Janet Balis

“At the 13th annual Forbes CMO Summit, talk of reinvention and connecting the dots for future growth made it clear that chief marketing officers’ roles are only getting more complex; the new CMO is indeed the chief dot connector. That takeaway, coined by EY Partner Janet Balis, was just one of many from this year’s conference, held at the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel in California.”

“‘The first thing advertisers are looking for is objectivity, about who their target consumer is, how best to reach them and how to engage them in a dialogue,’ Ms. Balis said. ‘And then they’re looking for a very purely objective perspective on what media will best deliver on their objective. That challenges media organizations, which are traditionally organized around P&L structures that are organized around brands, media or both.’”

“Janet Balis: ‘We are seeing a dramatic shift in the way consumers discover brands, develop relationships and ultimately make choices about what they will buy. Brands must compete in dramatically new ways for the attention of consumers, and company leaders need to think quite differently about how they engage those consumers. In particular, it’s very important to pay close attention to the quality of the experience itself in order to thrive strategically. We have to remember that consumers are humans who expect to be surprised, delighted and offered a compelling value exchange. The bar is higher than ever before, and the new model embraces a keen sense of design.’”

“A new generation of TV viewers has been taught through use of digital video recorders and streaming video on demand that their favorite programs can be enjoyed with only a handful of ads interrupting them – and sometimes, none at all. “This isn’t about the industry making a choice. This is about consumers making a choice. They lead us, and the business follows,” says Janet Balis, global media and entertainment advisory leader at Ernst & Young. “The fact is we are dealing with a shift in the consumer’s appetite to look at many forms of advertising.””