We had a drone do the delivery so we played with some new drone deliveries >> John: That's the next one up on Amazon delivering your packages by drone, you know, dropping in. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. So we had one delivered via tweet and then we had one that was delivered via drone and so we covered all their risk management pieces in advance. And I'm just super happy that InVision, who partnered with us in hosting and producing the event, were able to get some of these things cleared. So our intent was let's be futuristic, let's be digital, let's be now. And they managed to incorporate that into the show for us. >> Well, Adrian. Congratulations on all the great work with the Markies and continued success. What's next next year? What do you guys look, I know, processing, you got to have a little fun now. Relax a little bit. But as you look forward to next year's Markies, you're watching, you've got your submission. It's kind of like the college admissions. You want to know who the judge is. Here he is. What are you looking for for next year? Have you though about it, any ideas? Random thoughts? >> Yeah, it's a great question. It takes us about seven months to actually plan. To sit down and actually plan our calendar from submission peer, the content. And so, we tend to create the categories that are aspirational. So we likely will figure out what's the best way to incorporate the trend. Get them out early to drive customers to get really excited about what's next. We're talking about AI now. What will we be talking about in six months? I'm looking forward to to hearing more customers share about the value their getting from Marketing Cloud, the new channels that they're using, how they've overcome barriers within their organizations to do new and great things. And really focus on taking these stories and telling them all year. >> And that's speed and empowerment. >> Yes. Absolutely. >> Adrian Chang. Here in theCUBE back with Markies update with great commentary. Great to see you. Looking great, love the outfit. Lookin' good, as always. Thank you for taking the time and sharing your perspective. >> Thanks for having me. >> Peter: Took me a while to figure out what that was though The flower. What is that thing? From here it's like >> It's good. Looks good on you. Adrian Chang, here inside theCUBE bringing all the Markie action, all the great coverage. It's theCUBE. We'll have more live coverage after the short break. (energetic music)