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Digital innovation has been at the forefront of the marketing experience for the last several years, with the COVID-19 pandemic expediting developments around the world. In an attempt to stay agile—and afloat—during the last 18 months, marketers have become key players in customer experience and understanding what channels are important to customers in their respective regions. 

Over the last several weeks, CMO Council partnered with HCL Unica to create three regionally-specific webinars highlighting digital innovation and MarTech developments in Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East and Africa. Each region has been presented with their own unique challenges and triumphs while developing the next phase of their digital customer journey. While Latin America is focused on upscaling their work force’s skillset, Europe is battling privacy concerns, and the Middle East and Africa are extending their focus toward digital infrastructure. 

It’s no secret that the role of the CMO has shape-shifted over time. This is especially prevalent in Latin America, where many CMOs have had their responsibilities stripped away from them in the face of digital transformation due to a disparate gap in skill sets. For decades, marketing’s main role was brand awareness, but in the increasingly digital landscape, marketing is now responsible for customer experience, data, analytics and recreating the customer journey to accentuate and accommodate new channels—a tall order. Learn how marketers are navigating this unique set of challenges in our Latin America webinar, which is available to stream on-demand anytime.

With GDPR and regionally-specific privacy regulations shaking up Europe today, marketers are posed with a unique challenge to bring seamless customer experiences without infringing on these rights to privacy. CMO Council research at the end of 2020 found that 73% of customers get frustrated repeating themselves across channels and consider doing business elsewhere because of it. Over the last three years–and especially throughout the pandemic–there has been an enormous uptick in ecommerce sales across Europe, which calls for an even stronger focus on digital customer experience. Learn how marketers are maneuvering uncharted territory as the customer journey evolves from the traditional funnel model to the (oftentimes) chaotic digital landscape here.

Digital infrastructure is top-of-mind for marketers in the Middle East and Africa. As technology is becoming more and more advanced, creating customer experiences that meet customers where they are is crucial. Across Africa, mobile phone traffic increased dramatically along with a massive surge in smartphone usage. Enabling connectivity on mobile devices is imperative for customers, as it is many customers’ preferred channel to access the internet. WhatsApp has also established itself as a leader in chat commerce around the world, but most prominently in the Middle East and Africa. Marketers are embracing this rapidly evolving technology to connect with customers in this channel in an authentic and meaningful way. Learn how they’re doing it in our on-demand webinar here.

The pandemic caused major shifts in the way marketers think about the customer journey. A once linear, simple concept has now evolved into a cacophony of different channels that marketing is now responsible for making sense of. Though each region of the world is faced with its own set of obstacles and its own distinct victories in these developments, one thing we can all agree on is in order to be successful, the customer must come first.