(upbeat music) >> From our studios in the heart of Silicon Valley, Palo Alto, California, this is a CUBE conversation. >> Hello everyone, welcome to Palo Altos Cube Studios for CUBE Conversation. I'm John Furrier, co-host of theCUBE. We're with Kevin Ackroyd, CEO of Cision, CUBE Alumni. He's been on before. Building one of the most compelling companies that's disrupting and changing the game in Comms, advertising, PR, with Cloud technologies. Kevin, great to see you again, thanks for coming in. >> Likewise John, It's really good to be back. >> So, we haven't chatted in two years. You've been busy. Our last conversation was the beginning of 2017. Cision's done a lot of interesting things. You've got a lot of M and A under your belt. You're putting this portfolio together with Cloud technologies. Really been interesting. I really got to say I think you cracked the code on I think a new reality, a new economic reality. Also new capabilities for comms folks. Congratulations. >> Thank you, it's been a fun ride. >> So give us the update. So two years since we talked, how many deals, companies have you bought? What's the headcount, what's the revenue? Give us an update. >> In the four years, 12 acquisitions, seven of which have happened since I've been here. Up to 4,500 employees in over 40 countries. Customer count has grown to over 50,000 customers globally. Revenue's kind of gone from 500s to just shy of 800 million. A lot of leadership changes, and as you just mentioned, pretty seismic change, finally. We've certainly been the catalyst and the cattle prod for that seismic change around tech, data, measurement and analytics finally becoming mature and adopted inside this line of business like the Chief Communication Officer, the earn media folks. To say that they were not tech savvy a few years ago would be an understatement. So, a lot's been going on. >> Yeah, and certainly the trend is your friend, in my opinion, for you. But I think the reality is not yet upon people's general mindset. It's coming quickly, so if you look at some of the big trends out there. Look at fake news, look at Facebook, look at the Google effect. Elizabeth Warren wants to break up Big Tech, Amazon. Cloud computing, in that time period that you were, prior to just going to Cision, you had Oracle Cloud, done a lot of great things on the Marketing Cloud side. But the timing of Cloud computing, the timing of how media has changed. There's not many journalists anymore. We had Andy Cunningham, a legendary industry veteran, formerly of Cunningham Communications. He did the PR for Steve Jobs. You said, there's no more journalists, a few left, but you got to tell your story direct to the consumer. >> You do. >> This is now a new marketing phenomenon. This is a tailwind for you at Cision because you guys, although put these cubbies together, have a unique vision around bringing brand value advertising at PR economics. >> Yeah, that's a good way to put it. >> Tell us the vision of Cision and specifically the shift that's happening. Why are you guys important? What wave are you riding? >> So, there's a couple shifts, John. You and I have talked about this in previous programs There's this shift of the line of business, having to work in a whole bunch of non-integrated point solutions. The CFO used to live in 17 different applications from 17 vendors. That's all squished together. Now I buy from one Cloud platform, right, from Oracle or SAP. Same thing happened in Human Capital Management. 22 things squished into the Cloud, one from Workday, right. Same thing happened, you had 25 different things for sales and service. That all squished together, into one CRM in the Cloud, I buy from Salesforce, right. And our last rodeo, the early part of this stack, it was me and Adobe battling it out for the right to go squish the entire the LUMAscape into a marketing cloud, right, so there could be one ring to rule them all for the CMO. So, it happens in every single category. It just hasn't had over here, happened on the earned media side and the Chief Communications Officer. So, bringing the tech stack so that now we are for the CCO what Adobe is for the CMO what Salesforce is for the CRO, Workday is for the CHRO. That has to happen. You can't do, you can't manage it this way without sophisticated tech, without automation, without integration, you can't do it. The second thing that had to happen, especially in marketing and advertising, they all figured out how to get revenue credit. Advertising was a slow single-digit CAGR industry for 50 years. And then something happened. After 5% CAGR for 50 years, and then something happened over the next 10 years. Digital paid went from like 15 billion to 150 billion. And what happened is that old, I know half my advertising is wasted on this one half. That went bye-bye. Now I know immediately, down to the page, down the ad unit, down to this, exactly what worked, right. When I was able to put Pixels on ads, John, you'd go to that page, Pixel would go on you, It would follow you around If you ended up putting something in the e-commerce shop that ad got credit. I'm not saying that's right, I'm just saying that's how the entire-- >> But that's how the infrastructure would let you, allowed you, it enabled you to do that. Then again, paid advertising, paid search, paid advertising, that thing has created massive value in here. >> Massive value. But my buyer, right, so the person that does the little ad on the most regional tech page got credit. My buyer that got Bob Evans, the Cloud King, to write an article about why Microsoft is going to beat AWS, he's a credible third party influencer, writing objectively. That article's worth triple platinum and has more credibility than 20,000 Microsoft sales reps. We've never, until Cision, well let's Pixel that, let's go figure out how many of those are the target audience. Let's ride that all the way down to the lead form that's right. Basically it's super simple. Nobody's ever tracked the press releases, the articles or any of the earned media content, the way people have tracked banner ads or e-commerce emails. Therefore this line of business never get revenue credit. It stayed over here in the OpEx pile where things like commerce and advertising got dumped onto the revenue pile. Well, you saw the crazy investment shift. So, that's really the more important one, is Comms is finally getting quantified ROI and business's attribution like their commerce and advertising peers for the first time ever in 2018 via what Cision's rolled out. That's the exciting piece. >> I think, I mean, I guess what I hear you saying is that for the first time, the PR actually