February 19, 2025 • 38 mins
Tom Klein is the Chief Marketing Officer at Matterport. He brings more than 20 years of experience spearheading marketing efforts for some of the world’s leading brands and has a passion for operating at the intersection of marketing and technology. Before Matterport, Tom served as the Global Chief Marketing Officer of Mailchimp, where he led the company’s go-to-market efforts and the brand, product, campaign, and content teams. In 2017, Adweek recognized Tom as one of the 50 Most Indispensable Executives in Marketing, Media, and Tech. Before joining Mailchimp, Tom founded and became CEO of Digital Scientists, a digital marketing and software development firm. He is also the co-author of the book, Enterprise Marketing Management: The New Science of Marketing.
Matterport is a technology company specializing in 3D spatial data and virtual tour solutions. They provide a platform that enables users to digitize physical spaces into immersive, interactive 3D models known as digital twins. These digital replicas are widely used in real estate, construction, retail, and various other industries to improve visualization, design, and communication.
On today’s show, Alan and Tom dive into the world of Matterport and explore the diverse range of customers it serves. They unpack the complexities of Matterport’s go-to-market strategy, which seamlessly integrates an eCommerce platform, professional services, and a robust SaaS offering. The conversation also ventures into the future of property intelligence, shedding light on how these innovative solutions are transforming industries and redefining the way we understand and utilize spatial data.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:07):
Are you ready to go beyond the basics of marketing?
I'm Alan Hart and this is Marketing Beyond, where we talk about the questions that sparkchange and share ideas that challenge the status quo.
Join us as we explore the future of marketing and its endless potential.
(00:32):
Today on the show, got Tom Klein.
He's the chief marketing officer at Matterport and is responsible for aligning thecompany's global marketing initiative with its mission to digitize the built world at
scale.
Tom brings more than 20 years of experience spearheading marketing effort for some of theworld's leading brands.
Before Matterport, Tom served as global chief marketing officer at Mailchimp, where he ledthe company's go-to-market efforts and the brand product campaign and content teams.
(01:02):
He's been recognized as one of the 50 most indispensable executives in marketing byAdweek.
And as you'll find out later in the conversation, he's one of the cool kids havingco-authored a book, Enterprise Marketing Management, The New Science of Marketing, way
back in 2003.
On the show today, we talk about Matterport, what it is, the types of solutions theyoffer, how it is a fairly complex go-to-market.
(01:27):
with many different types of customers across a solution that encompasses an e-commercesolution, services, and a SaaS platform altogether.
We talk about where property intelligence, which is one of the things in which theydeliver, is going, and much more.
I hope you enjoy this conversation with Tom Klein.
(01:53):
Tom, welcome back to the show, I should say.
It's nice to see you again.
Nice to see you too, Alan.
How are you doing?
I'm good, I'm good, I'm good.
Well, I think, I didn't write down the episode number, but the last time we talked, youwere at MailChimp.
You were the CMO at MailChimp.
You've now found your way to another company.
We'll talk about that in a minute.
(02:14):
But before we get into the business side of things, I'd love to hear more about yourprofessional career.
as a refurbishing old houses pro.
of that.
All those, uh, those, those words are, that's just a lie.
(02:39):
The, uh, so one of the adventures that I started in, it was in 2018, my husband and Ibought a, a 200 and
No, not 210.
It felt like a 210 year old house.
It was only 120 years old.
and started down this into this world of adventure of how do we take a home and bring itinto the modern age, but still retain all of the charm.
(03:07):
And so the way I describe it, it was part restoration, part renovation and an addition.
I can see Peachtree Street in Atlanta.
from my office and that was just a very difficult but ultimately very rewarding project,the kind of which that I have just never tackled before.
(03:28):
I love it, I love it.
Well, I almost sensed a little PTSD when I even said it.
So as much as you might have loved this old house and obviously kind of feels like youfell in love with it to start this ambitious project, it sounds like there was a lot of
twists and turns.
Very much so and relevant to the marketing world out there.
(03:51):
I think I don't know whether it's hubris but if you've been in marketing a long time youused to sort of starting on a project where you don't really know where it's going to
finish.
I think about sort of my MailChimp days where I would certainly start we're going to do abrand campaign and I don't know what it is yet and I don't know what it's gonna look like
(04:11):
or how it's gonna turn out.
And so refurbishing an old house is sort of like that.
You're starting a journey where you don't really know where it's going to end.
You certainly have visions of what that's going to be like, but it was a, had lots oftwists and turns to it, I guess.
And so I kind of learned that it wasn't, it's not just a project, it's a journey and it'sgot, ultimately I learned a lot about love design and certainly I'm a big fan of it from
(04:40):
working in marketing for so long.
But I also encountered all sorts of things that were intimidatingly complex around justhow to engineer a house and all the parts of home building that a layman just would not
know or understand.
So it was very much a humbling experience.
Well, so I know we're going to talk about buildings.
(05:03):
So there's a connection here between your old house and what you do now.
And you are currently...
CMO or Chief Marketing Officer at Matterport.
Tell me a little bit about your journey to Matterport.
I know, I believe it was just the next job after MailChimp, is that right?
Yes, it was.
I think it was right at three months after leaving MailChimp.
(05:27):
I started as the Chief Marketing Officer at Matterport and Matterport is really all aboutdigitizing.
physical spaces and or really property marketing is the way I sort of that's the shorthandI use for it or at least that's one of the ways that most people are familiar with it and
so it turns out that all of my focus on design and construction of a home and working witharchitects made me more familiar with the world of property and so that was a an
(06:00):
interesting connection because I'd come from a obviously a marketing platform likeMailChimp
And I had just been, I don't know, I don't know if it would be a trial by fire, but it wasbasically, had, I had a lot of empathy for what was it like to essentially try to, was
intrigued with essentially the digitization of a physical space and the property marketingthat, goes around it, both in real estate, well as increasingly for Matterport, working
(06:27):
with designing projects.
So it was all very interesting to me.
I.
I probably knew, knew enough to be dangerous about the real estate world, trying to putchocolate and peanut butter together.
I love it.
So you created the Reese's Pieces of marketing and property.
Exactly.
(06:48):
Well, let's talk a little bit about Matterport and the types of solutions that you guysprovide.
Sure.
Most people, what's funny is when you're introducing the company that you're with, it'salways interesting to figure out when you say it.
what, like what is the expression on the other person's face?
So pretty much every time I introduced Matterport, in most instances, there's sort of a, asort of a familiarity, but they, they're not really sure how they might know it.
(07:20):
And they definitely don't always connect the dots.
so Matterport is best known from an experience perspective.
If you're looking to buy a home or
rent something on a VRBO or get an Airbnb, the company is best known for 3D or virtualtours.
(07:41):
And those are those, essentially it's a 3D experience where you've got those littlecircles on the ground and you move around and you can see what it's like in great detail.
And that's how people, people know the experience, but they don't necessarily know thatthat is Matterport.
And then when I connect the dots for them, they're like, of course I've used that tons oftimes and it's very helpful.
(08:04):
So that's, that's the way most people use Matterport.
Increasingly that property marketing solution has been, we've essentially expandeddramatically.
And in many ways I had the same challenge I had at Mailchimp, which is that everybodycould remember Mailchimp from 10 years ago, but there's been a lot that's changed.
in the same way.
