Download video of Mark Snyder's complete presentation here.
The theme of this Brand Summit, "Bring your brand manager over to digital," is incredibly compelling subject matter. I'm here to tell you this is the toughest thing we are ever going to do in our careers. This isn't about transitioning. This isn't about moving from traditional marketing over to digital marketing. This is about transformation in the way we think about facing the consumer in the marketplace.
So think about being me. I work for Sears Holdings Corp. We're a $44 billion company. A Fortune 100 retailer. There are 6,000 people that sit in the building at Hoffman Estates, our corporate offices. So imagine having to take two retailers, Sears and Kmart, two of the most well-known retail brands in the world, and shift the mindset with a big group of merchants that are out there buying stuff for the stores and people who are working in the stores and migrate them toward creating meaningful, personalized, digital relationships with customers as opposed to just selling stuff.
And that's the first point I want to make about this. This isn't about just selling more stuff. This isn't about playing around with neat digital technology. This is about creating an information strategy for the future -- an information strategy about your customers that will help you be more well informed about what they like, what they need, when they need it, and how to give it to them.
Mark Snyder is CMO of Kmart Corp.
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