Alicia Tillman
101 Great Minds on Music Brands and Behavior
Alicia Tillman, Global CMO, SAP
As the Global Chief Marketing Officer at SAP, Alicia Tillman is responsible for creating and accelerating the company’s marketing strategy and brand recognition across the globe. Alicia is focused on driving the company vision of helping the world run better and improve people’s lives by building marketing programs and thought leadership. She has significant experience across marketing and product development, branding, lead generation, strategic planning, organizational design and innovation. Alicia has strong cultural competence leading global teams, is a dynamic public speaker, team motivator and has been honored by many organizations for her work in marketing and communications.
“Music is at the center of everything. It doesn`t matter how old you are or what you do, you will always connect music with emotions and memories.”
— ALICIA TILLMAN, FMR. GLOBAL CMO AT SAP
Reese: Why is sound growing in such importance in the digital age?
Alicia Tillman: I’m the Global Chief Marketing Officer for SAP, and I think there is no better time than right now, to be a part of a marketing organization. We live in an experience economy and companies and consumers choose brands emotionally. They choose them based on the quality of the experience and how well the experience resonates and connects with them. It’s not just so much about the product anymore. It’s about community, it's the sense of belonging you have. Marketing is the part, which leads the development of that for brands. It’s a great opportunity if you think about the role of marketing in a modern organization that is trying to win customers and have those customers for life. How you architect the experience, how you learn from customers to be able to build a product or a service that responds to them and is relevant to them – that’s basically what I do! I'm in charge of helping the world understand the business that SAP is in, how to help people see how SAP is part of their life and how it helps them to overcome challenges and see opportunities that technology can enable for them. Me being able to tell that story and have it show up in people's lives in a meaningful way that`s ultimately what I'm accountable for.
Reese: Brands are in the trust-building business. Music is the direct way to the subconscious, where all buying decisions are made. How important is music in the consumer experience then?
Tillman: Our former CEO, Bill McDermott, always said that trust is earned in drops, but it's lost in buckets. That speaks so well to me, as it is very hard to earn someone's trust, and it's also very easy to lose it quickly. Trust is personal and emotional, and at the end of the day it’s the foundation of any stable and long-lasting relationship. If you don't have trust, you essentially have nothing. In terms of music, there are very few things in life that transcend differences in geographies and cultural nuances like it does. I think that music unifies cultures, differences on certain levels, it speaks to values and its’ representative of who you are and who you want to be. Music is a form of expression that brands can and should make more use of. We live in a world where we are selling to human beings, even though we are in the B2B business. You have to think about how you can make your brand relatable to them and how you express yourself in a way that is relevant and emotional and feels connected to values. I've always been a believer that music is just that. Music is an expression of values and beliefs. It’s seen as an outlet to express yourself, be it a voice you have or any differences you want to overcome, or as a way you want to connect with someone. It can have a very special and meaningful place when you are looking to tell your story and connect with someone. Provided, it's used in a very consistent way and it's representative of the authenticity of who you are as a brand.
Reese: I think a great example would be the James Bond soundtrack. Every person would recognize them, no matter if it's a soundtrack from the 80s, 90s, or only a couple of years ago.
Tillman: You are absolutely right. I can close my eyes and listen to music from every decade of James Bond films and know that it’s a James Bond film. To me, what matters is that I'm really impressed when I see bodies of work and know that it was started with a strategic goal. Too often in life, I have trouble saying that a certain piece was made with intent and by design. But if you look at the Bond films, there were certain elements used, which can be recognized in all different tracks. That matters because I can see that somebody has put a lot of work into it to create something that will last over decades. I think it’s wonderful that music is able to create such experiences and has the ability to take us way back into our memories.
Reese: We are all born Mozarts. We have the ability to listen to a song and remember it decades later.
Tillman: Absolutely right. Music is at the center of everything. It doesn't matter how old you are or what you do, you will always connect music with emotions and memories.
Reese: Why is music not already more important in branding then?
Tillman: I think brands have a lot of pressure to differentiate. Often times, marketers think that differentiation is more about the story you tell around the value you provide. It comes down to the product and the service. We live in a very competitive world today. That’s why this experience economy that we live in, is as it is. There are so many choices. If an experience you have with one brand isn't meeting your expectations, consumers are alright with that because there are so many options and they just easily choose another one. That’s why I’m always asking myself, what are the ingredients in building a successful experience around the brand and the products, which truly meet expectations? Some are obvious, and others are not. And that’s how we slowly get to the space that we are talking about here. There are so many channels in which you display your brand to be able to create a consistent journey. Music is one of the things that can really help to tie all of the different experiences from different channels together, to be able to deliver one coherent brand experience over time. And that`s a real opportunity.
“Music is at the center of everything. It doesn't matter how old you are or what you do, you will always connect music with emotions and memories.”
Note: The interview took place in New York on the 29th of January 2020.
Copyright regulations apply when using material from this document and when using the supplied video or audio files. This document is intended to be exclusively viewed by the recipient and its subsidiaries. Under no circumstances may the content or part of the content made available or forwarded in any form orally or in writing to third parties, in particular to competitors or affiliates. The publication, reproduction, distribution, reproduction or other utilization of the presented ideas, texts, layouts, concepts, films or audio files without express written permission by amp GmbH.
