The former managing directors of the Mobile Marketing Association’s North America and Europe operations have expanded their mCordis Inc. effort to debut a new thought-leadership positioning for marketing called The Connected Marketer.

Recognizing the rapidly changing nature of marketing, Michael Becker and Paul Berney launched The Connected Marketer to merge and synchronize physical, digital and sensorial experiences and create stronger emotional connections between brands and consumers. The service targets brand-side clients as well as other players in the overall marketing, media and digital ecosystem.

“The Connected Marketer provides a way for everyone to step back from the complications of technologies, channels and tools and gives them a simplified way of looking at the role of marketers,” Mr. Berney said from his English base.

“We expect to continue working predominantly with brand marketers and marketing technology companies as we have since we started mCordis,” he said.

Mr. Berney and his colleague, the Bay Area-based Mr. Becker, founded mCordis as a marketing education and advisory services firm, expanding from mobile to digital and now connected as the centerpiece of marketer outreach efforts.

In this Q&A, Mr. Berney expands on what The Connected Marketer stands for, the need it meets and the evolution of marketing as consumers grow increasingly connected with devices of all kinds. Please read on:

What is The Connected Marketer?
It is a new approach to marketing that recognizes we live in the age of connected individuals.

The focus is on merging and synchronizing physical, digital and sensorial experiences to create stronger emotional connections with these connected individuals that solve their needs.

It prioritizes four key tasks: understanding the connected individual, finding ways to connect, engage and influence them, removing the barriers to engagement with them and being of service to them.

It is not technology led, but we definitely see mobile as having been a catalyst to the approach and also a means of fulfilling those four tasks.

Why launch the concept now?
We have worked with literally hundreds of brands, agencies, technology companies and others across the world in more than a decade each in mobile marketing.

We have seen universal challenges for brands getting to grips with the new realities of the connected individual and tech companies struggling to explain in a compelling way how they can help those brands.

If you like, The Connected Marketer is a distillation of all we have learnt, particularly in the last two-and-a-half years at mCordis.

The Connected Marketer provides a way for everyone to step back from the complications of technologies, channels and tools and gives them a simplified way of looking at the role of marketers.

Who are you targeting?
We expect to continue working predominantly with brand marketers and marketing technology companies as we have since we started mCordis.

What services will you offer?
We will continue to offer education and advisory services as we have done.

The difference is that over time the scope has widened from mobile marketing to digital marketing and now connected marketing. That change has been driven by client needs and our understanding of the market.

So, we will help brands through providing education, strategy, proposition development and connecting them to marketing technologies they need to understand and use.

For MarTech companies we build education courses and create publications to help their clients understand the market better and, again, provide strategy, proposition development and market development.

In particular though we have built a series of workshops that help brands understand and implement a connected marketing strategy.

What need are you filling?
Several. We are giving marketers an over-arching, simple-to-understand approach to engagement in the era of the connected individual.

We are meeting their needs for informed and neutral advice and support. For MarTech companies we are meeting their need to reach, convince and convert marketers.

Is anyone offering a similar service?
We don’t believe so and certainly not one centered around The Connected Marketer.

There are lots of great companies who are experts in one or more aspects of it, but overwhelmingly they are not neutral and have a vested interest in one particular technology, route or solution. MCordis does not.

We do not build or develop software. We don’t sell media. We don’t get paid to recommend particular solutions or technologies.

Marketers need to know that your advice is based on what you think is best for their brands and ultimately for their target audience. They need someone to help them deal with the tsunami of information, advice, technologies, vendors, et cetera.

It is easy to t see how many marketers are overwhelmed by choice and need help with direction.

What about mCordis? How does that fit in with The Connected Marketer?
The Connected Marketer is a thought-leadership position for mCordis. It is providing a more complete view of our services.

We have been best known in the past as experts in mobile marketing, but over the past few years, clients have pushed us to go further.

In any case, we believe that the days of thinking of mobile marketing as a separate discipline are coming to an end, if not already over.

Marketers demand a more holistic approach because that is what connected individuals want.

How do you see marketing evolving this year and next?
We don’t see The Connected Marketer as a one- or two-year campaign or positioning.

The reality is that every company has to adapt to living in the age of connected individuals.

If individuals are constantly connected, what does that mean for a brand? It means that their behavior has changed and will continue to change.

It means that they exist in a state of connectedness. It means that they can be connected consumers or not at will and their expectations are that brands will recognize that.

It means that brands will be measured by individuals at every interaction, everywhere, all the time.

We are only at the start of this age and so we are positioning mCordis to be a leader in helping connect all the parts together. We explore many of these themes in the free primer that people can download from theconnectedmarketer.com.