The art of the possible: Real marketing integration not science fiction anymore | #MME16 by Marlene Den Bleyker | Apr 27, 2016 The technology industry is in the process of creating business value for companies, and the primary focus is on the Chief Information Officer (CIO). However, the Chief Marketing Officers (CMO) are on the front line trying to use technology to improve customer satisfaction, expand reach and increase revenue. At Oracle’s Modern Marketing Experience in Las Vegas this week, Oracle is proving to customers that the theoretical is now “Going Down.” And the person at the forefront of providing the modern marketing experience is Kevin Akeroyd, GM and SVP of Oracle Marketing Cloud. He joined John Furrier (@furrier) and Peter Burris (@plburris), cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media, team to talk about the importance of integrating all the tools necessary for a marketing experience. Here and now Akeroyd said he is excited about a thousand things, but he narrowed down the field and said, “When we started this journey a couple of years ago, it was about this is the art of the possible, this is what might happen sometime in the future … and to have that be a conversation about what’s coming. Three years ago to have Fortune 50 CPG, Fortune 50 retail, Fortune 50 financial services and Fortune 50 tech companies join us here and have their chief marketing officers not talk about what they are thinking about doing … but how they are transforming their companies and their earnings per share and earnings per customer relationships, right now. … They actually implemented this stuff and took it from the theoretical … and put it all together, and they are fundamentally changing their companies.” Committed to true integration Up until now, the marketing part was relatively siloed. Web optimization, e-commerce, marketing automation and ad technology have all been separate things. “We not only have to continue to innovate and scale and be best of breed in those silos, we have to say, ‘When you put one plus one plus one together – voila, 10 happens.’ And there is immense value unlocked because put them together in an intelligent way. That has been the theme, not just today but over the last couple of years,��� according to Akeroyd. He continued to say that what that means is not only are they world class in these core competencies but it is going to turn into this real marketing operating system or one reference stack for the digital CMO. And, it’s not science fiction anymore with the real integrations. The value prop for the CMO Akeroyd explained that the real integration is the main theme, and the value that it brings the CMO is intense. He discusses the importance of showing the customer value and telling them they can get it now. It’s not about what they will do it’s about what is possible now. He also talked about digital marketing on a broader scale and how it has gone from a manual process to being automated to being predictive. Bringing value to the end customer was also a major aspect of the interview, and Akeroyd believes that timing is everything. You need to offer right context on the right channel at the right time, he said. Ultimately, Akeroyd feels the Oracle conference is tying CMO speak to CEO and CIO speak to benefit the whole enterprise.