Episode Seven: (English) Agile Marketing Around the Globe in Spain with Christophe Martinot

Spain's State of Agile Marketing - Interview with Christophe Martinot

00:00:04 John Cass 

Welcome to the Global Agile Marketing podcast with John Cass. I'm your host John Cass here in Boston, MA. Today I'll be interviewing Christophe Martinot, Art is the co-founder of SeedingEnergy S.L. and founder of Agilewow4all.  

Welcome, Christophe. 

00:00:22 Christophe Martinot 

Hello, John. Thank you for the invitation. 

00:00:26 John Cass 

It's great to have you. So today we're going to be talking about the state of agile marketing in Spain and in preparing for this call, we talked a little about your journey to using agile marketing. I think we should start. You know, while the focus is on Spain, I think we should start with how you got started in agile marketing. 

00:00:50 Christophe Martinot 

Oh, you know John, the thing is the first step for me maybe to explain is that I've spent more than 20 years in big corporate like Dannon, Loreal, Abbott, Sanofi. And during those 20 years of corporate experience, I found out that there was a lack of efficiency of in most of those companies and even if companies were talking about high client simplicity, I was missing the I was also suffering from the heavy processes and the lack of innovations in those companies. 

00:01:27 Christophe Martinot 

So when I decided to quit and leave the corporate world, I found out and I discovered that agile was a methodology used by IT people from years now and with great results, I started to investigate and found out that actually in the US many, many companies and many people were already practicing and implementing agile to marketing and I found it really interesting as my background was most of it in marketing role. 

00:02:01 Christophe Martinot 

So I decided to investigate and to see what was this agile marketing and if it made sense for companies in Spain to be implemented and to be trained on how to use agile in their marketing department. 

00:02:17 John Cass 

Well, that's great. Can you tell me a little bit about the business culture and structure of business and marketing in Spain and how that I'm impacts, how open marketers and businesses are to the agile app? 

00:02:33 Christophe Martinot 

Yes. Well, in Spain, the business culture and the organizational structures are very hierarchical. So usually you have a lot of family owned businesses. And of course, you also have multinational affiliates. But they're run in the traditional Spanish way, and when I say so, what I mean is that they help hold strictly separated divisions and a strong hierarchical system. 

00:03:02 Christophe Martinot 

So generally speaking, individualism is predominant in management, and teamwork is not so much appreciated. So basically the figure of the boss deciding for the entire team and the team having to execute what the boss has said is what you will mainly find in Spain, however this is changing and this is changing due to a growing number of young people coming into those organization and having been educated either in Spain, in very good business schools or either in different business schools abroad. But this this hierarchical system. 

00:03:45 Christophe Martinot 

But this this hierarchical system is changing, and of course you can imagine that when you have so much hierarchy, this will impact the agile mindset that we want to implement in those companies. 

00:03:59 John Cass 

What is your assessment of the level of adoption of agile marketing by companies? You know what? What examples do you have? 

00:04:08 Christophe Martinot 

It's a very good question and this is actually a question that make me struggle here in Spain because the Spanish market is not very mature in terms of agile marketing adoption. Every marketing, every marketer is going through. I mean, every marketer going through our training. Usually they discover literally this new way of working and are immediately seduced. Saying that, I would estimate that less than 1% of companies here in Spain are adapting agile marketing and I would be very generous saying that it's one person. However, what I have to say is that I really sense a real interest for the topic and I really sense that when people have heard about agile, they're really interested to see how to adopt Agile in their marketing department. 

00:05:03 Christophe Martinot 

The things are moving slowly but surely. I think one of the good signs is that now business schools are getting interested in the topic as well. And I've for instance, I've been recently very low, but I think the future is good for agile marketing here in Spain. 

00:05:28 John Cass 

Why do you think that agile marketing is so immature in Spain? I you know, I think back to your answer on you know the question about culture and that's one of the reasons why I asked this question. 

00:05:42 Christophe Martinot 

Yeah, that and I think you, I mean the link that you've just made, John, is, is, is correct, I mean it's probably due to the business culture and structure of the organization. The boss fears to lose his power and this is something that I've seen in many organs position for which I've been working. So the fact that it's very hierarchical and the fear of delegating and trusting the team members is something that is probably slowing down the adoption of agile in marketing department. In any case, I would say usually you don't know what you don't know, and what do I mean by that? Is that basically many, many marketers still in Spain are not aware of what agile is and they are not aware of? 

00:06:30 Christophe Martinot 

The benefits that agile could bring to the way of working that they have currently in their companies. So there is a lot of work to do with regards to sensitivity and to create awareness among marketers to the fact that agile would be beneficial for them to implement. 

00:06:50 John Cass 

Is there the same drive for perfection by marketers in Spain that we see around the world? 

