[SOUND] Hi everybody, we are launching our capstone with an introduction with all our faculty panel here, and our client partners. We are very fortunate to have three of the faculty who have been working on the capstone, who have been working on the specialization with us today. We have Dr Aric Rindfleisch, Kevin Hartman, and Dr Leanna Chiffton here with us on the call, and we also have Reshma and Sonesh from Bosch, and we have David on the call, there are some technical troubles getting him online. So hopefully he's able to join us on the call as well. So first of all, I just take a few minutes to introduce the faculty, most of you would already know them, you've seen them a lot in the earlier courses, so Dr Aric Rindfleisch who leads the first course in this specialization, marketing in the digital world. And we have Kevin who does the analytics courses, two of the analytics courses, which is course number two and three in the sequence. And then we have Rhiannon, who's doing course four and five talking about victory channels and your channel strategy. And finally, once you've taken all of these five courses, you are set for this capstone, which will be launched pretty soon. We don't have a confirmed start date yet, but you will hear an announcement from Coursera when the course is set for launch. So, first of all, I'd request the team at Bosch, Reshma and Sonesh to just introduce yourselves and tell us about what Bosch is expecting from this project. We know Bosch and Grainger are working together on this, our main client of course, is Grainger, and when you look at the overviews for the capstone you'll see the problem that you're working on for Grainger, but the campaign you'll be designing will be for increasing sales of Bosch Power Tools on Grainger. So over to you Sonesh and Reshma. >> Hi, everyone, my name's Sonesh Shah, and I'm responsible for digital here at Bosch Power Tools, which means I work very closely with our customers to really [INAUDIBLE] their capabilities and to make sure that [INAUDIBLE] have been sold well. A lot of you probably [INAUDIBLE]. Maybe as a primer of how this whole thing kind of came and started and why we're so interested in the business here. A very hard line like that, at the very offline product was really considered over the last few years as a much more of an online purchase cycle, so for example, we expect that over 30% of our power tools that we sold online, up from approximately 2% back in 2009. So the shift has been really significant and really fast. For us as a brand manufacturer, this means that we have a tremendous challenge in terms of making sure that our products are well found online, that they are merchandised properly at our retail partners, and that we're supporting our retail partners in effectively helping to market our products. So when we work with a customer like Grainger, we try really hard to make sure that we understand the Grainger user, and that we help Grainger as well as ourselves to put our products in front of the right user at the right time. I'll let Reshma introduce himself. >> Hi everyone, my name is Reshma Patel and I am one of our eCommerce account managers here. As Sonesh mentioned, there's a shift from buying power tools offline to online that we've seen over recent years, and so my role is essentially working with our key partners like Grainger to grow our business online. And that comes from, again, there's a sales component as well as putting the right content online, making sure that our products that we mentioned are merchandised correctly, we have the right images, the right videos going to these different products, and Grainger has the selection that they need to target the Grainger user, and then partner with Grainger to essentially grow the business online. >> Reshma, you're an alum of UIUC, correct? >> I am, yes [CROSSTALK] the MBA program in May of 2013. >> Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you also do the Google Online Marketing Challenge in 2011, and your team won one of the awards we had set up? >> Yes, that is correct. >> Great, yeah that's good to have you back with us. >> Thank you. >> So Kevin of course is at Google so I'm sure he knows a lot more about the Online Marketing Challenge. I know this partnership that Grainger is doing his new for Grainger, do you do this often with all your resellers or is this something new for you as well? >> No we do not partner with each one of our customers, Grainger in that aspect is really different because they have the team to support this channel. And we're doing the same on our end where Bosch has our own digital team supporting customers, supporting marketing, supporting different platforms that we're a part of, and we all report to some Sonesh. And with Grainger, you can see that they have invested heavily into their digital platform and by them making their investment, really shows that they're committed to this side, and to the online, they'll try it eventually, and so we're willing to partner with them to make sure that have the right opportunities. And we're, again, working with them to provide them everything that they need so that we can grow as partners together online. Having Grainger and Bosch on the capstone together is really a very great benefit for our students. Any thoughts on what you expect out of this project from the students and what are you looking forward to when the capstone finishes? So we have David with us finally, David, welcome. >> Hello everyone. >> Hi David, we just had a question for Sonesh right now, so once they finish I'll come back to you. >> Sure, okay. >> Yeah, from our side when you first briefed us on