 from our studios, in the heart of Silicon Valley, Palo Alto, California, this is a CUBE Conversation. Hi, I'm Peter Burris and welcome to another CUBE Conversation from our studios in lovely Palo Alto, California. One of the biggest challenges that every business faces, especially in the tech industry, is to reimagine the marketing concept. What will be the role of marketing in a domain in which customers have greater options, greater power to set prices, while at the same time, better understanding of the role that data is going to play and how engagement happens. And to have that conversation, we've got Joyce Kim, who's the CMO of ARM with us today. Joyce, welcome to the CUBE. Thanks, great to be here, Peter. So I kind of said in the preamble that one of the challenges the marketing faces in the concept is to establish how it imagines the role that it's going to play in overall customer engagement. What do you think the key challenges of marketing are? You know, marketing has evolved so much over the last even five, seven years. I mean, overall, when you look at how we look at the entire customer journey, and most marketers have really focused on sort of the prospect journey, not really thought through, you're constantly marketing to your customers and engaging them in so many ways. So from an overall industry, we've sort of married technology, new ways of reaching and speaking to audiences, both at a professional level and a personal level, and then sort of dealt with the diluge of data that we've gotten as a marketing organization. And what we do with it ultimately to further the business objectives of the company as well as to meet the needs of the prospects and customers that we're talking to. So it's a fascinating time for a marketing organization. Well, I want to build on something you said that during the customer journey, which the customer is focused on, the traditional role of marketing has been to just at that initial inquiry, or do the product launch or get the collateral out there. But as we move from a product orientation where the presumptions that the value is in the product being sold and it's caveat up to or on the customer, to more of a services orientation, which suggests that we have a continuing ongoing relationship with the customer who's constantly evaluating the value that's being provided that marketing has to participate and sustain a sense of engagement so that value is constantly being communicated and the source and being recognized. Have I got that right? Absolutely. I mean, it's even beyond just once a product is launched. When you look at the entire value prop and the problem that product and engineering and some of these core sort of tenants of the business work on, marketing is an incredible input to that. We can understand and help define the landscape and the specifics of roles and the pain points that from a pure feature function perspective, that they would just never get. And I think today you're seeing marketers become much more of a partner to not just the sales organization to drive leads, which obviously is a critical part of what we do from a demand gen and lead generation, but really a true input to the direction of the product to the go to market strategy and even sort of looking at, where do we go next? You have growth areas that you want to look into and we can be a great vehicle to test out possible adjacencies or additional value layers that you're going to add to your existing product. So, absolutely. And one of the reasons why marketing can do that is because marketing historically has been one of the stewards of customer data. And because data is such a fungible asset within a business, if managed and handled right, you get data in about how something's being used, kind of what the marketer thinks about and that can be applied to products, can be applied to service, can be applied to sales, can be applied to partners, et cetera. So, is that kind of the central reason why marketing's role within the business is starting to change is because data is informing all parts of the business data that has historically come in through marketing and been managed by marketing? Yeah, I mean data comes in through marketing and a big chunk of it does. But really, so take a step back, today with the digital rounds that we have, you have a lot more avenues in which to collect data and to understand the journey of the customers or the prospects. The other part that I think is fascinating that we can do today is to inject that with product use data or other third-party data. And so there's sort of this constellation of information that comes together and uniquely marketing can put that together to really paint a picture of what's happening, what is causing something, what's correlating in different ways. So we become sort of a data clearinghouse for customers for sure. Well, let's talk about that. So that data, you say data clearinghouse for customers or a clearinghouse for customer data, but also a provider value back to prospects and customers to sustain that journey. What then are the appropriate limits of data collection and data utilization? It's a topic that marketers kind of understand or recognize that it's an issue, but they don't get into it too much. How does a marketer's responsibility vis-a-vis privacy play out? Yeah, so ARM actually is a great example of that. Where we have been a steward of customer partner data, so our ecosystem, as we call it, of pretty much all of the semiconductor players on the planet, our close relationships to understand their roadmaps, to really understand where the trends of devices is going. It's something we have had and we have worked with the ecosystem and the industry to lead forward, but not abused it in any way and really been respectful of what the individual data provisions are. As a marketing organization, even B2C or B2B, you really need to think about the trade-offs that each particular customer or prospect is willing to give and the value that you're going to provide. We could justify all day long that having more data will provide better advertising or better targeted something, that's not necessarily universal. And so for us as a marketing industry to really think about what are the boundaries and the lines that we need to draw for ourselves so that we don't violate that customer trust or that we respectfully use the data that helps both sides is one of the biggest challenges that we have coming. And one of the areas that I think will drive it much more to the forefront is if you look at marketing technology and the data that we're creating, if you inject AI to