"We need to become chief collaboration officers."

m&k: Jennifer Chase, you are the new global head of marketing at SAS - and a proven branding expert. That's exciting, because branding hasn't necessarily been a focus at SAS up to now?

Jennifer Chase: First of all, I'm going to change that. I'm going to change that SAS is not the company you think of first when it comes to well-known brands in tech. I believe that in the past, we at SAS have been too modest about who we are. We let our customers' success speak for itself. When I was given the global CMO position, I talked to our founder, Jim Goodnight. We both asked ourselves, "How can we position SAS now and in the future? How can we continue to grow?" Well, we need to raise the profile of our brand. We need to tell our story in a bold way. There are a lot of vendors in the analytics market, but there are also a lot of misconceptions about what we actually do. That's why it's important for SAS to communicate that we not only laid the foundation of modern analytics, but also represent its future.

Is this new approach coming "from within" - or do you also feel driven by competitors in the industry? There are numerous companies that have been placing enormous value on branding for years...

This is primarily internally motivated for us. So far, we have focused very strongly on demand generation in marketing. And we continue to optimize this area to identify buying signals and engage with customers. But: it is a must to now add the level of brand awareness. In doing so, we draw inspiration from B2C companies, among others, which are traditionally somewhat more adept at addressing people and their emotions directly (laughs). As B2B marketers, we still have some catching up to do. We often talk about speed, about feeds, or generally in technical jargon. We had to let that go for once - and communicate a purpose.

For this, you have commissioned a global lead agency for the first time in more than two decades. What was your experience with this?

To be honest, it was quite unusual at the beginning(laughs)! But we found a great partner in McCann. Together we peeled out the core of our work, our daily drive: Curiosity. The curiosity of our company and our people about our customers' problems and challenges, and how we can use data and analytics to solve them. We recognized that this is the big thing SAS has in common with our customers. And so we've leveraged that curiosity for the emotional connection we want to make with our customers. Technology may change over time, but what remains constant is the curiosity of our employees and our customers. Hence the motto of our campaign: "Curiosity forever!"

As a marketing leader, you must also remain curious. How has your work changed in recent years?

I have the impression - and I think quite a few colleagues in B2B marketing share it - that marketing has long been perceived as an "executive body" in many companies. A kind of service that supports the company's strategy with activating measures. In the meantime, however, and I can say this at least for SAS, we help marketing to design the company's strategy. I want to expand on that. One of the "superpowers" of us CMOs must be to become "chief collaboration officers." I spend a lot of time with my colleagues from very different departments to understand what their challenges are. How can I help them, how can we achieve an overarching goal together?

How did you go about strengthening the position of your marketing department internally?

I call this, with a twinkle in my eye, marketing for the marketing (laughs). I can only recommend to each and every CMO to launch an internal "marketing marketing campaign" so that the management level and then the rest of the organization understand what we are doing. This can be done in a few very simple steps: For example, once a week I send a message to the entire executive suite saying what they can expect from the marketing department the following week. This may sound like a bit of a tactic, but how else are we supposed to address our colleagues? Something as simple as a weekly email can solve the problem. Combined with a quarterly email communicating the results of our actions. After all, as marketers, we tend to rely more on performance metrics. How many clicks, how many visitors we bring to the site. How many leads we generate, the sales pipeline, all of that is important ... but you have to put everything in the context of how measures ultimately impact the business. And branding also has a measurable impact - we communicate that clearly, through all levels of the hierarchy. That's how we've changed the parameters in our executive suite, and it's been very effective for us as branders.

Which other departments within your company do you interact with most often? 

I would say the closest relationship that marketing has traditionally had is with sales. Sales and marketing have always been enormously closely linked. But what I'm also noticing more and more is the positive effect of working closely with the CFO. To give you SAS Marketing as an example, I have cultivated this relationship. What CMOs and CFOs have in common is their long-term vision for the business and how to generate revenue in the years ahead. Both want to know: How can we prepare for the future? And at the same time, how can we enable sales to be effective in the here and now?

What does this manifest itself in, for example?

There have been a few situations where I wanted to make large investments. When I went to the CEO with it, I took our CFO with me for support. I had discussed the business case with him beforehand. He helped me strengthen it; supported me in paying enough attention to even very specific details. The marketing ideas I wanted to bring to the CEO automatically became more credible as a result.

The Covid pandemic has provided an incredible boost to digitization. What are the strongest trends coming our way in marketing?

I'm observing several trends right now. One of them is that over the past year and a half, we've seen the biggest consumer or buyer shift in a generation. The way people discover, buy and use products for personal or business use has changed dramatically. And I find it exciting how we as marketers can understand their behavior and needs. We live in a world where almost infinite amounts of data are available. If we stay curious, use the right analytics, we can learn much, much more about consumers. And knowledge will always be a competitive advantage.

Of course, where there is data, it must also be protected. Data protection is of the utmost importance for us, our partners and the end consumers. I am convinced that as marketers in general, and with a tech company in particular, we must not only consider data protection as a legal basis, but define it as the guiding maxim of all our actions.

Can analytics tools be made so simple and accessible that anyone can use them?

Yes, we work on that every day. You know, when you consider that by 2025, it's estimated that up to 70 percent of the workforce will be Millennials - and 2025 isn't that far away anymore (laughs) - then the tools must also finally be adapted. The users of the future will rely on peer reviews when they buy analytics tools for their company; they will demand easy-to-understand interfaces and simple integration more than the generation of users before them. This is why we are targeting this group with the "Curiosity forever!" campaign: it is very creative, fresh and modern, with a video-first strategy.

When will live events be able to become part of the marketing repertoire for you as a CMO again? Or will that no longer be the case for the foreseeable future?

I think live events will come back. But I think they will look different than they did before Covid. 2022 will be a transition year for all of us. There are so many uncertainties that it is a huge challenge to plan a large event with participants on site. As a company, we have already participated in some small events again, done some mini-events. The first thing that should come back is the direct exchange with IT decision-makers - you simply can't guarantee that as well virtually.

However, where we have actually been able to expand our audience thanks to the digital space is in the area of the user base. We don't want to lose that. For example, at our flagship event, the SAS Global Forum, we counted four times as many attendees as we did in the years when the event was live. And we looked closely at the attendees: About a third of them had never attended one of our events before. So we lowered the barrier of travel and cost to the event, and were able to reach a larger audience, which will benefit us in the future.

Curiosity@Work study: Curiosity as a key competence in business

Curiosity is becoming increasingly important for employers and employees. This can now be proven with concrete figures: 72 percent of managers in companies worldwide see curiosity as a very valuable trait in employees, and 59 percent as a real business driver. This is a result of the global Curiosity@Work Report by SAS, for which a total of around 2,000 managers were surveyed. 51 percent of them also believe that this characteristic has become much more relevant in recent years.

One thing is indisputable: Curiosity has enormous potential to counteract current weaknesses in staffing and resources. In each case, more than half of the respondents see the greatest potential for greater efficiency and productivity (62 percent), creative thinking (62 percent), closer collaboration (58 percent) and stronger employee retention and satisfaction (58 percent). The IT department in particular is seen as having a high need for curiosity: 64 percent of respondents confirm this. Research and development (54 percent) and marketing (46 percent) follow only behind. Tasks where curiosity is seen as particularly relevant are developing innovative solutions (62 percent), solving complex problems (55 percent) and analyzing data (52 percent). Curiosity is thus an important prerequisite for gaining data-based insights as a basis for decision-making.

More results under Sas.com/curiosityatwork