May 1, 2014
By Maria Minsker, contributing writer

Oracle's Mark Hurd Talks Integration at Official Marketing Cloud Unveiling

NEW YORK—During an unveiling at New York’s Museum of Art and Design yesterday, Oracle president Mark Hurd introduced the Oracle Marketing Cloud, a new platform made up of marketing solutions the company has acquired, including Responsys, Eloqua, Compendium, and most recently, BlueKai.

According to Hurd, Oracle's new marketing cloud is a platform that will consolidate and integrate Oracle's acquisitions, making them available as an all-in-one offering without sacrificing the best-of-breed capabilities of each individual solution. "We buy companies that are the best in their given space, the best at what they do…There will never be a day when the depth of integration will reach the degree that everyone would like, but we can get close," Hurd said, promising the crowd to "get as close as possible."

Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Oracle Marketing Cloud Kevin Akeroyd reiterated Hurd's points: "There are six big companies that are [building marketing clouds], but we can all buy stuff. It's who can integrate it that will win," he said.

Akeroyd went on to discuss some of the key marketing dilemmas the Oracle marketing cloud aims to solve, firing off what he called "some disappointing statistics." For example, roughly 77 percent of customers cite no relationship with a brand, 78 percent say they don't receive consistent brand experiences across channels, and an overwhelming 94 percent of customers unsubscribe after receiving irrelevant messaging from brands, Akeroyd said. Furthermore, marketers have access to "more data than ever," he asserted, yet 82 percent of enterprise marketers have no synchronized view of customer data.

The Oracle marketing cloud, Akeroyd said, would mitigate these issues by eliminating campaign silos, helping organizations piece together customer data, and ultimately creating a universal customer profile that would allow for consistent brand messages and experiences.

As the four solutions come together, Oracle aims to become the "number one enterprise marketing cloud, built for marketers and delivered to any audience," according to a slide in Hurd's presentation.

With the solutions fully integrated, the cloud solution would enable marketers to leverage BlueKai's data platform to deliver personalized customer journeys through cross-channel marketing, turn content from a tactical necessity into a strategic asset through content marketing, and harness real value from social media by analyzing sentiment and engaging in real time. The marketing cloud will also enable marketers to analyze their campaigns with far-reaching marketing analytics and extend their ecosystems through the AppCloud and Data Marketplace.

"Marketers simply need a new approach," Akeroyd said, "and we're working to build it for them."

Still, even Oracle knows the solution is far from perfect. "Oracle openly acknowledges there’s additional work to be completed in building out the Marketing Cloud solution," Peter Kim, chief strategy office and principal analyst at Constellation Research, wrote in a blog post. "Although AppCloud offers connections to a wide variety of point solutions, Oracle still needs a tightly integrated solution to deliver on the need for marketing metrics tied to business objectives. And not just social media measurement or Web analytics—marketers need customer-focused omnichannel metrics with proper attribution to understand campaign performance," he adds.