Painting new experiences across channels.

AkzoNobel paints and coatings touch every part of life. Their decorative paints add style to buildings and homes worldwide, while their coatings protect cars, consumer electronics, boats, soda cans, and even components of the Mars Rover.

“AkzoNobel products are found in things many people use every day,” says Joris Vollebergh, Global Director Digital Portfolio & CX for AkzoNobel. “That’s what makes it such an exciting place to work. We look at very different applications and try inventive ways to best serve our customers around the globe.”

AkzoNobel has over 70 brands across eight business units, with half handling paint and half coatings. Some brands sell directly to customers, either through online storefronts or working with sales representatives to find the best product. Other brands work with retailers, distributors, and suppliers of all sizes to get products into the hands of customers. But all their customers have one thing in common: they expect every interaction with the company’s brands to be easy, informative, and inspiring.

The company has three goals for its new strategy: capture incremental growth opportunities by focusing on customer preferences, increase productivity for commercials teams, and harness efficiencies through process and technology improvements. Adobe supports all three goals. Working with Adobe products, including Experience Manager Sites and Commerce running on Microsoft Azure, AkzoNobel has created a common platform for its websites and ecommerce sites. Marketo Engage further enhances customer experiences by bringing together information from omnichannel touchpoints to drive lead management.

“I head up digital portfolio, and I strongly believe that online and offline journeys need to align in order to consistently deliver continuous and personalized digital customer experiences that keep customers coming back,” says Vollebergh. “With Adobe, we have a foundation to move customers through personalized journeys in every interaction they have with us, and to integrate digital into our customer value propositions.”

Scaling to thousands of global sites

AkzoNobel manages about 2,500 websites across multiple content management systems (CMS). Many of those sites, including the most strategically important ones, are now moving to Adobe Experience Sites. Local marketing teams work with the digital activation team, part of the Digital Solutions team, to create websites by combining 99 prebuilt components that serve up more unified customer journeys. Around 150 sites have been migrated so far, with plans to migrate the remaining identified sites.

Marketers particularly enjoy adding visualization components that keep people interacting with sites, such as showing how paint colors would look in a customer’s living room or using an algorithm to recommend colors. AkzoNobel also uses the websites to let people know about the company’s sustainability practices, informing customers about how products are made and used in homes and businesses.

“The digital activation team handles the technical side so our digital marketers can focus on creating rich content and experiences,” says Vollebergh. “With a shared CMS, we give local teams a framework that offers flexibility along with rich functionality and quality. They now have easy access to tools to create dynamic, on-brand experiences.”

Growing revenue with a powerful commerce portal

AkzoNobel is in the progress of replacing nine previous ecommerce platforms with Commerce to create a B2B order portal that does more than just enable smooth purchases. Customers use the ecommerce sites to quickly check stock, trace orders, and view past invoices through the portal. This is particularly important for companies needing to regularly reorder products.

“Commerce does it all. With excellent capabilities and positive feedback from users, our orders and revenue continue to increase,” says Vollebergh.

Lead generation across dozens of markets

AkzoNobel took the next step in lead management by using Marketo Engage to generate more leads across more channels. The lead management setup removes silos and combines information from across website, email, sales, and customer databases to identify, score, and nurture leads.

Based on scores, the company quickly passes hot leads to the most qualified sales representative. AkzoNobel plans to connect Marketo Engage to a central preference center, which will help marketers comply with GDPR and other privacy regulations by applying customer consent across all digital channels.

So far AkzoNobel has onboarded eight business units and sent 646 campaigns, a 30% year-over-year increase. However, since campaigns are based on a better understanding of customers, they are a lot more effective, with a 4.2% higher email click-through rate.

“The biggest impact has been on email deliverability with 98% now successfully delivered to customers’ email inboxes, up from 50%,” says Vollebergh. “We have more accurate email addresses and far fewer emails go to spam. With more customers viewing our emails, we have a better idea of how they respond to content. This helps us further optimize communications to create even higher-impact experiences.”

Enhanced personalization through automation

According to Vollebergh, the next big digital marketing innovation involves artificial intelligence. He views generative AI as playing an important role in generating content, as well as in better segmenting audiences.

“Skilled marketers and creative teams are essential to our AI strategy. We rely on them to review content to ensure it’s on brand and supports our goals,” explains Vollebergh. “AI offers more opportunities to work efficiently and expand personalization strategies. With Adobe, we bring together offline and online customer journeys to reach AkzoNobel customers everywhere with the exact information and experiences they want.”