this, Vishal, we had said that how jealous I think I was that a class like this exists nowadays. And that it is in a platform like Coursera, it's extremely interesting and it's a truly kind of opportunistic, in a sense that you get to work on a real world problem, right? When it comes to digital, and especially digital marketing, from supplier and retail standpoint, one of the things that we look for a lot is creativity, right? Usually you're looking at teams that are built around speed, you're looking at teams that are built around trying to find the greater opportunity. But we're also looking into A relationship that's built on a lot of process because Grainger is not a small company, neither is Bosch. So we are not the startup in the heart of San Francisco that can move at that kind of speed and try everything we want, but we like to have a nice mix of creativity and success, while still following traditional processes that really have shown success in the past. So when I look for success out of this, or not even success per se, or at least results out of the capstone, really to see what kind of ideas are out there. I mean, we're not looking to use this as a platform to gain those ideas let's say, but the creativity in terms of how open of a course this is, it means something that we look forward to into seeing the how can a very traditional relationship be upgraded in the digital age to really enhance both the retail and the supplier's brand positioning online? >> Yeah thanks, so we have a global audience in the course, and a big chunk of the learners are from across the world, I think particularly when we start our with Aric's course, Aric correct me if I'm wrong, we have about 90,000 learners as of now who have come into your course, and I think only about 20% are the US audience? >> Actually that's a little bit high, we're at 81,000 today, which is still a lot, and 22% are from the US and the rest are from nearly 200 different countries, so it is a very global audience. >> [COUGH] Let me bring in David to the call, David is in charge of search at Grainger, David give us a one minute background on an introduction on you. >> On me, sure, yeah, I have an information systems background. [INAUDIBLE] Published in PCWorld with digital [INAUDIBLE] insert specific. Since then I've actually touched upon basically every vertical except for EDU and CPG, so banking, finance, mortgage, travel and hospitality, BWB with Grainger right now, BDC in the past with heading, a picket search with Sears. So a wide variety of experience with paid search, and now I'm heading up paid search as well as affiliates here at Grainger. >> And I forget to do the unmute, so David, thank you for joining joining the call, so we have Akin Tosyali from Grainger on the team on as well, who's the director of digital marketing. And we have Beth Distel who manages the display and your managing search. And we'd love to in one of the later hangouts bring in somebody who does email as well at Grainger. Of course for this project, the students are focusing on display and the email as the channels that children should focus on, but give us a sense of, briefly David on the role of search ads at Grainger. >> Absolutely, well search is one of the fastest digital marketing of course, I think we really look at it not in terms of what channels we should fit in specific campaigns, but how do customers engage with our brand, and how can we help our customers find the products that they need to go back to work? Whether that's through search, if we identified that the majority of customers focusing on a specific product engage with search through Google or Yahoo, or any other search engine, or maybe they engage more often with email, and they don't have much time directly in front of a desktop for example. Or even if they primarily focus on mobile devices because they're out in the field, maybe on a construction site, or in a warehouse somewhere, then we try to cater our efforts to helping really engage with the customer at the point where it's most relevant for them. So search is one component of that, it's one of our largest components, just from the sheer volume of searches that happen on a daily basis. From the top of the funnel where people aren't really even sure what they need, down to the middle where they know of a specific tool that they need, down to the bottom of the funnel where they know a specific skew or something very specific to exactly what they want. We try to engage with them throughout that entire funnel. >> I'll come back to in a bit to get a little bit more detail of how search and display and email are all brought together, what's the planning process on doing an integrated marketing campaign. I wanted to go over to the faculty and get their thoughts on perhaps starting with Aric on what their thoughts on are, what have you seen happening in your courses, what has been the experience like and what do you think sorta this capstone brings together, and what are your thoughts on our two industry partners coming together? So any sort of shared experiences on what is happening in your courses and then we'll talk about how this leads into the capstone, so over to you, Aric. >> Can you hear me okay, okay. Well, first of all it's a pleasure to have two industry participants that are the size and stature of Grainger and Bosch, so thank you for participating, I think it'll be a great experience. In terms of my course, my course is the first course in the specialization, really focuses on the foundation of marketing and marketing tool kit, the four Ps, and I think that this seems like a marketing relationship, so that's one