(08:25):
Matterport has expanded dramatically to really serve the design and construction market.
So if you are, if you're building an airport or something kind of great big, and you'relooking for a way to really capture a level of detail and you're a professional in the
design and construction business, and you want to create what we call our terminology isdigital twin.
(08:50):
You're essentially creating
a digital replica of a physical space.
Matterport is very useful.
And so all kinds of different companies use this for that use case.
And then the third solution area is facilities management, which is a bit of a grab bag ofdifferent things, but it's one thing to be working on a big design project or, Hey, I
(09:14):
have, have a chain of restaurants.
I'm always having design projects.
Another solution, this facilities management is
I might have an existing whole lot of buildings and they might be manufacturing facilitiesor warehouses or really anything.
And just managing them takes work or training people to run the hotel, right?
(09:35):
So there's just a lot of different use cases where it's very helpful to have a digitalreplica of a physical space that is easy and fun to get around in.
And so those three, those are our big three really, property marketing, design andconstruction and facilities management.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, it's on each layer there that you talk about is like an increasing level ofsophistication from like what I've done as a consumer to like tracking and I guess
(10:07):
archiving the construction process and what you can see and experience through thatprocess to then like having it.
if you will, like a digital twin available for that and facility management use cases.
That's a lot.
That's a lot of data too.
It is.
it is a kind of like, and I always put things in sort of my old MailChimp terms becausesometimes we get in, you know, this is a real technology business.
(10:34):
It's real, it's new, it's complicated.
And part of my job as the marketer is I must simplify everything.
And even when I talk about things like
Facilities management.
What does that even mean?
So if I have a whole set of, if I'm building cars on an assembly line and I have 20production facilities, it's very helpful.
(10:54):
You have a lot of data, not only in the facility, but essentially all the machines arethrowing off data.
And the challenge is if you present all that stuff in a spreadsheet, you don't really,ultimately you have to interact with people.
And so what we find a lot of times is,
a digital twin of, know, I'm in Atlanta and say I'm talking to somebody in France and Iam, maybe I'm the engineer that knows about a particular piece of equipment.
(11:21):
I can pull up a version of the plant and I know, yeah, I can see it and I can feel it andexperience it.
And I can see the data from like a, work closely with Amazon and AWS IoT is a, they havean IoT solution called IoT Twinmaker.
I know it sounds very complicated, but essentially
It's a thing to sort of pull all the, all the sensor data together.
(11:44):
So you kind of get the whole picture of what's happening.
This machine is performing this way and it's in this location.
And so it's a very nerdy thing, you know, but ultimately facilitates people sort ofunderstanding what's going on and ultimately solving problems.
So facilities management is more about solving a problem when you inside of a physicalspace.
(12:08):
No, I mean, this is a very simplistic view of it, but getting back to your PTSD ofrefurbishing old houses, my wife and I, bought a like 19, it's not that old, it's like the
1960s house, but was constantly little things that somebody did something to the house andyou're like, why did they do it that way?
But our heating systems, we had like a filter next to the heating duct.
(12:31):
It's a gas system.
And for some reason they had put it, the filter.
mechanism inside of the HVAC system.
And there was like a gap around that filter and it was allowing, we didn't know this, butlike it took us, I think, four HVAC reps to come out and like look at the system.
And it wasn't until like we had somebody that actually like followed the flow of airthrough the system to realize the reason you're getting like this gas smell in your house,
(13:02):
it's not a gas leak, but there's
a seal that's not working properly and it's allowing like the fresh air and the combustedair to mix.
And they were like, if we just move the filter out of this base unit and put it next toyour system, everything will be fine.
So in your example, know, like it's like seeing not only like, I think like the problem athand and having the expert on site, but being able to look at the total system and how
(13:30):
it's actually working inside of the building can maybe help you solve better problems.
Oh my gosh, that's such a great example.
we have this, uh, we're on the, lot of these things take a lot of time.
so to your point, this is not a brand.
We use the term internally time travel.
Everybody wants to do travel in time back to before they put the drywall up or can I justgo back to the day that they put in the HVAC system so I can see what the heck they were
(13:59):
doing before it was covered up by all this other stuff or where the plumbing is because.
I don't know why.
like, you're just, and also my problem with, you know, the refurbishing of this, thishouse was, okay, I'm not, I always like to say I'm sort of more about software than
hardware.
Like that's not my department.
So I don't understand how any of these things work in the first place, but certainlyhaving a system that will, having a, this sort of system of record idea of like, you could
(14:28):
at least point, you could, you could say this is what was put in.
And the other thing I'm sure you, it sounds like you experienced was you can document wheneach person comes because most likely if you have an HVAC problem, you get a different
HVAC person every time they come out.
Nobody can remember your, your weird problem.
(14:50):
And just, you know, having like a clear documentation can really go a long way.
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
I totally see the.
to see the need and like my little small house, you you magnify that to a large facilityplant like you were talking about.
mean, can only, the problems compound so there's the complexity of solving them.
So true.
Well, you've gone from email marketing to marketing properties in some form or fashion.
(15:15):
It seems like you're still selling marketing to marketers to some degree.
Like you've got designers, architects, real estate folks.
Is that the best way to think about it in terms of like how your solutions actually getout into market?
Well, I mean, that's the one that's the big one.
Right.
So I think, and I think that, the marketing solution part for Matterport is, sort of thebasis for the company.
(15:39):
And we have a very close relationship with the overall kind of real estate industry, whichI'm sure you've been following is kind of moving, is going through a lot of ups and downs.
And so, and it seems like there's a great deal of appetite for more digitization and.
So yes, it's very much, and of course every real estate agent is essentially a smallbusiness.
(16:03):
So that's near and dear to my heart.
And so I'm super keen to figure out how do I really just help agents be successful andwhatever that means and having a digital version.
Cause I didn't really talk or mention this before, but the marketing solution actually hasa lot more in it than a 3d or virtual tour.
(16:24):
So the exciting part is.
Not the thing that you got to know 10 years ago, right?
you know, there's been a few technology revolutions in the interim and there's so muchmore that's possible that ultimately can make agents more successful.
Selfishly as a buyer could make it a lot easier and less stressful to just go through thebuying process and find a home.
(16:48):
And whether that's to buy or to rent, honestly, we, we usually
We rent houses, whatever, like to go on vacation with our family.
we, and like, we're not there, right?
So it's six or seven hours away.
So I need to know what it's going to look like.
So there are lots of different great things for buyers and renters, but that's a super funarea for me to apply kind of marketing thinking on behalf of agents.
(17:11):
it feels like, mean, like, I think we talked about this before, but like the 3D images youcan, you've got sophistication now to like remove people's furniture or
maybe look at the, what would this room look like in a different color?
You know, as you think about re-imagining the opportunities to buy this space or to be inthis space.
(17:34):
Yes.
You know, whether that's generative AI or, if you just said a photo is not a photo anymoreand neither is a 3D tour.
And so what we can do with one visit to one home, right?
So imagine you're a real estate agent and you're trying to sell a house and you have tolist it.
with one person, with one visit, and we have a camera, right?
(17:57):
So we have a LiDAR camera, and we have a service, so people will go out, or we'll workwith other photographers, of course.