can be measured, similar to how advertising >> You got it. >> Couldn't be measured then be measured. Now PR or communications can be measured. >> They get measured the same way. And then one other thing. That ad, that press release, down to the business event. This one had $2 million dollars of ad spend, this one had no ad spend. When it goes to convert, in CRM or it goes to convert on a website, this one came from banner ad, this one came from credible third party content. Guess which one, not only had zero ad spend instead of $2 million in ad spend. Guess which one from which source actually converts better. It's the guy that chose to read credible third-party article. He's going to convert in the marketing system way better that somebody who just clicked on the ad. >> Well certainly, I'm biased-- >> So all the way down the funnel, we're talking about real financial impact based on capturing earned media ID, which is pretty exciting. >> Well, I think the more exciting thing is that you're basically taking a value that is unfunded quote by the advertising firm, has no budget basically, or thin budgets, trying to hit an organic, credible outlet which is converting in progression to a buyer, an outcome. That progression is now tracked. But let's just talk about the economics because you're talking about $2 million in spend, it could be $20 million. The ratio between ad spend and conversion to this new element you mentioned is different. You're essentially talking about the big mega trend, which is organic content. Meaning connecting to sources. >> That's right. >> That flow. Of course, we believe and we, at the Cube, everyone's been seeing that with our business. Let's talk about that dynamic because this is not a funded operationalized piece yet, so we've been seeing, in the industry, PR and comms becoming more powerful. So, the Chief Communication Officer isn't just rolling out press releases, although they have to do that to communicate. You've got medium posts now, you've got multiple channels. A lot of places to put the story. So the Chief Communication Officer really is the Chief Storyteller Officer, Not necessarily the CMO. >> Emphatically. >> The Martech Stack kind of tracking. So talk about that dynamic. How is the Chief Communication Officer role change or changing? Why is that important and what should people be thinking about, if they are a Chief Communication Officer? >> You know, it's interesting. There's a, I'm just going to call it an actual contradiction on this front. When you and I were getting out of our undergrad, 7 out of 10 times that CCO, the Chief Communication Officer, worked for the CEO and 30% of time other. Yet the role was materially narrow. The role has exploded. You just said it pretty eloquently. This role has really exploded and widened its aperture. Right now though 7 out of 10 of them actually do work for the CMO, which is a pretty interesting contradiction. And only 30% of them work for the CEO. Despite the fact that from an organizational stand point, that kind of counter intuitive org move has been made. It doesn't really matter because, so much of what you just said too, you was in marketing's purview or around brand or around reputation or around telling the story or around even owning the key assets. Key assets isn't that beautiful Budweiser frog commercial they played on Super Bowl anymore. The key assets are what's getting done over in the communications, in part. So, from a storytelling standpoint, from an ownership of the narrative, from a, not just a product or a service or promotion, but the whole company, the whole brand reputation, the goodwill, all of that is comms. Therefore you're seeing comms take the widest amount of real estate around the boardroom table than they've ever had. Despite the fact that they don't sit in the chair as much. I mentioned that just because I find it very interesting. Comms has never been more empowered, never had a wider aperture. >> But budget wise, they're not really that loaded up with funding. >> And to my earlier point, it's because they couldn't show. Super strategic. Showing ROI. >> So, showing ROI is critical. >> Not the quality of clippings. >> It was the Maslow of Hierarchy of Needs if you can just show me that I put a quarter in and I got a dollar out. Like the ads and the e-commerce folks do. It simply drives the drives me. >> So take us through some of those analytics because people who know about comms, the old school comms people who are doing this, they should really be thinking about what their operation is because, can I get an article in the Wall Street Journal? Can Silicon Angle write about us? I've got to get more clippings. That tend to be the thing. Did we get the press release out on time? They're not really tied into some of the key marketing mix pieces. They tend to be kind of a narrow scope. Those metrics were pretty clear. What are the new metrics? What's the new operational playbook.? >> Yeah, we call those Vanity Metrics. I cared about theoretical reach. Hey, Yahoo tells me I reached 222 billion people, so I plug in 222 billion people. I reached more people than there are on the planet with this PR campaign. I needed to get to the basic stuff like how many people did I actually reach, number one. But they don't, they do theoretical reach. They work in things like sentiment. Well, I'm going to come up with, 100 reporters wrote about me. I'm going to come up with, how many of them I thought were positive, negative, neutral. Sentiment analysis, they measure number of reporters or hits versus their competitors and say, Proctor and Gamble rolled out this diaper product, how did I do this five days? How much did Proctor and Gamble diapers get written about versus Craft diapers versus Unilever's. Share a voice. Not irrelevant metrics. But not metrics the CEO and the CFO are going to invest in. >> Conversion to brand or sales, those kind of things? >> They never just never existed. Those never existed. Now when we can introduce the same exact metrics that the commerce and the ad folks do and say, I can tell you exactly how many people. I can tell you exactly who they were, demographic, firmographic, lifestyle, you name it. I can tell you who the audience is you're reaching. I can tell you exactly what they do. When those kind of people read those kind of articles or those kind of people read those kind of press releases, they go to these destinations, they take these behaviors. And because I can track that all the way down to whatever that success metric is, which could be a lead form if I'm B2B for pipe. It could be a e-commerce store from B2C. It could be a rating or review or a