At a Glance
Matthew Lieberman, CMO, PwCFocus Areas: Marketing, Generative AI, Telecom, 5G Thinkers360 In-Depth Profile & Portfolio: Matthew Lieberman Highlighted Content: Marketing Reinvention: Four Ideas To Boost Your Impact And Relevance, Cannes Lions 2024: 5 takeaways on the rising role of marketing Predictions: Thinkers360 Predictions Series – 2023 Predictions for MarTech |
Thought Leader and Influencer Interview
Thinkers360 thought leader interviews profile prominent members of the Thinkers360 community who embody the power of ideas in their work. In this edition, we speak with Matthew Lieberman who is the Chief Marketing Officer of PwC US/Mexico and an innovative executive at the crossroads of marketing, media, and technology.
Matthew has been listed in Thinkers360 Predictions Series – 2023 Predictions for MarTech.
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Thinkers360: Tell us a bit about your background and areas of expertise.
ML: I have a non-traditional background and am not a classically educated marketer. After starting in the creative side of the film industry, I landed at PwC in its entertainment consulting practice where I spent 10+ years before moving over to lead Marketing for that team. Marketing back then was mainly large events and long-form PDFs, but the industry was at an inflection point and I was excited to be part of this evolution. After various roles in Marketing, I became the CMO for PwC US and Mexico in 2018. The last six years have been an amazing experience as our team transforms into a modern and leading B2B Marketing team. We’ve evolved our team to support both new areas of the firm—such as our GenAI and Space industry practices—and have developed new ways of working, like introducing a formal campaign model, rebuilding our marketing technology stack and transforming into consultative marketers working alongside the practice to help drive pipeline and revenue. We also develop and enhance trusting relationships and build and safeguard our brand—all while focusing on enhancing all aspects of the client experience.
Thinkers360: What are your current responsibilities and what is your typical day like?
ML: In addition to our team’s many traditional marketing responsibilities—from content to events to digital—we are leading with new technologies, such as automations and insights generation. Another unique aspect is showing up as “One Firm” given how matrixed our firm is. It’s not only marketing specific verticals but figuring out how we can differentiate by laddering up into firm priorities that are predicated on what our external audiences want. This includes all audiences beyond core clients/targets, such as attracting talent, new joiners, analysts and alumni.
The only typical thing about my day is how different each day is—and I love this! I’m on the road most weeks to meet with our internal stakeholders, our marketers and our clients to experience our marketing activations. It’s very important to me to spend as much time with our marketers as possible as well as working hand-in-hand with our leaders to enable prioritization. And I love meeting with our clients to discuss what is happening at their respective companies and in the industry and to share our firm’s marketing transformation journey—this is where the magic can happen
Thinkers360: With so much disruption coming from technology, how is the marketing function evolving at PwC and how are you balancing tech and creativity?
ML: I am so excited about utilizing emerging technologies—these are key to our transformation. Whether it is releasing GenAI tools, such as our content generator app to increase efficiency, developing automations to simplify processes like lead passing, or recently launching our customer data platform to offer real-time personalization at scale, these technologies are opening doors that couldn’t even be contemplated a few years ago. With that said, as a firm we are very focused on being human-led and tech-powered, meaning that the technology itself is meaningless. Without upskilling our marketers and learning how to apply these tools, we cannot be successful. This is where that fine balance of tech and creativity comes into play. Good marketing cannot exist without creative ideation and execution. How we then apply this to our marketing strategy is key. And some of these tools are empowering that even more and enabling faster creativity. Our creatives love experimenting with these tools and sharing amazing use cases daily.
Thinkers360: If we turn specifically to generative AI, how is PwC putting it to work to benefit marketing?
ML: We are very fortunate to be part of a firm that encouraged early adoption of AI. We’ve been using it in marketing for years, mainly in the form of predictive analytics. Given our firm’s investment in GenAI , we received early access to tools and technologists to be some of the first users of licensed technologies, such as GPT Enterprise. We also have designed and launched custom AI tools in house, such as a content generator and brand checking tool. It makes me proud that we are some of the first movers in this space, and it’s awesome to see how we will be able to free up some capacity for our marketers to focus on higher-value activities and to have time to be more creative, thanks to GenAI.
Thinkers360: Can you share some PwC examples and use cases?
ML: Our content generator AI tool is pretty incredible. It applies prompts from a pre-developed and continually updated library at the click of a button for our marketers to create derivative content. All the marketer has to do is upload the content and they will receive three options for each selected content type, such as social media posts, event invitations and web copy. It is important to note that all our marketers (and our people using our AI tools) must review the options and then edit the selected text before ever finalizing it. Our marketers are not only more efficient, but also exploring and developing enhancements—and creating A/B tests with AI-generated versus human-generated content. What’s remarkable? How unremarkably different the metrics such as open-rates are.
Editor’s Note: See Matthew Lieberman’s Thinkers360 profile to contact him directly.
Thinkers360: Beyond generative AI, what other emerging technologies, techniques or approaches should marketers be thinking about?
ML: It is most important that technologies are thought of as part of an ecosystem. It’s cool to use new tools, but they should connect to your greater tech stack, provide digestible data, and not slow down work flows or introduce new risks. This is an ongoing challenge for us and many other organizations. We also need to rationalize spend, review potential impact and tie it to our marketing strategy. Once you’ve applied these lenses, there can be a myriad of options for both licensed or inhouse tools. At PwC, we are focused on tech and approaches that increase personalization, can accelerate or simplify our workflows and/or allow us to differentiate.
Thinkers360: With MarTech evolving at such a rapid pace, how should marketers be thinking about their tech stack?
ML: It’s critical that marketers work with IT and other functions to enable alignment. It’s also critical that the technology is solving unique problems, can’t be remedied by another existing tech or processes, will be easy to launch and roll-out, provides ROI, and is useful to any groups consuming marketing data.
Thinkers360: With all these changes in MarTech, how are you updating your thought leadership strategy?
ML: Our content strategy is ever-evolving. MarTech is enabling us to accomplish things we haven’t historically been able to. For example, GenAI can help create an industry lens on an industry-agnostic piece of content. Workflows are being simplified so we can get real-time response content out the door. Creative tools are allowing us to share our content in innovative and different ways. Content can be customized based on reader preferences. The discussions with my content lead are some of the most meaningful of the week as we’ve now moved into the realm of “what else can we do” and “how can we get there first?”
Thinkers360: What’s your advice for marketers in navigating today’s ever-changing landscape and preparing for the future?
ML: Be agile. Take advantage of every learning opportunity. Don’t focus on a linear path. Get as much experience in technology as you do in creative. Put yourselves in your target’s shoes and learn how they want to interact with your company. Collaborate with Sales. And lead with a consultative approach, adding value to the business—without a fundamental understanding of the business and its goals, marketing cannot be successful. Finally, enjoy it! We are so lucky to be part of this industry at such a transformative time.
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