But the gist is, that with one scan of the house, so to speak, you not only get a 3D tour,but you have really an unlimited number of high definition photos.
(18:17):
we can generate and we do generate floor plans from that.
We'll label the floor plans automatically with the names of the rooms, just based on whatthe AI thinks they're called.
And we'll provide the dimensions, the ceiling heights, mean, literally the square footage,all sorts of things that just automatically upload into an MLS.
(18:39):
So there's a lot that's just being in some ways automated.
You know, we still have to use, of course we need
A person has to do it, right?
We haven't gotten to the point where there's a robot from the future who's there to do itfor you.
But still, to your point, what's super exciting is once we actually capture the data, it'sbecoming more manipulable to what you were describing as we can now very easily de-furnish
(19:06):
an entire house.
Because a lot of times, especially if you're a real estate agent or just if you're abuyer, it's kind of helpful to see what is it going to look like on move-in day versus
You know, it's almost always, I hate your taste.
I can't even think about the potential this house or, right?
You know, or I love this furniture.
(19:26):
I sure wish it were all staying, but none of mine looks is going to look this good.
So what I like about it is it's a very, just makes the experience more, you know, in someways easier for the buyer and more honest.
So to just show it as it is.
And we think that's been extremely popular just because it's, it's what people need.
Right.
And so.
(19:46):
In many ways, there's been decades of effort to build up digital marketing in like, in allsorts of other industries, but honestly, because property marketing is hard and it's a
physical space and you're, just, it's spread out.
It's got all these challenges to it.
The digital, you know, sort of marketing strength hasn't really penetrated this world to agreat degree.
(20:09):
But finally now with systems like Matterport and generative AI.
I think there's just gonna be a world of possibilities when you look at marketingproperties.
Yeah, that makes sense.
You've got these three big use cases, if you will, largely different markets.
You've got real people, at least until we figure out the robot angle, going out andproviding the service to collect the images and do the imaging.
(20:35):
What does marketing look like at Matterport?
Like, how do you get your message out there?
Yeah, so I think it's definitely a challenge.
I do...
If I said, I I probably miss the simplicity of MailChimp.
know, you just said you can have the other sort of complexity is that this is not just aregular, this is not a SaaS, a pure SaaS business, if you will, because there's, there's
(20:58):
an e-commerce operation, there's a service operation, and then there's a SaaS platform.
And as you mentioned, there's a, there's a breadth of customer from super technical,highly skilled, like
fancy architect or somebody who runs a collection of manufacturing facilities to a realestate agent who lives on her phone and doesn't have a lot of appetite for technical
(21:25):
complexity, really just wants to serve her clients and get the job done.
And so that is super challenging.
So sometimes I feel like I have one of everything, right?
Because we have to deal with sort of the traditional world of e-commerce.
You know, you can buy a Matterport camera on Amazon from our own cart on our own atmatterport.com.
And at the same time, I've got a demand gen operation creating pipeline, a pipeline ofopportunities for the sales team.
(21:53):
so we have a self-service operation so you can download a free mobile app and get to knowMatterport and use it on your own.
There's a free version you can experiment and play with at home, as well as have aenterprise and mid-market sales team across the world.
So it's a.
Like I said, I sort of have one of everything and we're trying to kind of cover the gamut.
(22:14):
I love it.
I love it.
Well, we talked about kind of like the potential of this, but I'd love to get yourthoughts on like where you're going.
We talked about the ability to integrate GEN.AI and remove furniture.
Maybe think about a space and imagine it as your own paint walls and things like that.
But like, as you think about maybe on the pro side, like where...
(22:38):
Where do you feel like this technology is going to go next?
Yeah, it is a, I feel like we're really at this important inflection point where everyonefrom like the home buyer or home renter all the way through to the professional audience
will find something of interest.
(22:59):
so for the professional audience, in many ways that's already happening kind of behind thescenes.
And so the, there, there are two sort of interesting developments there.
One is we launched just recently the ability to connect spaces.
So you can create a digital twin.
(23:19):
That's there's no limit to how big it can be.
Right.
So I can, you know, if I have a, obviously you can have a football stadium or five, thereare manufacturing facilities that are bigger than that.
So if I have this gigantic space, I no longer have to like do it all at once.
I can.
I can, we call it, it's called connected spaces, but it basically made it much easier tobring spaces together to create something that's very, that makes sense, right?
(23:47):
So it's, it's connected with geo targets.
And so what that means is not only can you have a great big space, like a small, like atown, right?
Or a college campus, but you, don't have to do it all at once.
Right.
And also that means you can distribute the work.
So.
I could say, as a school project, let me just, you do this part, you do that part, andthen it can all be brought together.
(24:10):
And now you have a digital twin of the college campus and it can all be annotated and canembed images and videos.
And it basically turns in, if I wanted to turn a physical space into essentially.
kind of a super cool website.
The website doesn't really do it justice because that's 2D.
Insert cool 3D version or I hesitate to call it video game because the moment I make itsound remotely appealing or fun, it becomes less appealing to business people.
(24:41):
That's a great appeal.
That's one thing.
And then the other is what we were talking about, also great.
interest to the professional audience is that time travel again.
So being able to see in the time travel isn't always of a construction project.
could be if I have a very sort of a big maybe production line.
(25:02):
This is where you would be like, whatever, I really want to put our LIDAR camera on arobot and have it wander around and just be on all the time.
And so you always have a notion of what's happening in the physical space.
And so that's the time travel thing is really compelling and very useful.
So I think those two are, especially like the great big spaces.
(25:24):
feel like that's everyone's familiar with sort of the mapping like Google maps, how youcan see the somebody's driving down the middle of your street, having a level of detail
inside a property and outside is super compelling.
And that's, that's one thing that we will, we're seeing more and more and people wantindoor outdoor and giant spaces.
It's very compelling.
(25:45):
Yeah.
It makes perfect sense.
Well, you have a knack for finding fascinating companies to work for.
So, I mean, I think we could go on forever about like all the various applications ofMatterport.
I mean, it's super fascinating to hear and to talk about.
But as you know, one of the things we like to do on the show is get to know you a littlebit better and the person behind the topics we cover.
(26:07):
And my favorite question to ask is, there been an experience of your past that defines ormakes up who you are today?
Yeah, I find that the defining experience as a marketeer and for me are my screw ups or mythings that I get wrong or failures, or at least they're the things that stick with me.
(26:31):
And so there are times, one of my favorites is the, this isn't a Matterport example, it aMailChimp example, but just one where knowing what the answer is.
And bringing the answer to life are two totally different things.
And so I worked for a significant amount of time to launch a new, new, essentially webexperience.
(26:53):
And I have been working on in websites and doing stuff since the browser came out.
So there's a part of me, which is like, I got this.
I understand this.
was a complete disaster and failure where literally it just sort of burned and we wentdown the sea of flames.
So.
And what I really needed to learn, and some of this was making the move from, you know,what was kind of like the agency world to more of corporate marketing.
(27:19):
And the lesson for me was, I can't do this on my own.
I have got to ask, everyone has to be in it and big cross-functional projects can't justdepend on one function.
And so that was, that was super important for me to learn that if I...
do see myself as the subject matter expert, I still have to ask for help.
(27:44):
So that was a super, important one.