user generation content gourd. It could be a sign up and register, if I'm trying to get database names. Whatever the business metric is. That's what the commerce and the ad people do all day every day. That's why they are more funded than ever. The fact that press releases, articles, tweets, blogs, the fact that the earned media stuff has never been able to do those things is why they just continue to suffer and have had a real lack of investment prices going on for the last 20 year. >> Talk about the trend around-- >> It's simple stuff. >> I know, if you improve the ROI, you get more budget. >> It really is that simple. >> That's been the challenge. I think PR is certainly becoming, comms is becoming more powerful. People know I talk about it all the time. I think comms is the new CMO I think command and control and organic content work together in the organic. We've seen it first hand in our business. But, it's an issue of tech savviness and also vision. A lot of people just are uncomfortable shifting to the new realities. >> That's for sure. >> What are some of the people tech savvy look at when they look at say revamping comms platform or strategy versus say old school? >> I'll give you two answers on that, John. Here is one thing that is good for us, that 7 out of 10 to the CCOs work for the CMO. Because when I was in this seat starting to light that fire under the CMO for the first time, which was not that long ago, and they were not tech savvy, and they were not sophisticated. They didn't know how to do this stuff either. That was a good 10 year journey to get the CMO from not sophisticated to very sophisticated. Now they're one of the more sophisticated lines of business in the world. But that was a slog. >> So are we going to see a Comms Stack? Like Martech, ComTech. >> ComTech is the decision communication Cloud, is ComTech. So we did it. We've built the Cloud stack. Again like I said, just like Adobe has the tech stack for marketing, Cision has the tech stack for comms, and we've replicated that. But because the CCO works for the CMO and the CMO's already been through this. Been through this with Ad Techs, been through this with MarTech, been through this with eCommerce, been through this with Web. You know, I've got a three or four year sophistication path this time just because >> The learnings are there >> The company's already done it everywhere else. The boss has already done it everywhere else. >> So the learnings are there from the MarTech so it's a pretty easy leap to take? >> That's exactly right. >> It's just-- >> How CommTech works is shocking. Incredibly similar to how MarTech and AdTech work. A lot of it is the same technology, just being applied different. >> That's good news >> So, the adoption curve for us is a fantastic thing. It's a really good thing for us that 70% of them work for CMOs because the CMO is the most impatient person on the planet, to get this over because the CMO is sick of doing customer journeys or omni channel across just paid and owned. They recognize that the most influential thing to influence you, it's not their emails, it's not their push notifications, It's not their ads. It's recognizing which credible third-party content you read, getting them into that, so that they're influencing you. >> It's kind of like Google PageRank in the old days. This source is more relevant than that one, give it more weight. >> And now all of a sudden if I have my Cision ID, I can plug in the more weight stuff under your profile. I want to let him go across paid and owned too, I materially improve the performance of the paid and owned because I'm putting in the really important signal versus what's sitting over there in the DMP or the CDP, which is kind of garbage. That's really important. >> I really think. >> I thinks you've got a home run here. I think you've really cracked the code on this. I think you are absolutely right on the money with comms and CommsTech. I see it all the time. In my years of experiences, it's so obvious. Then again, the tailwind is that they've been through the MarTech. The question I have for you is cultural shift. That's a big one. So, I'm out evangelizing all the time about the CUBE Cloud and some of the things we're doing. I run into the deer in the headlights on one side, what do you mean? And then people like, I believe, I totally understand. The believers and the non believers. What's the cultural shift? Because some chief comms op, they're very savvy, progressive, we've got to make the shift. How do they get the ship to turn? What are some of the cultural challenges? >> And boy is that right. I felt the same thing, getting more doing it with the CMO. A lot of people kept their head in the sand until they got obsoleted. They didn't know. Could they not see the train coming? They didn't want to see the train coming. Now you go look at the top 100 CMOs in the world today. Pretty different bunch than who those top 100 CMOs were 10 years ago. Really different bunch. History's repeating itself over here too. You've got the extremely innovative CCOs that are driving that change and transformation. You've got the deer in the headlight, okay, I know I need to do this, but I'm not sure how, and you do have your typical, you know, nope, I've got my do not disturb sign and police tape over my office. I won't even let you in my door. I don't want to hear about it. You've got all flavors. The good news is we are well past the half point where the innovators are starting actually to deploy and show results, the deer in the headlights are starting to innovate, and these folks are at least opening up the door and taking down some tape. >> Is there pressure on the agency side now? A lot of agencies charge a lot of monthly billings for these clients, the old school thing. Some are trying to be progressive and do more services. Have you seen, with the Cision Cloud and things that you're doing, that you're enabling, those agencies seem to be more productive? >> Yes. >> Are the client's putting pressure on those agencies so they see more value? Talk about the agency dynamic. >> That's also a virtuous cycle too, right? That cycle goes from, it's a Bell Curve. At the beginning of the bell curve, customers have no clue about the communications. They go to their agencies for advice. So, you have to educate the agencies on how to say nice things about you. By the time you're at the Bell Curve, the client's know about the tech or they've adopted the tech, and the agencies realize, oh, I can monetize the hell out of this. They need strategy and services and content and creative and campaign. This is yet another good old fashioned >> High gross