I am very excited to announce my newest report on marketing innovation just published Friday, November 15, 2013: "Build A Marketing Innovation Engine And Team To Power Growth " (subscription required or fee for non-Forrester clients). The latest report in my series on marketing innovation focuses specifically on the talent required to successfully innovate. It also delivers a lean process that unencumbers this talent from the bureaucracy that typically slows it down. Here is a brief report summary.

Top CMOs are partnering with their CIO counterparts to integrate new technologies into their customer engagement, commercial, and brand building efforts as consumers rapidly adopt new behaviors and expectations in the age of the customer. Companies like Comcast, Ford Motor, and Chick-fil-A have created more streamlined innovation processes to navigate internal bureaucracies and politics, ideate, develop, and launch new marketing efforts faster in order to keep up. This report will provide 1) a model for continuous evaluation and selection of cutting-edge marketing innovations, and 2) information about the leadership and talent capabilities you will need to execute on these programs.

In addition, the report also includes valuable insights from Aetna and Wells Fargo on how to develop marketing innovation programs that have an impact on the business. Here are some of the key takeaways:

  • Rapid consumer technology adoption drives need for marketing innovation. Customer behavior change, led by technology adoption and media fragmentation, makes it harder than ever to engage and develop brand relationships. The imperative to innovate is more important than ever, requiring marketers to implement a lean process and culture and hire the right talent to lead the charge.
  • CMOs and CIOs should view innovation as their shared mission. The marriage of marketing and technology leadership opens the organization up to new customer engagement, new products and services, and new brand building opportunities like never before. CMOs and CIOs must work in tandem to bring those ideas to life by implementing marketing innovation processes.
  • Talent is the fuel for marketing innovation success. Marketers need to hire a set of talent that is not typical for most marketing organizations. They must be experts at not only data and analytics but also project management and business development in order to quickly capitalize on the opportunities that will make a difference to the business.

The research I conducted for this report helped guide me to my next two reports on marketing innovation labs and marketing innovation partnerships between agencies and brands. Expect to see those reports later this year.