A new career field in marketing

Initiator Scott Brinker welcomed the 1,100 participants to the 2nd MARTECH conference.The 2nd MARTECH conference has just ended in San Francisco. The number of 1100 participants has more than doubled since the first event in Boston eight months ago. This already answers the question of why a special conference is needed for the topic of marketing technology. Most of the visitors came from North America, but Europe and Asia were also well represented. The fact that only two people from Rolex were represented from Switzerland alongside myself clearly shows that the topic of marketing technology has not yet reached us. When, for example, the CEO of BCG's Boston office takes two days of his time, it is worth considering. In his introduction, conference initiator Scott Brinker vividly demonstrated how the range of marketing technology solutions on offer continued to grow in 2014. This makes it very difficult for marketing users to keep track of everything.

The range of marketing technology solutions knows no bounds.Scott Brinker confirms the proliferation of software solutions and at the same time points out an interesting consequence. A new job description is emerging: The "marketing technologist". At the moment, it still takes some getting used to - in five years' time, this term will also be standard in Switzerland and, of course, in Europe. A wake-up call for educational institutions! It was striking that the presentations were not technically oriented, but without exception focused on the "customer experience." Here are the key messages from the 2nd MARTECH conference:- Agile methods are becoming the "pulse" of modern marketing. In a highly automated world, it helps to understand things better if they are initially done manually.- CMO-CIO alignment is progressing.- No industry will be able to escape digital disruption - according to Forrester, insurance, education and banking are particularly challenged.Three questions for conference organizer Scott Brinker:MK Scott, what prompted you to launch this conference?SCOTT BRINKER I have seen that two worlds are coming ever closer together - the world of marketing and the world of IT. Of course, there are separate conferences for these worlds - with MATECH, I focus on the increasing overlap between the two disciplines.MK Where do you see the most relevant movements in the marketing technology scene?BRINKER More and more companies are trying to move away from silo-based behavior, which was previously strongly focused on execution. Companies increasingly understand that customer data must be able to be mapped in a holistic view and are pushing for cross-organizational networking. And I am very pleased to see the willingness to implement this - managers also want to see the results of the change in approach.MK You are bringing the MARTECH conference to Europe in October 2015 - what motivates you to do this?BRINKER I see the revolution of changing marketing as a global phenomenon. That's why it's important that we Americans also connect with the European community. So it's also about silos here - I want to break down the marketing technology country silos. What's more, there are some great martech companies in Europe, so the good news is that the first European MARTECH conference will take place in London on October 20/21, 2015.