profit. >> A buck for the tech means six bucks for me as the service agency. At the bottom, over here, I'll never forget this when we did our modern marketing experiences, Erik, the CMO of Clorox said, hey, to all you agencies out there, now that we're mature, you know, we choose our our agency based on their fluency around our tech stack. So it goes that violently and therefore, the agencies really do need to try to get fluent. The ones that do, really reap rewards because there is a blatant amount of need as the line of business customer tries to get from here to here. And the agency is the is the very first place that that customer is going to go to. >> So, basically the agency-- >> The customer has first right of refusal to go provide these services and monetize them. >> So, the agency has to keep up. >> They certainly do. >> Because, if the game gets changed by speed, it's accelerated >> If they keep up, yup. >> Value is created. If they don't have their running shoes on, they're out. >> If they keep up and they stay fluent, then they're going to be great. The last thing back in the things. We've kind of hit this. This is one of those magic points I've been talking about for 20 years. When the CFO or the CEO or the CMO walk down to the CCOs office and say, where are we on this, 'cause it's out in the wild now, there are over 1200 big brands doing this measurement, Cision ID, CommsTech stuff. It's getting written about by good old fashioned media. Customer says, wow, I couldn't do this for 50 years, now I am, and look what I just did to my Comms program. That gets read. The world's the same place as it always has been. You and I read that. We go down to our comms department and say, wow, I didn't know that was possible, where are we on this? So the Where Are We On This wave is coming to communications, which is an accelerant. >> It's an accountability-- >> Now it's accountability, and therefore, the urgency to get fluent and changed. So now they're hiring up quantums and operations and statisticians and database people just like the marketers did. The anatomy of a communications department is starting to like half science half art, just like happened in marketing. Whereas before that, it was 95% art and 5% science. But it's getting to be 50/50. >> Do you have any competition? >> We have, just like always. >> You guys pretty much have PR Newswire, a lot of big elements there. >> We do. >> You've got a good foothold. >> This is just an example. Even though Marketo is part of Adobe, giant. And Eloqua is part of Oracle, giant and Pardot is part of Salesforce. You've got three goliaths in marketing automation. Hubspot's still sticking around. PeerPlay, marketing Automation. You can just picture it. CRM giants, Microsoft and Salesforce have eaten the world Zendesk's still kicking around. It's a little PeerPlay. That equivalent exists. I have nobody that's even one fifth as big as I am, or as global or complete. But I do have some small, point specific solution providers. They're still hanging out there. >> The thing is, one, first you're a great leader. You've seen the moving on the marking tech side. You've got waves of experience under your belt. But I think what's interesting is that like the Web 1.0, having websites and webpages, Web 2.0 and social networks. That was about the first generation. Serve information, create Affiliate programs, all kind of coded tracking. You mentioned all that. I over-simplified it, but you get the idea. Now, every company needs a new capability. They need to stand up media infra structure. What does that mean? They're going to throw a podcast, they're going to take their content, put them into multiple channels. That's a comms function. Now comms is becoming the new CMO-like capability in this earned channel. So, your Cloud becomes that provisioning entity for companies to stand up capabilities without waiting. Is that the vision? >> You've nailed it. And that is one of the key reasons why you have to have a tech stack. That's a spot on one, another one. Early in my career, the 20 influences that mattered, they were all newspaper reporters or TV folks. There was only 20 of them. I had a Rolodex. so I could take each one of them out for a three Martini lunch, they'd write something good about me. >> Wish is was that easy now. >> Now, you have thousands of influencers across 52 channels, and they change in real time, and they're global in nature. It's another example of where, well, if you don't automate that with tech and by the way. >> You're left behind. >> If you send out digital content they talk back to you in real time. You have to actually not only do influencer identification, outreach and curation, you've got to do real time engagement. >> There's no agility. >> There's none. >> Zero agility. >> None, exactly. >> There's no like Dev Ops mindset in there at all. >> Then the speed with which, it's no longer okay for comms to call the agency and say, give me a ClipBook, I've got to get it to my CEO by Friday. That whole start the ClipBook on Tuesday, I've got to have the ClipBook, the physical ClipBook on the CEO as an example. Nope, if I'm not basically streaming my senior executives in real time, curated and analyzed as to what's important and what it means, I can't do that without a tech stack. >> Well, Andy Cunningham was on the Cube. >> This whole thing has been forced to get modernized by cloud technology and transformation >> Andy Cunningham, a legend in the comms business who did all Steve Jobs comms, legend. She basically said on The Cube, it's not about waiting for the clips to create the ClipBook, create your own ClipBook and get it out there. Then evaluate and engage. This is the new command and control with digital assets. >> Now, it's become the real-time, curated feed that never stops. It sure as hell better not. Because comms is in trouble if it does. >> Well this is a great topic. But let's have you in this, I can go deep on this. I think this is a really important shift, and you guys are the only ones that are on it at this level. I don't think the Salesforce and the Adobe yet, I don't think they're nimble enough to go after this wave. I think they're stuck on their wave and they're making a lot of money. >> You know John, paid media and owned media. The Google Marketing Cloud, that SAP Marketing Cloud, Adobe, Oracle, Salesforce Marketing Clouds. They don't do anything in earned. Nothing. This is one of the reasons I jumped because I knew this needed to happen. But, you know, they're also chasing much bigger pots of money. Marketing and Advertising is still a lot more money. We're working on it to grow the pie for comms. But, bottom