00:06:57 Christophe Martinot 

Yes, definitely. I think that Spanish marketers are really good, they're great professionals and they're keen to perfection definitely. They're usually are early adapters when we talk about new marketing tools and so on. The issue with agile marketing again is for me the fact that they don't know that this is a possibility for them. And again, when I see people coming to our training and finishing our training, when they find out and when they've discovered what agile could mean for them, I mean they end up loving agile and willing to implement it as soon as possible. But definitely they're keen to perfection. 

00:07:43 John Cass 

How are companies deploying agile in Spain? What different types of adoption have you seen? You know, has it been Scrum, Kanban hybrid? What have you seen? 

00:07:54 Christophe Martinot 

So what I am seeing is definitely hybrid models. I think this is not different from the rest of the world, probably because what I'm what I've been reading and what I'm seeing here in Spain is that usually people when they contact me, it's often it's because they've tried Scrum and Scrum didn't work and what they find out is that probably we need or they need to be more flexible in their agile approaches and really use the different agile frameworks and find out what suits the best for their practices. 

00:08:31 Christophe Martinot 

So. So basically in Spain, I would say it's more a hybrid adoption than a specific frame work. 

00:08:40 John Cass 

In Spain, what community members or organizations are supporting our job marketing, you know, other podcasts, LinkedIn groups, other organizations. What's the state of the infrastructure there? 

00:08:51 Christophe Martinot 

Oh the state of the infrastructure is very low. Again there is not much not much happening. There are many agilist groups but more directed to it people and with regards to marketing very few we have launched  a few years ago community called Agile well for all and our intention is definitely to have our Members able to share information to get support, to get advices from other community members to be able to read our posts and listen to the podcast that we could publish in the future. 

00:09:44 John Cass 

And what's the state of training for agile marketing in Spain? 

00:09:51 Christophe Martinot 

But also here I think we are the only company offering an IC market IC agile marketing certification. There are some companies offering a dual marketing training but there are not so many and this is again. Very much linked to the fact that agile marketing is not enough known. 

00:10:15 Christophe Martinot 

In Spain, so not so many training happening. We are offering public and private training in company training and step by step we're moving forward in order to expand this training to the marketers here in Spain. 

00:10:33 John Cass 

How are C-Suite? 

00:10:34 John Cass 

Leaders reacting to the adoption of our job marketing is there more transparency and communication between the marketing department and then also those stakeholders, those C-Suite leaders? 

00:10:46 Christophe Martinot 

I would say it's again linked with the fact that we are in very high radical structures, right? So for companies or organizations that have decided to adopt Agile, we can see that there is a predisposition from the leaders to adopt it, but usually there is some resistance, but I would say also that new the leaders understand that with the new vuca environment. 

00:11:18 Christophe Martinot 

As well as the expectation from the clients and the customers, they have to make a switch and they have to adopt new ways of working. 

00:11:29 John Cass 

What are the big problems with the marketing profession in Spain? You know might take adoption and resources. Is there enough focus on customer insights and building customer journeys you know, here are some ideas, but how would you describe those issues in the marketing profession in Spain today? 

00:11:48 Christophe Martinot 

Well, I would say that. With regards to more, more tech, adoptions and resources or customers inside. They're not, so those are not big problems here in Spain. Companies are really understanding that is this is absolutely necessary to have those kind of adoptions. But what I would say and what I am seeing is that usually the focus on customers could be. 

00:12:15 Christophe Martinot 

The hidden problems that marketers have not identified, and why am I saying so? It's because usually when I see when I talk about the value creation, this is something that I often miss in the marketing department from those companies. 

00:12:31 Christophe Martinot 

So when? 

00:12:32 Christophe Martinot 

During our training, we talk about the difference between output and outcome. I can see that it's not always clear in market is mine. So for me, one of the big problem that we have here in Spain with regard to marketing is that the customer centricity is not. 

00:12:53 Christophe Martinot 

Approach in the sense of creating value for the clients or the customers. 

00:13:01 John Cass 

And what do you think is the future of agile marketing in? 

00:13:06 Christophe Martinot 

I think the future is bright. We're still, as I said, in the phase of creating awareness, but observing the feedback of people taking the training and talking to many marketing directors, I can see that the implementation of marketing of agile marketing has a bright future and it's just a question of time, consistency and perseverance. 

00:13:31 John Cass 

Well, thank you so much, Christopher. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk about the state of our Joel marketing in Spain. 

00:13:38 Christophe Martinot 

Thank you, John. It was a pleasure to be with you. 

00:13:41 John Cass 

So thanks for joining us for the global Agile Marketing podcast with John Kass. My thanks to Christoph, and we'll see you next time.