And then sort of increasingly as I encounter, even at Matterport, for example, I have tolearn to manage people and not always know exactly what all the, not have the technical
expertise for absolutely everything, everything, and just be, you sort of live in thequestion and also just.
(28:06):
Be a good manager, right?
As someone who grew up in marketing as the subject matter expert, that part has been sortof developmental for me.
It's just feeling more comfortable, sometimes a little out over my skis and just saying,I've got a business hat and I'll figure it out.
Yeah.
No, makes sense.
Any advice you'd give your younger self if you're starting this journey all over again?
(28:29):
besides buying an old house.
The thing that's been so important to me and was really inspired by my grandfather was anadmiral in the United States Navy, but also was a scientist.
And the thing that I was always so inspired by him was that he was eternally curious andhe was nuclear physicist and really did very complicated things that I would struggle to
(28:57):
explain.
But the point was,
have faith, you find the thing that you're curious in, that you're curious about and youfeel like will continue to expand.
And that has worked for me.
I'd say that I went through times where I thought that that was not going to work out.
But ultimately I was always interested in the intersection of marketing and technology.
(29:18):
And that turned out to be a good thing.
And you know, it was good not only.
in terms of where the future was going, but also what was just going to hold my interestand then what's the kind of thing that I feel like I can, I'm happy to study over the
weekend or whenever it is.
Like it's just a passion project.
And so I've got daughters that are in their twenties now and I'm, I'm really pushing themto find the thing that they're, that will hold their attention and will be something that
(29:46):
they can be excited about every day and not just a job.
Yeah.
That's a great idea.
I have a 17 year old.
I'm gonna deliver that message later tonight.
Okay good.
And she's very curious but she hasn't found that thing yet.
And not that she needs one right now but like a couple would be good.
(30:11):
So true.
Is there a topic either you're trying to learn more about yourself or you think marketersin general need to be learning more about?
Well, know, marketing, yeah, I wrote a book that came out in 2003.
My friend refers to it as the undiscovered classic and the intersection of marketing.
(30:35):
at the time, what was sort of interesting was enterprise software, right?
So, you know, we, we had seen ERP and CRM and SCP and all the other parts of the alphabetsoup, but
Marketing never seemed to get an enterprise platform.
And so it was about that, but know, flash forward 22 years and you know, AI and basicallythe combination of AI and big data are really kind of turning marketing upside down and
(31:07):
marketing went from, they have a seat at the table to marketing has the whole budget nowand it's super complicated.
So I think the AI story is interesting because it's just, it's going to kind of
eat marketing altogether.
And so I'm really fascinated by it.
And because there are many problems, you marketing is far from figured out.
(31:27):
That is for sure.
Right.
So, and there's, there's just a lot to do.
If you just said I am supposed to create and optimize and monitor and manage the idealcustomer experience for the ideal customer profile 24 hours a day around the world.
(31:48):
Right.
So.
It is a very demanding thing to stay on top of and also achieve the highest ROI and, and,and, and, right?
So I'm very excited about its ability to kind of close the loop, if you will, betweenmarketing does this stuff over here, puts it out in the marketplace, and then these
results over there.
(32:08):
So we just need to keep getting, my hope is that AI will make that loop much moreintelligible because now it is just.
It's very messy and I think we're at everything feels like a really blunt instrument.
So AI is the thing I'm really all about.
got two questions for you to wrap up.
(32:29):
Are there any trends or subcultures that you follow you think other people should takenotice of?
Probably on the subculture front.
Yeah.
I am always fascinated by the ability for and the importance of how design helps a brandconnect with people.
And so I always, I'm always interested in sort of, don't know if that qualifies as asubculture, but if you said, or if you just said, we're all the cool kids.
(32:58):
And so whether they're designers of images or designers of like words or music or fashion,it can be very hard to reach the whole planet.
But if you reach the people who are really the great communicators and connectors,
That's sort of a leverage point.
And it was super important for us at Mailchimp in the day, because it was like smallbusinesses is everywhere globally and it's expensive to try to show them all in a head.
(33:27):
However, if you can connect with the people that really understand communications andunderstand messaging and imagery, and a lot of times they're artists, they have side
hustles, they are consultants or work in agencies.
And so I'm always interested in that subculture, if you will, and where are they and whatare they doing?
(33:50):
And their little pockets, they're just sort of where the cool kids are.
It's also where great restaurants are.
that's a good side benefit.
Side benefit.
Yeah.
No, it's very, it's very true.
It's very true.
I mean, I love your definition of subculture where the cool kids hang out because that isas marketers, we're trying to understand who's on the.
(34:11):
Cutting edge, cutting edge, I don't really like that word, but like who's ahead of thepack, right?
Where is the pack likely to go next?
It's those people that are setting the course.
Because as much as, I'm sure I'm gonna irritate some people with what I'm gonna say next,as much as we love to think that we're independent thinkers, most of us follow the herd.
(34:31):
That's why it's the herd, Yeah, exactly, exactly.
And so like I love your notion of like finding where the cool people hang out becausethere's interesting stuff going on.
You're right.
Most of the places that they hang out that they have really good drinks and food.
So true and good music.
Yes.
Yeah, that's true too.
That's true too.
Well, last question for you.
What do you see as the largest opportunity or threat facing marketers today?
(34:54):
Yeah, if I had to pick a one of my chapters in the undiscovered classic was one where Iwrote about how to be if you want to build a brand, you really need to focus on the whole
sort of
the whole experience.
And so I think that I really think that that's a great opportunity today because we stillhave the promise of enterprise software was supposedly to eliminate islands of information
(35:19):
and we're not done yet.
So, and I think that's what's exciting about artificial intelligence is its ability to,from a user perspective, from like a marketer's perspective.
give you a view across the entire experience.
You saw this ad, you visited this, you talked to this person in customer support, you cameinto this store, you did that thing.
(35:41):
That is not, I don't know any of that now.
I came and see that.
So like that is just, know, here it is, about to be 2025 and those that I, how am Isupposed to create a wonderful customer experience when I don't even know what's
happening?
And so at least,
I feel like there's a great promise and there's so much opportunity and because I want tothink about it and I want to, I want to use the right, I want to do the right thing and
(36:08):
create things that are consistent and make sense or engaging or funny and, and, and smartfor customers.
And wow, that is really still quite difficult today.
And I would say most companies don't do it very well.
So
I just think that that's a great opportunity for marketers and something that thinkinghorizontally, I'm using my air quotes here, thinking horizontally from an experience
(36:35):
perspective is a giant opportunity that is just honestly almost entirely untapped today.
I love it.
Tom, I think I'm realizing that you are one of the cool kids and you're just way, way farout in front of all of That's my daughter, yeah, exactly.
I'm gonna get some eye rolls there, yeah.
(36:57):
Yeah, so you wrote the book before we caught up to you, so.
Well, thank you, Alan, yeah.
We'll link to that and you can tell your daughters, who I have no influence over, that Isaid you were a cool kid, so.
Okay, well.
Thank you so much.
Well, thank you for coming on the show.
Appreciate it, Tom.
My pleasure.
(37:18):
The views, thoughts and opinions expressed are the speaker's own and do not represent theviews, thoughts and opinions of Deloitte.