line is, they're chasing the big markets as I was at Oracle. And they're still pretty much in a violent arms race against each other. Salesforce is still way more focused on what Adobe's doing. >> You're just on a different wave. >> So, we're just over here doing this, building a billion dollar cloud leader, that is mission critical to everyone of their customers. They're going to end up being some pretty import partners to us, because they've been too focused on the big arms race against each other, in paid and owned and have not had the luxury to even go here. >> Well I think this wave that you're on is going to be really big. I think they don't see it, in my opinion, or can't get there. With the right surfboard, to use a surfing analogy, there's going to be a big wave. Thanks for sharing your insights. >> Absolutely. >> While you're here, get the plug in for Cision. What's going on, what's next? What's the big momentum? Get the plug in for the company. What are you guys still going to do? >> Plugin for the company. The company has acquired a couple of companies in January. You might see, one of which is Falcon. Basically Falcon is one of the big four in the land of Hootsuite, Sprinklr, Spredfast. Cloud companies do this. Adobe has Creative Cloud, Document Cloud, Parking Cloud. Salesforce has Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud. Cision has just become a multi cloud company. We now have the Cision Social Cloud and the Cision Communications Cloud. And we're going to go grab a couple hundred million dollars of stuff away from Sprinklr, Hootsuite and collapse social into this. Most of social is earned as well. So, look for a wing spread, into another adjacent market. I think that's number one. Then look for publishing of the data. That's probably going to be the most exciting thing because we just talked about, again our metrics and capabilities you can buy But, little teaser. If we can say, in two months here's the average click through on a Google ad, YouTube ad, a banner ad, I'll show it to you on a Blog, a press release, an article. Apples to apples. Here is the conversion rate. If I can start becoming almost like an eMarketer or publisher on what happens when people read earned, there's going to be some unbelievable stats and they're going to be incredibly telling, and it's going to drive where are we on that. So this is going to be the year. >> It's a new digital advertising format. It's a new format. >> That's exactly right. >> It's a new digital advertising format. >> And its one when the CEO understands that he or she can have it for earned now, the way he's had it for marketing and advertising, that little conversation walking down the hall. In thousands of companies where the CCO or the VP of PR looks up and the CEO is going where are we on that? That's the year that that can flip switches, which I'm excited about. >> Every silo function is now horizontally connected with data, now measured, fully instrumented. The value will be there and whoever can bring the value gets the budget. That's the new model. Kevin Ackroyd, CEO of Cision, changing the game in the shift around the Chief Communications Officer and how that is becoming more tech savvy. Really disrupting the business by measuring earned media. A big wave that's coming. Of course, it's early, but it's going to be a big one. Kevin, thanks for coming on. >> My pleasure, John, thank you. >> So, CUBE conversation here in Palo Alto Thanks for watching. >> Thanks John. (upbeat music)

LeBron welcome to the silicon angle studios the cube here in Palo Alto I'm John furry your host we are in studio for a conversation with Aykroyd who's the CEO vision formerly with Oracle marketing cloud recently took the Jobs CEO decision congratulations thanks John great to see you thanks for coming in on the holidays kind of winding down the year what a year it's been Trump's meeting with tech leaders Oh having them kiss the ring get the trillion dollars offshore on site advertising is upside down date is the hottest thing on the planet you know you're in the center of the action certainly at Oracle we had multiple conversations but now you're leading in coupling so Kevin Aykroyd leaving Oracle marketing cloud or incision that's that's way down the track that has change right no big deal well we're as you know we're always out front of the trends but the marketing concepts have been around our businesses since in the centuries since business was around but now is data as we talked us changing so the biggest trend that we see happening is that marking isn't just a marketing thing it's a company-wide data opportunity so it's certainly changing a lot of the game and I know we've talked about that so you know what's the what's the change why did you decide to take the CEO opportunity of decision was the company did it what attracted you to these yes thanks for asking and good to be here by the way i I've been here with you fair amount this is the first time I'm not wearing my Oracle marketing cloud uniform so good to be seen in a second uniform right how does the how does the blue and orange decision uniform look John I look I've been working hard all right yeah yeah taking these good well you got to grow you know that's executive everything stops with yeah well well and just to be really clear because I know that my name with you guys especially has been synonymous with Oracle marketing cloud I I started it I did all the acquisitions I grew it you know is kind of my baby I didn't leave because there was anything wrong I think Oracle marketing cloud is going to continue to just absolutely kick ass and take names think they've built the right mousetrap you know as you've heard me they didn't they didn't start from CRM and go backward they didn't start from the website and go out they started with data right data objects crosswise add this the first big DoD MP and data marketplace I think they're data-driven you know strategy is going to continue to see them just absolutely survive after me and I sure hope something cause I well they're set up to win I mean if the integrations are always a challenge and I think our last interview at the modern marketing experience great show yeah we talked about that specific thing where you want to be vertically specialized but yet horizontally integrated and you set that up and and I think I and day right have set that up so they're poised really well CC so I didn't leave Oracle because of any lack of faith in their ability to go conquer that very big opportunity or any personal dissatisfaction is probably the best job I've ever had my career this is one of those classic cases where I