that and some of that's starting to be done where we've got it in shades, predictive analytics and certain optimizations that we can do, today the technology is going where that's going to be on steroids. And so before you let a machine decide what the lines of privacy is, I personally think we need to have that conversation. Well, one of the things that suggests ultimately is, I mean, you go back many years, people talk all the time about what is an employee's responsibility? Is it to shareholders or other employees? Well, increasingly we recognize that it's the customer. And sales is historically the advocate for the deal and product and engineering is the advocate for the product. It seems as though marketing has to become increasingly recognized as the advocate for the customer. What constitutes good behavior? What constitutes good engagement? What constitutes appropriate value exchange? But that suggests that there's a real cultural requirement to change this to culture that has to happen. Do you see marketing emerging as the advocate for the customer and having that notion being embedded increasingly in how marketing operates? I mean, believe it or not, I think marketing has always done that to some degree. But yes, now where it comes to not just what the customer needs are, you have to go through what are the boundaries that we as a company are willing to live with or go to in order to, again, best serve the customer. I mean, I fundamentally believe in the mantra that if you treat your customers right or if you respect the market in which you're trying to win, that that serves your company best. So having a great product and having all the other things are super important, no question. But we are the face of that company. We're the reflection of that to the external world. And so that is a responsibility that I think all marketers should take very seriously and respect. Yeah, but I think also it's that historically, especially in the tech industry, marketing has been something that we worry about at a certain time where we pigeonhole to a certain step in the process. And you're suggesting, and I'm suggesting, that marketing increasingly has to be that voice that cuts across not only the customer journey, but also the technology journey, the product journey, the evolution of the company, where you want to demonstrate internally as well as externally that you've got the customer's interests at heart. You're not just trying to make money, you're trying to serve your customer. And it's a consistency, right? So from general high level impressions to a customer prospect doing research to when they're ready to entertain, speaking to different tools or vendors or solutions, I mean, that whole thing, once you buy, after you buy, after you buy more, I mean, this is literally the entire life cycle where the cultural aspects of who you are cannot be hidden. They will figure it out at some point during that engagement. And so we really have to drive not just the marketing programs to reflect that, but if I can't get the organization to really buy into it at the heart of it, we'll fall apart. So at ARM, we've really done a lot of work to try and understand, people at work will always hear me say, let's not market our internal org structure or internal something. What do the customers think? What do they care about? And if I can get everyone to ask that question, I think that's a huge win. Yeah, what's valuable to the customer so that every touch is a source of value? So that's a conversation you have with your people. How do you get the rest of the corporation to see marketing in the same way, to think the same way so that ARM or any company can in fact become that strong partner that's thought leader, that advocate for customer outcomes? Yeah, it's literally a multi-touch effort. You can't just start at the top, bottom, bottom up. It has to be across the board, but I do fundamentally think that if leadership isn't bought in on that, it will be a barrier. The strongest companies that truly believe in every, it's easy to say that we want to do what's right for the customer or to think about the market. That's sort of a table stakes, if you will. But to live it when you have to make some tough choices, that's where I think leadership can play a big role because whether you're the call center person or the sales engineer or the product manager that's talking to a customer, if they fundamentally believe that the leadership driven by good data that they can have the right information to make the right decisions, married with a culture that supports the customer first mentality. I mean, that is ultimately what I think comes, brings all of this together. Yeah, I think that's a great point. And we've had a number of CMOs on and the rubber meets the road when an individual proximate to the customer feels confident that they can take action on behalf of that customer based on the right data and not be countermanded by a political or some other agenda that exists somewhere else in the organization. That's really the test of a customer driven business. That's right, that's exactly right. And I think empowering them with the data and the knowledge as well as the support of the organization and leadership is what enables that person to give that kind of positive experience to the customer ultimately. So Joyce, you've worked in a number of different companies. You've been around Silicon Valley for a while and not too long, but here at ARM, what is the one lesson that you want to leave other CMOs based on your experience at ARM, which is a little bit out ahead of the curve in a lot of ways. Yeah, I mean, I always believe in today you're in an environment and a technology landscape where you can take a lot of risks. You can test things out. It's just as important on how you react or how you shift based on that data than actually creating that initial program. And so I live by sort of, we won't progress if we don't innovate and kind of continue to try new things. We are very fortunate in a time where we can do that and get almost instantaneous feedback. AB testing for the role of marketing. Exactly, but it's also sort of married with the other side which is know your boundaries, know where you're willing to go as a company and what you believe is the right thing for your industry or your company or your customer. And if you put those two things together, that's what moves it forward in a positive way. Joyce Kim, CMO of ARM. Thanks again for being on theCUBE. Thanks, Peter. And once again, I'm Peter Burris and this has been another CUBE Conversation. Until next time, talk to you soon.