In the run up to their November 27th Open Mobile Summit , the Incite Group is sharing the perspectives of brand and marketing leaders who are shaping the retail industry. Today we’re featuring some of the comments of Quinn O’Brien, Vice President, Global Brand Marketing at Lenovo on the future of marketing.

The Incite Group started their interview with O’Brien by asking his thoughts on their bold assertion that “Marketing is Dead: Engagement is Alive.” O’Brien’s response echoes the sentiments of many of the marketers we’ve interviewed in the last year: That the growth in the number of channels through which customers can be engaged has fundamentally changed the role of marketers.

For O’Brien the other major change for marketers is that they’re not a standalone business unit when it comes to driving engagement. From his perspective “…sales and customer support play an equal and sometimes greater role than marketing in delivering an engaging brand experience.”

With Q4 just weeks away conversations inevitably turn to what will come down the pike in the near future. What O’Brien sees is a deeper role for marketers. Marketing technology, aka martech, has given marketers “an incredibly clear view of the day-to-day interactions” between customers and brands. The key role of marketers is to then take these data points and use them to plot key milestones, or make adjustments to the customer journey.

But this is just the beginning of O’Brien’s insights for marketers. He’s got far more to say than we can capture here – including the importance of creating “bespoke content programs” to engage a brand’s most valuable customers.”

You can read more from Quinn O’Brien here and more about successful content marketing strategies here.