Interview
The Gist
- Strategic evolution. DeLu Jackson emphasizes the importance of updating traditional security solutions with modern technology to meet diverse customer needs.
- Emotional connection. ADT's campaign focuses on the emotional impact of safety, balancing fear with the empowerment of living fearlessly.
- Brand legacy. Celebrating its 150-year history, ADT integrates its long-standing reputation with innovative marketing strategies to maintain relevance in the industry.
DeLu Jackson, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at ADT, walks us through the intricate process of crafting campaigns that resonate with audiences across generations.
In this episode of CMSWire's The CMO Circle, Jackson explores the challenges and triumphs of leading marketing efforts for a brand with a 150-year legacy. He unveils ADT's latest campaign, "When Every Second Counts," giving an inside look at the strategic thinking behind connecting historical relevance with modern consumer needs. He also shares his insights into how ADT leverages tech advancements and emotional storytelling to maintain its market leader status while continuing to innovate.
Table of Contents
- The Emotional Side of Marketing (3:38)
- Connecting With Real Customers (5:12)
- Establishing a Team Ethos (6:50)
- A Contextual Approach to Marketing (9:10)
- The Data-Side of Marketing Campaigns (10:53)
Episode Transcript
Michelle Hawley: Hi everyone, I'm Michelle Hawley, Senior Editor at CMSWire, and on this edition of CMO Circle, we're with DeLu Jackson, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at ADT.
Hi, DeLu. Thank you for joining us today.
DeLu Jackson: Great to be here and nice to see you, Michelle.
Michelle: I'm excited to talk about this new campaign that you're working on, especially coming from a brand that's 150 years old and striving to stay relevant and innovative. So let's start right there. What's it like to build a campaign from the ground up? Where do you even start?
DeLu: Yeah, this is an exciting one for us. As you mentioned, this year in August, ADT will celebrate its 150th birthday, which is an amazing accomplishment for a brand, staying relevant and being a category leader for 150 years. With the campaign, we aimed to develop a platform that clearly communicates what we do, which matters to so many consumers. The platform is called "When Every Second Counts."
How do you come up with that concept? I think the best thing someone said when we were discussing this is, "It's just true." And I love that. When you ask, "What does it mean when it's true?" When we talk to our consumers about what matters to them, why we do what we do, it's about providing safety.
Much of that is about protecting and connecting what matters most. And as that has evolved over 150 years, the time, place and speed at which that occurs have continued to evolve. Based on that insight, I was talking to our chief monitoring officer, who was so passionate about all the things we do to innovate in that space, like alarm response, monitoring, making sure that we're proactive when we can be and helping consumers be safe. In that conversation, I just wrote it down and said, "When Every Second Counts."
It really resonated with consumers, our employees and the organization because it's what we do. And so that was a really special opportunity for us.
Michelle: I imagine it's been interesting tapping into all these new technologies that have emerged, like you said, even just 50 years ago in terms of security — how much video has come along, the internet, sensors, AI, texting. It's probably been a lot of big changes.
DeLu: Yes, again, the evolution of the space and even what we've learned about all the different consumers — that safety means so much more to so many different people. As you said, sometimes it's video, sometimes it's response, sometimes it's what I see before things occur, right, which is preventative. And so as all of those things have occurred, it's given us a tremendous opportunity to expand our capabilities, but also the portfolio of offerings.
So we have traditionally been known as a professionally installed business, and that's great. We take care of a lot of people. And then we saw an emergence of people doing self-setup or DIY. We have an offering there. We have health opportunities for people because all of those things are part of the evolution of our safety journey. And so as our brand continues to expand those services and the technology capabilities, it's pretty exciting to be at the forefront of those innovations.
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The Emotional Side of Marketing
Michelle: For the emotional side of the campaign, there are so many emotions that go into safety and security, and I think it's probably easier to tap into fear and anxiety. So what was your process for determining what emotional direction you wanted to go with it?
DeLu: Yes, it was great. Our team engaged with our consumers and even the, you know, we interact with thousands of people every day, right? Talking to them about what's most important to them. What we picked up from that was the tension between the fear you talked about, but more importantly, the excitement people had about living their lives and the things they want to do when that fear didn't exist. So we called it that tension between "you only live once" and FUD [fear, uncertainty, doubt]. And the insight for us was that what we really do is focus on what we protect people for rather than just what we protect them from.
And that's a really great insight and creates a lot of excitement in the consumers because you can hear the excitement of the first home or my second home or one of my children moving into a home and I'm providing this for them. It's just all this passion for doing amazing things. And if we take care of the other parts, let's celebrate what we protect you for. So that's a really important issue or topic when we're managing that as an industry.
Connecting With Real Customers
Michelle: And you had mentioned to me before that your teams even go out and meet with people that have used your systems, that have had their homes protected. I mean, how long has that program been around that you guys do that?
DeLu: The Life Savers program. We've done that for a number of years and continue to do that, which is essentially a program where when something unfortunate did occur, we had an opportunity for our monitoring teams that assisted in resolving those issues, meet the owner, meet with the homeowner and their families and the first responders, and just talk about all the important steps that occurred to make sure that everyone was safe.