Material and information presented here is for general information purposes only and doesnot imply endorsement or opposition to any specific company, product or service.
Hi, it's Alan again.
Marketing Beyond is a Deloitte digital podcast.
(37:39):
It's created and produced by me with close production support from Sam Robertson.
If you're new to Marketing Beyond, please feel free to write us a review and subscribe onyour favorite listening platform.
I also invite you to explore the other Deloitte digital podcast at deloittedigital.comslash us slash podcast and share the show with your friends and colleagues.
(38:00):
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You can contact me at marketingbeyond at
You'll also find complete show notes and links to what's discussed in the podcast todayand you can search our archives.
I'm Ellen Hart and this is Marketing Beyond.
Are you ready to go beyond the basics of marketing?
I'm Alan Hart and this is Marketing Beyond, where we talk about the questions that sparkchange and share ideas that challenge the status quo.
Join us as we explore the future of marketing and its endless potential.
(00:32):
Today on the show, got Tom Klein.
He's the chief marketing officer at Matterport and is responsible for aligning thecompany's global marketing initiative with its mission to digitize the built world at
scale.
Tom brings more than 20 years of experience spearheading marketing effort for some of theworld's leading brands.
Before Matterport, Tom served as global chief marketing officer at Mailchimp, where he ledthe company's go-to-market efforts and the brand product campaign and content teams.
(01:02):
He's been recognized as one of the 50 most indispensable executives in marketing byAdweek.
And as you'll find out later in the conversation, he's one of the cool kids havingco-authored a book, Enterprise Marketing Management, The New Science of Marketing, way
back in 2003.
On the show today, we talk about Matterport, what it is, the types of solutions theyoffer, how it is a fairly complex go-to-market.
(01:27):
with many different types of customers across a solution that encompasses an e-commercesolution, services, and a SaaS platform altogether.
We talk about where property intelligence, which is one of the things in which theydeliver, is going, and much more.
I hope you enjoy this conversation with Tom Klein.
(01:53):
Tom, welcome back to the show, I should say.
It's nice to see you again.
Nice to see you too, Alan.
How are you doing?
I'm good, I'm good, I'm good.
Well, I think, I didn't write down the episode number, but the last time we talked, youwere at MailChimp.
You were the CMO at MailChimp.
You've now found your way to another company.
We'll talk about that in a minute.
(02:14):
But before we get into the business side of things, I'd love to hear more about yourprofessional career.
as a refurbishing old houses pro.
of that.
All those, uh, those, those words are, that's just a lie.
(02:39):
The, uh, so one of the adventures that I started in, it was in 2018, my husband and Ibought a, a 200 and
No, not 210.
It felt like a 210 year old house.
It was only 120 years old.
and started down this into this world of adventure of how do we take a home and bring itinto the modern age, but still retain all of the charm.
(03:07):
And so the way I describe it, it was part restoration, part renovation and an addition.
I can see Peachtree Street in Atlanta.
from my office and that was just a very difficult but ultimately very rewarding project,the kind of which that I have just never tackled before.
(03:28):
I love it, I love it.
Well, I almost sensed a little PTSD when I even said it.
So as much as you might have loved this old house and obviously kind of feels like youfell in love with it to start this ambitious project, it sounds like there was a lot of
twists and turns.
Very much so and relevant to the marketing world out there.
(03:51):
I think I don't know whether it's hubris but if you've been in marketing a long time youused to sort of starting on a project where you don't really know where it's going to
finish.
I think about sort of my MailChimp days where I would certainly start we're going to do abrand campaign and I don't know what it is yet and I don't know what it's gonna look like
(04:11):
or how it's gonna turn out.
And so refurbishing an old house is sort of like that.
You're starting a journey where you don't really know where it's going to end.
You certainly have visions of what that's going to be like, but it was a, had lots oftwists and turns to it, I guess.
And so I kind of learned that it wasn't, it's not just a project, it's a journey and it'sgot, ultimately I learned a lot about love design and certainly I'm a big fan of it from
(04:40):
working in marketing for so long.
But I also encountered all sorts of things that were intimidatingly complex around justhow to engineer a house and all the parts of home building that a layman just would not
know or understand.
So it was very much a humbling experience.
Well, so I know we're going to talk about buildings.
(05:03):
So there's a connection here between your old house and what you do now.
And you are currently...
CMO or Chief Marketing Officer at Matterport.
Tell me a little bit about your journey to Matterport.
I know, I believe it was just the next job after MailChimp, is that right?
Yes, it was.
I think it was right at three months after leaving MailChimp.
(05:27):
I started as the Chief Marketing Officer at Matterport and Matterport is really all aboutdigitizing.
physical spaces and or really property marketing is the way I sort of that's the shorthandI use for it or at least that's one of the ways that most people are familiar with it and
so it turns out that all of my focus on design and construction of a home and working witharchitects made me more familiar with the world of property and so that was a an
(06:00):
interesting connection because I'd come from a obviously a marketing platform likeMailChimp
And I had just been, I don't know, I don't know if it would be a trial by fire, but it wasbasically, had, I had a lot of empathy for what was it like to essentially try to, was
intrigued with essentially the digitization of a physical space and the property marketingthat, goes around it, both in real estate, well as increasingly for Matterport, working
(06:27):
with designing projects.
So it was all very interesting to me.
I.
I probably knew, knew enough to be dangerous about the real estate world, trying to putchocolate and peanut butter together.
I love it.
So you created the Reese's Pieces of marketing and property.
Exactly.
(06:48):
Well, let's talk a little bit about Matterport and the types of solutions that you guysprovide.
Sure.
Most people, what's funny is when you're introducing the company that you're with, it'salways interesting to figure out when you say it.
what, like what is the expression on the other person's face?
So pretty much every time I introduced Matterport, in most instances, there's sort of a, asort of a familiarity, but they, they're not really sure how they might know it.
(07:20):
And they definitely don't always connect the dots.
so Matterport is best known from an experience perspective.
If you're looking to buy a home or
rent something on a VRBO or get an Airbnb, the company is best known for 3D or virtualtours.
(07:41):
And those are those, essentially it's a 3D experience where you've got those littlecircles on the ground and you move around and you can see what it's like in great detail.
And that's how people, people know the experience, but they don't necessarily know thatthat is Matterport.
And then when I connect the dots for them, they're like, of course I've used that tons oftimes and it's very helpful.
(08:04):
So that's, that's the way most people use Matterport.
Increasingly that property marketing solution has been, we've essentially expandeddramatically.
And in many ways I had the same challenge I had at Mailchimp, which is that everybodycould remember Mailchimp from 10 years ago, but there's been a lot that's changed.
in the same way.
(08:25):
Matterport has expanded dramatically to really serve the design and construction market.
So if you are, if you're building an airport or something kind of great big, and you'relooking for a way to really capture a level of detail and you're a professional in the
design and construction business, and you want to create what we call our terminology isdigital twin.
(08:50):
You're essentially creating
a digital replica of a physical space.
Matterport is very useful.
And so all kinds of different companies use this for that use case.
And then the third solution area is facilities management, which is a bit of a grab bag ofdifferent things, but it's one thing to be working on a big design project or, Hey, I
(09:14):
have, have a chain of restaurants.
I'm always having design projects.
