Toni Clayton-Hine has been talking to Forbes about brand promotion and company culture.
Forbes Magazine have published an interview with Toni Clayton-Hine, the CMO of Xerox, in which she discusses the role marketing plays in the reinvention of a brand, customer experience, company culture, and social responsibilities.
“One of the things that we have to deal with is not the awareness of Xerox as a company, but awareness of Xerox in terms of what we stand for today,” says Clayton-Hine, in the discussion with Billee Howard. Clayton-Hine describes her role as creating awareness around the current Xerox portfolio with people who are buying, selling, and influencing the technology behind it.
She also discusses emotional engagement, with clients and customers – as Howard puts it, the switch from talking about the ‘what’, to talking about the ‘who’ and the ‘why’. Clayton-Hine describes this as “moving from delivering a great product to delivering a great experience,” talking of the B2C sphere and what parallels can be drawn, and which lessons can be learnt for the B2B world. “I use B2C as a bit of a crystal ball,” she says. “When we are going to design a web journey, I know what a consumer is looking for when they go out and buy some sort of consumer-based package.” The task then, she continues, is to ask what that will mean for an enterprise environment.
In the wide-ranging interview, Clayton-Hine also talks about the ‘Set The Page Free’ campaign that Xerox have been running. This is described as “a unique and creative way to show how people are using and leveraging the technology in an interesting and unique way.”
“It’s 100 percent digital,” she continues. “We did that on purpose in order to use the campaign as an overarching umbrella that will ultimately drive awareness, consideration, and ultimately demand. Every choice we’ve made in terms of bringing this campaign to life has included some sort of digital signature so that we can then leverage it downstream, albeit sometimes very far downstream, into a potential lead.”
One of the other aspects of the campaign the interview highlights, was its ties to the Worldreader organisation, which distributes e-books throughout the developing world in a drive to improve literacy rates. Responding to a question from Howard about the need for moral leadership and responsibility from businesses, Clayton-Hine is enthusiastic, believing the pendulum is shifting back.
“I think that it will it will continue to be part of a company’s vernacular for a long time,” she says. “I don’t think we’re going to go back to something where it’s only about the product and what the product does for you.”
As the interview concludes, Clayton-Hine offers her view on the relationship between marketing, brand awareness and altruism: “People have shifted their priorities to doing business with companies that do good or at least have an awareness of their social impact. And I don’t see that changing anytime soon.”
You can read Clayton-Hine’s full interview with Billee Howard here.