connection. One particular concept I think that could be applicable based on what I'm hearing, and I'm learning here for the first time more about this capstone project, is the role of authenticity, which we talk a lot about in my course, and not just making claims online, but linking to authentic foundations. I think that I'm sure that both Bosh and Grainger have real authentic foundations perhaps in the founding of the company and really engaged in I think of authentic acts creating and making buildings, repairing things, so I would encourage our learners to leverage the accounts in particular. I think there's some opportunities here to provide an authentic and creative storyline. In terms of our class, so we have over 80,000 learners from around the world, and just see a number of fantastic ideas. I know a number of the concepts that we discuss in the course are actually very much enriched by the student discussions, examples that people give, and the back and forth discussions have been very rich. And I'm sure that we'll see the same thing in the capstone. We have lots of people that are very smart, 85% have a college degree or more, so lots of smart people, lots of good ideas, and I'm sure that we'll see them being transformed into some really great capstone projects. >> Thank you Aric for your thoughts, I think you'll be would Perhaps be very relevant, especially when we're asking students to also think of the content of the messages on. Even if they're focusing on two channels, the content strategy is also something we're asking them to work on. It was the other projects. I think that concept will resonate there as well. Over now to Kevin, so Kevin is, Kevin, by the time you started, or rather I started working with you, I think your designation has changed quite a bit so right now you're, what are you doing at Google? >> So right now I'm running analytics for our goods and entertainment sector, obviously a pretty large one with a pretty diverse set of clients and consumers with different needs and experiences, but fits really perfectly in this example for sure with a consumer, as David explained. Whose on the move, whose using multiple channels to reach and research their products. So there's a really good fit there. I think also this capstone course fits in a number of ways and fits so clearly with what, we talked about in my course on digital analytics. Just as Eric was saying, it's great to have such a recognized pair of brands, global companies involved here, that our global student body will certainly spark to. But then, the entire course that we talked about really there's two different very important uses of data that we discussed. One is on the insite piece and so the channel's in the upper opportunities that are presented here, and David articulated it very clearly, is about consumer intent, and what is that consumer trying to do, particularly through search. So there's a great opportunity for students here to use the data that they can collect to try and understand that consumer intent and drive some insights out there. And then the second part is all about measurement and actually quantifying success. [INAUDIBLE] talked about a little bit in detail about what the objectives are for Bosch and Granger, hear both. And that's very important, because as you're measuring and you're collecting data, it's critically important to understand what the company is trying to do, so that you can indeed identify what metrics are used to define success, which metrics you should be tracking. And then put together a good understanding of whether the campaigns have performed successfully or not. >> Thanks Kevin for your insights on that. I think, I feel, when the learners look at the outline for the courses clearly, we do make them think about, we've given them a few scenarios on what kind of audience Ranger and Bosch are focusing on. And they do start thinking about the consumer decision journey, and mapping out the different scenarios. How the journey was, and then they use your excellent framework where you've given them a structure template in a plan and then you go on to figuring out the sources of data and then you analyze it. And then of course, towards the end, once the put forward their strategy, they do leverage some of your principles on how to visualize the data and bring it together into the final report. So I think I look forward to the output from the students over to Rhiannon. Rhiannon, of course, is teaching two of the courses toward the end of the specialization. That is where everything comes together for this capstone as well. Where the learners bring together their campaign strategy focusing on the channels that Granger has decided to work with Bosch on this. So, Rhiannon, your thoughts on what you've seen in your courses so far, and what you expect in the capstone. >> Sure, absolutely, I'm very excited to see what the students are gong to do in the capstone, because we've given them a sort of step by step guide for each of the digital channels and online course and how to execute and email and search and all of these different channels, so I'm excited to see what they'll do. I think that they'll given Eric's foundation and Kevin's analytics and data organization and all that, that it will be great to have them input all of those skills in this project. I worked with students and courses here on campus with real world clients, and so I'm excited to see it in this platform with Granger and Bosch. And ditto to what Kevin and Eric said about having the partnership here. I think it's very exciting. So looking forward to seeing the students actually put those tools in action. >> Great