2022 CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE IMPERATIVES SHAPING CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS IN THE NEW AGE OF EXPERIENCEFOREWORD This year marks the tenth edition of Merkle’s annual Customer Experience Imperatives, in which we share our evolving vision for how brands can create competitive advantage through marketing and advertising. And “evolving” is a key word. In fact, today’s consumer needs and expectations are virtually unrecognizable to those from 2012. Vast market shifts, an acceleration of brands’ and consumers’ digital ?uency, the proliferation of data and platforms, the ever-tightening privacy landscape, and changing societal values (global pandemic notwithstanding) have all taken marketing on an accelerated journey. As a customer experience management (CXM) company, Merkle not only encourages brands’ embrace of customer centricity, but helps to transform their organizations into builders of long- lasting, value-driven customer relationships. In last year’s Imperatives, we shared a formula for achieving these relationships: data transformation + digital transformation = customer experience transformation. Our 2021 Imperatives were intended to connect with the entire C-su