Another solution, this facilities management is
I might have an existing whole lot of buildings and they might be manufacturing facilitiesor warehouses or really anything.
And just managing them takes work or training people to run the hotel, right?
(09:35):
So there's just a lot of different use cases where it's very helpful to have a digitalreplica of a physical space that is easy and fun to get around in.
And so those three, those are our big three really, property marketing, design andconstruction and facilities management.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, it's on each layer there that you talk about is like an increasing level ofsophistication from like what I've done as a consumer to like tracking and I guess
(10:07):
archiving the construction process and what you can see and experience through thatprocess to then like having it.
if you will, like a digital twin available for that and facility management use cases.
That's a lot.
That's a lot of data too.
It is.
it is a kind of like, and I always put things in sort of my old MailChimp terms becausesometimes we get in, you know, this is a real technology business.
(10:34):
It's real, it's new, it's complicated.
And part of my job as the marketer is I must simplify everything.
And even when I talk about things like
Facilities management.
What does that even mean?
So if I have a whole set of, if I'm building cars on an assembly line and I have 20production facilities, it's very helpful.
(10:54):
You have a lot of data, not only in the facility, but essentially all the machines arethrowing off data.
And the challenge is if you present all that stuff in a spreadsheet, you don't really,ultimately you have to interact with people.
And so what we find a lot of times is,
a digital twin of, know, I'm in Atlanta and say I'm talking to somebody in France and Iam, maybe I'm the engineer that knows about a particular piece of equipment.
(11:21):
I can pull up a version of the plant and I know, yeah, I can see it and I can feel it andexperience it.
And I can see the data from like a, work closely with Amazon and AWS IoT is a, they havean IoT solution called IoT Twinmaker.
I know it sounds very complicated, but essentially
It's a thing to sort of pull all the, all the sensor data together.
(11:44):
So you kind of get the whole picture of what's happening.
This machine is performing this way and it's in this location.
And so it's a very nerdy thing, you know, but ultimately facilitates people sort ofunderstanding what's going on and ultimately solving problems.
So facilities management is more about solving a problem when you inside of a physicalspace.
(12:08):
No, I mean, this is a very simplistic view of it, but getting back to your PTSD ofrefurbishing old houses, my wife and I, bought a like 19, it's not that old, it's like the
1960s house, but was constantly little things that somebody did something to the house andyou're like, why did they do it that way?
But our heating systems, we had like a filter next to the heating duct.
(12:31):
It's a gas system.
And for some reason they had put it, the filter.
mechanism inside of the HVAC system.
And there was like a gap around that filter and it was allowing, we didn't know this, butlike it took us, I think, four HVAC reps to come out and like look at the system.
And it wasn't until like we had somebody that actually like followed the flow of airthrough the system to realize the reason you're getting like this gas smell in your house,
(13:02):
it's not a gas leak, but there's
a seal that's not working properly and it's allowing like the fresh air and the combustedair to mix.
And they were like, if we just move the filter out of this base unit and put it next toyour system, everything will be fine.
So in your example, know, like it's like seeing not only like, I think like the problem athand and having the expert on site, but being able to look at the total system and how
(13:30):
it's actually working inside of the building can maybe help you solve better problems.
Oh my gosh, that's such a great example.
we have this, uh, we're on the, lot of these things take a lot of time.
so to your point, this is not a brand.
We use the term internally time travel.
Everybody wants to do travel in time back to before they put the drywall up or can I justgo back to the day that they put in the HVAC system so I can see what the heck they were
(13:59):
doing before it was covered up by all this other stuff or where the plumbing is because.
I don't know why.
like, you're just, and also my problem with, you know, the refurbishing of this, thishouse was, okay, I'm not, I always like to say I'm sort of more about software than
hardware.
Like that's not my department.
So I don't understand how any of these things work in the first place, but certainlyhaving a system that will, having a, this sort of system of record idea of like, you could
(14:28):
at least point, you could, you could say this is what was put in.
And the other thing I'm sure you, it sounds like you experienced was you can document wheneach person comes because most likely if you have an HVAC problem, you get a different
HVAC person every time they come out.
Nobody can remember your, your weird problem.
(14:50):
And just, you know, having like a clear documentation can really go a long way.
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
I totally see the.
to see the need and like my little small house, you you magnify that to a large facilityplant like you were talking about.
mean, can only, the problems compound so there's the complexity of solving them.
So true.
Well, you've gone from email marketing to marketing properties in some form or fashion.
(15:15):
It seems like you're still selling marketing to marketers to some degree.
Like you've got designers, architects, real estate folks.
Is that the best way to think about it in terms of like how your solutions actually getout into market?
Well, I mean, that's the one that's the big one.
Right.
So I think, and I think that, the marketing solution part for Matterport is, sort of thebasis for the company.
(15:39):
And we have a very close relationship with the overall kind of real estate industry, whichI'm sure you've been following is kind of moving, is going through a lot of ups and downs.
And so, and it seems like there's a great deal of appetite for more digitization and.
So yes, it's very much, and of course every real estate agent is essentially a smallbusiness.
(16:03):
So that's near and dear to my heart.
And so I'm super keen to figure out how do I really just help agents be successful andwhatever that means and having a digital version.
Cause I didn't really talk or mention this before, but the marketing solution actually hasa lot more in it than a 3d or virtual tour.
(16:24):
So the exciting part is.
Not the thing that you got to know 10 years ago, right?
you know, there's been a few technology revolutions in the interim and there's so muchmore that's possible that ultimately can make agents more successful.
Selfishly as a buyer could make it a lot easier and less stressful to just go through thebuying process and find a home.
(16:48):
And whether that's to buy or to rent, honestly, we, we usually
We rent houses, whatever, like to go on vacation with our family.
we, and like, we're not there, right?
So it's six or seven hours away.
So I need to know what it's going to look like.
So there are lots of different great things for buyers and renters, but that's a super funarea for me to apply kind of marketing thinking on behalf of agents.
(17:11):
it feels like, mean, like, I think we talked about this before, but like the 3D images youcan, you've got sophistication now to like remove people's furniture or
maybe look at the, what would this room look like in a different color?
You know, as you think about re-imagining the opportunities to buy this space or to be inthis space.
(17:34):
Yes.
You know, whether that's generative AI or, if you just said a photo is not a photo anymoreand neither is a 3D tour.
And so what we can do with one visit to one home, right?
So imagine you're a real estate agent and you're trying to sell a house and you have tolist it.
with one person, with one visit, and we have a camera, right?
(17:57):
So we have a LiDAR camera, and we have a service, so people will go out, or we'll workwith other photographers, of course.
But the gist is, that with one scan of the house, so to speak, you not only get a 3D tour,but you have really an unlimited number of high definition photos.
(18:17):
we can generate and we do generate floor plans from that.
We'll label the floor plans automatically with the names of the rooms, just based on whatthe AI thinks they're called.
And we'll provide the dimensions, the ceiling heights, mean, literally the square footage,all sorts of things that just automatically upload into an MLS.
(18:39):
So there's a lot that's just being in some ways automated.
You know, we still have to use, of course we need
A person has to do it, right?
We haven't gotten to the point where there's a robot from the future who's there to do itfor you.
