Marketing as we knew it is long gone. Consumer expectations continually rise to include greater digital innovation. Today’s consumers demand and expect interactive, personalized, digital experiences across an array of browsers and platforms. Traditional marketing techniques must rapidly change to keep up with consumer demands. I recently had the pleasure of catching up with Matt Langie, the Senior Director of Strategic Marketing for the Digital Marketing Business Unit at Abode. Matt works on market strategy, messaging, positioning, product pricing and packaging, and product evangelism.  (On top of all this, he also kind of looks like Zach Braff.) Matt shares his thoughts with Product2Market on the current state and future of digital marketing. Keep reading to hear Adobes insider insights on Product Marketing.

Product2Market: Please tell us about yourself and your role as Senior Director of Strategic Marketing at Adobe. Matt Langie:  I’m Senior Director of Strategic Marketing for the Digital Marketing Business Unit at Adobe, which I joined through the company’s acquisition of Omniture in 2009. I have a strong background in marketing and analytics and focus on data-driven technologies and solutions that we provide. Product2Market: What has Adobe’s digital marketing team has been up to so far in 2014? ML: It’s an exciting time for the digital marketing team here at Adobe. We just wrapped up another very successful Adobe Summit digital marketing conference in Salt Lake City, which featured major announcements on new Adobe Marketing Cloud capabilities including real-time audience profiling, marketing mix planning and new mobile solutions. Coming up in May, we have our London-based Adobe Summit EMEA digital marketing conference, where we’ll announce another round of major features and enhancements across the Adobe Marketing Cloud. We’ve been very busy. When we talk about marketing reinvention and rapid transformation in the digital age, we’re not just referring to marketers – the Adobe Marketing Cloud is transforming right along with them. Product2Market:  In your recent blog post, you stated that “we’re not doing ‘digital marketing’ anymore”.  So, what are we doing?  Where do you see product marketing going forward? ML: Digital is no longer just a piece of marketing; technology has become too prevalent and integrated into our lives for us to think of it in those terms. Instead, we’re practicing marketing in an increasingly digital world. This distinction is important because it forces us to break down silos and understand that- We can no longer think in terms of isolated platforms and channels. We need to think in terms of tasks, activities and functions that span multiple platforms and channels, both online and offline. We need to infuse data and ‘digital’ throughout our marketing campaigns because the consumers we’re targeting live and breathe digital experiences. Product2Market: Customer experience seems to the big the big Buzzword in product marketing, lately. Where does the customer’s experience fit into Adobe’s product marketing strategy? Whether you call it the customer experience, the customer journey or some other “buzzword,” the idea is fundamental to how we approach marketing today. It means thinking in terms of touch points with the customer no matter where, when and how they’re interacting with your brand, and understanding that campaigns need to be dynamic and responsive to their expectations. We have an amazing amount of data and technology available today that allows us to actively guide the customer experience with personalized, contextual interactions – and today’s informed customers demand it! The days of solely relying on the four Ps are over. New marketers are continually adapting to the customer’s expectations and needs and the Adobe Marketing Cloud helps them achieve this.   Product2Marekt: Any closing words to share with bright-eye product marketers reading this interview? One of my favorite quotes is: “the best way to predict the future is to invent it” I attribute this to Alan Kay, an early computer scientist and innovator at Xerox PARC. I see us doing the same thing in digital marketing at Adobe – we are inventing the future of marketing. It makes for exciting times indeed!  Matt Langie is Senior Director of Strategic Marketing for the Digital Marketing Business Unit at Adobe. He gained extensive experience in technology marketing while at Omniture, WebTrends, Datastream, Intel, and Hewlett-Packard. Langie’s responsibilities span go-to-market strategy, messaging and positioning, product pricing and packaging, sales enablement, competitive intelligence, and product evangelism for the Adobe Marketing Cloud. He serves as Board Vice Chairman for the Internet Marketing Association and is an adjunct professor at UC Irvine, teaching digital marketing courses.