thank you. Given the fact that the problem that Granger has that Granger and Bosch have put together is reasonably focused. So it seems like the learners will have a clear objective on what to go towards and of course we are not able to pick out all the, I think they have learned a lot more in the five courses than we can of course use to apply to a specific problem. But I think they have a lot of strong foundation to work on, particularly on these two channels that Granger is focusing on. I'd like to sort of to take this back to David, given that the learners are focusing on display and email, but search is clearly. Even for Granger, is the most important channel, and the biggest spend area. Give us a sense of how Granger decides what channel to go with or what kind of channel mix to go with of four particular objectives and just an overall view of how you might decide what channels are a mix to go with. >> Sure I alluded to a little earlier where we really start with the customer and what we were trying to solve for. So taking into account the customer's contacts and I think that's really what's very important here is understanding where the customer is, who they are, what they're trying to achieve, what they know. What device you're interacting with. Just their day to day. We try to see from that what are our objectives that we can extract on that. So whether it's just more traditional marketing where you just get eyeballs on something or is it, do we actually want them to perform an action. So maybe it's a lead generation they'll fill out a form if they're not even sure. Maybe it's to connect them with a call center because they're on a mobile device. They don't have time to scroll through articles or find products. They need to talk to someone immediately or any variety of those kinds of things. We really try to focus on that first. The bulk of our campaigns are Really focused on driving return on ad spend. So one of the pros and cons of performance marketing is that we very specifically know how much revenue is driven from the actions that we perform. In the past where you might do more like a radio control geographic test where you throw darts in some markets and then you have in other markets, and you have business as usual in other markets. Performance marketing, we can achieve that as well, but it's much quicker in terms of how we optimize. So we look at data on a daily basis, hourly sometimes, depending on the campaign itself. But we really wanna focus on driving to those specific metrics that we're optimizing to. So most of the time it's return on ads spent and that's kinda how we determine what channels to engage with. So, on the performance marking scale we have probably as the primary lover for return on ads spent. And then moving to display for more of an awareness play, or remarketing across both display and paid search. And then email for people who have given us their email. They've engaged with our brand in the past, they're familiar with our brand, and maybe they have a specific need that they have that we can really provide content to help them along that journey. Could you just briefly talk about the some of the main personas that Granger looks at when they're thinking about these campaigns? >> Sure. I think there's also a variety of personas, we had the traditional ones, like a purchaser, procurement officer who's in the office, really working on the workflow for procurements. So someone out in the field will find a product that they need, pass it on to the procurement officer to really approve or price out, or do some action. That person from a more performance marketing standpoint, especially with page search, we look at a higher level for audience. So it's just a visitor to the site that's for, or visitor to specific pages. So if a visitor has looked at Bosch products in the past, or maybe they've only looked at a different category, but we know that there's intent for tools, we might bucket them out into a different audience. So, it's less persona in terms of what they do and who they are, and more in terms of the propensity to want certain types of products or want to find certain things. That's kinda how we look at it. So we are almost at the end of the call. I'll open it up for the faculty to if you have any or questions that may Bring out some more information. David, I know Bosch, the team had to leave at 8:30, but if any of the faculty have any questions that help bring out some concepts, or facts that are relevant to your courses or the concepts, open platforms to the other faculty. All right, now. Looks like everybody's keeping quiet. So, that's fine. >> [LAUGH] >> So, David thank you for and thanks a lot for joining him. And we look forward to learning from you and Beth and Arkon over the course of the capstone. And hope that the submission that students come up with really help you perhaps think about some new ways of leveraging this partnership that you're setting up with Bosch. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is one of the few times that Grainger is trying this with a big partner. Or have you done that before as well? >> To the extent of configurating and moving forward, this is definitely unique. I think this is a really important milestone in terms of how technology is leveraged, in terms of marketing, we go to market, in terms of understanding your customers so this is a really exciting opportunity. So thank you all. Thank you Kevin and Rhiannon for joining the call. Thank you David. We look forward to having you know, more of the experts from Grainer and Bosch with us on subsequent hangouts for the capstone. Thank you everyone.
