Steve Olenski

Known as The CMO Whisperer for both his close relationships with many CMOs of the world’s biggest brands and his marketing acumen – Steve is a true unicorn having served in roles ranging from agency creative director to senior marketing roles in companies such as Prudential and Oracle to a contributing writer for Forbes where he established himself as a highly-influential journalist in the marketing, advertising and branding space. The views expressed here are Steve's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Oracle.

What Brands And Marketers Can Learn From A Flight Attendant

February 4, 2013December 21, 2014 by Steve Olenski

The word “transparency” has become quite popular over the last few years. It is most often used in the social media world and anything related to anything in the online space for that matter.

The need for brands, marketers – truthfully all of us, to be completely transparent is paramount in today’s world.

This past July I wrote an article A Transparent, Live Case Study Of A Company Going Social which told the story of a company called Domo, its CEO Josh James and his very forward-thinking ideas on the use of social media among his employees.

So that’s one example of the use of the word “transparent.”

Back in 2010 I wrote a piece entitled About that whole transparency in social media thing…

What Will Become Of The Lance Armstrong Brand?

January 23, 2013December 21, 2014 by Steve Olenski

The sordid tale of Lance Armstrong is unfolding right before our eyes across the web, social media and of course TV in addition to pretty much every other channel known to man.

Back in August of this year I wrote an article about Penn State and if their brand had received the death penalty. While obviously different on many fronts, there are some similarities between Penn State and Lance Armstrong when it comes to branding and there’s a lesson for all marketers and advertisers.

The opening two paragraphs of the aforementioned Penn State article fit like a glove when overlaid onto the Lance Armstrong saga:

Hey CMOs, It’s Time To Get Disruptive

January 16, 2013December 21, 2014 by Steve Olenski

Many moons ago I wrote an article entitled simply Are You Disruptive? In that piece I openly questioned if marketers or business owners, brands, etc., were in fact, disruptive. As I wrote then which is still very true today. I myself am “disruptive” by nature, disruptive not in the breaking mom’s china manner, but rather questioning the accepted norms. Or as Howard Jones would put it, “challenging preconceived ideas.”

I was reminded of my earlier piece while reading something from Forrester Analyst Corinne Munchbach. In a blog post she used the term “Embrace digital disruption.” Now she was using it in the context of something CMOs need to do in 2013 and she was in fact referring specifically to B2C CMOs but I absolutely believe it applies to ALL CMOs – B2C and B2B CMOs alike.

Behold The Untapped Big Data Gap

January 8, 2013December 21, 2014 by Steve Olenski

As we close out 2012, one topic that got a lot of “airtime” in 2012 will surely stay on top of many marketers minds as we enter 2013: Big Data.

The title of my article is a paraphrase of sorts as it comes directly from a study done by IDC which revealed, among other things that in “2012, 23% of the digital universe would be useful for Big Data if tagged and analyzed. However, currently only 3% of the potentially useful data is tagged, and even less is analyzed.”

The “even less” part comes out to less than 1%, 0.5% to be precise.

When It Comes To Social CEOs One Group Is The Clear Winner

December 20, 2012December 21, 2014 by Steve Olenski

There are many – myself included, who believe in the adage “it starts from the top down” when it comes to leadership in a company or business. I don’t care if it’s a professional sports team or a business that has just a few employees. How the leader of that company acts, thinks and carries his or herself on a daily basis goes a long way to ensuring the overall success or failure of that company.

And when it comes to the use of social media – or lack thereof, it appears one group of CEOs is not doing their part or carrying their load or whatever catch phrase you happen to prefer.

As a follow up to their report done earlier this year on CEOs and social media, Domo and CEO.com just released the findings of another report or study. However, unlike their earlier report which focused squarely on the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, this one was “designed to compare and contrast social media habits among leaders of America’s largest companies (Fortune 500) and America’s fastest-growing companies (Inc. 500).”

Looking Back, Looking Ahead – CMOs Weigh In

December 17, 2012December 21, 2014 by Steve Olenski

This is such a great time of the year isn’t it? I mean with all the parties for hosting, marshmallows for toasting and caroling out in the snow. This time of the year is also time for fearless forecasts, the ones where everyone dares to boldly go where no man, or woman has gone before.

Or something like that.

What I am referring to of course is it’s the time of year when people make predictions for the coming year about this and that. And while I wanted to pen such a piece myself, I wanted to put a little different spin on it – I am a big fan of spinning, as it were.

When It Comes To Mobile Marketing, Integration Is Key

December 13, 2012December 21, 2014 by Steve Olenski

As a long-standing proponent of marketing integration I can speak to the fact that many marketers still have difficulty in putting it into practical use, including many chief marketing officers which was the basis of my piece aptly titled The Eleven Letter Word That Continues To Elude All CMOs And Marketers.

Based on recent research it would appear many in the mobile marketing space would be wise to integrate their marketing messages, especially this holiday season and in particular across two specific mediums.

The research comes from Responsys, AKA the company I work for, and reveals some very interesting and intriguing findings and shows a clear correlation and opportunity for mobile marketing folks.

According to the research almost 40% of consumers who previously opted in to receiving promotional emails from a retail marketer are also interested in getting promotional messages from these same retailers via SMS or text messaging. The findings alone would be significant but when you factor in that this past Cyber Monday saw an increase of 96% in mobile sales year-over-year from 2011 according to IBM, plus mix in the the fact that the percentage of emails being read on a mobile device are growing steadily literally as we speak –

What Mobile Marketers Can Learn From The Papa John’s Lawsuit

November 28, 2012December 21, 2014 by Steve Olenski

“With nearly 86 million Americans now shopping on their smartphones, this pronounced shift in consumer behavior is simply too large for retailers to ignore, with the future of their business depending on how well they adapt to the new environment.”

The above quote is from an article I penned back in September titled appropriately enough Mobile Marketing Too Large For Brands To Ignore.

It was said by Mark Donovan, comScore SVP of mobile and I found it so telling I repeated in a column I wrote about a month later Mobile Marketing – The Elephant In The Room For Marketers.

Do Brands Have A Responsibility When It Comes To Packaging?

November 20, 2012December 21, 2014 by Steve Olenski

Last year I wrote a story about The Most Misleading Packaging Design I Have Ever Seen. The inspiration for my article came from a text message my wife had sent me while at our kids’ school.

The text message include a picture and, as I wrote originally “What I thought was one thing turned out to be something completely different entirely and made me want to openly question the motives behind brand packaging design.”

Even More Brands Jumping On The Instagram Bandwagon

November 8, 2012December 21, 2014 by Steve Olenski

In case you don’t know this about me I am a huge sports fan. Huge. The reason I bring this up is because the word “bandwagon” is often bandied about in the sports world as in “more and more fans are jumping on the [[insert name of team here]] bandwagon.” This jumping is associated with said team’s fortunes rising thus the sudden popularity therein.

Make sense?

Now normally these same fans who were once so eager to grab a seat on the bandwagon, will just as quickly jump ship if and when the given team’s fortunes begin to head in the opposite direction. These of course are not true fans for any real fan stays the course and supports their teams through good times and bad.

But I digress.