saw an opportunity that was so good I had to leave something that I that I loved so for everybody that's listening I'll just say that again Kevin didn't leave Oracle because there was anything wrong Kevin left Oracle because of what I'm about to riff on now it was this big opportunity and basically John we can we can go as deep as you'd like to in today's interview but at the highest level this big opportunity that I saw is you just look at the data driven and then you know data meets content meets applications meets media the channels come together right the life cycles you look at everything that's happened and it's easy to kind of now say well just go look at what Salesforce marketing cloud and adobe marketing cloud an Oracle marketing cloud right look at that billions and billions and billions and billions of acquisition look how fast and far that's come and basically look at the needs that drove that that massive convergence and it has fundamentally changed the industry it's fundamentally changed the chief media the chief marketing the chief commerce officers ability to go drive results that they couldn't have done without Salesforce Adobe and Oracle doing what we did right but all of that has been done at paid media right the advertising at commerce and it owned media right our websites or mobile applications none of that through with all the tech giants in the industry and of the 20 billion dollars in M&A capital op X and capex since then none of its touched the third leg of the stool which is earned media right earned media communications good old-fashioned PR the exact same need for that data technology and measurement transformation that sales and service and commerce and paid media you know and owned they've all been through that this mission critical part called communications or in media has not been through it as we were building this my private equity company GT CR is very quick quietly over the last two years put together six leading solution providers in this earned media communications world just like I put eloquent responses in blue Chi and Maximizer they've been doing the same thing over here aimed at this earned media opportunity and if anything I think that every CEO every CIO every CMO would tell you they understand there's very clear there's a lot of clarity that I can't advertise my way there and I just can't get there by sending 300 promotional email and SMS campaigns you know versus 200 last year I can't promote my way there I can't advertise my way there if I want to influence customer experience customer loyalty and relationship and ultimately customer purchasing behavior I got a not just advertise and promote to them I get to get at what's called influencers right consumers whether they're b2b consumers or b2c consumers I am more and more being influenced and driven on who I listen to who I respect and hold credible and ultimately who I buy from based on people I trust that's that's called an influencer whether that's a reporter an academic a social person a blogger a community leader brands know I got to get to the influencers if I want to get to my customers and that's all about earn so the opportunity to go repeat exactly what I did at Oracle marketing cloud for Paden owned but do it over here and earned was simply too big an opportunity to pass up well first of all I love that one and drill down on scission and specifically and when you your plans are there but let's stay on this mega trencher second because I think you're hitting the nail on the head here because I think this some that you know we actually when we started Silicon angle media seven years ago this was the premise of our business yes we saw that the connected network that's right of social is fueling this new earned area where earned is truly earned yet there's no real website no silver bullets right it's a distributed as tightly coupled Network and there's pockets of it so you know what influence is about the most followers it's about the relationship of the connected consumer yeah who's also a consumer and a producer of content yeah their opinion there and so this is all kind of a new behavioral thing yeah so you go back to you know he earned and I mean the honed and paid and searched and all that stuff did contextual and behavioral absolutely really that's two things that's right the behavior of the crowd you got you can't look further than the Trump election to say whoa who saw that coming that's an example of an earned dynamic I would say that caused people to go well what the heck yeah I should send him a letter for thanking him for making my point so so emphatically for me we're all going exactly right hey what's up her for that crying in there wine in California for sure a blue state but this brings up the dynamic right this is the mega trend that now this earned media component isn't just about ads it's software that's right it's about software and networks and with cloud computing there's an opportunity for people to participate in there so so how how do you guys a minute rephrase it this right how does customers what what's the current pain point I mean what's the top three yeah I'll see you advertising you know I don't want drive traffic to my site that's an old mentality right that's the only thing they can do right now yeah it is looks so again I think it is getting at that at the risk of being repetitive it is okay boy if that's all I do is rely on the big monolithic web infrastructure I've developed the campaign engine that just keeps getting cheaper and cheaper so I keep sending more and more and okay it's programmatic now so I guess I can throw more at Google and Facebook I I'm not saying those aren't important parts of the mix you of course need to continue but they're declining and efficacy there right so not only the decline in efficacy while they increase in spend the cus the consumer right again whether that's a b2b consumer Ibiza is becoming increased don't view him as credible don't view his trustworthy if they've got these big lofty goals in this new digital world we're right the fragmented influence is hard and hard to contain and they just flat-out need to they recognize that the thing that's probably going to be the most important going forward which is solving this puzzle is the thing they've D invested in the most right it's gone from the king of the hill 20 years ago to as a true second-class citizen while they got all drunk on paid advertising and you know more e-commerce the role of the buyers interesting is let me just get your thoughts I'm sure because one of the things that we've observed at silk'n angle and our business model is we do really really