We did it in different geographies, in different circumstances, but there are these magic moments where we realize just how important the work is. And I love it that when our work and our purpose come together, that we make the world safer when we're doing our jobs well. And we have 13,500 associates that are just super passionate about making the world safer, and that's pretty amazing.
Michelle: I can't imagine a better way to show employees how important the work is than to really get them out there and to see the actual impact that they've had.
DeLu: And there are these great connections that people make that are measurable in terms of the confidence it provides to people. Again, that's really important that they feel confident in that decision.
Establishing a Team Ethos
Michelle: You mentioned to me that this campaign is more of an ethos than a campaign and I'm sure that program is part of building up that ethos. But what other things do you do to kind of instill that in your team or even throughout the whole company?
DeLu: Yes, I think the greatest thing is celebrating the history of all of these amazing moments we talked about that have happened. So there will be another part of this campaign called 'Always There,' where we'll celebrate literally all these images and photos that our employees have shared with us in their lives that just the sign is there, right? So we have this amazing iconic blue logo with ADT and you see it on small businesses and in neighborhoods, at homes, and on buildings and all around all these magic moments and we'll celebrate those and our employees are really passionate about sharing their stories with us.
And so it's a really great way internally for people to talk about all the things and all those great experiences. And so we get to see that all day, every day. And again, it's inspiring and motivational. And for me, I'm very fortunate to have the opportunity to work with people who again are so passionate about making the world safer and showing their peers just how we continue to do that better.
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Michelle: Internally, do you do anything to kind of like share those moments? Do you have like, you know, email blasts, a Slack channel? What are you doing to kind of promote that throughout the company?
DeLu: Yes, we have a team that's a collective team, cross-functionally, that's dedicated to sharing that and communicating that and engaging with, again, all of our employees. And we share it at events and different activities. Again, many different touchpoints where we'll see it come to life. And the great thing is it's happening all the time. It's what we do, so it's really always there.
And people are just, this gives another opportunity and a platform for people to share that and collaborate on communicating it out.
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A Contextual Approach to Marketing
Michelle: With your contextual approach to marketing and making sure that when the brand shows up, the place makes sense, the messaging makes sense, can you kind of walk through how do you find those moments?
DeLu: Yeah, I think it goes back to listening to our customers. And I think that, you know, for a long time, as a portfolio expands and customer needs expand, it's a little harder, right? We have to listen more, we see more and customers search for different things. So we use that collective intelligence to think about all the relevant ways to show up.
Another example we had is last year we started a partnership with the Miami Marlins. In the stadium, you'll see "safe at home." So when the player's round third, it says "safe at home" between third and home. And then when people see it, they go, it makes sense. And the partnership is actually the patch on their jerseys. But we had all these activations that were contextually relevant, as you said, around safe at home and baseball, it makes sense. So I love when they would go on the road and I'd hear other fans talking about it and they say, wow, they, that extra protection down there in South Florida. And we go, yeah, that's great, right?
So again, as a long-time marketer, whenever we can find great context and people see it and they said, that makes sense. I love to see that and understand that it's connecting with people. And again, back to that relevance, that's how we stay relevant is understanding what they care about, what's most important in the context in which they see us. And we can do that in a relevant way. That's a win.
The Data-Side of Marketing Campaigns
Michelle: So how do you go about for this campaign specifically, trying to learn more about your customers? How are you collecting that data, analyzing it, turning it into actionable insights for the campaign?
DeLu: Yeah, I think, you know, the good news is we engage with our customers. You know, we follow up with them through surveys and through feedback, through customer care. We take every bit of feedback very seriously. And as an organization, that's just a key part of us making sure we're providing what's important to them. And so that's really just what we continue to do. We have a team that's focused on that and again applaud them for always wanting to deliver an excellent customer experience.
Michelle: Are there certain metrics that you like to track? Do you have net promoter score, customer satisfaction, any specific numbers?
DeLu: Yes, we track all of those and, you know, it's really important that we understand again, down to the nuances of their direct feedback, what's most important to them. And they tell us kind of the same things, right? And so that's what our team focuses on. And always making sure that the voice of the customer is front and center and that we're responding to that in a meaningful way.
Michelle: So once you push the campaign out, it's ready to go, it's out into the public, what are you doing then to kind of follow along and see how people are responding to it?
DeLu: Yeah, you know, we will continue to engage our consumers and get feedback like again, the traditional studies and all of those things. But most importantly, we'll be talking to our employees and our customers as they engage with customers on a consistent basis about how they feel about it and how it helps them understand how important the work we do is and how important it is that we help people feel safe and protected. So really important.
Michelle: Well, that's about all I have for you today, DeLu. Could you share with people where they can find you online and follow what you're doing?
DeLu: Sure, just follow us on LinkedIn or you can follow us on our Facebook and Instagram. We'll be sharing a lot more as we go forward. There will be some exciting work coming here in the summer. There's some big events coming and again look for our 150th birthday celebration in August.
Michelle: Well, thank you so much, it was great having you today.
DeLu: Great speaking with you as well.
Michelle: Thank you for joining us for this month's episode of CMO Circle. Don't forget to check back next time for an all-new episode. And while you wait, you can check out our other CMSWire TV shows, Beyond the Call and The Digital Experience.
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