What Nikhil Rastogi teaches about AI in marketing

Well, I don't have a mantra, but one thing I've learned is that if you follow and do something that you are naturally inclined towards, I think you're generally good at this. Do you agree with me today that the career span of CMOs is actually decreasing? I think it's a great point and I couldn't agree more. So, the average CMO span in the CXO is now the shortest in the world. So, there was a recent study by Spencer Stewart, which puts it at 44 months. And therefore, it tells you that the average CMO tenure is less than four years.

And the reason why this is happening is because as there is a shift towards more and more performance and growth expectations from marketing, I think the pressure on return on marketing expenses is increasing on the CMO. The other thing is I think CMO also need to use their influence a lot in terms of how they tackle the board, how they work with the CEO, how they work with different other business leaders. And therefore, a CMO role is way different than what it was before. And therefore, there's increasing amount of pressure on this role.

And hence, we see the tenures shooting down. So, you made some interesting points. Then how do we deal with it? So, how do you kind of make it better from here? So, I think one of the things that CMOs need to do is that they need to stop thinking of themselves as CMO. And they need to have a chief growth officer mindset. Sure. CMOs need to be responsible for numbers. CMOs need to contribute to the revenue. And CMOs need to build a lot more transparency about what they do.

They need to be very transparent in terms of what can be measured and what cannot be measured, but is good for the brand in the wrong term. So, I think if they work with sufficient business leaders, they bring everybody along with their vision. Right. And they become increasingly more performance oriented. I think CMOs should do a good job in terms of holding their positions at the CXO level. How do you make the banking sector more immersive and engaging? The outside perception is still very different of it, right?

It's not seemingly a very consumer friendly sector still. So, how do you do this? Can you give me like three pointers? I think that's a challenge we face all the time and something that we think about. I think there is now some good amount of progress in terms of what technology allows us to do. So, there is cognitive AI. I'm sure you've heard about it. But this is about, this is the next level of AI where machines can now interact with humans in a much more natural and human way.

So, imagine using the bank's channels like a contact center on an ATM, but also third party channels like Google Home or Alexa, which would use cognitive AI to reach out and make the conversation much more engaging, much more insightful, because the banks have so much data on their consumers. The second thing is what comes to my mind is extended reality. So, we all know about AR and VR, but extended reality goes beyond that. And, you know, imagine a branch scenario where you walk into a branch and you are greeted by a hologram,

which tells you where to go, what to do. And it's all self-service banking. And therefore, the entire experience is very different from what it was. It's quite engaging and it's quite next gen, in my opinion. The third is what I would say the backbone of all this, which is data analytics and machine learning. Again, banks have mines of data on their consumers. We know exactly where you spend, what money comes in, where does it go out. How do we use all this information to really personalize our communication to our audience?

And how do we make it more immersive? I think today, data algorithms and technology in this field allows us to do that. So, these, I think, are three things that we could do to do it. So, while you made some excellent points about being immersive and engaging, is there also something we can do to still keep the human factor alive? Because as a consumer, I still want that humanizing factor. This is a banking, this is something I need to have trust in. So, what do you think of that? It's a great question and there's always this dichotony.

So, face-to-face interactions are still very much part of the DNA. It's all about your precious money, so you would like to meet somebody. But what happens after you've had your first meeting? After that, you should be fairly comfortable in seeing the same person on video, interacting with him, you know, through remote banking, through video banking, through telephoning banking. And that's the whole idea, that, you know, you map your audiences, you choose who's more comfortable with face-to-face, who's not.

And then how do you gravitate them to alternate channels? But I think the role of empathy continues to be there. And therefore, irrespective of whether there is face-to-face interaction or not, I think we need to be human, we need to be understanding. And therefore, the entire things about tonality, using cognitive AI, using new tools to really personalize and make it an empathic conversation, I think will continue to be really important. What would you say is your life mantra? Well, I don't have a mantra, but one thing I've learned is that

if you follow and do something that you are naturally inclined towards, I think you're generally good at this. And work doesn't seem work then. So for me personally, I've always liked the consumer space. I've loved consumer inciting. I've loved marketing. And thankfully, I'm in a job that allows me to do that. And marketing is both a science and an art. So on one hand, there's a lot of science in terms of data and technology that is available. On the other hand, you know, the point that you've made about empathy and understanding.

So, you know, I think do what you're good at and I think you will always love it.