ORLANDO\u2014Given the huge increase in customer-retailer interaction sparked in large part by technology, it\u2019s not enough to be Chief Marketing Officer at Sam\u2019s Club. \u201cMarketing\u2019s just a piece of it,\u201d says the company\u2019s Chief Member Officer, Tony Rogers. \u201cThe nature of the relationship between consumers and retailers has changed so dramatically over the years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whereas shoppers\u2019 in-store experiences might once have involved interacting with a cashier or other employee, now they\u2019re researching and buying products online, engaging in customer service follow-up and making a lot more returns, Rogers explains in this interview with Beet.TV at the recent Association of National Advertisers Masters of Marketing<\/a> conference.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of that has really changed the nature of the relationship with the customer and now what we have historically defined as marketing or the communication piece is really a small piece of the overall pie now,\u201d says Rogers<\/a>, who had been Chief Marketing Officer at Walmart. \u201cStructurally, what we\u2019ve done is we\u2019ve made the job of the chief marketer bigger. And so now it\u2019s chief member officer instead of chief marketing officer. Every customer touchpoint digitally and physically along the way now resides within the marketing team, and that\u2019s a big change.\u201d<\/p>\n Rogers is one of many marketers who are involved with the ANA\u2019s CMO Council along with the Cannes advertising festival. He likes the opportunities to brainstorm, think and ideate with other marketers who are experiencing similar challenges.<\/p>\n \u201cThe challenge is when you\u2019re in your own organization, everybody kind of already expects you to know all this stuff. So it\u2019s cool to have a safe place where you can go and network and think and be around a bunch of smart people to cultivate ideas that you can then bring back to your company. This group has a high ROI in terms of the things that I\u2019m able to take from it and bring back to my company.\u201d Rogers adds.<\/p>\n