But still, to your point, what's super exciting is once we actually capture the data, it'sbecoming more manipulable to what you were describing as we can now very easily de-furnish
(19:06):
an entire house.
Because a lot of times, especially if you're a real estate agent or just if you're abuyer, it's kind of helpful to see what is it going to look like on move-in day versus
You know, it's almost always, I hate your taste.
I can't even think about the potential this house or, right?
You know, or I love this furniture.
(19:26):
I sure wish it were all staying, but none of mine looks is going to look this good.
So what I like about it is it's a very, just makes the experience more, you know, in someways easier for the buyer and more honest.
So to just show it as it is.
And we think that's been extremely popular just because it's, it's what people need.
Right.
And so.
(19:46):
In many ways, there's been decades of effort to build up digital marketing in like, in allsorts of other industries, but honestly, because property marketing is hard and it's a
physical space and you're, just, it's spread out.
It's got all these challenges to it.
The digital, you know, sort of marketing strength hasn't really penetrated this world to agreat degree.
(20:09):
But finally now with systems like Matterport and generative AI.
I think there's just gonna be a world of possibilities when you look at marketingproperties.
Yeah, that makes sense.
You've got these three big use cases, if you will, largely different markets.
You've got real people, at least until we figure out the robot angle, going out andproviding the service to collect the images and do the imaging.
(20:35):
What does marketing look like at Matterport?
Like, how do you get your message out there?
Yeah, so I think it's definitely a challenge.
I do...
If I said, I I probably miss the simplicity of MailChimp.
know, you just said you can have the other sort of complexity is that this is not just aregular, this is not a SaaS, a pure SaaS business, if you will, because there's, there's
(20:58):
an e-commerce operation, there's a service operation, and then there's a SaaS platform.
And as you mentioned, there's a, there's a breadth of customer from super technical,highly skilled, like
fancy architect or somebody who runs a collection of manufacturing facilities to a realestate agent who lives on her phone and doesn't have a lot of appetite for technical
(21:25):
complexity, really just wants to serve her clients and get the job done.
And so that is super challenging.
So sometimes I feel like I have one of everything, right?
Because we have to deal with sort of the traditional world of e-commerce.
You know, you can buy a Matterport camera on Amazon from our own cart on our own atmatterport.com.
And at the same time, I've got a demand gen operation creating pipeline, a pipeline ofopportunities for the sales team.
(21:53):
so we have a self-service operation so you can download a free mobile app and get to knowMatterport and use it on your own.
There's a free version you can experiment and play with at home, as well as have aenterprise and mid-market sales team across the world.
So it's a.
Like I said, I sort of have one of everything and we're trying to kind of cover the gamut.
(22:14):
I love it.
I love it.
Well, we talked about kind of like the potential of this, but I'd love to get yourthoughts on like where you're going.
We talked about the ability to integrate GEN.AI and remove furniture.
Maybe think about a space and imagine it as your own paint walls and things like that.
But like, as you think about maybe on the pro side, like where...
(22:38):
Where do you feel like this technology is going to go next?
Yeah, it is a, I feel like we're really at this important inflection point where everyonefrom like the home buyer or home renter all the way through to the professional audience
will find something of interest.
(22:59):
so for the professional audience, in many ways that's already happening kind of behind thescenes.
And so the, there, there are two sort of interesting developments there.
One is we launched just recently the ability to connect spaces.
So you can create a digital twin.
(23:19):
That's there's no limit to how big it can be.
Right.
So I can, you know, if I have a, obviously you can have a football stadium or five, thereare manufacturing facilities that are bigger than that.
So if I have this gigantic space, I no longer have to like do it all at once.
I can.
I can, we call it, it's called connected spaces, but it basically made it much easier tobring spaces together to create something that's very, that makes sense, right?
(23:47):
So it's, it's connected with geo targets.
And so what that means is not only can you have a great big space, like a small, like atown, right?
Or a college campus, but you, don't have to do it all at once.
Right.
And also that means you can distribute the work.
So.
I could say, as a school project, let me just, you do this part, you do that part, andthen it can all be brought together.
(24:10):
And now you have a digital twin of the college campus and it can all be annotated and canembed images and videos.
And it basically turns in, if I wanted to turn a physical space into essentially.
kind of a super cool website.
The website doesn't really do it justice because that's 2D.
Insert cool 3D version or I hesitate to call it video game because the moment I make itsound remotely appealing or fun, it becomes less appealing to business people.
(24:41):
That's a great appeal.
That's one thing.
And then the other is what we were talking about, also great.
interest to the professional audience is that time travel again.
So being able to see in the time travel isn't always of a construction project.
could be if I have a very sort of a big maybe production line.
(25:02):
This is where you would be like, whatever, I really want to put our LIDAR camera on arobot and have it wander around and just be on all the time.
And so you always have a notion of what's happening in the physical space.
And so that's the time travel thing is really compelling and very useful.
So I think those two are, especially like the great big spaces.
(25:24):
feel like that's everyone's familiar with sort of the mapping like Google maps, how youcan see the somebody's driving down the middle of your street, having a level of detail
inside a property and outside is super compelling.
And that's, that's one thing that we will, we're seeing more and more and people wantindoor outdoor and giant spaces.
It's very compelling.
(25:45):
Yeah.
It makes perfect sense.
Well, you have a knack for finding fascinating companies to work for.
So, I mean, I think we could go on forever about like all the various applications ofMatterport.
I mean, it's super fascinating to hear and to talk about.
But as you know, one of the things we like to do on the show is get to know you a littlebit better and the person behind the topics we cover.
(26:07):
And my favorite question to ask is, there been an experience of your past that defines ormakes up who you are today?
Yeah, I find that the defining experience as a marketeer and for me are my screw ups or mythings that I get wrong or failures, or at least they're the things that stick with me.
(26:31):
And so there are times, one of my favorites is the, this isn't a Matterport example, it aMailChimp example, but just one where knowing what the answer is.
And bringing the answer to life are two totally different things.
And so I worked for a significant amount of time to launch a new, new, essentially webexperience.
(26:53):
And I have been working on in websites and doing stuff since the browser came out.
So there's a part of me, which is like, I got this.
I understand this.
was a complete disaster and failure where literally it just sort of burned and we wentdown the sea of flames.
So.
And what I really needed to learn, and some of this was making the move from, you know,what was kind of like the agency world to more of corporate marketing.
(27:19):
And the lesson for me was, I can't do this on my own.
I have got to ask, everyone has to be in it and big cross-functional projects can't justdepend on one function.
And so that was, that was super important for me to learn that if I...
do see myself as the subject matter expert, I still have to ask for help.
(27:44):
So that was a super, important one.
And then sort of increasingly as I encounter, even at Matterport, for example, I have tolearn to manage people and not always know exactly what all the, not have the technical
expertise for absolutely everything, everything, and just be, you sort of live in thequestion and also just.
(28:06):
Be a good manager, right?
As someone who grew up in marketing as the subject matter expert, that part has been sortof developmental for me.
It's just feeling more comfortable, sometimes a little out over my skis and just saying,I've got a business hat and I'll figure it out.
Yeah.
No, makes sense.
Any advice you'd give your younger self if you're starting this journey all over again?
(28:29):
besides buying an old house.
The thing that's been so important to me and was really inspired by my grandfather was anadmiral in the United States Navy, but also was a scientist.
