The 2015 CRM Market Influential Leaders: Brad Rencher, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Adobe

Back in 2013, Brad Rencher, senior vice president and general manager of the digital marketing business unit at Adobe, coined the term "millisecond marketing." At that year's Adobe Summit, he said that brands typically have only 300 milliseconds to deliver experiences that form lasting bonds with consumers, and he promised to help marketers make those moments count. Now, two years later, the Adobe Digital Marketing Cloud is providing some of the best technology available to modern marketers, and Rencher is staying true to his word.

Over the past several months, Adobe has been reeling in the accolades, and it largely has Rencher's vision to thank. In February, Forrester named Adobe the leader in its Web Content Management Wave report; in March, Forrester praised the vendor again, naming it the leading technology partner for digital experience service providers in six software categories, including marketing campaign management, customer analytics, and Web content management. In April, Gartner declared Adobe a "clear leader" in its Magic Quadrant for Multichannel Campaign Management, for its Adobe Campaign product.

The recognition, analysts agree, is a reflection not only of Adobe's sophisticated marketing products but also of Rencher's understanding of what the future of marketing will bring. "If I unlock the car door with an app on my mobile phone, is that marketing?" he asked at the 2015 Adobe Summit in March. In the era of what Rencher called "digital everything," marketers cannot afford to abide by the old definition of marketing. Marketing is now about experiences, not campaigns, and that's why Adobe has prioritized building solutions for the Internet of Everything.

To that end, one of the biggest product innovations introduced at this year's Adobe Summit was Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Screens. With the introduction of AEM Screens, brands can use the same digital experiences they create for responsive sites or mobile apps to launch displays on digital screens at physical venues. Customers simply pull up a page on their mobile device and flick the display onto an AEM-enabled screen at a retail location.

AEM Screens enables drag-and-drop shopping that brings the convenience of e-commerce together with the sensory reward of shopping in a brick-and-mortar store. When it comes to millisecond marketing, this is the kind of holistic, seamless experience that modern consumers want, and Rencher has driven Adobe to zero in on this need, according to Brent Leary, partner at CRM Essentials.

"Digital marketers have split seconds to turn data into insights, and [turn] those insights into positive experiences able to catch and keep people's attention long enough to create customer relationships today," Leary says. "With his leadership, Adobe has built their Marketing Cloud into a powerhouse many of today's largest enterprises are using to transform their marketing efforts to stay aligned with the modern consumer."

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