The credit card giant Capital One is known for its pioneering use of
marketing analytics and big data, so it might be surprising to learn
about its recent realization: that too much reliance on those tools had
left it without a meaningful brand. The authors explain how the number
one job of the CMO—to strike the right balance between promotions that
goose revenue in the short term and brand-building campaigns that
support healthy margins in the long term—has become dramatically harder
in the age of data-driven targeting. Capital One got its own wake-up
call when its CEO, Rich Fairbank, commissioned a brand equity study. The
research revealed that the company was overwhelmingly known by
consumers for just one attribute: “They send me lots of mail.” Efforts
to strengthen the brand and give Capital One a stronger foundation for
future growth yielded five lessons—all learned and refined through
conversations with other marketing executives, including Tony Pace, of
Subway; Mark Addicks, of General Mills; Tariq Shaukat, of Caesars
Entertainment; Russell Weiner, of Domino’s; and Jim Speros, of Fidelity,
as they dealt with the same tension in their very different
organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]