IBM Interactive gains momentum worldwide as a leading global digital marketing provider

IBM today announced a new set of services targeting chief marketing officers (CMOs) and chief information officers (CIOs) to boost engagement efforts among today’s increasingly selective and digitally empowered customers. IBM Interactive, IBM’s digital marketing agency, will play a critical role in guiding businesses through their digital transformation journeys.

IBM’s 2011 study of more than 1,700 chief marketing officers revealed that the majority of the world’s top marketing executives recognized a critical shift occurring in regards to customer engagement, but felt underprepared to manage the change. The IBM study also found that while 82 percent of CMOs say they plan to increase their use of social media over the next three to five years, only 26 percent are currently tracking blogs, 42 percent are tracking third party reviews and 48 percent are tracking consumer reviews to help shape their marketing strategies.

In response to this need, IBM is introducing a new set of integrated services designed to help businesses build and expand their digital marketing presence. IBM will help businesses use technology as a tool to build more meaningful, personalized interactions across mobile, social and online touchpoints.

IBM will rapidly assess a business's current needs against future marketing vision, conduct a gap analysis to evaluate which of the future capabilities are currently supported through existing business architecture and then determine the new processes, technology, data, skills, and governance required for the transformation strategy. IBM will design customized roadmaps for clients built on industry-leading techniques and methodologies developed in worldwide client engagements.

Analytic techniques will be used to drive customer engagement, social marketing and collaboration, and marketing performance optimization efforts. For example, retailers, banks, insurance companies, and communications providers are all challenged to deliver the right offers for their products and services to customers at the right time. Real-time predictive analytics can ease this task by analyzing the growing volumes of customer information – across various structured and unstructured data sources – to provide key insights into customer preferences. Combined with business rules based on knowledge of what offers and actions have proven successful with other customers in a similar situation, the analytics can provide recommended actions for that customer on a personalized basis.

“Today, businesses have a unique opportunity to rebrand themselves to become more customer-centric and relevant,” said Adam Klaber, Managing Partner, New Markets, IBM Global Business Services. “As part of IBM’s broader Smarter Commerce efforts, IBM works with businesses to deepen customer relationships and turn prospects into brand advocates. Leading with a data-driven approach, IBM helps CMOs and CIOs to engage with consumer audiences in a more personalized and authentic manner, to in turn, boost brand loyalty.”

IBM Delivers Immersive Experiences with Customers Worldwide

IBM has found worldwide success in driving marketing innovation and improved customer experiences with clients around the world. Examples of how IBM Interactive is working with businesses to innovate the digital experience include:

· IBM is working with a major beverage provider to introduce exciting functionality to the customer engagement experience such as the ability to create personal drink recipes, assign and enable consumers to access their mobile devices to communicate the personal recipes to the vending machine. IBM also designed a new mobile website for the company’s loyalty rewards program, providing access to over 16.5 million registered members (1 in every 9 households).

· IBM worked with a global luxury goods retailer to improve the customer shopping experience for its online channel. To reduce barriers in the checkout process, IBM created a streamlined process for browsing and checkout. In addition, IBM worked with the company to create targeted customer experiences for mobile smart phone and tablet users, as well as helped the company devise a strategy to expand its online presence to more countries.

· IBM has designed, developed and implemented new customer-facing Web sites for the world’s leading tennis and golf organizations including the United States Tennis Association, United States Golf Association and Wimbledon. Designed to enhance the fan experience, the sites bring together live scores, live streaming video, on demand clips, and provide a visual way to view the scores, news, event activities, and photos. IBM ensures that content can be accessed in real-time and delivered to multiple devices, such as the iPhone, iPad, and smart phones.

For more information on IBM Interactive, visit: http://www.ibminteractive.com/

For more information on IBM Smarter Commerce, visit: http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/smarter_commerce/overview/

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