Marketing was never a simple place to be, but it was predictable. The company put out campaigns, the customer responded by buying something, maybe a survey came in from time to time. The digital transformation of business and the popularity of social media has changed all that. How does a company successfully market itself in such an environment?

To shed some light on this question, John Furrier, cohost of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, sat down with Kevin Akeroyd and Andrea Ward at the Oracle OpenWorld 2015 conference. Akeroyd is the general manager and senior VP of Oracle Marketing Cloud. Ward is the VP of Oracle Cloud Marketing.

Dealing with the changing world

The discussion started off with a look into how Cloud marketers explain all these new ways of doing business in the digital world. Akeroyd explained that not much really has changed. Customers, he said, still want the same things. In his opinion, the real difference is that the tools have fragmented across many new channels.

Ward then brought up the details of content marketing, as marketers know that can’t just engage the customer across one channel any more. They have to reach the customer with traditional advertising, social media, point-of-contact action, and in other ways. When Furrier asked what was holding companies back from doing things, Akeroyd pointed out that most companies aren’t organized operationally to run multiple channels, with too much disconnect to keep everything on track.

Oracle plants its flag in the Cloud

Furrier then asked the question of how Oracle’s journey to the Cloud had affected them. Ward replied that the company-wide Cloud focus had put wind in their sails, showing customers they were serious. Akeroyd added that Oracle’s ability to execute on this new strategy was fantastic. The company is aiming to become the leader in Cloud integration and is bringing together the technology, products and people to do just that.

To help, Akeroyd said, Oracle has made acquisitions to capitalize on the social media space. The vision was to take a social signal, pair it with other data, and contextualize the “whole” to create a real-time image of the customer. Ward then backed up this idea by mentioning that social media was part of all of its campaigns now, and was producing real demand that increased revenue.

Watch the full video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of Oracle OpenWorld 2015. And join in on the conversation by CrowdChatting with theCUBE hosts.

Photo by SiliconANGLE