Personalization at Scale: Interview with Raj Venkatesan, Co-Author of The AI Marketing Canvas

I recently went one on one with Rajkumar Venkatesan. Raj is the co-author of the new book The AI Marketing Canvas: A Five-Stage Road Map to Implementing Artificial Intelligence in Marketing. Raj is also the Ronald Trzcinski Professor of Business Administration in the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia and the co-author of Marketing Analytics.

Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?

Raj: I completed by undergraduate degree in computer engineering in ’97 in India. At that time I took classes in this new thing called neural networks in my final year and I did my final year project on genetic algorithms, both of which are now part of the AI toolkit. I came to the United States to do my PhD in marketing, my PhD advisor told me at that time that technology and computers are going to play a big role in marketing and asked if I would be interested in pursuing this in my PhD. At that time I did not think much of it, and just said yes. I took classes in economics, marketing, consumer behavior etc and found it really fascinating. So I stuck around and finished my PhD. I then taught marketing research at University of Connecticut, and then marketing analytics at The University of Virginia from 2006, and digital marketing since 2015. Charlottesville, VA is now home and our two sons were born in here in Charlottesville.

Joining Darden was life changing. I really started understanding about marketing, learning about the practice of marketing, and worked on case studies with companies, did executive education, and all of that was fascinating and gave me a perspective into the changing world of marketing. I wrote a book on marketing analytics based on my course in Darden, and this was a tools book. As I worked on that book, I realized that there is a need to talk about the marketing process, and the way technology, data and algorithms are changing marketing. I met Jim, my coauthor around that time and he was thinking about the same things also, in his position at Google. We eventually decided to write this book on AI in marketing together to really put together a perspective on how leaders can use AI in their marketing strategy.

Adam: What are three things everyone should understand about marketing? 

Raj:  

• Marketing can help consumers find the right product for their needs.

• Marketing is changing rapidly and is informed by your actions.

• Marketing can be a great tool for social progress.

Adam: What are three things people who work in marketing should understand? 

Raj: “The art challenges the technology, and the technology inspires the art.”

• I think this quote from John Lasseter is very appropriate to understanding the evolution of marketing. Like art, marketing also has a symbiotic relationship with technology. In the old days, one had mass marketing on the radio. Then when the new technology of TV came about, we saw the golden era of Television commercials, but we still had one ad for all the customers, then we had the advent of cable TV and we started segmentation, a brand perhaps had three or ad versions for their different segments that aired in the appropriate cable channels. With direct mail, we started the advent of one-to-one marketing, and started to increase our customization, then we had digital marketing and the rise of the internet we had more customization. With AI now, we are at the stage where brands are personalizing their marketing to a segment of one.

• All through this evolution, though, the fundamentals of marketing hold true. Address customer needs, focus on benefits not features, develop emotional connections, be authentic etc.

• My philosophy is to use AI to supercharge the customer experience through personalization at scale. I frequent this Chinese restaurant near Darden, Peter Chang. They greet me by my name, know where I like to sit, what I like to order, and when I call them, they know exactly what I would want. They know my kids and family etc. Now this family that owns Peter Chang might know their regular customers intimately and would be able to remember about 200 of their regular customers if they are REALLY GOOD. AI is about taking this level of personalization to tens of millions of customers. Brands like Chick-fil-A, and Starbucks are trying to achieve this personalization using AI in their mobile apps and translating the insights from the app into personalized in-store customer experiences also. So, Starbucks knows what drinks I like, what sandwiches I normally get, they might know that I have kids (because my son loves the Vanilla Bean Frappuccino and Cake Pop), if ordered ahead on the mobile app, the barista can address me by my name etc. An effective strategy is to use AI to personalize each aspect of customer engagement; acquisition, retention, growth, and advocacy (or word of mouth). Modern marketing is about using first party consumer data and algorithms to personalize the firms’ marketing for acquisition, retention, growth and advocacy. The idea is to put the customer in the center and use AI to enhance the customer’s experience with the brand.

Adam: What do you hope readers take away from your new book The AI Marketing Canvas?

Raj: The book is an outcome of our experience teaching courses in digital marketing, consulting and working in technology firms, and in-depth interviews with several leading brands. We heard and experienced the rise of data and algorithms. Marketing professionals had started to pay attention to this, and they wanted to invest in this new technology. But they were struggling with the why and the how questions. They needed guidance on the ultimate objective of using AI in marketing, i.e., why is marketing, and customer relationships going to improve from using AI. There were books written at a very high level on will machines take over, sentiment machines etc., You know, is the Matrix going to take over, or for the younger people in the audience, are we all going to be in Halliday’s game, the Oasis, like Ready Player One. On the other hand, there were books written around, 10 steps to better email marketing. Very granular, but again not at the strategic level a senior marketing profession would want to use AI. So, we set out writing a book, that we feel is like the Goldilocks solution, not too high, and not too granular.

The book includes case studies and examples from Coca-cola, Chase, Unilever, Google, Ancestry.com, Washington Post, Admiral Insurance, CarMax, Ulta brands and Starbucks. This book provides a strategic goal for using AI in marketing and an implementation plan for achieving that goal. This is not a book on how to build an AI algorithm, or about coding. It is a book about the value AI can provide marketers and it is about the strategic business value of AI.

Adam: What are the most important trends in technology that leaders should be aware of and understand? What should they understand about them?

Raj: In the world of marketing, AI is the biggest and most important technology trend. AI allows for personalization at scale. As we discussed before, we believe our book The AI Marketing Canvas, provides a good overview of the topic and a framework that marketers can use to supercharge their customer experience.

Adam: In your experience, what are the defining qualities of an effective leader? How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level? Adam: What are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives and civic leaders? 

Raj: I will focus on marketing leaders here. My #1 advice for leaders to take their skills to the next level is to invest in yourself.  Take courses online about AI, attend conferences, try experiments. An effective marketing leaders does not need to learn coding to be successful in this AI driven world. Marketers need to focus on their main goal, delivering superior customer experiences and being the customer’s biggest advocate in a firm. To use AI and improve customer engagement, they need to develop collaboration skills. They need to work with data scientists, operations, finance, and IT folks.

Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?

Raj: I don’t really have one person or story. I try to learn from everyone I meet. I would like to highlight three groups of people. My research coauthors are a source of inspiration for me. They are smart people and deep thinkers. I learn about marketing everyday I work with them.

I love interacting with my students. They are full of ideas and are always aware of the latest trends in technology. They question the norm and this helps me unpack our long help assumptions in marketing.

Practicing managers and marketing leaders are great to interact and engage. I learn a lot about the opportunities and challenges down the horizon in marketing. I am always energized for the future of marketing when I talk to these leaders.

Adam: Is there anything else you would like to share?

 Raj: I would love to connect with marketing leaders and AI enthusiasts on LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/in/profv), and in my website (www.aimcbook.com).


Adam Mendler is the CEO of The Veloz Group, where he co-founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries. Adam is also the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. Adam has written extensively on leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities and non-profit organizations.

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