well with our I'd sing I don't call my advertise sponsors if you will because we're very community driven with the cube as you know is that we have buy-in from not just CMO yeah in some cases just the head of communications right so the role of PR public relations is a communications function so the thing about social is you have a dynamic of organic and everyone knows organic is the cool right yeah organic growth bottoms up but the interesting thing is communication pros have a top-down command and control mentality yeah so when you blend command and control with organic growth you can actually have both now you can't this seems to be the new power base that's right the comms person which was hey get the press release out there go talk to ten reporters is now a million people yep the CMO would go with agencies to spend a lot of dough on print ads and TV commercials they have to work together well and the chief communication officer is still one of the nice things you know seven out of ten times they're reporting directly to the CMO the other three times they actually appear to the CMO and they report directly the CEO so it's not Adi empowered function it shouldn't it shouldn't be right and then I think that the modern communication organization I'll talk about who they are and then I'll circle back on the pain point because there's some acute pain there that we're trying to address they don't look at it as just PR now to be really clear and I would like this on record to the traditional journalist reporter media never been more important right it's not like they've lacked but even then right who that reporter is on that publication website versus the print versus the broadcast versus their blog versus their Twitter handle versus their Facebook page versus their Instagram account right even that traditional reporter is nine different influences at nine different audiences in nine different media right so they haven't become less important to become far more fragmented yeah that's exactly right and nailing that is is no trivial thing that's got to get done they they they really are they're they're as digital and as modern and as social as everybody else but then you also got to realize boy right these communities are incredibly powerful these these mini bloggers have as much cloud as the New York Times does in this particular area right the social followings these academics these thought leaders the definition of a digital influencer has widened quite a bit above and beyond the core journalist trip but but don't forget that that person's really important so and then you got the consumer influencers and their user-generated content themselves right so that the customer is their own influencer which is really interesting and that's a b2b dynamic as well as a b2c dynamic so that's the world we all of a sudden you know find ourselves in but I think the modern the digital world that you're talking about isn't a b2b versus b2c it's digital it's digital period one yeah concept and it's no motton it's no longer digital communications or digital marketing it's just communications and marketing in the digital world right and that's a that sounds simple that's a pretty fundamental shift now let's go back into though the tools that they have so they're as savvy and is digital as their peers that are running commerce or paid advertising or the website they've really been bereft of toolkits I'm going to give you an example we work with an extremely large one of the four largest beauty products companies in the world and when they do a good new product launch right let's let's look at advertising they will harness data they will develop 30 different audiences right and they will go to discrete tonality creative offer you name it at 30 different you know so they'll do 30 different banner ads they'll do the same thing with social audience they'll do 40 different data-driven audiences that get discrete touch content an email to do 50 or 60 right 50 or 60 different data-driven segments and even in the website they'll say hey Jon's profile that's profile seven Kevin's profile is profile 12 you will see a completely different website than I will based on data driven right what are they doing Communications one press release and one infographic goes to all 12,000 communication outlets no data no versioning right no nothing so this concept of the right version of the content to the right audience at the right time I'm putting you know in advertising and in commerce on the website I'm talking to soccer moms vs. sexy grandmas versus Wall Street women very different for my beauty products in communications I'm talking to all of them the same which is kind of crazy because the emulators would be a labor driven market - that's right - call it arms and legs right which is what it yeah yeah and a head and arms and legs and a lot of people kind of reaching out but now the trend is to have a much more sass that's exactly right and and and I don't have the platform to actually go do that right so as far as some of the pain we're trying to provide now with our communication cloud just like with the other marketing clouds I don't have I can actually do data-driven intelligent messaging and content delivery to the audience to the influencers that get at the discrete audiences just like I do the data-driven direct communication to the end users themselves probably more importantly I'll stick with my example for a sec John that beauty company at fortune 500 Beauty company they get Rachel who is the head fashion reporter on the fashion section New York times.com right Rachel covered and Rachel embedded my press release on my infographic homerun pop the champagne right it's like okay but well there's two million people that went to that fashion section in New York Times comm today when she covered right how many of them actually read the content and picked it up don't know how many of them actually engaged in it read the infographic click the video click the links don't know who were they from a demographic psychographic sociographic right behavioral don't know and probably most importantly what did they do after they read it did they go to the desired shopping cart or the right community page or back to the website or unit was there any actual digital behavior driven from that bigger meeting full of discovery data the or it stops at I got picked up by the reporter yeah and I have no idea how many of the two million people were influenced covered engaged right etcetera and no idea about the behavior that I took so the link between the influencer comes and the end-user has never been closed that's the second part of the