My Best Marketing Tips #18: Pandora / Jim Cruickshank / VP Global Digital Development & Retail Technology
Having developed products for the likes of Microsoft and Marks & Spencer as well as numerous start-up ventures, Jim has an impressive background in digital innovation. His latest challenge came during Covid-19 and the store closures associated with the connected lockdowns.
By putting together a dedicated cross-functional team from within Pandora, Jim was able to bring to life an augmented reality experience for shoppers who accessed the store online for the first time. This only made the importance of customer-centric product development even clearer for delivering something that works and that customers truly buy into.
What would be your best marketing tip?
I was fortunate to start my working life in a full-service advertising agency, working for the director & chairman in my first role as media planner buyer. This is how I picked up a lot of useful advice that I use today. The top one is: Keep in mind the 5 W’s: who, why, what, where, when.
How have you put this marketing tip to good use?
I use this all the time, especially when looking at who we’re developing products and experiences for. Without keeping the customer in mind first and foremost, you lose the audience. It’s important to keep going back to the basics.
What marketing tips does the industry need most right now?
To develop innovative products and solutions, we need to create start-up teams and use the start-up mentality even in bigger companies. Developing an augmented reality tool for Pandora’s online shop could only be possible by pulling people out of their day-to-day jobs and having them be 100% focused on the customer need.
So I would say that we need to be setting up cross-functional teams to go after big problems. Give the team autonomy and a clear objective, explaining the outcome you’re looking for, and let them work on that and that only. For this to work, they have to be completely dedicated to their task.
What is the marketing tip you give most often?
In pre-development research, product managers can get stuck in analysis, looking at the data over and over again and not going from intention to action. Just do it – work on a prototype, test it with customers, then refine and launch. Don’t be stuck in the analysis stage.
Listen to Jim speak about his story and how augmented reality can help businesses overcome physical restrictions on the latest episode of our Shiny New Object podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/03SUtq4qPFOhz0MYTAdOTX
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