And the thing that I was always so inspired by him was that he was eternally curious andhe was nuclear physicist and really did very complicated things that I would struggle to
(28:57):
explain.
But the point was,
have faith, you find the thing that you're curious in, that you're curious about and youfeel like will continue to expand.
And that has worked for me.
I'd say that I went through times where I thought that that was not going to work out.
But ultimately I was always interested in the intersection of marketing and technology.
(29:18):
And that turned out to be a good thing.
And you know, it was good not only.
in terms of where the future was going, but also what was just going to hold my interestand then what's the kind of thing that I feel like I can, I'm happy to study over the
weekend or whenever it is.
Like it's just a passion project.
And so I've got daughters that are in their twenties now and I'm, I'm really pushing themto find the thing that they're, that will hold their attention and will be something that
(29:46):
they can be excited about every day and not just a job.
Yeah.
That's a great idea.
I have a 17 year old.
I'm gonna deliver that message later tonight.
Okay good.
And she's very curious but she hasn't found that thing yet.
And not that she needs one right now but like a couple would be good.
(30:11):
So true.
Is there a topic either you're trying to learn more about yourself or you think marketersin general need to be learning more about?
Well, know, marketing, yeah, I wrote a book that came out in 2003.
My friend refers to it as the undiscovered classic and the intersection of marketing.
(30:35):
at the time, what was sort of interesting was enterprise software, right?
So, you know, we, we had seen ERP and CRM and SCP and all the other parts of the alphabetsoup, but
Marketing never seemed to get an enterprise platform.
And so it was about that, but know, flash forward 22 years and you know, AI and basicallythe combination of AI and big data are really kind of turning marketing upside down and
(31:07):
marketing went from, they have a seat at the table to marketing has the whole budget nowand it's super complicated.
So I think the AI story is interesting because it's just, it's going to kind of
eat marketing altogether.
And so I'm really fascinated by it.
And because there are many problems, you marketing is far from figured out.
(31:27):
That is for sure.
Right.
So, and there's, there's just a lot to do.
If you just said I am supposed to create and optimize and monitor and manage the idealcustomer experience for the ideal customer profile 24 hours a day around the world.
(31:48):
Right.
So.
It is a very demanding thing to stay on top of and also achieve the highest ROI and, and,and, and, right?
So I'm very excited about its ability to kind of close the loop, if you will, betweenmarketing does this stuff over here, puts it out in the marketplace, and then these
results over there.
(32:08):
So we just need to keep getting, my hope is that AI will make that loop much moreintelligible because now it is just.
It's very messy and I think we're at everything feels like a really blunt instrument.
So AI is the thing I'm really all about.
got two questions for you to wrap up.
(32:29):
Are there any trends or subcultures that you follow you think other people should takenotice of?
Probably on the subculture front.
Yeah.
I am always fascinated by the ability for and the importance of how design helps a brandconnect with people.
And so I always, I'm always interested in sort of, don't know if that qualifies as asubculture, but if you said, or if you just said, we're all the cool kids.
(32:58):
And so whether they're designers of images or designers of like words or music or fashion,it can be very hard to reach the whole planet.
But if you reach the people who are really the great communicators and connectors,
That's sort of a leverage point.
And it was super important for us at Mailchimp in the day, because it was like smallbusinesses is everywhere globally and it's expensive to try to show them all in a head.
(33:27):
However, if you can connect with the people that really understand communications andunderstand messaging and imagery, and a lot of times they're artists, they have side
hustles, they are consultants or work in agencies.
And so I'm always interested in that subculture, if you will, and where are they and whatare they doing?
(33:50):
And their little pockets, they're just sort of where the cool kids are.
It's also where great restaurants are.
that's a good side benefit.
Side benefit.
Yeah.
No, it's very, it's very true.
It's very true.
I mean, I love your definition of subculture where the cool kids hang out because that isas marketers, we're trying to understand who's on the.
(34:11):
Cutting edge, cutting edge, I don't really like that word, but like who's ahead of thepack, right?
Where is the pack likely to go next?
It's those people that are setting the course.
Because as much as, I'm sure I'm gonna irritate some people with what I'm gonna say next,as much as we love to think that we're independent thinkers, most of us follow the herd.
(34:31):
That's why it's the herd, Yeah, exactly, exactly.
And so like I love your notion of like finding where the cool people hang out becausethere's interesting stuff going on.
You're right.
Most of the places that they hang out that they have really good drinks and food.
So true and good music.
Yes.
Yeah, that's true too.
That's true too.
Well, last question for you.
What do you see as the largest opportunity or threat facing marketers today?
(34:54):
Yeah, if I had to pick a one of my chapters in the undiscovered classic was one where Iwrote about how to be if you want to build a brand, you really need to focus on the whole
sort of
the whole experience.
And so I think that I really think that that's a great opportunity today because we stillhave the promise of enterprise software was supposedly to eliminate islands of information
(35:19):
and we're not done yet.
So, and I think that's what's exciting about artificial intelligence is its ability to,from a user perspective, from like a marketer's perspective.
give you a view across the entire experience.
You saw this ad, you visited this, you talked to this person in customer support, you cameinto this store, you did that thing.
(35:41):
That is not, I don't know any of that now.
I came and see that.
So like that is just, know, here it is, about to be 2025 and those that I, how am Isupposed to create a wonderful customer experience when I don't even know what's
happening?
And so at least,
I feel like there's a great promise and there's so much opportunity and because I want tothink about it and I want to, I want to use the right, I want to do the right thing and
(36:08):
create things that are consistent and make sense or engaging or funny and, and, and smartfor customers.
And wow, that is really still quite difficult today.
And I would say most companies don't do it very well.
So
I just think that that's a great opportunity for marketers and something that thinkinghorizontally, I'm using my air quotes here, thinking horizontally from an experience
(36:35):
perspective is a giant opportunity that is just honestly almost entirely untapped today.
I love it.
Tom, I think I'm realizing that you are one of the cool kids and you're just way, way farout in front of all of That's my daughter, yeah, exactly.
I'm gonna get some eye rolls there, yeah.
(36:57):
Yeah, so you wrote the book before we caught up to you, so.
Well, thank you, Alan, yeah.
We'll link to that and you can tell your daughters, who I have no influence over, that Isaid you were a cool kid, so.
Okay, well.
Thank you so much.
Well, thank you for coming on the show.
Appreciate it, Tom.
My pleasure.
(37:18):
The views, thoughts and opinions expressed are the speaker's own and do not represent theviews, thoughts and opinions of Deloitte.
Material and information presented here is for general information purposes only and doesnot imply endorsement or opposition to any specific company, product or service.
Hi, it's Alan again.
Marketing Beyond is a Deloitte digital podcast.
(37:39):
It's created and produced by me with close production support from Sam Robertson.
If you're new to Marketing Beyond, please feel free to write us a review and subscribe onyour favorite listening platform.
I also invite you to explore the other Deloitte digital podcast at deloittedigital.comslash us slash podcast and share the show with your friends and colleagues.
(38:00):
I love hearing from listeners.
You can contact me at marketingbeyond at
You'll also find complete show notes and links to what's discussed in the podcast todayand you can search our archives.
I'm Ellen Hart and this is Marketing Beyond.
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