pain point that really fixes now we are fixing the gap between the influencer and and the end user and you're going to see us call that the influencer graph John you'll see a you'll see a press release a targeted one that's data driven and very rich media go out around the influencer graph because if we can start saying hey John's my end user customer now I know right quantitatively with data that I can optimize in real time which influencers matter which reporters which academics which bloggers in which channels in which media and which content as people have different on fluentd rankings in certain contexts you got it and all that's a black hole we know it we have no idea how to measure it make it data-driven make it contextual and optimize it in real time with a digital platform so that this command-and-control CCO who thinks this way now actually has his his or her system of record to actually go execute this way as Maslov Harkavy needs as that sounds because the commerce paid and owned guys have had this for a while this is a this is like discovering fire here for the chief communications officer because they've never had their data and tech enablement platform to do this the way the other guys have so that's that's number two and the number three and I think this is really important is we all know that communicate I want I need to measure and optimize the comms function the way I just talked about it we all know that if done right it amplifies the bejesus out of the owned and the paid - yeah you shouldn't be thinking about them in silos but there's no way to measure that if I did a really good job and earned look at the impact it have in the efficacy on that massive page budget now mutually exclusive and there's a relationship between them because in social and communities collaboration that's a four linchpin it is you cannot articulate just how important that is and until tech vendors put the apps the api's the data and then the right through the ID syncs together you can't measure it right and as fundamental as that sounds that's why what's happened over there in Adobe Oracle Salesforce land had to happen and it's why what we're doing here incision line has to happen so that not only can coms catch up but comms can communicate in that data and play an active role in that - an active role because no leaders happen is they're going to realize holy smokes the paid performed here without their and the paid performed here with the earn and quite frankly that earned outperformed the paid right so we're not going to be a participant role is going to be a I'm going to resume my rightful place at the head of that you're the head of that tribe on our second segment when it get more indecision and specific solution but in this segment on kind of wrapping up the big megatrend Housley social and the technology and network effect of social combined with the data combined with the fact that comms communications right is now an active leader and important role in the creative Nick that's right I've earned that's right and integrating in page I can have a cohesive but decoupled programs it's not silver bullet either well pleasure rising tide floats all but I've earned has been under developed under developed under invested in under tech enabled under date enabled and really that's what it gets to is the people in charge understand that they didn't quite have the data ten tools to do it the data the tech tools are now available and now the the industry just got to kind of get up the sophistication curve so final questions in this segment is where's the progress bar on this sector how early is it first inning bottom of the first second inning and to there's always in these early adopter markets that certainly that you saw I believe left the Oracle for it but this is an I agree by the way is a great great opportunity they're always the champions internally who can see it - yeah how where's the progress bar and what's the advice to the folks that are inside these companies who actually have the religion say this is the future and have to communicate it to the rest of the kink unfortunately the thinking the thought leadership bar is probably in the third inning to get it uh doing something about it and going from good thinking to good practitioner ship and execution is retraining first out the first out to the first pitch in the first inning you know of the first game of the season we're literally at ground one the good news is though is they're not going to try to go convince the CFO from a money or the CIO from a resource or the CEO from a strategy this whole I keep saying is this data tech and measurement transformation the corporation no matter what the corporation is invested it in sales look what happened they invested in the service look what happened they invested in it and paid look what happened they've invested in it known so the good news is is while they are at the very very very beginning of the ball game they're literally the last function inside the corporation to actually go do it and they don't have evangelism around the benefit of this type of transformation it's worked in every other area so while they're the very beginning they want to convince anybody it's a good idea everybody else that's down the hall and sits around the CEOs table has been through that transformation so there's not that evangelism it's just now his or her tits operationalize they do some results that's on the right table and and it and it's shown results in all these other lines of business so there's not this fundamental disbelief that it won't show results in the communications line of business there's actually quite the opposite there's heavy belief that it will because it has shown right it has shown results and all these other lines of business so yeah especially look is that's obvious - it's like okay we got to do this yeah that they should be able to move faster does this caterpillar should turn into a butterfly really fast because everybody's thinking about it the text in place and it's worked in other places but we are really really really at the very beginning it's exciting Kevin Ackroyd CEO of sisian year inside our studio talking about the landscape of really digital changing and how earned media blogs and folks like silk'n angle and others who actually producing original content an engaging audiences now an opportunity to convert over on this new market shift going on big mega trend we back with segments to talk about the company and their solution and technology we're interesting to get that perspective Kevin thanks for joining us here in the palace news thanks for watching thank you [Music]